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Well, lack of resources leads to conflict - although I'm not sure if it's a real lack or a perceived lack. A drought in Syria lead to rural farmers moving into

Well, lack of resources leads to conflict - although I'm not sure if it's a real lack or a perceived lack. A drought in Syria lead to rural farmers moving into the cities to try to earn money differently, and the tensions there sparked the civil war (and as NY Times called it, proto world war[1]). Refugees entering Europe and Merkel's "We can do it!" after her years of saying "Austerity uber Alles!" to Europeans under her de-facto rule (remember the whole Euro crisis, the PIIGS, featuring special case Greece?) probably caused natives' resentment against the refugees, and now right-wing politics are winning across Europe (e.g. Brexit), because hey, we humans are selfish, we want to save ourselves first, and then our family, and then our tribe, and we identify with people who are like us, visually, culturally (heh, I've got Polish people I know who hated middle eastern war refugees and were then proud for Poland to be taking Ukranian war refugees, spot the difference, "But it's different!" they say, after using their confirmation bias), and we're still under the effects of goverments being idiots about saving vs spending... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/16/world/middleeast/untangling-the-overlapping-conflicts-in-the-syrian-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/16/world/middlee...

gentleman11 3y ago
Unlimited growth eventually leads to resource shortages. And we’re about to see a massive amount of growth from a lot of countries in the next century (not to mention how the west is about to spend electricity on ai and/or crypto in the near future)
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  > And we’re about to see a massive amount of growth from a lot of countries in the next century Probably a lot of such previously projected growth will be stunted by said resource shortages. We're going to see many "peak X" events in relatively short time. There can still be growth. But one way or the other, it will have to be growth within roughly-constant or declining resource limits. Lower carbon intensity per unit economic output, more recycling as source of raw materials, more 'green' / bio-based products, etc.
kaba0 3y ago
> proud for Poland to be taking Ukranian war refugees, spot the difference I have no dog in this fight, but integrating someone from a very similar culture is just so much more easier. Also, let’s not pretend that a huge percent of random people just joined the war refugees. I still think that taking in refugees was/is a good idea — but they should have done what Canada did, send a military plane directly to Syria, pack it full a few times, and that’t it. Every country should have done the same depending on their capabilities, put those people into some rural areas so they have to integrate with the locals (which also would have helped greatly as rural areas are dying out due to not enough children being born/younger people moving to bigger cities), and call it a day.
hulitu 3y ago
> A drought in Syria lead to rural farmers moving into the cities to try to earn money differently, and the tensions there sparked the civil war I'm sure the US had nothing to do with it. They just came later to exploit some abandoned oil fields. /s
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Do you have any firsthand knowledge of Syria, or merely passively consume "geopolitical" content on the internet far away? Anyone who actually spent time in Aleppo in the early millennium saw that it was a powder keg, because the one thing people loved to complain about endlessly -- whether they were religious or secular, Arab or Armenian or Kurd -- was how much they despised the regime. Blaming the actual unrest against Assad on the US, as opposed to US attempts to subsequently exploit it, infantilizes the Syrian population. And don't do "/s", which I see you post often. This is HN, not Reddit, and sarcasm is considered poor form here.

gentleman11 3y ago

Unlimited growth eventually leads to resource shortages. And we’re about to see a massive amount of growth from a lot of countries in the next century (not to mention how the west is about to spend electricity on ai and/or crypto in the near future)

RetroTechie 3y ago
> And we’re about to see a massive amount of growth from a lot of countries in the next century Probably a lot of such previously projected growth will be stunted by said resource shortages. We're going to see many "peak X" events in relatively short time. There can still be growth. But one way or the other, it will have to be growth within roughly-constant or declining resource limits. Lower carbon intensity per unit economic output, more recycling as source of raw materials, more 'green' / bio-based products, etc.

kaba0 3y ago

> proud for Poland to be taking Ukranian war refugees, spot the difference I have no dog in this fight, but integrating someone from a very similar culture is just so much more easier. Also, let’s not pretend that a huge percent of random people just joined the war refugees. I still think that taking in refugees was/is a good idea — but they should have done what Canada did, send a military plane directly to Syria, pack it full a few times, and that’t it. Every country should have done the same depending on their capabilities, put those people into some rural areas so they have to integrate with the locals (which also would have helped greatly as rural areas are dying out due to not enough children being born/younger people moving to bigger cities), and call it a day.

hulitu 3y ago

> A drought in Syria lead to rural farmers moving into the cities to try to earn money differently, and the tensions there sparked the civil war I'm sure the US had nothing to do with it. They just came later to exploit some abandoned oil fields. /s

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Do you have any firsthand knowledge of Syria, or merely passively consume "geopolitical" content on the internet far away? Anyone who actually spent time in Aleppo in the early millennium saw that it was a powder keg, because the one thing people loved to complain about endlessly -- whether they were religious or secular, Arab or Armenian or Kurd -- was how much they despised the regime. Blaming the actual unrest against Assad on the US, as opposed to US attempts to subsequently exploit it, infantilizes the Syrian population. And don't do "/s", which I see you post often. This is HN, not Reddit, and sarcasm is considered poor form here.