4 ms·

Matters in the universe is a lot. Ditto the amount of energy. People may argue that unlimited growth is unsustainable, and I agree. But what people don't reali

by kiba 3y ago

Matters in the universe is a lot. Ditto the amount of energy. People may argue that unlimited growth is unsustainable, and I agree. But what people don't realize is just...how much resources there is and how much just sits there being wasted by being radiated and hitting inert rocks and gases. The problem is not resource availability(of which they are abundant and uselessly radiating out), or even engineering or economic challenges. It's political. If you take care of the politics, the world is your oyster, and you can have as many billions of people you want within physics and economic reasons.

em-bee 3y ago
there are so many good comments like this one that are being downvoted without any explanation why. what is wrong with this argument? there was an article (on HN even i think) some time ago that showed how big of an area of solar panels we would need to place in the sahara desert to solve the worlds energy problems. it was tiny compared to the whole area of the desert. sure, there is still a problem of distribution, but really, this energy problem should be solvable. the space problem is a bit different. we probably don't want to turn the whole planet into high density housing, even if we could energy wise, but the only thing getting in the way of solving the problems we have is politics as in unwillingness to cooperate for the greater benefit of the world instead of for selfish reasons.
- kiba 3y ago
  the space problem is a bit different. we probably don't want to turn the whole planet into high density housing, even if we could energy wise, but the only thing getting in the way of solving the problems we have is politics as in unwillingness to cooperate for the greater benefit of the world instead of for selfish reasons. People don't have a good grasp on the space issue because they hadn't play with the math, or investigated our terribly inefficient and often ugly land usage pattern. When I think of space, I think about acrologies, hardly high density dystopian hellscape. We would realistically construct them over time in module instead of trying to do monolithic designs that I often see proposed.

by kiba 3y ago

em-bee 3y ago

there are so many good comments like this one that are being downvoted without any explanation why. what is wrong with this argument? there was an article (on HN even i think) some time ago that showed how big of an area of solar panels we would need to place in the sahara desert to solve the worlds energy problems. it was tiny compared to the whole area of the desert. sure, there is still a problem of distribution, but really, this energy problem should be solvable. the space problem is a bit different. we probably don't want to turn the whole planet into high density housing, even if we could energy wise, but the only thing getting in the way of solving the problems we have is politics as in unwillingness to cooperate for the greater benefit of the world instead of for selfish reasons.

kiba 3y ago
the space problem is a bit different. we probably don't want to turn the whole planet into high density housing, even if we could energy wise, but the only thing getting in the way of solving the problems we have is politics as in unwillingness to cooperate for the greater benefit of the world instead of for selfish reasons. People don't have a good grasp on the space issue because they hadn't play with the math, or investigated our terribly inefficient and often ugly land usage pattern. When I think of space, I think about acrologies, hardly high density dystopian hellscape. We would realistically construct them over time in module instead of trying to do monolithic designs that I often see proposed.