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> I'm tired of the infinite growth cultists You sound like one of those Malthusian cultists. :P Fortunately for us all, Thomas Robert Malthus was wrong in 179

> I'm tired of the infinite growth cultists You sound like one of those Malthusian cultists. :P Fortunately for us all, Thomas Robert Malthus was wrong in 1798 or none of us would be here today. That he would continue to be wrong today should be no surprise. Relevant criticism of his rather gloomy take on population growth abounds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism#Criticism It seems to me like he didn't factor in the effects of the development and widespread application of new technologies to old problems.

throwaway48476 2y ago
As an individual I'm interested in maximizing quality of life, not maximum number of lives. And no, I am not wromg. Houston has no zoning and was able to keep growth going and build lots of new houses. Of course they did so in a flood plain. Because growth cultists are willing to sacrifice everything, even lives for growth to continue just a little longer no matter the cost.
- timschmidt 2y ago
  > And no, I am not wromg. Setting your spelling aside for the moment... You haven't said anything Malthus didn't say in 1798. I think it's fair to say standards of living have increased since.
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    Malthus wrote about zoning? >standards of living have increased since Everywhere or just in some places? There are more slaves today than in malthuses time. People usually cite the green revolution as the refutation of malthus. I see it as an engineering tradeoff. Every 2nd order effect was sacrificed for a single KPI. An economist would call them unpriced negative externalities.
    - timschmidt 2y ago
      > Malthus wrote about zoning? He absolutely wrote about land use and the planning thereof. > There are more slaves today than in malthuses time. By total number of individuals, maybe (though ChatGPT seems to think otherwise). By percentage of world population, not even close. > I see it as an engineering tradeoff. I see some of that. I see both negative feedback loops and virtuous cycles of positive feedback. Constructive and destructive interference. I also see an incredible explosion of education, information availability, flexible automated manufacturing, advanced material sciences, driving of food calories toward $0, lifting of disease which robbed humanity of unfathomable time and energy, and on and on. I see world solar panel production supplying world electric demand sometime in the 2030s. I see us getting better at regenerative agriculture. Mars has as much land area as Earth, and I think we can go farther if we put our minds to it. There literally aren't limits. Except the ones we place on ourselves.
      - ninetyninenine 2y ago
        >There literally aren't limits. Except the ones we place on ourselves. This is the most delusional take I've ever seen. Limitations are built into the universe as entropy. No limits is only a locality mirage that exists only because you don't live long enough to see the limit get hit. That being said air is free because it's a mirage, the sun powers plants and animals to continuously recycle it but once that source runs out then we hit a limit. As a local phenomena we can treat air as if it's free even though it's not. But air is like one of the few things that are like this. The next thing, water, people pay for water. And people pay for water because there is a limit on it. On top of that the fact that we pay for everything else means that even as a local phenomena there are limits. If you think humanity has been on a continuous quest of breaking barriers and jumping over limitations, that's false. All humanity has been doing is optimization. Best utilizing what we already have to delay the impending termination of when humans hit the final limit.
        timschmidt 2y ago
        > That being said air is free because it's a mirage, the sun powers plants and animals to continuously recycle it but once that source runs out then we hit a limit. > And people pay for water because there is a limit on it. Both exist in massive quantity in the asteroid belt. Europa has larger oceans than Earth. Your personal financial limitations aside, I was talking about what the human race can accomplish as a whole when we set our minds to it. > All humanity has been doing is optimization. Best utilizing what we already have to delay the impending termination of when humans hit the final limit. Final limit? Never heard of it. Is that a band name? The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale considers a type III civilization capturing and using all of the energy emitted by an entire galaxy. And folks have proposed larger more capable civilizations yet.

throwaway48476 2y ago

As an individual I'm interested in maximizing quality of life, not maximum number of lives. And no, I am not wromg. Houston has no zoning and was able to keep growth going and build lots of new houses. Of course they did so in a flood plain. Because growth cultists are willing to sacrifice everything, even lives for growth to continue just a little longer no matter the cost.

timschmidt 2y ago
> And no, I am not wromg. Setting your spelling aside for the moment... You haven't said anything Malthus didn't say in 1798. I think it's fair to say standards of living have increased since.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Malthus wrote about zoning? >standards of living have increased since Everywhere or just in some places? There are more slaves today than in malthuses time. People usually cite the green revolution as the refutation of malthus. I see it as an engineering tradeoff. Every 2nd order effect was sacrificed for a single KPI. An economist would call them unpriced negative externalities.
  - timschmidt 2y ago
    > Malthus wrote about zoning? He absolutely wrote about land use and the planning thereof. > There are more slaves today than in malthuses time. By total number of individuals, maybe (though ChatGPT seems to think otherwise). By percentage of world population, not even close. > I see it as an engineering tradeoff. I see some of that. I see both negative feedback loops and virtuous cycles of positive feedback. Constructive and destructive interference. I also see an incredible explosion of education, information availability, flexible automated manufacturing, advanced material sciences, driving of food calories toward $0, lifting of disease which robbed humanity of unfathomable time and energy, and on and on. I see world solar panel production supplying world electric demand sometime in the 2030s. I see us getting better at regenerative agriculture. Mars has as much land area as Earth, and I think we can go farther if we put our minds to it. There literally aren't limits. Except the ones we place on ourselves.
    - ninetyninenine 2y ago
      >There literally aren't limits. Except the ones we place on ourselves. This is the most delusional take I've ever seen. Limitations are built into the universe as entropy. No limits is only a locality mirage that exists only because you don't live long enough to see the limit get hit. That being said air is free because it's a mirage, the sun powers plants and animals to continuously recycle it but once that source runs out then we hit a limit. As a local phenomena we can treat air as if it's free even though it's not. But air is like one of the few things that are like this. The next thing, water, people pay for water. And people pay for water because there is a limit on it. On top of that the fact that we pay for everything else means that even as a local phenomena there are limits. If you think humanity has been on a continuous quest of breaking barriers and jumping over limitations, that's false. All humanity has been doing is optimization. Best utilizing what we already have to delay the impending termination of when humans hit the final limit.
      - timschmidt 2y ago
        > That being said air is free because it's a mirage, the sun powers plants and animals to continuously recycle it but once that source runs out then we hit a limit. > And people pay for water because there is a limit on it. Both exist in massive quantity in the asteroid belt. Europa has larger oceans than Earth. Your personal financial limitations aside, I was talking about what the human race can accomplish as a whole when we set our minds to it. > All humanity has been doing is optimization. Best utilizing what we already have to delay the impending termination of when humans hit the final limit. Final limit? Never heard of it. Is that a band name? The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale considers a type III civilization capturing and using all of the energy emitted by an entire galaxy. And folks have proposed larger more capable civilizations yet.