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There's no denying that civilization today is unsustainable. I doubt any of these models will be accurate. But do they need to be? Either our technology will
by nostromo 11y ago
There's no denying that civilization today is unsustainable.
I doubt any of these models will be accurate. But do they need to be? Either our technology will make our current lifestyles sustainable, or reality will catch up with us and cause much distress.
- schizoidboy 11y agoHow do you define sustainability? Various metrics suggest human society has a likely chance of sustaining its most important trajectories: http://radicaloptimism.org/wiki/Human_Society http://radicaloptimism.org/wiki/Human_Society See also The Rational Optimist by Ridley, The Improving State of the World by Goklany, etc.
- api 11y agoOur unsustainability is exponential, and our innovation is exponential. We have two exponential curves. If the depletion/unsustainability curve wins, we all die horribly in something resembling a cross between Mad Max, ISIS in Iraq, and Day of the Dead. If the innovation curve wins, we might reach 'escape velocity' and achieve some kind of post-scarcity society. This is the road we are on: hideous mass death or utopia. I don't see a third possible outcome. Exponential stuff is like that-- the only potential outcomes are extreme. Makes me wonder if the ancient religious visions -- e.g. Revelations -- about a 'heaven or hell' outcome aren't prescient bits of intuition about the fundamentally binary nature of human destiny. One way of thinking of it is that we're a cosmic civilization in its early startup phase... meaning that success or failure are the only two possible outcomes.
- melling 11y agoSo, I guess you didn't read the article? If you're going to contradict the article maybe you should give a few reasons. After all the guy from Stanford was wrong.