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Comment by vikramkr | Hacker News Reader

Yes if we innovate our way there. We cannot ever stop the human desire for a better life not should we, the power of mankind lies in our ability to innovate around d challenges. We fixed the ban population crisis with the green revolution. New energy sources like nuclear can give everyone the quality of life they desire and deserve. Asteroid mining can be a revolutionary source of resources. And we don't know what humans could invent next. But we need to support science and education to make this future happen

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ah the extreme techno-optimist position.

> We cannot ever stop the human desire for a better life not should we

i think the goal is to redefine what a better life looks like. like, maybe it's not one of increasing consumption, but one of community and connection and ecological harmony.

It doesn't take all that much innovation. We have pretty much all the necessary technology to reduce our carbon emissions almost to zero without greatly impacting quality of live. We just need to build a very expensive amount of renewables, improve the electric grid, and improve energy efficiency using proven technology like insulating homes, switching from furnaces to heat pumps and using electric cars and public transport.

Bingo.

It's not unrealistically "techo optimistic" to point out that technical solutions are often much more effective and realistic to implement than trying to change deep-seated culture.

Imagine if we responded to ozone depletion by insisting people give up air conditioning and refrigerators instead of just developing non-depleting refrigerants like we did. That would've been a fast-track to public apathy or downright hostility toward fighting ozone depletion.

Ah, the omniscient position. If only everyone behaved like me, the world would be a better place.

I'll continue to define what a better life looks like for myself, and I'll continue to respect the right of others to do the same, thank you very much.

> I'll continue to define what a better life looks like for myself, and I'll continue to respect the right of others to do the same, thank you very much.

do you think that if everyone behaved like this, the world would be a better place?

Of course. How could we presume to know what's best for people we don't even know?

Ah, the tragedy of the commons.

There are aspects of life where this philosophy is great. There are also aspects of life - in particular, items touching on exhaustible resources - where a community-level decision making process really is needed. Water rights in the West are a great example.

If your "right" to a "better" life involves destroying the environment and the air that we all have to breathe, then why exactly should I respect your "right"?

Yeah, this is a tricky scenario. It would not be cool if we were neighbors and I dumped nasty shit in the water nearby.

On the other hand, developing nations have been dumping nasty shit in the air for years as a tradeoff for an improved standard of living. If I was someone living in poverty in a developing nation, I'd hope you would respect my right to burn some coal to improve my standard of living.

Exactly. The "better life" in America generally means living in suburbs in a McMansion and driving 2-3 hours per day in traffic because your house is so far from your job. Why anyone thinks this is better than living in a walkable city is beyond me; Japan and western European nations have shown by example that you can certainly put lots of people into a fairly dense city where the main transport methods are walking and subways while still having extremely low crime rates, and a lifestyle like this requires far fewer resources than a typical suburban American one.

> Asteroid mining can be a revolutionary source of resources.

FWIW

"...analysed how soon humans might use up the solar system’s most accessible resources should space mining take off. They found that an annual growth rate of 3.5% would use up an eighth of the solar system’s realistic resources in 400 years. At that point, humanity would have only 60 years to apply the brakes and avoid exhausting the supply completely."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/may/12/protect-sola...

You're assuming we can only mine resources from the solar system. With a profit motive that big, I figure some one will figure out how to get further out. Think about how much we know about quantum mechanics we didn't know we didn't know fifty-odd years ago, then think what else we could discover in the next fifty.

If we ever figure out how to transport ordinary matter across interstellar distances and make a profit, we'll most likely have magic that makes transporting matter obsolete.

As your link says "...Elvis points out that one eighth of the iron in the asteroid belt is more than a million times greater that the estimated iron ore reserves on Earth, which may suffice for centuries."

By the time we start running out of materials from the asteroids, I think we will have recycled some of the material that was previously mined.

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