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Comment by zrav | Hacker News Reader

Does any of humanities current resource consumption seem sustainable for an unlimited time to you, even assuming no further population increase?

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Yes. Even with 10x the amount of consumption based on current technologies. And 100 or 1000x with future technology.

Again, the same argument and question has been made 100s of years and every prediction based on what population growth implies for the future has not just been wrong, but 180 degrees in the wrong direction. At some point you have to ask yourself what you are missing, when repeating the exact same arguments, with literally nothing added.

10x more humans at 10x more the consumption would be a better world then the one we live in now.

The difference between a resource and dirt depends on technology. The amount of energy potential is almost unlimited, considering solar and nuclear power.

Nothing you are saying about 100s of years ago has any validity in today’s times. There has never been a population this size with the technology we have, thus nothing in history can serve as a valid compare to what lies ahead. I knew eventually I would find someone on here posting mouth dribble they heard from their polisci class.

I disagree with everything you said except your last paragraph.

Technology is nice but it has yet to lead to a net reduction of our ecological footprint.

The fact that we are unsustainably destroying our biosphere is supported by scientific research and data. If you don't concede that, I don't see a point in even discussing it.

The free market always creates unsustainable rates of consumption while the resources are still readily available.

But I have a pretty dark view on our global societys future as well with the negative synergies between the climate crisis, the ongoing automation effort for less skilled work and the refugees that will be out of a home with the rising sea levels... Let's just say I'm glad Ill likely be dead before it becomes too much of an issue.

Any evidence for that statement? Since we have modern society, or capitalist markets the world population has doubled over and over again, while overall consumption has actually increased and absolute poverty decreased.

Non of it is unsustainable we have not run out of anything, ironically outside of few renewable resources those can actually run out. Things that used to be worthless rocks are now valuable things. Other things that are now rocks will be valuable in the future. The difference between a resource and dirt is technology, more humans in our system leads to more technology.

In fact, the total amount of resources we have and no about now is probably 1000x more then 100 years ago.

Rising of sea level happens slowly, not in one big wave and can be mitigated in many ways as well. The same goes for climate in general.

Technology has been replacing workers from their job with the same speed for 100s of years, the tractor replaced far more jobs then anything we are inventing now.

But I guess this inherent pessimism counter to all evidence we have about similar predictions over the last 250 years, is somewhat systemic.

I just hope to convince people to not take it as far as the 'population growth is bad' people in the 60s when they said the US shouldn't help India so fewer of them can starve now, rather then more later as mass starvation in India was of course inevitable in their minds. Just one of their many brilliant plans for population control.

It’s just not obvious that it’s meaningful to extrapolate current resource consumption out to forever. People have always adapted their behavior as different resources become more or less available. When some resources become too scarce to be economical, I expect we’ll find alternatives or we’ll find clever ways to do more with less.

The behavior you describe is essentially inertia-driven, only producing change when it becomes inevitable. And it'll be the reason we won't manage to prevent most of the ecological collapse that is already happening.

If we don't behave in a way that's sustainable for an indefinite time, we're living on borrowed time. Sooner or later this debt will catch up. IMO the belief that technological progress will save us is naive. The problem is not technological, it never was, but a matter of priorities.

No it not when it is 'inevitable' its when an alternative becomes more viable.

> The problem is not technological, it never was, but a matter of priorities.

The growth of humanity from 100M to 10B was 100% based on technology improvement.

No one is denying that, but that is missing my point. How is population growth a good thing in the context of sustainability? Improvements in efficiency have generally been more than offset by increased productivity and thus (unsustainable) resource consumption, which is the reason the deterioration of all ecological indicators is accelerating. What I meant with "matter of priorities" is that we've had the means to stop that trajectory for some time, but it just wasn't and isn't a priority. We've already caused irreparable damage to much of our biosphere. There's positive glimpses here and there but nothing changed fundamentally. I don't see us escaping the Great Filter.

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