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Comment by lutusp | Hacker News Reader

> I'm not sure that the past situations and solutions will be the same as the future situation and non-/solutions.

The future will be completely different than the past, but in the same way -- consistent with the Logistic function and its description of the relation between species and environment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function

There are any number of unpredictable aspects to how events unfold, but physical laws remain the same.

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We've already demonstrated that we can bend physical laws to our needs, or have you missed that point in your rush to cast away any faith in the human species' ability to manage its resources? Because: managing our resources is what makes the difference, entirely, between extinction and survival, and we've been doing precisely that for 200,000 years so far.

To be fair, we'd both agree that we're bending "natural laws" not physical laws. Right? I mean: we're not getting energy for free, we're just capturing more of it.

> We've already demonstrated that we can bend physical laws to our needs ...

Bend doesn't equal break. Obviously a species will adopt more and more ingenious measures to stave off the inevitable, but that doesn't change the inevitable, only its arrival date.

The basic equation collides a finite planet with an infinite capacity for growth. Ultimately the finite planet determines the outcome, not the infinite capacity for growth.

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