Why infinite growth is a ridicilous concept born out of ingorance.

First everyone should get familiar with following arrhythmic lecture.
www.youtube.com...

Notice: Video is not miss titled it is pretty much the most important video you will ever see.

Now we know that our entire way of living is based on much stuff we can produce and consume. People need jobs etc.

Without growth of economy it collapses. IT has nothing to do with capitalism/free market or socialism/communism.
It has to do with forced cyclical money circulation. No income = deprivation.

Lets lets see what numbers show us for today.

* We already consume for a year than earth can regenerate. We are talking basic resources here like water soil or fishes.
www.footprintnetwork.org...
* If everyone on the planet started consuming at the rate of average USA citizen we would require 5 planets TODAY
* Since 1900 mankind increased it rate of consumption of resources 10 fold.
blogs.scientificamerican.com...

If i have a questions here for everyone and especially to Utopian free-market fanatics.
* Do you understand/agree there is a problem and we are sitting on the verge of collapse ??
* What do you propose to do with the facts tat are presented.
* Special question - How your Utopian free-market gonna magically create infinite number of resources so we can continue to grow "the economy"

Additional issue.
Some people say earth is not overpopulated. Well not yet but considering average 1,3growth per year it means:
* in 780 year considering all dry land everyman would have only 1squere meter for him self.
* in 2400 years mass of all man would be equal to the mass of the earth.
Hope that will make you all think.

the isue as i see it - is that few people are prepared to deliberatly be " the last of thier line "

reply to post by ignorant_ape


Meh, that's not even necessary....

If you are REALLY talking about curbing population growth, no-one really has to be the "Last of their line", and no-one has to die to make room either.

That's just a concept that the "OMG EARTHZ HAS INFINITE RESOURCES" crowd likes to banter about in a fearmongering fashion.

All you have to do is increase the interval between a persons birth, and when they start breeding.

On average I mean....

The average generational interval is 20 years, worldwide... If we were to increase that to 30 years, the population growth rate would slow, and that's not even dabbling in things like "One child policies" or forced sterilization, or whatever...

Interestingly enough, the very thing you fear is already happening in the socialist utopia of North Korea. The government consumes almost all of the resources to build statues and monuments and palaces and to keep the secret police forces, which supress the citizens, well equipped, while the commoner starves to death. But at least they've found the answer to a population problem, more and more resource consuming government!
But South Korea, with its evil capitalist society, is clearly suffering and the people are very unhappy there, with their modern lifestyles and high standards of living.

reply to post by ignorant_ape


You dont have to be last of your line.

People around are still dying.

Originally posted by Kaiju
Interestingly enough, the very thing you fear

I am not fearing i am just presenting you with fact about our way of life and basic mathematical laws.

Originally posted by Kaiju
is already happening in the socialist utopia of North Korea.

No it doesn't.

Originally posted by Kaiju
The government consumes almost all of the resources to build statues and monuments and palaces and to keep the secret police forces, which supress the citizens, well equipped, while the commoner starves to death.

So dictatorship is wrong, how is that something new that no one knows about or how it is relevant to the data presented and questions asked.

What you did here is pretty lame attempt of eristic.

You entire post is composed of following logic :
Since North Korea sucks we can increase population and consumption growth forever.
Please tell me where is logic in that.

Originally posted by Kaiju
But South Korea, with its evil capitalist society, is clearly suffering and the people are very unhappy there, with their modern lifestyles and high standards of living.

Capitalist society isnt evil it is just unsustainable.
As for happiness indexes you can see they drop rapidly in in last decades.
Consumerism does not make people happy.

Also you didnt answered my question how free market is gonna pop Infitnie resources out of thin air.
Because steady growth always ends up as infinity.

The problem you face is human's are evolved for short term survival. They are not going to acknowledge a problem until they are faced with actual shortages in their life. You also face the problem that for many people their ideology is more important than facts.

Human's cannot seem to grasp the exponential function and it's gonna kill us.

We have had strong growth since fossil fuels. Many people attribute this growth to our technological abilities and place no value on the actual fuel that provided the capability for those abilities.

In short, we found a giant bag of food a few hundred years ago and have been eating off of that stash since then. We think we have so much to eat due to our intelligence and technology, but only a few realize that the presence of that large bag of food in the first place is what allowed our growth.

We cannot be expected to outlive the concentrations of fossil fuels that we are tasked with dispersing. And, we will disperse those fuels at the maximum rate possible until we can't.

Originally posted by shogu666

Originally posted by Kaiju
Interestingly enough, the very thing you fear

I am not fearing i am just presenting you with fact about our way of life and basic mathematical laws.

Would concerned have been a better choice of words? Seems unlikely that you would have gone through the trouble of creating this thread if you were entirely indifferent.

Originally posted by Kaiju
is already happening in the socialist utopia of North Korea.

No it doesn't.

They have more people than resources can sustain. Seems to me like it is. You may view it differently.

Originally posted by Kaiju
The government consumes almost all of the resources to build statues and monuments and palaces and to keep the secret police forces, which supress the citizens, well equipped, while the commoner starves to death.

So dictatorship is wrong, how is that something new that no one knows about or how it is relevant to the data presented and questions asked.

What you did here is pretty lame attempt of eristic.

You entire post is composed of following logic :
Since North Korea sucks we can increase population and consumption growth forever.
Please tell me where is logic in that.

Please show me where I said anything at all about consumption or growth going on forever.
My "logic" is to counter your anti-capitalistic view with the fact that an anti-capitalistic system is failing miserably at solving this problem. I was also not implying that a capitalistic approach would be any better, but I believe there would be fewer people suffering in the long run that way.

Originally posted by Kaiju
But South Korea, with its evil capitalist society, is clearly suffering and the people are very unhappy there, with their modern lifestyles and high standards of living.

Capitalist society isnt evil it is just unsustainable.

Neither are any of the "ism"s, most likely.

As for happiness indexes you can see they drop rapidly in in last decades.
Consumerism does not make people happy.

Neither does starvation.

Also you didnt answered my question how free market is gonna pop Infitnie resources out of thin air.
Because steady growth always ends up as infinity.

This is a very difficult question to answer without a crystal ball. But my guess would be that people will suffer in increasing numbers until a critical mass is formed and people will accept the fact that they cannot squeeze out as many children as they want. Most likely governments will strictly enforce a limit on child production although there are other ways of limiting the population, like squandering resources for wasteful government projects that benefit the few, while the masses starve.

Originally posted by Kaiju

Please show me where I said anything at all about consumption or growth going on forever.
My "logic" is to counter your anti-capitalistic view with the fact that an anti-capitalistic system is failing miserably at solving this problem. I was also not implying that a capitalistic approach would be any better, but I believe there would be fewer people suffering in the long run that way.

Without growth of economy it collapses. IT has nothing to do with capitalism/free market or socialism/communism. It has to do with forced cyclical money circulation. No income = deprivation.

Guess what, you don't have to be either ideology. And you are a prime example of what I said earlier-Ideology is more important than fact. You are sitting here arguing about capitalism. That is not the subject, it's dwindling resources. Both Capitalism and Socialism are predicated on a faulty premise-Infinite growth. This premise goes against the laws of thermodynamics. It is false and we need to stop arguing about anachronistic ideologies and talk about real solutions.

But we won't will we? And that's why we are screwed.

Originally posted by Kaiju
Please show me where I said anything at all about consumption or growth going on forever.
My "logic" is to counter your anti-capitalistic view with the fact that an anti-capitalistic system is failing miserably at solving this problem. I was also not implying that a capitalistic approach would be any better, but I believe there would be fewer people suffering in the long run that way.

I told you i don't care about this dichotomy

Forced money circulation happens here and there at the same rate.

Originally posted by Kaiju
Neither are any of the "ism"s, most likely.

So what you are saying we are doomed to die on this planet by self-consumption ??
We cant change anything via application of technology reason and proper education perhaps ?

Originally posted by Kaiju
Neither does starvation.

logic suggest that lack of consumerism does not equal starvation.

Originally posted by Kaiju
This is a very difficult question to answer without a crystal ball. But my guess would be that people will suffer in increasing numbers until a critical mass is formed and people will accept the fact that they cannot squeeze out as many children as they want. Most likely governments will strictly enforce a limit on child production although there are other ways of limiting the population,

So your suggestion is we should continue what we are doing and it will be solved somehow ???
And then the governments that you probably hate should limit our growth ??
carppy solution