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No, it won't be a slow, bumpy ride to the bottom unless government gets out of control.

If anything, with more economic freedom in China, progress should accellerate even further.

The counter-intuitive result of Simon's observations is that, given economic freedom, people solve problems faster than they become serious problems.

Calm thy heart about the future, even with AGW.

It even notes the rate remains similar, just that it's costing more.

This is nothing unexpected, and in an economically free society, people can actually keep ahead of the curve, inventing faster and faster and solving problems faster than they become long-term problems.

In short, the OP statement about less bang for its buck is accurate, but the wrong way to look at it.

But it isn't totalitarianism anymore. While political challenges are largely restricted, economically they are much more open. As a result, they are becoming much more productive.

Right on schedule.

Insofar as they are open, it doesn't matter. Insofar as if they ever shut back down, they will go back to being irrelevant.

It's dictatorship. You need the people to be economically free to generate wealth and progress for all. Without having to bend the knee to a hundred local officials, corrupt or otherwise, to do anything, free people can respond to and meet needs amd wants, and do so faster than shortages can become serious or chronic.

But dictatorship, with little chance of economic success, myriad "additional costs", and the omnipresent fear of falling afoul of someone in power, most say to hell with it, and there's the "inescapable poverty".

Everything you need to know about this calculation is summed up in the infographic. To maximize the time until Earth Overshoot day, we should all live like people in Cuba, Columbia, Jamaica, and Vietnam.

Jokes about the US population voting to live more like Jamaicans aside, resource shortages are irrelevant in an economically free society because free people solve issues faster than they become serious, leading to ever-cheaper resources. Even of limited ones and "low hanging fruit", thanks to substitutions and further invention.

E.g. Peak Oil. Well, here's giant oil rigs. No, let's replace them with big computer-stabilized robot ships that can sink drills through two miles of water, then drill down another mile, then make a right turn and drill two more miles. No, let's take a lot of load off with natural gas from fracking, and shale oil, a "high hanging fruit" now cheaper than low hanging fruit used to be.

There's a reason they are sneaking in pollution, which has nothing to do with it -- the panic has literally been disproven over and over again all last century, and this.

Oh, by the way. The most industrious and free societies are the only ones who can afford the pollution controls necessary to keep the environment becoming cleaner and cleaner without poverty, which is nobody's friend.

The price gouging via government surcharge there is to line the pockets of the kleptocrats, either via direct corruption or indirect (bribes) or most likely both. This is why dictatorships form.

The free market, stuffed by this government-controlled monopoly, is looking for "substitutes" in the economic sense, which is why the price of commodities drops decade after decade sans "intervention", which screws this process up.

This has a granularity of years though, to bring prices back down, if not a decade or more. But it is reliable as sin.

https://overpopulationisamyth....

http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...

http://www.businessinsider.com... (see: "Part Two: Advanced Economies That Will Shrivel And Die")

While the Earth may have its limits for any specific combination of human culture and technology, there is room for quadrillions of humans in self-replicating space habitats throughout the solar system. Jeff Bezos' take on that:
https://www.space.com/37572-je...

And on current USA human culture and politics and economics:
https://www.westernwatersheds....
"By far the greatest impact on the American landscape comes not from urbanization but rather from agriculture. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, farming and ranching are responsible for 68 percent of all species endangerment in the United States. Agriculture is the largest consumer of water, particularly in the West. Most water developments would not exist were it not for the demand created by irrigated agriculture. If ultimate causes and not proximate causes for species extinction are considered, agricultural impacts would even be higher. Yet scant attention is paid by academicians, environmentalists, recreationists and the general public to agriculture's role in habitat fragmentation, species endangerment and declining water quality. The ironic aspect of this head-in-the sand approach to land use is that most agriculture is completely unnecessary to feed the nation. The great bulk of agricultural production goes toward forage production used primarily by livestock. A small shift in our diet away from meat could have a tremendous impact on the ground in terms of freeing up lands for restoration and wildlife habitat. It would also reduce the poisoning of our streams and groundwater with pesticides and other residue of modern agricultural practices."

Consider, "Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?"
https://healthesolutions.com/s...
"Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac? In a classic case of contradictory government policy the pyramids in this graphic clearly show the inverse relationship between federal government agriculture subsidies and federal nutrition recommendations. The chart was put together by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, but its figures still, alas, look quite relevant. Thanks to lobbying, Congress chooses to subsidize foods that weâ(TM)re supposed to eat less of."

The nations that are most economically free, meaning they can respond to market demands without kowtowing to officials are the ones at the top.

As China becomes economically freer, they should take this lead.

One gets around this with actual measurements on the quality and length of life.

It's getting better, and, as long as people are economically free to solve problems, they will be solved faster than they become serious, and conditions will continue to improve.

The error in the so-called Chicken Little warnings was refusing to recognize this process works, and so well you can make predictions with it on the quality and length of life, price of commodities, and so on.

Actual measurements.

The need for renewable is a separate issue from the need for green energy.

The former is about the running out of fossil fuels, and the latter, pollution, and, specifically, greenhouse gases.

The latter has value, but the former not so much anymore as Julian Simon's undefeated predictive capability has shown a relatively free economic society can adapt to shortage stressors faster then they become the prognosticated problem, and prices continue to drop.

This is counter-intuitive, but makes successful predictions again and again and again since the shortage scares of the 1970s. Peak Oil, a reskin of such fears, predictably fell.

The prices actually drop over the long term, though there can be spikes that last years or evn a decade or more before coming down.

As long as people are free to innovate, without government control or rationing, they will keep ahead of the curve in the long run.

This means higher hanging fruit will become lower than lower hanging fruit used to be, in terms of resource cost on the market. The idea of a fixed amount we will suddenly run out of, causing skyrocketting prices, or even economic collapse, is not borne out by measurements of real economic history.

They even had a famous 10 year bet where Simon won, where the detractor even got to pick the resources that would go up in price. Isaac Asimov, another gloomer from the 1970s, was brave enough to admit he was wrong.

This was how it was trivially easy to predict the Peak Oil prople were full of shit.

There may be reasons not to burn too much oil, such as polution or environmentalism, but running out suddenly, or any time soon, ain't one of 'em.

The run out of oil issue has already been debunked -- there is, of course, a limited amount, but "suddenly running out and prices skyrocket!" is the debunked fraud.

As prices rise, markets create substitutes -- in this case, enlarge the supply, other fuels, other technologies, lighter vehicles, and most importantly, stuff nobody thought of before.

This process, counter-intuitively, stays ahead of the curve of trouble brewing, and prices and quality and length of life continue to advance when graphed. There may be several year spikes (the discoverer, Julian Simon, was uncomforable with granularity of less than 10 years) but it has successfully defeated all hets to the contrary.

There is thus no Peak Oil worry because alternative energy will take up the slack, naturally, in an economically free wod where people can invent. We will not run off a cliff. This is a retread of 1970s shortage scares that Julian Simon shot down in famous bets with scientists.

"Shortage" is an economic term, and scientists don't understand economics.

How exceptional are scientific theories that make counter-intuitive and repeated and repeatable predictions over and over again.

Bzzzt! Sorry, thanks for playing!

Oil will continue to get cheaper, even as humanity invents solutions to switch from it. These are longer term trends, though, not several year spikes up and down.

Hi, thanks for asking!

Shortage is an economic issue, but it turns out that in a free economy, people respond to shortages, and do so faster than they become the feared serious problem.

Simon make some famous public bets on the price of commodities like copper and tin, these were chosen by the environmentist shouting scare claims, BTW, that in 10 years the prices whoud drop rather than rise. He won, in spite of being nervous of a 10 year granularity, which was a little small for his longer range liking.

Myriad people will respond to rising prices, of oil in this case, by searching harder and making new technology. Far from stranding us with all the "low hanging fruit" picked, they adapt and make the harder fruit even easier and cheaper to pick, causing the price to drop.

Fracking is one way to smash the "high hanging fruit: barrier. So, too, are giant, computer-stabilized ocean vessels that sink a pipe through 2 miles of water, drill down another mile, make a right turn and drill 2 more miles.

And then there are people inventing substitutions, which in this case could mean different fuels, different materials that used to be made from oil, different kinds of engines, lubricants, and not least of which is creating oil or oil byproducts. We can already do some of that with custom bacteria. I am sure most of it is no more than a few billion dollars away.

Pollution is one thing, but the fears of shortages is a Chicken Little fraud...in an economically free society where business is free to respond to needs.

The important thing to remember is this isn't some economic theory that is really more politics, like most are. It was born of observation, and makes repeatable and testable (and counter-intuitive!) predicions.

The failure of Peak Oil to e a shortage problem was just another one to fall effortlessly, and all too predictably. Simon even analyzed why physical scientists made these erroneous predictions: they did not understand economics and the dynamism of human invention...when it is free to operate.

We like theories that make successful and repeatable predictions. Don't we?

Ok I looked it up. Matinee was 75 cents and evening $1. A dollar in 1940 is over $16 today.

So prices drop and quality and features (of the literal film anyway) increase. Shame on me for doubting Julian Simon.

No, we passed Peak Oil because it was a warmed over retread of 1970s shortage scares, where physical scientists stick their noses in economics and make literally ignorant predictions about economics.

So many declarations so at variance with actual measured reality.

Outside government intervention, prices tend to come down, not go up, over the long run. More properly, this includes improvements which may increase costs, especially for early adopters.

Paying extra for the deluxe FM radio in your car, beyond the plain AM-only one?

Didn't think so.

And when such private automobiles are no longer sold for any amount you can afford?

This can only happen in a context of government intervention in the economy. As European nations with extensive public transport found out, personal cars are still much better pussy magnets^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H more popular with the yoots.

If people want cars, and government stays out of the way, they will get cars, and cheaper ones.

See: http://overpopulationisamyth.c...

In general, as Julian Simon wrote, the (educated, nourished, healthy) human imagination is the ultimate resource that invents all other resources, so in general the more people you have, the more imagination you have. For example, woudl we have the internet if someone in the 1600s had decided there were too many people because London was overcrowded and killed off all but a million humans on the planet? The solar system can probably support quadrillions of people living in space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and asteroidal ore like JD Bernal imagined in the 1920s.
http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/...
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...

That list is very similar to what I had listed here in back in 1999 (minus a few fanciful ones):
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...
"The race is on to make the human world a better (and more resilient) place before one of these overwhelms us:
        Autonomous military robots out of control
        Nanotechnology virus / gray slime
        Ethnically targeted virus
        Sterility virus
        Computer virus
        Asteroid impact
        Y2K
        Other unforseen computer failure mode
        Global warming / climate change / flooding
        Nuclear / biological war
        Unexpected economic collapse from Chaos effects
        Terrorism w/ unforseen wide effects
        Out of control bureaucracy (1984)
        Religious / philosophical warfare
        Economic imbalance leading to world war
        Arms race leading to world war
        Zero-point energy tap out of control
        Time-space information system spreading failure effect (Chalker's Zinder Nullifier)
        Unforseen consequences of research (energy, weapons, informational, biological)"

But in the end, I think the issue raised in my sig is the biggest challenge: the perilous irony of people using the tools of material abundance in a war-like way as if material scarcity was still a major concern, as well as derivative issues like the moral problem of creating artificial scarcity under capitalism and so on. There are possible solutions to such issues (basic income, expanded gift economy, improved subsistence via 3D printing and personal agricultural robots and indoor agriculture and solar panels and so on, participatory democratic planning supported by the internet), but ideology and existing artificial-scarcity-based power structures stands in the way. Still, the dominant ideology is slowly shifting top a more open and abundance-oriented one. As Buckminster Fuller said decades ago, whether it will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end...

http://overpopulationisamyth.c...

I agree some technoligies should be banned or heavily taxed because they create unpaid for externalities like pollution. However, in general, what we need are more efficient technologies, technologies that create new resources out of abundant materials (like fusion of hydrogen), and also technologies that let us expand out into space (or responsibly in the ocean or desert or Antarctic, or underground).

The human imagination is the ultimate resource, The more (educated, well-fed) people you have, the more imagination.
"The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment"
http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...

If I told you that someone had (really) just invented fusion energy (or dirt cheap solar), and someone else had invented automated indoor agriculture, and someone else had invented 3D printers that can recycle 100% of everything they print in a non-polluting way -- even electronics and houses, and together these technologies could feed a trillion people on the planet and house them and clothe them and so on, would your feelings change about "over population"? BTW, we are not very far from all three of these technologies or equivalents.

Even if for aesthetic or environmental reasons we might want to limit the population of humans on the Earth at any one time, the carrying capacity of the solar system, even just with essentially known technologies discussed in 1980, is probably in the quadrillions of humans (plus much more of everything else in supporting ecosystems).
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/...

In any case, the bigger issue is that populations of industrialized countries are peaking already with non-immigrant female citizens in most generally having less than two or so kids each, so less than replacement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

As I wrote here:
http://p2pfoundation.net/backu...
"As with the comment on Ireland, that is why the industrialized globe is facing a "Peak Population" crisis, not a "Peak Oil" crisis, even though people are confusing the two, which is odd given solar is now (or soon will be) cheaper than coal. :-)
But, think about it, how many of the industrialized world's current problems are better explained by "Peak Population" rather than "Peak Oil"?
And how much has the "Peak Energy" misrepresentation of the "Peak Oil" fact by people like Catton led to smaller families and made worse the "Peak Population" crisis? Gloomsters and Doomsters are in that sense creating the terrible problems we are facing right now. In Voyage from Yesteryear, James P. Hogan talks about despair versus optimist in a culture, in part based on appreciation of the potential abundance energy in the universe.
The less peers that are around, the less peers can help each other and contribute to a free commons. Maybe there are laws of diminishing returns, but are we anywhere near them? What would Wikipedia be like with only 100 contributors instead of 100 thousand? Especially in a digital age, it is easy for a peer to add more to the free commons than they take away. What do you take away from Wikipedia by reading a page? A little electricity power perhaps, but Wikipedia shows us how to get all the power we need from the sun.So, even in a physical sense, Wikipedia is helping peers physically power it by giving away such knowledge.
We can support quadrillions of humans in the solar system (see my previous references to Dyson, Bernal, Savage, O'Neill, and there are many others), or about a million times our current population on Earth. We essen

... research instead, there would probably be plenty of material resource on the planet by now (or soon) for all to live like in the USA. Instead the USA spent that money to try to secure oil profits for a few and other various similar things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

But with a global economy of around US$80 Trillion annually, there is plenty to go around to invest in fusion and cheap solar and a variety of other research to create new resources of all sorts (energy, material, informational, social, spiritual, ecological, biological, etc.). Fusion research is really not that expensive compared to the possible benefits (although it makes sense to hedge bets with funding more solar research too and so on). As a chart here suggest, communications reinvests about 25% of domestic sales into R&D, and software 15%, while energy invests only 0.3%. No wonder we have energy issues if we fail to invest in R&D in it relative to the magnitude of the need. This is a marketplace failure, because most of the revenues are related to fossil fuels, but probably everyone knows the future of energy production will involve some other form (fusion, solar, wind, tidal, geothermal) and so current fossil fuel businesses have no emotional incentive to invest in these radical alternatives to coal, oil, and natural gas.
http://focusfusion.org/index.p...

As Julian Simon said, the human imagination is the ultimate resource:
http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...

But, imaginative people still need some form of life support to grow and have time to do stuff, and lab equipment is (not yet) free.

Of course, AIs will no doubt get more imaginative over time, too...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Mainstream economics assumes things such as that demand for goods and services is infinite and that most humans will always be able to command wages for participation in the workforce. If demand for products and services is not infinite (as in diminishing and eventually negative returns on having more stuff), then eventually a few workers could supply all the demand through technological amplification. Or, even if demand was infinite, if most humans can't compete with AIs and robots, then "humans need not apply", which would wreck the underpinning assumption of mainstream economics that the right to consume for those without substantial financial capital is linked with receiving wages from a job.

I first saw the HBR article mentioned at "e-cat world", a site that discusses the potential of cheap energy from cold fusion:
http://www.e-catworld.com/2014...

Cheap energy from some sort of hot or cold fusion may also have some of the same effects on the economy, because often energy can substitute for human labor. For example, there is little need for humans to handle materials for recycling when you can break down trash into a plasma and use a mass-spectrometer-like system to separate it into constitute elements, as James P. Hogan suggested in "Voyage from Yesteryear" (a 1982 sci-fi book that discusses the clash of a scarcity-oriented cultural world view with an abundance-oriented one).
http://www.jamesphogan.com/boo...

Such a process could also eliminate most of the mining industry. Better designs, better materials, the accumulation of physical infrastructure, and the emergence of voluntary social networks (including discussion sites like Slashdot) also can displace a lot of paid labor in the exchange economy. So, there are multiple converging trends towards socioeconomic upheaval if (sane) human wants are somewhat limit

Other styles of farming whether square foot gardening or indoor hydroponics can be much more productive per acre than big field farming with tractors, but they are *labor* and *knowledge* intensive. Robotics (or other automation) make greater yields per square foot much more achievable more cheaply. That also makes vertical farming in cities more feasible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://www.motherearthnews.com...
http://www.verticalfarm.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

See especially:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
"A 2010 study published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems showed that biointensive methods resulted in significantly increased production and a reduction of energy use when compared with conventional agriculture (Moore, S.R., 2010, Energy efficiency in smallâscale biointensive organic onion production in Pennsylvania, USA, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 25:3, pp. 181â188). This study states that "Current mechanized agriculture has an energy efficiency ratio of 0.9 ... energy efficiency for biointensive production of onions in our study was over 50 times higher than this value (51.5), and 83% of the total energy required is renewable energy."

The fact that many people have inefficient backyard gardens does not mean that people could not have very productive gardens if they knew more and had more time for them. Biosphere II was a good example of intensive food production in a small space.

See also books on "Survival Gardening".
http://theprepperproject.com/s...

The best one I've seen (by that name, by John Freeman) is not mentioned there though:
http://www.amazon.com/Survival...

Don't know about this new one by someone else:
http://www.amazon.com/Survival...

Granted, that is mostly about organic vegetables and beans. Grains may be a somewhat different issue, but they are already heavily automated in many ways. But as Dr. Fuhrman suggests, eating more fruits and vegetables is healthier than eating more grains (especially refined grains).

You should not discount that gardening in the sunshine can be good health-promoting exercise. It saves money indirectly by displacing other less healthy recreational activities like shopping for the next unneeded consumer item.

BTW, we can grind up rock to get good fertilizer for relatively cheap, especially if powered by excess renewable energy:
http://remineralize.org/

By this estimate by economist Julian Simon, there is plenty of opportunities for growing lots more food if we want to:
http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...

General purpose agricultural robotics makes intensive gardening so much more feasible to do on a small local scale... Still, highly-automated indoor agriculture powered by cheap energy is probably more the future of food production because it is so much more predictable.

AC wrote: " Thank god for people like Julian Simon. http://www.wired.com/wired/arc... "

See also: http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...

Still, markets can fail due to unpriced externalities (like pollution or military costs of defending oil supply lines) or unaccounted-for systemic risks (like derivatives or programmed trading leading to market collapse). Example, from Greenspan:
"Greenspan Destroys Deregulation in 16 Seconds"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

So, there are limits to what unregulated markets alone can do.

The gift economy, the subsistence economy, and them democratically planned economy can all provide alternatives for times when the exchange economy fails.

http://robohub.org/tag/agricul...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
http://www.ieee-ras.org/agricu...

Indoors agricultural is also rising, given cheaper energy costs for LED lighting and more consistent results in controlled environments...

Yes, hunting/gatherering in a large home range is easier than pre-modern century farming styles, which seem to have only increased because of increasing population densities and tribes pushes to marginal lands or smaller lands.
http://www.primitivism.com/ori...

Anyway, I applaud the trend in the original article. Of course, living next to a farm can pose health challenges (like from contaminated ground water) depending on what pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers are used (even "organic" ones).

If you look at the "Biosphere II" project, or similar intensive agricultural projects (as in the book "Survival Gardening") it looks like a few people per acre can be supported with intensive methods in favorable climates, especially if you grow a lot of beans and return sterilized human manure to the land..
http://www.permies.com/t/12422...
"It is realistic to suppose that the absolute minimum of arable land to support one person is a mere 0.07 of a hectare -- and this assumes a largely vegetarian diet, no land degradation or water shortages, virtually no post-harvest waste, and farmers who know precisely when and how to plant, fertilize, irrigate, etc. [FAO, 1993] "

Intensive agriculture is knowledge intensive though, even if robots might mean it would not be so labor intensive. But no doubt eventually we will see plug-in (or cold fusion-powered) containers that have seeds and lights and robots in them and just output food given water and some other inputs. But it won't be as picturesque as a diversified semi-hobby organic farm. But it might not be as unsightly as, say, parts of Iowa where much of year the devastated industrialized farmland looks like a moonscape, and the soil is essentially only used to prop up the plants, only ~10% of calories per acre is created compared to intensive practices, and most of the result is fed to animals where ~90% of the calories are wasted relative to human consumption (so, only ~1% efficient overall compared to intensive cultivation of vegetarian foods, in round numbers).

Info on sustainable farming practices:
"Towards holistic agriculture: a scientific approach" by R. W. Widdowson"
http://books.google.com/books/...

And: http://remineralize.org/

And on economics:
http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...
"Of course an increase in consumption imposes costs in the short
run. But in the long run, population pressure reduces costs as
well as improves the food supply in accord with the general theory,
which I'll repeat again: More people, and increased income, cause
problems of increased scarcity of resources in the short run.
Heightened scarcity causes prices to rise. The higher prices
present opportunity, and prompt inventors and entrepreneurs to
search for solutions. Many fail, at cost to themselves. But in a
free society, solutions are eventually found. And in the long run
the new developments leave us better off than if the problems had
not arisen. That is, prices end up lower than before the increased
scarcity occurred, which is the long-run history of food supply.
Some people wonder whether we can be sure that food production
will increase, and whether it would be "safer" to

http://qz.com/107970/scientists-discover-whats-killing-the-bees-and-its-worse-than-you-thought/
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0070182#authcontrib
-----
Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch's brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.
When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite.
Most disturbing, bees that ate pollen contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless for bees as they're designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like apples.
"There's growing evidence that fungicides may be affecting the bees on their own and I think what it highlights is a need to reassess how we label these agricultural chemicals," Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study's lead author, told Quartz.
Labels on pesticides warn farmers not to spray when pollinating bees are in the vicinity but such precautions have not applied to fungicides. ...
Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the countryâ(TM)s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop, almonds. And thatâ(TM)s not just a west coast problemâ"California supplies 80% of the worldâ(TM)s almonds, a market worth $4 billion.
----

This has been so obvious for many many years to the organic faring community... It is just another negative externality of conventional farming practice, and another example of market failure to account for systemic risk.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/162375-whos-killing-the-bees-new-study-implicates-virtually-every-facet-of-modern-farming

In general, safety studies are almost never done (including for human health) on *combinations* of chemicals (including human medicines). And studies of health effects of individual chemical's health affects often ignore secondary, tertiary, and further breakdown products.

The future of agriculture is probably indoors powered by cheap electricity (from fusion and solar) and managed by robots (including probably pollination).
http://www.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/issues/farm-indoors.htm
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHA

Most industrialized countries are seeing their birth rates plummet (like Italy). People are also feeling a law of diminishing returns of more stuff. So, it is not clear our population or per-capita energy demands are likely to continue to grow that much. Not saying they won't (evolution argues fast growing subpopulations might expand and dominate) , but there are certainly counter trends to exponential growth. Nature has a way of turning exponentials into S-curves...

One the plus side, expanding into the galaxy could give humanity another 1000 years or so of exponential expansion. :-)

But here is an important point. As Julian Simon points out in "The Ultimate Resource", the human imagination is the ultimate resource, since it creates all other rsources (often by figuring out how unused stuff can be made into resources or existing stuff can be reorganized into better resources).
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

The USA once faced a "Peak Whale Oil" crisis in 1846. Yet we moved past that because someone figured out you could get a form of oil from the ground instead of just from whales. See:
http://io9.com/5930414/1846-the-year-we-hit-peak-sperm-whale-oil

If our population continued to grow exponentially, there would be quadrillions of people around to imagine new ways to deal with this issue of energy. I don't know what they might be in those four areas I mentioned (wants, efficiency, distribution, and availability). Or maybe it will be an innovation in some new area somehow. For example, maybe someone will figure out how to tap the zero point energy of the vacuum as both a source and sink of energy and matter? Or maybe someone else will figure out multiple universe theory, or some notion of our universe as a simulation.

I don't know for sure what it would be, or that someone would find it. But, are you willing to bet on your current conception of physics as being undeniable 100% accurate fact that sets hard limits for all time against the imaginations, research, and hard-work of many quadrillions of people (and sentient AIs) working together for hundreds of years? Are you willing to wager on that certainty to the point where, as with TFA where the author says essentially it would be better that all those quadrillions of people should never exist? Wouldn't that claim of omniscient certainty be an ultimate definition of self-centered hubris? Or at least, wouldn't it be "non-scientific", given scientists should always be open to falsifying their theories?

See also, as just one example from:
"They really ought to have known better."
http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/stoopid.lis
""Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth decimal place."
      -- A. A. Michelson, 1894
[On the occasion of the dedication of a physics laboratory in Chicago, noting that all the more important physical laws had been discovered]"

See also Isaas Asimov's short-story "The Last Question", with the recurring line:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question
  "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER".

Online here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0

You may well be right in the end. But there are a lot of uncertainties before then... And clearly there are a lot more obvious possibilities than TFA considers.

For example, Europe just issued a patent for for Francesco Piantelli's LENR process (aka "cold fusion"):
http://pesn.com/2013/01/24/9602268_LENR-to-Market_Weekly_January24/

So much chin rubbing. Sadly, it's already been analyzed.

In a context of economic freedom, with granularity of 10 uears minimum, life gets better as measured by actual measurements. It's when people don't habe economic freedom, be it from crime or dictatorship or high taxes, such that the product of their ecfort is confiscatorily seized, leading to giving up effort, that quality of life suffers.

Wanna know why the west is failing and Asia is rising like a rocket? It's the same reason we used to be rising like a rocket and they weren't.

Economics doesn't care whether seizure or uncertainty are driven by warlords or dictators or awesome laws and spending hreatening tax increases (and spending to offset negative effects of tax increases on business).

Effort says: sayonara!

Mewouldalso like to point out TFA is written inextricably interlinking (or so its worldview declares) "socioeconomic disparities" with climate change. Climate change thus, as predicted, becomes another argument for government control.

And the problems climate change may introduce are economic issues. The vaunted scientists have been making incorrect analysis of economic impacts for 50 years. Impact is an economic issue.

These are the same clueless ones who brought you the fraud of peak oil, destructo-botted by capitalism when it got around to it.

If only an economist had non-controversial theories which could predict this! Theories which made counter-intuitive predictions that came true again and again and again!

What's more interesting is the post contains two liberal knee-jerk positions: There's too little resources, oh noes, government intervention needed! And there's too much of it, government intervention needed.

As usual, Julian Simon wins again. Resource prices go down over time as freedom-based capitalism works its magic, and quality of life measurements go up.

It keeps ahead of the curve, which is the counter-intuitive bit that so many physical scientists self-curbstomp over, not understanding the economics has been shown to work over and over again.

Thanks for the comment, and you make several good points. Still, the fictional character "Atticus Finch" said in "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The easiest way to get shot is to carry a gun". These days, the easiest way to get nuked (or invaded or quarantined) is to have a nuclear ICBM or start building one. With one ICBM, you'd be the world's next North Korea. I know you were probably just saying that to make a point, but as a counter-point, is nuclear blackmail really the way you would want to get your liveliehood if you could do it? Do you want to be the next tin-pot dictator always waiting for the assassin's blow? Do you want to preside over a land where people are starving to death (like North Korea in the past) because you care more about power than the people? Here you are using the most advanced communications system for sharing knowledge the world has ever known (the internet, and sites like slashdot) and what you have shared right now is a strategy for nuclear blackmail. It also sounds a bit like you are trying to dissuade others from trying to make the world a more joyful and healthy and more secure place (by over-emphasizing the point that there are some anti-social people out there)?

As I write in that essay, there are new ways of thinking about security.
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream. We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety") and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working")."

I am advocating for mutual security and intrinsic security. It sounds to me like you are re-affirming the old ways towards security, like unilateral dominance through a big military, which will be ultimately self-defeating with modern technology. What good is a US aircraft carrier in battle when one small smart missile could sink it?
http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/
http://www.usni.org/news-and-features/chinese-kill-weapon
Or where it could someday be infiltrated by a nanotech-based rust monster? :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_monster
What good is your nuclear ICBM when someone (or something) figures out how to explode it in the silo or retarget it at your home city to make you the slave?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project

The balance is changing. The world is a smaller place. I don't like to use "overpopulation" to describe the process because that implies the solution is to get rid of lots of people. I better term might be "under-resourced" or "under-landed" or "under-expanded".
http://www.juliansimon.com

Note the predictions also included the usual claptrap -- massive starvations, shortages of oil, expensive energy.

They predict. Julian Simon said "No." Still more confirmation of his theory that freedom-based capitalism works to satisfy desires, and does so faster than problems make things worse.

Unlike 99% of politics, it has been decades now since you had to "take his word for it."

"They all still afford college and everything else because they only buy what they need. They don't buy two cars per person, they make large meals and reuse leftovers, the first two kids get new clothing and everyone else has hand-me-downs, they go to cheaper schools, etc... Their cable and internet bills are the same as yours, they go to more community activities and have enough people to play board and card games with themselves so less expensive electronic gaming, they've got multiple people to split up the chores so everything gets done faster despite there being a little more work. It really isn't that harder to wash 6 dishes than wash and dry 2 dishes (another kid will do the drying of the 6 dishes). It's just as easy to read to four kids the same story as it is to read to two kids. Eventually the older kids will start helping out the younger kids, providing you with more time and the older kid better experience compared to an only child. Assuming all the kids don't hate each other, they've got their brothers and sisters who will back them up when needed thus less prone to depression and feeling like an outcast. There are many, many more examples. I'm not sure which large families you've seen, but the one's I've seen get by by having a more sustainable life style. Tax breaks don't out weight the cost of a kid. If they did, kids wouldn't be expensive and everyone would have many. Each kid after 2 or 3 becomes cheaper than the last."

Mod parent up. With a solar system that is almost entirely empty, I'm just shocked to see all the people on Slashdot celebrating low fertility. Sure, a small cafe (the Earth) in a big city (the Solar system) may have an occupancy limit, but we don't go around telling people not to have kids because some cafe is too crowded. People generally just open another cafe...

Here is a step towards how:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/SSI_Fernhout2001_web.html
http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/A-global-effort-to-develop-self-replicating-space-habitats/76206-8319

And here is why:
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Tsiolkovsky.html
"Russian physicist and theoretical father of rocketry. Tsiolkovsky was the son of a Polish deportee to Siberia. Tsiolkovsky was an inventor and aviation engineer who was also an insightful visionary. As early as 1894, he designed a monoplane which subsequently flew in 1915. He also built the first Russian wind tunnel in 1897. In 1903, as part of a series of articles in a Russian aviation magazine, Tsiolkovsky published the rocket equation, Eric Weisstein's World of Physics and in 1929, a theory of multistage rockets. Tsiolkovsky was also the author of Investigations of Outer Space by Rocket Devices (1911) and Aims of Astronauts (1914). One of Tsiolkovsky's many memorable and inspiring quotes is "Mankind will not forever remain on Earth, but in the pursuit of light and space will first timidly emerge from the bounds of the atmosphere, and then advance until he has conquered the whole of circumsolar space" (1911). Tsiolkovsky's most famous quote is, "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever." "

The more people, the more vision and imagination...
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

This "overpopulation" meme is so short sighted and despairing. Someday maybe we will see potential parents getting obsessed with "pleasure traps" of modern technology as perhaps a bad thing, rather than something that is now celebrated. Industrialized populations (especially places like Japan and Italy, and even the USA just about without immigration) are no longer even replacing themselves and their populations demographically will fall. Where does tha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitat
http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/A-global-effort-to-develop-self-replicating-space-habitats/76206-8319

From JD Bernal writing in the 1920s:
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Bernal/world/
"Imagine a spherical shell ten miles or so in diameter, made of the lightest materials and mostly hollow; for this purpose the new molecular materials would be admirably suited. Owing to the absence of gravitation its construction would not be an engineering feat of any magnitude. The source of the material out of which this would be made would only be in small part drawn from the earth; for the great bulk of the structure would be made out of the substance of one or more smaller asteroids, rings of Saturn or other planetary detritus. The initial stages of construction are the most difficult to imagine. They will probably consist of attaching an asteroid of some hundred yards or so diameter to a space vessel, hollowing it out and using the removed material to build the first protective shell. Afterwards the shell could be re-worked, bit by bit, using elaborated and more suitable substances and at the same time increasing its size by diminishing its thickness. The globe would fulfil all the functions by which our earth manages to support life. In default of a gravitational field it has, perforce, to keep its atmosphere and the greater portion of its life inside; but as all its nourishment comes in the form of energy through its outer surface it would be forced to resemble on the whole an enormously complicated single-celled plant. "

Quadrillions of humans could live in style in space habitats in the solar system. It would take another 1000 years of exponential growth to approach that. And then it is somebody else's problem -- perhaps to create virtual universes, travel faster-than-light, or create matter and energy and space from the quantum vacuum, or just migrate into a computational matrix?

As Julian Simon said, the human imagination is the ultimate resource (whether expressed through science or otherwise):
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

The more people, the more imagination. People may consume resources and take up space, but they also produce resources and make spaces worth being in.

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/07/03/melinda-gates-admits-stop-peoples-lives-from-existing/
Cited here:
http://www.dailypaul.com/243131/eugenicist-melinda-gates-stop-the-poor-from-reproducing

Or:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/melinda_gates_talks_eugenics.html
"Eugenics is the infamous idea that governments should decide which kinds of citizens ought to be considered desirable (the 1912 consensus was that these tended to be white, athletic, intelligent, and wealthy) and which kinds of citizens ought to be considered undesirable (these tended to be black, Jewish, disabled, or poor) and employ the power of the state to encourage increases of desirable citizens (positive eugenics) and encourage decreases of undesirable citizens (negative eugenics). The founder of eugenics, Sir Francis Galton, a half-cousin of Charles Darwin, formulated the idea that the protection afforded by civil society had prevented the kind of natural selection occurring in Darwin's Origin of Species from happening in humans, thus perpetuating the existence of weak and feeble-minded people who would have been unable to survive in the state of nature.
Eugenicists differed on whether eugenics should be practiced in a soft manner, with taxpayer-underwritten incentives, or in a hard manner, using coercive and often deadly force. The movement claimed many adherents. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and her British counterpart Marie Stopes were both involved in their national eugenic societies. Margaret Sanger viewed her activism as a way to "assist the race towards the elimination of the unfit." Marie Stopes lobbied for "the sterilization of those totally unfit for parenthood [to be] made an immediate possibility, indeed made compulsory.""Eugenics is the infamous idea that governments should decide which kinds of citizens ought to be considered desirable (the 1912 consensus was that these tended to be white, athletic, intelligent, and wealthy) and which kinds of citizens ought to be considered undesirable (these tended to be black, Jewish, disabled, or poor) and employ the power of the state to encourage increases of desirable citizens (positive eugenics) and encourage decreases of undesirable citizens (negative eugenics). The founder of eugenics, Sir Francis Galton, a half-cousin of Charles Darwin, formulated the idea that the protection afforded by civil society had prevented the kind of natural selection occurring in Darwin's Origin of Species from happening in humans, thus perpetuating the existence of weak and feeble-minded people who would have been unable to survive in the state of nature.
Eugenicists differed on whether eugenics should be practiced in a soft manner, with taxpayer-underwritten incentives, or in a hard manner, using coercive and often deadly force. The movement claimed many adherents. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and her British counterpart Marie Stopes were both involved in their national eugenic societies. Margaret Sanger viewed her activism as a way to "assist the race towards the elimination of the unfit." Marie Stopes lobbied for "the sterilization of those totally unfit for parenthood [to be] made an immediate possibility, indeed made compulsory.""

I am just shocked at how most slashdotters have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the overpopulation myth.
http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

As Julian Simon suggests, more people means more imagination, which can mean more wealth for everyone:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

And in any case, the world is suffering more from a demographic pea

"According to the Agenda 21 crowd, the carrying capacity of the world is actually only about 500 million."

Unlike for most animals, carrying capacity is a function of lifestyle and technology where humanity if concerned. The more people you have around, generally the more ideas you have for improving lifestyle and technology. For example, people are busy working on fusion energy technology and cheaper solar power, more energy efficient transportation, advanced bioremediation processes for toxic waste, ways to live in outer space or the oceans, and ways to grow vegetables and meat indoors in vertical farms. If 90-99% of people were killed off, there would be much less innovation, perhaps making that doomster agenda a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thus, as Julian Simon suggests, the human imagination is the ultimate resource.
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

That said, it might be a good idea to set an occupancy limit for the Earth at around a billion people or so when we have much nicer self-replicating space habitats to live in and the Earth becomes more of a tourist destination. Although, a limit might not be required because probably no one born in space would probably want to go there. After all, how many people living in the USA feel a need to take a pilgrimage to Africa to see where humanity came from?

I can't disagree that some crazy ignorant callous frightened scarcity-obsessed people could try what you mention with the technologies of abundance. Weaponized bird full is probably more likely, btw, as it would spread more easily than smallpox. It's a good idea to optimize your health with adequate vitamin D and phytonutrients from vegetables, which is a good thing to do regardless of fears about groups with such a regressive agenda: http://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823

While within academia there may be scarcity relative to the numebr of PhDs produced and resources allocated: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
as a global society there is more and more abundance:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

"The world is full."

Carrying capacity is a function of technology and lifestyle (which are in turn functions of imagination and ethics):
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

The carrying capacity of the local solar system with known or easily forseeable technology is probably on the order of quadrillions of humans living in many millions of Earth's worth of space habitats.

See, to complement "Know Thyself", see also "A Newer Way Of Thinking":
http://www.anwot.org/

The big issue is we are trying to apply scarcity-based economic thinking to the technologies of abundance. So we demand that people work for the right to consume, but then we make them compete against firms introducing robots. This was a problem seen as far back as 1964:
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
"The continuance of the income-through jobs link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand -- for granting the right to consume -- now acts as the main brake on the almost unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system."

A basic income, improved gift economy, better technologies for local subsistence, and internet-empowered planning at all levels could help increase our collective carrying capacity and quality of life.

See also:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

To be fertile, soil also needs micronutrients held by the clay and organic matter; see:
"Towards Holistic Agriculture: A Scientific Approach" by R.W. Widdowson
http://www.amazon.com/Towards-Holistic-Agriculture-Scientific-Approach/dp/0080342116

You can also see ideas about high nutrient gardening here:
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

See also, for the natural way to get such soil:
http://www.kidsgeo.com/geology-for-kids/0052-volcanoes-and-plant-life.php
"While it is true that the immediate effect of volcanoes on plant life is death, the long term effect is very positive. Magma from the Earth’s core contains a rich source of nutrients that plants need to survive. Each time a volcano erupts, it brings these nutrients with it. When volcanoes explode, spreading ash around a large area, this ash acts as a fertilizer, enriching the soil. It is no surprise that the soil near volcanoes is among the richest and most fertile on Earth."

We can reproduce that effect by simply grinding up appropriate rocks:
http://www.remineralize.org/
"Remineralize the Earth is a nonprofit organization assisting the worldwide movement of remineralizing soils with finely ground rock dust, sea minerals and other natural and sustainable means to increase the growth, health, and nutrient value of all plant life. Adding minerals and trace elements is vital to the creation of fertile soils, healthy crops and forests, and is a key strategy to stabilize the climate."

See the pictures there for what vegetables are supposed to look like when raised on truly fertile soil.

I agree with you though that much energy that could go into solving problems gets ironically dissipated in fighting -- often just over the problems that energy otherwise could solve if applied imaginatively. See also the section on "What Are The Limits on Food Production?" In "The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment" by Julian Simon:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

An important reason Africa is such a mess politically is from the legacy of European colonization though (although that is not the only reason):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonisation_of_Africa

"There were also less than 0.1% of the current population of the area, and they had little use for wood beyond using it as a basic structural material and occasional fuel for heat."

Exactly. The amount of resources was very abundant relative to the need, and so people did not have to work very hard to get wood. Now apply that idea to cheap energy from LENR, and cheap 3D printing, and cheap nanotech material recycling, and cheap service robotics, and so on.

The human imagination is indeed the "ultimate resource" as economist Julian Simon said:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

With about seven billion people on the planet, many connected to the internet, we have more collective imagination than ever. So as a species, we are in that sense wealthier than ever...

"Again: China is developing a middle class. As China exits the cheap-labor market, many more countries are willing and able to pick up the slack"

China was the biggest single cheap labor pool around. Most of the remaining places for cheap labor have very little infrastructure. So, how long is that trend going to last?

Also, at some point, it does not matter how cheap the labor is if the quality standards can not be met for some reason. Related article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-it-in-america/8844/?single_page=true
"Tony explains that Maddie has a job [in the USA] for two reasons. First, when it comes to making fuel injectors, the company saves money and minimizes product damage by having both the precision and non-precision work done in the same place. Even if Mexican or Chinese workers could do Maddie's job more cheaply, shipping fragile, half-finished parts to another country for processing would make no sense. Second, Maddie is cheaper than a machine. It would be easy to buy a robotic arm that could take injector bodies and caps from a tray and place them precisely in a laser welder. Yet Standard would have to invest about $100,000 on the arm and a conveyance machine to bring parts to the welder and send them on to the next station. As is common in factories, Standard invests only in machinery that will earn back its cost within two years. For Tony, it's simple: Maddie makes less in two years than the machine would cost, so her job is safe -- for now. If the robotic machines become a little cheaper, or if demand for fuel injectors goes up and Standard starts running three shifts, then investing in those robots might make sense. "

So, even in the USA, many jobs could be completely automated if we wanted to. Ask yourself, it is really better that this single parent is away from her young children to save a $100,000 capital investment by someone? Would not the USA be a better place if the robot was doing that work and this person could spend more time with her children, friends, and neighbors? How many jobs are like that, or worse are just counter-productive like Bob Black wrote about in 1985 and others in the 1960s?

The cost of advanced robotics is also dropping very rapidly. Even toys are more and more pressed into service in real productive applications:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/03/13/1426252/lego-mindstorms-used-to-make-artificial-bones

"There is no vast conspiracy to defeat your idealistic vision..."

Did I say there was? Although it is true there are forces against it... As well as forces for it.

"... there are only the economic realities of efficiency and cost. The automation you envision will only happen when it becomes effective and inexpensive and not a moment before."

Well, total economic realities involve all externalities which should include things like pollution costs, health costs, social benefits costs for displaced

But rising prices shifting causing increases in efficient use as well as switches to alternatives is a core part of the whole economic system, which is why the original predictions were, and will remain, wrong (see Julian Simon's writings):
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

Thanks for the reply, even if the ad hominen part probably just weakens your argument. :-)

I actually like economists like Julian Simon, even if he ignores externalities and equitable distribution:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

The fact is, most mainstream economics is based neither on facts, history, or human nature. :-) Most of it is abstract theoretical model with little connection to populist ethics or reality. See, for example:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/6397/
http://www.responsiblefinance.ch/appeal/
http://debunkingeconomics.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.html

Or:
"Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal"
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Rest-Us-Debunking-Science/dp/1595581014

Here is another thing to think about, by the way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_toil
"The paradox of toil is the economic hypothesis that total employment will shrink if everybody wants to work more when "the short-term nominal interest rate is zero and there are deflationary pressures and output contraction".[1] The idea is that total employment will fall when wages, and therefore consumption, are pushed down by the simultanious efforts of everyone to work more in situations where interest rates are against the zero bound so that rates cannot drop more to increase demand for goods. This is a limited example of the fallacy of composition.[1] where assuming that the increase in production that normally occurs when total labor increases applies in all situations. Put simply, when a recessionary economy is up against the zero bound, having more people seeking work - at lower wages if necessary - can actually reduce the number of jobs due to reduced demand from lower wages."

Even in your defense of the concept, you started introducing qualifiers. You "introduce" a new worker into a "closed" economy. You are carefully avoiding what it means when an economy already has 20% or higher real unemployment, or what it means if the economy is open to imports or innovation, or what happens when the owners of capital take advantage of the situation of too many workers chasing too few jobs and apply the law of supply and demand to lower wages.

But since so much of mainstream economics is theory devoid of facts, let me play along, and show how, just theoretically, the "lump of labor" fallacy assumes both linearity in a relation of labor to output and also increasing demand, given whoever becomes a worker in a modern society with unemployment like the USA must already have been consuming a lot of products.

Consider an economy with one hundred people who consume one generalized product called "A". Imagine forty-five members out of the hundred "work" to produce product 10000 units of product A per day. The production of A has been greatly optimized for maximum production, ignoring any joy the workers get from their jobs:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110425153540/http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html

Assume people only need about 1 unit of A to get by, but more is nice, up to about 7 units of A, and then more doesn't make people much happier (and at some point, people even become sick from too much).

The product is distributed in some fashion to everyone in the society, party based on

"Its a nice rosy thought but we really don't have the unlimited energy you speak of; or if we do we haven't the ability to transport it where we need it and concentrate it enough for many of the applications our society has come to depend on."

"GE: Solar Power Cheaper than Fossil Fuels in 5 years"
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/

Also, maybe:
"NASA seriously believes in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR)"
http://mnispel.net/neengineer/?p=320
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2832338/posts

And:
http://energyfromthorium.com/

And there are others. Energy is not a big issue if we want to solve that. Lack of imagination, will, and social consensus is more of the problem:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

As well as the diversion of most of our resources into guarding, competition, and war...

As to your quote, I answer it with another quote: "The woods would be pretty quiet if no bird sang there but the best." :-)

Also, who is to judge what "best" is?

Clearly, even third rate is soon going to be enough to create WMDs (like the biotech, nanotech, or microrobotic equivalent of what script kiddies do with computers). So, we still need to figure out a way to make a world that works better and better for more and more people (including by reducing violence through healthier nutrition); see for example:
"Omega-3, junk food and the link between violence and what we eat: Research with British and US offenders suggests nutritional deficiencies may play a key role in aggressive behaviour"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/17/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime

Also, if the brains of the masses are dulled in the 21st century, it is in large part because the "best" put in place systems to make them that way through compulsory schooling; see John Taylor Gatto's writings:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit?"

How much our resources do you think are currently consumed by guarding, competition, and warfare? I'd suggest over 90%... See for example:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
"Only a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages. Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five percent of the work then being done -- presumably the figure, if accurate, is lower now -- would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter. Theirs was only an educated guess but the main point is quite clear: directly or indirectly, most work serves the unproductive purposes of commerce or social control. Right off the bat we can liberate tens of millions of salesmen, soldiers, managers, cops, stockbrokers, clergymen, bankers, lawyers, teachers, landlords, security guards, ad-men and everyone who works for them. Ther

As I suggest here, the solar system does not have enough people: :-)
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-August/004174.html

As Julian Simon suggests, the more people, the more creative ideas:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

How else would we get the idea to grind up rock to fertilize soil?
http://www.remineralize.org/

Or to make solar power cheaper than coal?
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/

Or to invent the computer mouse?
http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/vision-highlights.html

Or to create terrific participatory democracies?
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/08/25/german_usa_working_life_ext2010

Or to move beyond war by thinking better?
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430
http://www.anwot.org/

Or maybe even to have cold fusion?
http://pesn.com/2011/09/14/9501913_Rossis_One_Megawatt_Reactor_Gets_A_New_E-Cat_Model/

The human imagination (empowered by education and health and access to basic resources) is indeed the ultimate resource.

Thanks for the challenging reply. And you indeed have a good point about cells and gravity, although mammals spin around so much, it's not clear how essential that is. More research is needed.

I think you have not yet gotten the mindshift about post-scarcity though, sorry. Even regular economics can take us very far with enough cheap energy, that we almost certainly will have soon from fusion or thorium power if nothing else:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR06.txt

"It's been shown over and over that giving out hand-outs encourages abuse and laziness."

What would you say if someone said you had to start paying $10,000 a month for breathable air supply? You'd say that was not fair, right? You would question the "mythology" behind that enclosure of the atmospheric commons you depend on, right?
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

So, why should you have to pay for access to the fruits of industrial commons and agricultural commons given the government has said all the land has been privatized (or is government owned and effectively off-limits for personal use)?

A basic income is a right, not a hand-out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
"Douglas disagreed with classical economists who divided the factors of production into only land, labour and capital. While Douglas did not deny these factors in production, he believed the âoecultural inheritance of societyâ was the primary factor. Cultural inheritance is defined as the knowledge, technique and processes that have been handed down to us incrementally from the origins of civilization. Consequently, mankind does not have to keep âoereinventing the wheelâ. âoeWe are merely the administrators of that cultural inheritance, and to that extent the cultural inheritance is the property of all of us, without exception.â"

So, sure, some of wealth is work. But most is not. So, one half the GDP could be a basic income, and the other half would motivate those who needed motivating by money. That would be a basic income of US$2000 per month per citizen, leaving a GDP from 1993 or so to motivate those who needed motivation. Weren't people motivated enough to do a lot of stuff in 1993?

Also, when welfare is only for the sick and disabled, you get "jurisgenic disease" from only getting money when you seem sick or disabled, so you have an incentive to think that way. It's very sad.

On motivation in the information age:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html

On moving beyond money:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

People help children. Does that destroy them? Eventually, they want to contribute to their communities (most of them, eventually, if they are not sick physically or mentally in some way).

Our society is becoming so productive that it only takes a very few to provide for the many, given technology is an amplifier. It may take thousands of people to contribute to Debian GNU/Linux, but it provide software for billions of people. Related by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html

On how robots (or AI or better design or voluntary social networks) are going

Thanks for the challenging reply. And you indeed have a good point about cells and gravity, although mammals spin around so much, it's not clear how essential that is. More research is needed.

I think you have not yet gotten the mindshift about post-scarcity though, sorry. Even regular economics can take us very far with enough cheap energy, that we almost certainly will have soon from fusion or thorium power if nothing else:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR06.txt

"It's been shown over and over that giving out hand-outs encourages abuse and laziness."

What would you say if someone said you had to start paying $10,000 a month for breathable air supply? You'd say that was not fair, right? You would question the "mythology" behind that enclosure of the atmospheric commons you depend on, right?
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

So, why should you have to pay for access to the fruits of industrial commons and agricultural commons given the government has said all the land has been privatized (or is government owned and effectively off-limits for personal use)?

A basic income is a right, not a hand-out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
"Douglas disagreed with classical economists who divided the factors of production into only land, labour and capital. While Douglas did not deny these factors in production, he believed the âoecultural inheritance of societyâ was the primary factor. Cultural inheritance is defined as the knowledge, technique and processes that have been handed down to us incrementally from the origins of civilization. Consequently, mankind does not have to keep âoereinventing the wheelâ. âoeWe are merely the administrators of that cultural inheritance, and to that extent the cultural inheritance is the property of all of us, without exception.â"

So, sure, some of wealth is work. But most is not. So, one half the GDP could be a basic income, and the other half would motivate those who needed motivating by money. That would be a basic income of US$2000 per month per citizen, leaving a GDP from 1993 or so to motivate those who needed motivation. Weren't people motivated enough to do a lot of stuff in 1993?

Also, when welfare is only for the sick and disabled, you get "jurisgenic disease" from only getting money when you seem sick or disabled, so you have an incentive to think that way. It's very sad.

On motivation in the information age:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html

On moving beyond money:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

People help children. Does that destroy them? Eventually, they want to contribute to their communities (most of them, eventually, if they are not sick physically or mentally in some way).

Our society is becoming so productive that it only takes a very few to provide for the many, given technology is an amplifier. It may take thousands of people to contribute to Debian GNU/Linux, but it provide software for billions of people. Related by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html

On how robots (or AI or better design or voluntary social networks) are going

"Obviously, in China, young people carry their old people like burdens while they're trying to manage their own families. That's not so great, either."

When people have six kids or so, it is not as much of a burden when the kids carry the elderly. Part of the problem is we are experiencing a "Peak Population" crisis.
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-August/004174.html

But Japan aims to solve that with robotics...

Thanks for being part of making the 1980s happen!

My wife and our little "labor of love" venture in the 1990s:
    http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/

Sorry about your loss.

Health tips by me, the most important of which for most technology people is curing vitamin D deficiency (and which I could only learn about by hypertext-supporting networks and Google):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2478380&cid=37734208

There are plenty of resources to go around though, especially when you consider we could support quadrillions of people in space habitats in the solar system. But some causes for optimism:
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.nist.gov/el/msid/dpg/slim.cfm

And maybe even:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/17/hello-cheap-energy-hello-brave-new-world/

If we had any real resource problems, why are so many people out of work? :-)

Real solutions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
http://knol.google.com/k/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#

The human imagination is truly the "ultimate resource", so the more the merrier IMHO: :-)
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

You've of course read "True Names" no doubt about what an older woman is up to on the net: :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names

Right now about 50% of US land goes to produce animal products which are overall killing us with bad fats:
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://peakperformance.runnersworld.com/2011/05/may-9-the-great-fat-debate-does-the-total-fat-in-your-diet-matter.html
http://nutsci.org/2011/05/04/the-great-fat-debate/
http://www.adajournal.org/article/S0002-8223(11)00291-4/fulltext
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

And we can always grow food indoors using cheap energy and rock dust:
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR06.txt
"Why is the Food Outlook Made to Seem Gloomy?"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/17/hello-cheap-energy-hello-brave-new-world/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

In general, people living longer is not going to have as much effect on the population as how many kids people have -- and that amount is falling with industrialization; in Italy, every woman has about 1.2 kids but would need to have 2.1 kids to keep the population from declining. The entire industrialized world has this problem (but not as bad as Italy in most places).

Just think of all the people around to pass on wisdom to the next generation.

Right now about 50% of US land goes to produce animal products which are overall killing us with bad fats:
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://peakperformance.runnersworld.com/2011/05/may-9-the-great-fat-debate-does-the-total-fat-in-your-diet-matter.html
http://nutsci.org/2011/05/04/the-great-fat-debate/
http://www.adajournal.org/article/S0002-8223(11)00291-4/fulltext
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

And we can always grow food indoors using cheap energy and rock dust:
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR06.txt
"Why is the Food Outlook Made to Seem Gloomy?"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/10/17/hello-cheap-energy-hello-brave-new-world/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

In general, people living longer is not going to have as much effect on the population as how many kids people have -- and that amount is falling with industrialization; in Italy, every woman has about 1.2 kids but would need to have 2.1 kids to keep the population from declining. The entire industrialized world has this problem (but not as bad as Italy in most places).

Just think of all the people around to pass on wisdom to the next generation.

http://unbridledspeculation.com/2011/06/09/solar-cheaper-than-coal-in-3-5-years-ge-and-first-solar-think-so/
http://unbridledspeculation.com/2011/03/17/the-exponential-gains-in-solar-power-per-dollar/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR11.txt

We can make synthetic fuels from solar energy:
    http://unbridledspeculation.com/2011/06/09/solar-cheaper-than-coal-in-3-5-years-ge-and-first-solar-think-so/
    http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR11.txt