Further I would say that Marx knew this himself. This is why he never joined the final dots for his utopia. What he wanted to do was get rid of a cadre of bloody handed bastards in society, the aristocracy, at which he was more or less successful. He knew full well there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and he didn't care.
It's like the food issue, there's a huge surplus of the stuff, but that doesn't matter because these poor countries are run by corrupt governments and dictators. It wouldn't matter if we did have the infrastructure, they wouldn't be given the opportunity to take advantage of it. However within 50-100 years I would expect that to change, there are significant forces at work to make that happen. Compare and contrast the EU neighbourhood policy maps with the Arab spring maps for example.
Your assertion that existing tech is not enough is incorrect; existing infrastructure is not enough, but that's a whole other issue to the technological ability to do it. There is no physical reason why everyone on earth could not enjoy the same lifestyle as the average American, we have resources out the wazoo. There are economic and political reasons aplenty though, although these happily are being reduced year by year.
The current infrastructure is indeed up to it. It won't be up to it in 50 years, which is why these changes are happening. If it was the case that they wouldn't be up to it in five years, efforts would be adjusted accordingly.
Your point was, and I quote "The key implication I'd hope you take away from this is that humans use a lot more land than just the square feet they are standing on" which while a valid reason why you wouldn't want to move everyone into Texas, has very little value outside that argument, which isn't really an argument since nobody is seriously suggesting putting everyone into Texas.
So in short, you defeated an argument no one was making.
We don't need to change/improve the tech, we already have the tech. We also don't need to change the policies, the policies are what are causing the change. It's taking so long in order to not cause massive economic problems, not least of which is paying for the enormous infrastructure needed. A steady improvement in lifestyles globally is likewise taking place, and I look forward to the day when everyone can enjoy a western European lifestyle. As others have pointed out to you, the Texas thing is an illustration, an illustration of the point that the world is very far from overpopulated.
I even stated that was not what was beng proposed in the post you are responding to. This indicates to me that you have an agenda and are unwilling to listen to facts. However, in the event that you do remain open to persuasion, please reference the Desertec Foundation, and others who have run the numbers. This is not going to be an overnight process, it will take decades, but each year the amount of renewable capacity climbs. By 2100 our grandchildren will view the age of coal, gas, and oil in the same way we view the age of steam.
That really is some twisted logic there. The problem isn't poor people having children, it's crap allocation of resources caused by dictators and whatnot.
Don't need oil, really, the aquifers are fine in most parts of the world, fisheries are a problem but we don't require fish, eroded topsoil/coastal salt, again not really a problem for most, and energy is plentiful, we're drowning in the stuff. Can't speak for the idiots though.:p
Sorry, no. Covering two percent of the unused portions of the Sahara with photovoltaics would provide all the energy the world needs. And once you have the energy, everything else follows. Please note, just like the Texas thing, I'm not actually proposing doing that, it's a example to highlight the point.
We aren't running out of resources though. There's plenty of food, energy and fresh water to go round. The Texas thing is just to illustrate a point, if you wanted to take it to its logical conclusion, you could just postulate something like Mega City One there, in half a percent the area of Texas, two hundred storeys high, which might actually end up being pretty comfortable.
sarah palin worships atan and eats babies also get over two thousand results, and Google prompts you with the question, "do you mean sarah palin worships satan and eats babies?" The search results do not mean what you think they mean.
The reason is the display. It really does look like paper. The e-ink name isn't bullshit, it really does work like ink and is fully reflective. The battery life is also really nice. It is a device that doesn't have to be plugged in every day.
This, a hundred times this. If they can get the contrast looking like real paper, make it in colour, slap in a solar charger somewhere and ruggedise it, I'll buy three on the spot.
Awww that's a pity. It kinda hits all my cyberpunk buttons, I was just about ready to jack in and do a netrun for the latest blueprints. Sure the rest of the group may have been sitting around twiddling their thumbs for half an hour, but I call that a feature.
There was another story from the same Wadha guy a short while ago, about age bias in IT? Looks a bit like someone might be hitting on easy tech hot button talking points to get their name out there.
Big of him to make bold claims backed by other people's money. This whole thing reeks of some two bit hack trying to gain some fame on the back of the Tesla.
humans are acting like an all powerfull make/break switch for the evolution of other species.
What other species? It took billions of years for something to evolve whose main priority wasn't finding something edible, how many more billions of years would it take if mankind were to vanish? And guess what happens then, the sun puffs up and all of your species are dust on the interstellar winds, forever.
Like it or not, humanity is the last best chance for earth based biodiversity to survive.
With signal attenuation and the fact that we really don't use powerful transmitters for communications, it's unlikely that anyone beyond a handful of light years would have picked up anything unusual, and even then only if they were listening on a very specific set of frequencies pointed precisely in our direction.
It's not popular, it's just a few brainwashed sociopaths who would have latched onto something else anyway if environmentalism wasn't giving them a justification (in their own minds) for their warped world view.
Slashdot Mirror
Further I would say that Marx knew this himself. This is why he never joined the final dots for his utopia. What he wanted to do was get rid of a cadre of bloody handed bastards in society, the aristocracy, at which he was more or less successful. He knew full well there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and he didn't care.
It's like the food issue, there's a huge surplus of the stuff, but that doesn't matter because these poor countries are run by corrupt governments and dictators. It wouldn't matter if we did have the infrastructure, they wouldn't be given the opportunity to take advantage of it. However within 50-100 years I would expect that to change, there are significant forces at work to make that happen. Compare and contrast the EU neighbourhood policy maps with the Arab spring maps for example.
Your assertion that existing tech is not enough is incorrect; existing infrastructure is not enough, but that's a whole other issue to the technological ability to do it. There is no physical reason why everyone on earth could not enjoy the same lifestyle as the average American, we have resources out the wazoo. There are economic and political reasons aplenty though, although these happily are being reduced year by year.
The current infrastructure is indeed up to it. It won't be up to it in 50 years, which is why these changes are happening. If it was the case that they wouldn't be up to it in five years, efforts would be adjusted accordingly.
Your point was, and I quote "The key implication I'd hope you take away from this is that humans use a lot more land than just the square feet they are standing on" which while a valid reason why you wouldn't want to move everyone into Texas, has very little value outside that argument, which isn't really an argument since nobody is seriously suggesting putting everyone into Texas.
So in short, you defeated an argument no one was making.
We don't need to change/improve the tech, we already have the tech. We also don't need to change the policies, the policies are what are causing the change. It's taking so long in order to not cause massive economic problems, not least of which is paying for the enormous infrastructure needed. A steady improvement in lifestyles globally is likewise taking place, and I look forward to the day when everyone can enjoy a western European lifestyle. As others have pointed out to you, the Texas thing is an illustration, an illustration of the point that the world is very far from overpopulated.
I even stated that was not what was beng proposed in the post you are responding to. This indicates to me that you have an agenda and are unwilling to listen to facts. However, in the event that you do remain open to persuasion, please reference the Desertec Foundation, and others who have run the numbers. This is not going to be an overnight process, it will take decades, but each year the amount of renewable capacity climbs. By 2100 our grandchildren will view the age of coal, gas, and oil in the same way we view the age of steam.
XKCD called and wants it's exponential fallacy back.
That really is some twisted logic there. The problem isn't poor people having children, it's crap allocation of resources caused by dictators and whatnot.
Don't need oil, really, the aquifers are fine in most parts of the world, fisheries are a problem but we don't require fish, eroded topsoil/coastal salt, again not really a problem for most, and energy is plentiful, we're drowning in the stuff. Can't speak for the idiots though. :p
Sorry, no. Covering two percent of the unused portions of the Sahara with photovoltaics would provide all the energy the world needs. And once you have the energy, everything else follows. Please note, just like the Texas thing, I'm not actually proposing doing that, it's a example to highlight the point.
Yes, because the world was a paradise of peaceful coexistence when the population was only 700 million.
People were living in harsh subsistence existences long before the population hit seven billion.
We aren't running out of resources though. There's plenty of food, energy and fresh water to go round. The Texas thing is just to illustrate a point, if you wanted to take it to its logical conclusion, you could just postulate something like Mega City One there, in half a percent the area of Texas, two hundred storeys high, which might actually end up being pretty comfortable.
sarah palin worships atan and eats babies also get over two thousand results, and Google prompts you with the question, "do you mean sarah palin worships satan and eats babies?" The search results do not mean what you think they mean.
The reason is the display. It really does look like paper. The e-ink name isn't bullshit, it really does work like ink and is fully reflective. The battery life is also really nice. It is a device that doesn't have to be plugged in every day.
This, a hundred times this. If they can get the contrast looking like real paper, make it in colour, slap in a solar charger somewhere and ruggedise it, I'll buy three on the spot.
Awww that's a pity. It kinda hits all my cyberpunk buttons, I was just about ready to jack in and do a netrun for the latest blueprints. Sure the rest of the group may have been sitting around twiddling their thumbs for half an hour, but I call that a feature.
You can never stop the signal.
There was another story from the same Wadha guy a short while ago, about age bias in IT? Looks a bit like someone might be hitting on easy tech hot button talking points to get their name out there.
Anyways, fuck you, back to packing for me.
That's the New Yawk spirit! :D
Big of him to make bold claims backed by other people's money. This whole thing reeks of some two bit hack trying to gain some fame on the back of the Tesla.
Insightful...
Any chance of a car analogy? /blankstare
I didn't say environmentalism was the problem, it's the sociopaths hanging off the bottom of it that are the problem.
humans are acting like an all powerfull make/break switch for the evolution of other species.
What other species? It took billions of years for something to evolve whose main priority wasn't finding something edible, how many more billions of years would it take if mankind were to vanish? And guess what happens then, the sun puffs up and all of your species are dust on the interstellar winds, forever.
Like it or not, humanity is the last best chance for earth based biodiversity to survive.
With signal attenuation and the fact that we really don't use powerful transmitters for communications, it's unlikely that anyone beyond a handful of light years would have picked up anything unusual, and even then only if they were listening on a very specific set of frequencies pointed precisely in our direction.
It's not popular, it's just a few brainwashed sociopaths who would have latched onto something else anyway if environmentalism wasn't giving them a justification (in their own minds) for their warped world view.