The answer to the headline is an emphatic "No."<p>> Unlike fossil fuels, human power can be a clean energy source, and its potential increases as the human population grows.<p>It's the opposite: Human power cannot feed the 7.5 billion people and growing. You <i>need</i> ammonia and (right now) oil, and lots of it. When we "scaled up" humanity, we left human power long behind as an option for any but a few hundred million. Just the food part alone is impossible.<p>They then segue into a different question: "if human power can sustain a modern lifestyle", but even then they don't mean modern food requirements, they really just mean "can humans keep the lights on in the one building they are in."<p>> A human powered student community has enormous potential for a reduction in energy use.<p>This is a complete misunderstanding of just <i>how much energy</i> gets the people in the Netherlands their... say avocados. Thinking of your energy consumption as lights in your building is so very off.<p>I recently wrote a counter-point essay to the headline's topic, how technology is now a moral necessity just to keep humanity treading water, and how oil set off a Malthusian time-bomb.<p><a href="https://hackernoon.com/the-moral-technology-6413ca8449c9" rel="nofollow">https://hackernoon.com/the-moral-technology-6413ca8449c9</a>