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Why most resources don't run out

48 点作者 troystribling大约 11 年前

15 条评论

jal278大约 11 年前
There&#x27;s a seemingly reasonable fallacy embedded in the argument that so far technology has been able to dig us out of the holes that it itself digs: That past performance is indicative of the future. Of course, the past often does predict the future -- yet, we can&#x27;t bank on it, because there are sometimes qualitative shifts, and exceptions.<p>The problem with hoping that technology will solve climate change before it happens, is that we&#x27;re gambling something we can&#x27;t afford to lose. So, it may well be the case that we do solve the problem -- but what if we don&#x27;t? There are limits to technology, after all.<p>To me, the danger in placing excessive faith in technology is that it can bypass our critical thinking. For example, right now our own technology (nuclear weapons, or biological weapons as that technology develops) is the greatest threat to humanity&#x27;s existence. So while technology is a great thing, it may well be our species undoing rather than its savior -- at least until (if) we survive long enough to colonize other planets or enhance our own morality such that we can handle the responsibility our technology demands.
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ebbv大约 11 年前
This view is so childish it is only taken seriously by those who already agree with it.<p>&gt; Ecologists can&#x27;t seem to see that when whale oil starts to run out, petroleum is discovered<p>But not before many types of whale were nearly wiped out, and may yet go extinct.<p>&gt; or that when farm yields flatten, fertilizer comes along,<p>What? Fertilizers have been known for centuries. Modern fertilizers are hardly a panacea. They come with costs of their own.<p>&gt; or that when glass fiber is invented, demand for copper falls.<p>This has nothing to do with any of the other arguments, and demand for copper is still high enough that people are stripping it out of vacant buildings via breaking and entering. Risking injury, jail time and even death.<p>&gt; But optimists see economic growth leading to technological change that would result in the use of lower-carbon energy. That would allow warming to level off long before it does much harm.<p>It&#x27;s pretty obvious if you look objectively at the data that &quot;much harm&quot; has already been done.<p>This blog post is the epitome of biased garbage.
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vsbuffalo大约 11 年前
&gt; But thanks to fracking and the shale revolution, peak oil and gas have been postponed. They will run out one day, but only in the sense that you will run out of Atlantic Ocean one day if you take a rowboat west out of a harbor in Ireland.<p>As an economist, how can the author not see that the hidden environmental costs are growing? As markets demand natural gas within a cost range while resources are limited, the solution becomes to pass this cost off on the environment. The environment doesn&#x27;t have a powerful advocacy and can&#x27;t fight back.<p>I am disappointed that economists buy these models so readily without doing real accounting as to <i>all</i> costs. I think this is a problem in modern economics — we can easily measure monetary costs through accounting and prices, but other costs are hard to measure so the model treats them as residuals. Then, they run predictions with their models that completely ignore environmental costs. Don&#x27;t argue markets don&#x27;t have a cost on the environment when you&#x27;ve failed to include environmental costs in your models.
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mkempe大约 11 年前
Two fundamental arguments of the thesis that we will not &quot;run out&quot; of natural resources for productive purpose have been made eloquently in:<p>- The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon [1] --the human mind has limitless potential to select and pursue the use of materials; and<p>- Capitalism by George Reisman [2] -- the phenomenon of price responds to actual supply and demand, and prompts profit-seekers to develop and switch production accordingly.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691003815" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0691003815</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0084RU67S" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B0084RU67S</a>, see Part One, Chapter 3
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beat大约 11 年前
Interesting to dovetail that against the recent top article here that we are reaching the end of the antibiotics era. I hope we have a replacement for fossil fuel when the time comes, but I worry about too much &quot;rational optimism&quot;. Tragedy of the Commons is a real thing, and Pangloss was sarcasm, not a role model.
coldtea大约 11 年前
&quot;Rational opimist&quot;? Sounds rather dellusional to me, one of those guys that made a religion out of science and&#x2F;or technology.<p>&gt;<i>&quot;But here&#x27;s a peculiar feature of human history: We burst through such limits again and again.&quot;</i><p>Yeah, just like Bertrand Russel&#x27;s inductivist (and rational optimist) turkey:<p>The turkey found that, on his first morning at the turkey farm, he was fed at 9 a.m. Being a good inductivist turkey he did not jump to conclusions. He waited until he collected a large number of observations that he was fed at 9 a.m. and made these observations under a wide range of circumstances, on Wednesdays, on Thursdays, on cold days, on warm days. Each day he added another observation statement to his list. Finally he was satisfied that he had collected a number of observation statements to inductively infer that “I am always fed at 9 a.m.”.<p>However on the morning of Christmas eve he was not fed but instead had his throat cut.
facepalm大约 11 年前
- Catastrophes happened in the past that killed lots of people. Technology did not always save our ass<p>- Read &quot;Collapse&quot;<p>- What about resources like housing? It sounds to me as if housing in SF has run out? Build lots of skyscrapers everywhere? Then what about sunlight in your apartment?
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thunderbong大约 11 年前
Finally. Someone who makes sane and balanced points rather than take a binary position.
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znull大约 11 年前
You want to settle a dispute between economists and ecologists? Ask a physicist: <a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/about-this-blog/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;physics.ucsd.edu&#x2F;do-the-math&#x2F;about-this-blog&#x2F;</a>
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ForHackernews大约 11 年前
Just because things have worked out in the past doesn&#x27;t mean they always will. Despair might actually be the correct response: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-he-feels-fine.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;04&#x2F;20&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;its-the-end-of-th...</a>
hxrts大约 11 年前
Time lag is a critical issue that needs to be accounted for. If we assume that innovation will mediate the worst effects of global warming then we neglect the possibility that forcing conditions created today may have consequences that manifest themselves over the next 20 or 50 years. Global warming is not like any problem that humanity has ever had to confront and it&#x27;s dangerous to wave away the scale and complexity of the problem as something innovation will eventually rectify.
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sharemywin大约 11 年前
I think if you combine vertical farms with nuclear fusion the skies the limit. As long as we can get fusion to work. otherwise we better hope solar and battery prices drop enough to leave coal in the dust.
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sharemywin大约 11 年前
I think if you combine vertical farms with nuclear fusion the skies the limit.
danford大约 11 年前
So in short: The free market will save us.
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lasermike026大约 11 年前
Must man destroy everything?
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