Another Nobel Prize for something that could be useful.

http://blog.sethroberts.net/20...

The law of supply and demand does not manifest itself at light speed. I don't think it's a given that an economic feedback loop would operate in time to prevent an ecological disaster. Especially when numerous interventions, political or otherwise, are utilized as stop gap measures that forestall the immediate negative consequences to the consumer but only worsen the ecological consequences for humanity. Population blooms and crashes happen all the time, I don't know that humans are necessarily immune to it. From a systems perspective it is entirely possible that the negative feedback loop that can prevent resource depletion is entirely overwhelmed by numerous positive feedback loops that 21st century humans are more attuned to.

Roman roads were not equaled until the 19th century. Aqueducts were built to a tolerance that was not achieved again until modern times. Indoor plumbing was lost for over 1000 years. 2000 year old breakwaters made of Roman concrete surpass anything we have today. Current Portland cement lasts about 50 years in salt water. The Greeks had nearly built a steam engine before their civilization collapsed and their knowledge wasn't surpassed until the 17th century.

With a decay in current infrastructure we would lose technological knowledge at a rapid rate. There are scientific advances today that perhaps a few dozen people in the world understand. The level of specialization in modern society is such that most of the technology that people use is not understood. Most people can't fix their own bicycles. If modern day support, money, and infrastructure is removed, we would lose a vast amount of knowledge within only a generation. I dunno, I think the perpetuation of knowledge is much more than figuring out how to power a solid state hard drive.

Well, that's a pretty decent point. The only thing I can really offer in response is that learning to do more with less has a number of personal benefits outside of some utopian idea that if everyone does it we'll be able to sustain our existence forever.

It seems that people can put three things toward any problem: time, skill, or money. Most people work so much and with such a specific set of skills that they have neither the time nor the skill to solve anything else.So they throw money at it. Having more time or a wider array of competencies sacrifices efficiency for resiliency, but I would say that in an economy of increasingly scarce resources (which seems like where we're headed) resiliency will probably have a pretty high value. Now whether one, today, can tell themselves that it's more fulfilling (of greater value) to have the time and skill to fix problems on their own rather than throw money at it (or petition the government to throw money at it) is probably pretty variable and likely requires a fair amount of self-reflection.

I will say that spending less money (and I'm conflating this with consuming fewer resources which maybe isn't completely accurate but I think so) does not necessarily entail poverty or a lower standard of living. People have numerous types of capital (social, intellectual) such that the people living below the poverty line (around 11k I think in the US) which I suppose I am one of are not necessarily impoverished. The truly impoverished are probably like that for a greater variety of reasons than the fact that they have less than 11k to spend on things.

And I think you're right. The world as a whole will not voluntarily go back to pre-Industrial times. But the individual can do things today such that when it's forced on them (should it happen in their lifetime) they are potentially less affected or less vulnerable.

It's interesting to see the amount of vitriol heaped upon Taco Cowboy. I don't think he was telling you that you should be forced to change your lifestyle. He was questioning it. Which is pretty much all slashdot does-question things. And keep in mind, I'm not responding only to you but to the whole host of responses above yours as well.

I think many humans assume that they (as a species) are exceptional and exempt from the laws of nature. This belief has been strengthened by our stunning growth, progress, and dominance since the Renaissance and through the Industrial Age. But there are two catalysts for this growth that are important to consider:

The size of the world literally doubled when Columbus discovered the New World. This doubling provided a vital but transitory safety valve for an overpopulated Europe. The planet will likely not double again.

Fossil fuels began to be used and are now burned at a rate greater than 10,000x their rate of formation. This gave the world a temporarily greater carrying capacity that has subsequently been utilized. It allowed for advances in transportation, resource extraction, globalization, and agricultural production that cannot be sustained without an easily transportable, energy dense fuel source.

But in our dominance, we have also changed the environment that allowed such things; we have taken the opportunity of cheap, abundant energy to not only massively increase our population but to increase the amount of energy per capita required to exist. We clothe ourselves, we build houses and insulate them, we install central heating and air conditioning and connect these sort of human-technological adaptations by a vast network of roadways and railroads and airports. Genetic adaptation in some sense becomes unnecessary given the rate at which cultural adaptation can occur to solve the same problems. But what allowed us to so quickly overcome our environment, technology and cultural transmission of adaptation, also allowed us to quickly and massively overshoot any naturally occurring mechanisms of negative feedback and stabilization. The traditional roles and occupations continually become oversaturated and diversification occurs. But because this increased capacity for diversification is dependent on the draw down of nonrenewable sources, they are niches in what can really only be described as “detritus ecosystem.” And the cycle of a detritus ecosystem is a magnificent bloom and crash based on the plentiful but quickly exhausted and finite availability of nutrients. We are functioning in the manner of algae blooms and yeast cells in a vat of wine.

Honestly, man will probably stop changing its environment only when it ceases to exist, no matter what we do. I'm really not making a moral judgment. It's just the circumstances we are in. But to say this guy is a Nazi because he suggests today's current cars are wasteful or to reduce his argument to one arguing for the forced reduction of the human population seems a bit hysterical.

Yeah, I do think we have too many people for the world to sustain. Especially if they all want to live like Americans. The answer is probably not to sterilize them, but maybe Americans can reduce their standard of living.