[Rusty Chopper said:
Communism, obviously, being the only form of society more retarded than capitalism.
Capitalism is unsustainable *by definition* on the long-term. Communism is unsustainable on the short term.
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Communism, obviously, being the only form of society more retarded than capitalism.
Capitalism is unsustainable *by definition* on the long-term. Communism is unsustainable on the short term.
John Uskglass
Venerable Relic of the Wastes
How long are we talking?
John Uskglass said:
Theoretically? A very long time. The growth has to end somewhere
Practically? 10 years min, 500 years tops. Running out of fuel and space on earth means the growth has to stop somewhere, and I doubt that asteroid mining or colonization of other planets is going to be achievable in the next few years.
John Uskglass
Venerable Relic of the Wastes
Running out of fuel is a possibility, not an inevitability, and running out of space on earth? Not for a while.
Rickhardslab
First time out of the vault
The human race has been very good at moving to other locations where more resources are. I've had my suitcase packed for Mars for some time now.
John Uskglass said:
Running out of fuel in the capitalist system is an inevitability (even if the world population stood at 1000) and not a possibility, the only way to avoid it being to stop using it, which is the same in effect as using it all up.
Unless you believe the great Xenu's mass-murder of aliens on earth has actually implanted a infinite-oil-making-machine deep under the earth's crust? You don't? Then the above is an inevitability.
Running out of space is not that difficult, within the capitalist system. The problem is not, again, the amount of people in dirrect corelation, though...
3 billion Asians we can survive, easy. 3 billion Asians all wanting a car we can't. QED.
See, the problem is that sociologically even within our current system our "needed growth" is finite. That's not a problem, though it becomes a problem when even over-populated countries feel the pressure to keep breathing because of some internatonal competition-bullcrap.
Economic growth is never finite inside our capitalist system, which means that even if our numbers stop multiplying we still need to grow for the system to maintain itself. By 3% a year, mind you, whereas the world population growth rate is only about 1.2%, guess which one is the bigger problem?
PS: about the "what about other planets?"-thing, I'll hold off on that one until we at least discover one that might be mildly useful, let alone travel to it. Besides, since the universe is finite, so are its resources, just on a grander scale.
I agree there there is some cause to be optimistic, as humans have proven remarkably able in the cause of continued growth. There is cause to be optimistic with alternatives. Tha major ones now are nuclear, mechinized natural energy gatherers, hydrogen, and thermal depolymerization. While each could potentially keep the light running, none have the flexibility and ease of use that oil does. It's fair to say we could possibly maintain a modern-ish society on them, we'd at the very least have to say goodbye to most air travel and plastics.
The problems:
Nuclear: Requires extensive political turn-around. Suffers from the problem of build time, if we start building them the year we run out of oil there won't be enough oil to finish them. Starting now doesn't seem to be happening. Would keep the lights on, but no more cars or planes or basic mining operations could continue, (required for nuclear fuel) short of lightyear progress in batteries.
Mechinized natural-energy gatherers: (windmills, solar panels) Like nuclear, could keep the lights on. Like nuclear, requires a ton of oil-based contruction costs. Start now or never.
Hydrogen: Joke in current form. Requires rediculous amounts of energy. You know how you slosh a little gas every now and then at the gas station? Imagine if the gas floated around you in a little cloud of explosive. Could work, but requires MASSIVE re-tooling. And once we get to the point that oil prices are 400%, 500% of current prices, who knows if people will be able to get the new hydrogen engines to their cars.
Thermal de-Polymerization: Interesting new technology, that I talked to someone about recently. Melts garbage in a oxygen free environment with a plasma torch to reduce it to solid slag, and the heated gas runoff generates enough energy to run the facilty plus enough juice for 7,000 homes, for each facility that can process 100 tons of garbage a day. Downsides include fuel supply (can you say fleet of mac trucks?) and the fact that digging out the garbage will be hard.
To conclude: Lots of things that can prevent Mad MAx from happening, but theres nothing in the works currently that can replace petroleum perfectly.
The problems:
Nuclear: Requires extensive political turn-around. Suffers from the problem of build time, if we start building them the year we run out of oil there won't be enough oil to finish them. Starting now doesn't seem to be happening. Would keep the lights on, but no more cars or planes or basic mining operations could continue, (required for nuclear fuel) short of lightyear progress in batteries.
Mechinized natural-energy gatherers: (windmills, solar panels) Like nuclear, could keep the lights on. Like nuclear, requires a ton of oil-based contruction costs. Start now or never.
Hydrogen: Joke in current form. Requires rediculous amounts of energy. You know how you slosh a little gas every now and then at the gas station? Imagine if the gas floated around you in a little cloud of explosive. Could work, but requires MASSIVE re-tooling. And once we get to the point that oil prices are 400%, 500% of current prices, who knows if people will be able to get the new hydrogen engines to their cars.
Thermal de-Polymerization: Interesting new technology, that I talked to someone about recently. Melts garbage in a oxygen free environment with a plasma torch to reduce it to solid slag, and the heated gas runoff generates enough energy to run the facilty plus enough juice for 7,000 homes, for each facility that can process 100 tons of garbage a day. Downsides include fuel supply (can you say fleet of mac trucks?) and the fact that digging out the garbage will be hard.
To conclude: Lots of things that can prevent Mad MAx from happening, but theres nothing in the works currently that can replace petroleum perfectly.