Sure I just wish for ONCE the goal of the hacking zeitgeist on here would be “how do we get around limits to do something good for society” rather than “how do we use our cleverness to exempt ourselves from the rules that enable society?”
Maybe we also accept that some limits can't be surpassed, at least not at an acceptable cost. In my opinion, the world cannot sustainably support so many people. So artificial limits we like to defeat, natural limits are much tougher.
The carrying capacity of earth is likely hundreds of billions of humans, if we were to set our mind to it.
Just to concentrate on food alone: we are barely harvesting anything from the oceans. Even on land, using greenhouses everywhere would give us vastly more agricultural yield.
We are not using greenhouses everywhere right now, because that's a huge capital investment; and given current food prices, it's generally not worth it. But if push came to shove, we could totally do it. (Just like we _could_ totally get rid of fossil fuels, if we really had to and run everything on wind and solar. It's just not economically viable to do that right now.)
There's lots more techniques you can do to produce more calories. For example fusion power could help a lot to power lots of artificial lighting in vertical farms, and to purify sea water. (And even without fusion power, we could generate lots and lots of power from fission with current technology. It's just unpopular.)
> Maybe we also accept that some limits can't be surpassed, at least not at an acceptable cost.
I guess you would say that the suggestions I made above fall under the second clause of unacceptable costs?
Do you mean economic costs or some kind of ethical or moral or metaphysical costs?
I can see how some people might be queasy about putting fission reactors everywhere. But I don't really see anything against Dutch-style greenhouses apart from economic costs?
"The carrying capacity of earth is likely hundreds of billions of humans, if we were to set our mind to it."
I've never seen anything that states that. Link? UN and others estimate 8-12 billion. And none of those estimates are accounting for sustainable population. You say 100s of billions, but with what quality of life? With scare resources comes conflict.
"we are barely harvesting anything from the oceans."
Most major fish stocks are down more than 90%. Farm raised means feed and and antibiotics. Sure we can increase stuff like seaweed consumption, but that's not very significant.
"Even on land, using greenhouses everywhere would give us vastly more agricultural yield."
What are those greenhouses going to be made out of? Petroleum based plastics, glass (CO2 for melting), or cellulose/corn plastic (that requires chemicals that aren't environmentally friendly)? Where are we getting the nutrients? We already use a massive amount of petroleum based nitrogen.
"But if push came to shove, we could totally do it."
No, if push came to shove then people would start literally shoving in the form of a war.
"(Just like we _could_ totally get rid of fossil fuels, if we really had to and run everything on wind and solar. It's just not economically viable to do that right now.)"
That's another unsubstantiated claim. Even the EU says they cannot convert fast enough to get off of Russian gas. Let's see a link that says wind and solar are completely feasible to meet current power demands, including the energy storage required.
"I can see how some people might be queasy about putting fission reactors everywhere."
So are you changing from just the wind and solar mentioned earlier to include nuclear?
> Most major fish stocks are down more than 90%. Farm raised means feed and and antibiotics. Sure we can increase stuff like seaweed consumption, but that's not very significant.
I agree that hunter-gatherer tactics are beyond their limits.
> What are those greenhouses going to be made out of? Petroleum based plastics, glass (CO2 for melting), or cellulose/corn plastic (that requires chemicals that aren't environmentally friendly)? Where are we getting the nutrients? We already use a massive amount of petroleum based nitrogen.
I had mostly glass in mind. But whatever works, works. You can make your glass with any energy source, doesn't have to be CO2 producing.
You can take nitrogen out of the air. Also, the atoms that fertilizers are made of don't get destroyed.. so you can recycle them indefinitely (with some effort). We are also sitting on a huge ball of matter.
You can also use substantially less fertilizers and insecticides in a controlled greenhouse environment, perhaps with drip feeding.
I hope we both agree that those approaches take energy to pull off? So the question is whether humanity can get enough sustainable energy.
> Even the EU says they cannot convert fast enough to get off of Russian gas.
We seems to be talking about different time scales here? Getting off Russian gas is something they'd want to do in the next few months or years at most. I'm talking about decades at the least.
(And, the EU could totally get off Russian gas next month. It would 'just' make energy a lot more expensive at least in the short run, and likely put the EU into a severe recession for a while. That's a more painful than the shame of buying from Russia, so they keep buying from Russia.)
> No, if push came to shove then people would start literally shoving in the form of a war.
I don't think so. But for the sake of argument: a few wars here or there don't have much of an influence on carrying capacity. Unless, of course, the wars are bad enough to kill off a substantial fraction of humanity directly or even just destroy the economy badly enough to kill off indirectly.
(That's something we can argue about, if you want to. But we don't need to argue about a few minor wars.)
> So are you changing from just the wind and solar mentioned earlier to include nuclear?
Sorry for mixing examples. I used fission reactors as an example of non-monetary costs that someone might object to.
I suspect we _could_ run everything on wind and solar (especially if you also add solar in orbit via power satellites), if we really had to. But adding nuclear fission (or fusion) to the mix would allow us a higher standard of living.
> I've never seen anything that states that. Link? UN and others estimate 8-12 billion. And none of those estimates are accounting for sustainable population. You say 100s of billions, but with what quality of life? With scare resources comes conflict.
It's more than reasonable to ask for more background information. Sorry, it's a bit hard to Google for this stuff quickly.
So here are just two links that touch on the topics mentioned:
Also just to clarify: I am arguing that physically and technically we could support vastly more people on earth. I share your fear that people might blow each other up anyway.
There’s no way in the world voters will ever allow you to produce that much housing. There’s already a vast over population on this planet relative to number of shelters
I'm not sure about the latter. But I agree that political considerations are important, and I deliberately ignored them and only talked about technical feasibility.
>Just to concentrate on food alone: we are barely harvesting anything from the oceans.
Just to cite one of of your statements, the oceans have been decimated with countless species extinct and many more on their way there due to overfishing and habitat destruction. The oceans are also filled with industrial chemicals, plastics and have numerous massive "dead zones" due to nitrogen run off from the huge factory farms we run to sustain our massively overpopulated planet.
The suggestion that the earth isn't overpopulated, let alone the idea that the earth could support "hundreds of billions of people" is beyond absurd. We are losing biodiversity among animals, insects, fish and every other form of non human life due directly to massive overpopulation. Saying this ignores the decimation of our ecosystem and the food web that has left our planet teetering on the brink.
You are right that we are past what hunter-gatherer approaches can yield from the ocean. And that we are doing a bad job at protecting the habitat of wild-life.
However, there's vast patches out in the open ocean where almost nothing grows. Mostly because the areas with sunlight (at the top) are not where the minerals are that plants need to grow (mostly the sea floor). See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization for an overview.
If you mind putting fertilizer directly into the open ocean, someone more clever than me can probably work out a scheme for enclosing some water in a giant floating bag, and growing your stuff in there. (Or something much better than this.)
"From April to June 1982, speed was monitored on New
York's Interstate highways, and an 83% noncompliance rate
was found despite extreme penalties"
There was a legendary coast-to-coast race in the 70s, defying the national 55 mph limit:
"Dan Gurney, winner of the 1967 24 hours of Le Mans...won
the second Cannonball in a Sunoco blue Ferrari 365 GTB/4
Daytona. Gurney said, "At no time did we exceed 175 mph"
"In May 2020, Arne Toman, Doug Tabbutt, and spotter
Dunadel Daryoush set the new cannonball record of 25
hours and 39 minutes during the COVID-19 pandemic in a
modified 2016 Audi S6 disguised to look like a Ford
Taurus police interceptor. Police-evasion modifications
included brake light kill-switches, radar detectors,
laser diffusers, CB-radio, and a roof-mounted thermal
camera. Performance modifications included a trunk-
mounted 67-gallon auxiliary fuel cell..."
"JJ McClure, a famous racing driver and team owner
(Reynolds), and Victor Prinzi, his chief mechanic and
sometime co-driver (DeLuise), drive a Dodge Tradesman
ambulance fitted with a NASCAR engine (Hal Needham and
Brock Yates used the same vehicle in the actual 1979
race)."
"...it took two and a half hours to drive there from
Albany. And I was driving from Albany, New York at 2:00
in the morning, burnt from all the travel. Cop stopped me
for doing 62 on a four lane road when there was no one
else in sight. Then the guy gave me a ticket. I was doing
62. And he said, 'We give tickets around here for over-
60.' and I said, 'I can't drive 55.' I grabbed a paper
and a pen..."
Really, (and I just learned this) it says it all that there was a punk album titled as a reaction to "I can't drive 55" called "Double Nickels on the Dime". In Soviet America, the rebels drive 55!
I don't think the commenter you replied to was particularly set on the specific example of a 55 mph speed limit?
In any case, from what you quote here, it seems Americans driving fast occasionally is worthy the stuff of legend? In Germany those speeds would be just another Tuesday.
About half of German Autobahnen famously don't have a speed limit. The recommended speed is 130 km/h (~80 mph).
Of course, petrol costs a lot more in Germany than in the US. In practice, that tends to limit driving much more.
> Of course, petrol costs a lot more in Germany than in the US. In practice, that tends to limit driving much more
Not really. People that drive a lot or like to save money just buy more fuel efficient cars - whenever I read about fuel efficiency of US cars (and bother to convert gallons and miles to units I understand) I am shocked how super inefficient many vehicles on the US market are, especially given that speed limit - likely due to much lower petrol cost.
What you describe is true; but petrol costs still limit driving. If driving was cheaper in Germany, more driving would happen. Especially more faster driving.
>I don't think the commenter you replied to was particularly set on the specific example of a 55 mph speed limit?
I was making a more general point too, and I'm sorry if you took my comment too literally.
In Germany it would be another Tuesday, because it would be legal. Driving fast according to the law doesn't represent the same thing, which is connected to that cultural difference I was observing.
Yes, you still have to drive safely. That's a lot more nebulous than just looking at velocity numbers.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that if you drive fast enough in Germany, and anything happens, the burden of proof shifts: the (extreme) speeder is presumed guilty of causing the accident until proven innocent.
Fun fact, the incident you linked to happened where I grew up.
You will be happy to learn Cannonball Run movie script (also Smokey and the Bandit 2) was written by Brock Yates, original organizer of Cannonball Run :)
For more about the whole philosophy of the movement I recommend:
The change has been notable in recent years. This has always been a very libertarian forum but it's been drifting to the left at an alarming speed. Very dark times for entrepreneurship and society advances indeed.
I don't know how you are using ITT here nor is "criticism of vehicular personal transportation" all that common on this site. It does generate a decent amount of discussion but it isn't the prevailing attitude in my experience.
I also don't understand how that is "left" either.