[obastani]

> So, the 2% growth rate for world energy consumption should be a conservative assumption.

An important caveat: this article assumes that energy consumption will continue to increase exponentially to get the 1000 year timeline of draining the rotational energy of the Earth.

[JumpinJack_Cash]

That better be the case , we are already seeing that if the pie can't grow then we start fighting each other violently to enlarge one's piece of it.

[toomuchtodo]

Conflict over scarce resources is inevitable. When the violence starts, you should be prepared to win (from a nation state perspective).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37122796 | https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/4/3/32

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37313586 | https://medium.com/@samyoureyes/the-busy-workers-handbook-to...

https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/newsroom/country-over...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries

There are 8 billion people in the world, and we’re on track to have 10 by end of century. Which is more likely? Everyone lives like a European (from a consumption perspective)? Or a bunch of people don’t or die while some do?

[adventured]

> Which is more likely? Everyone lives like a European (from a consumption perspective)? Or a bunch of people don’t or die while some do?

There are no systems that can ever be created to actually balance out / eliminate inequality, outside of very small communities operated via extreme authoritarianism.

See: modern Sweden. A formerly highly effective welfare state, increasingly brought to its knees by poor immigrants (and it's going to get a lot worse over the coming decades). They can't remotely handle what's happening to their country in terms of inequality, despite how good they have been historically at managing it. France - also historically effective at managing a high quality of life welfare state - has entirely failed at managing a similar scenario, and for the same reasons.

The exact same principle applies globally as it does locally. It can't be done under any scenario. So yes, vast inequality will persist forever, as it has forever.

The end of inequality is when there are one or fewer humans remaining.

We don't have to guess at likelihoods (will everyone live like a European). The answer is known and certain. Even within Europe half the population can't afford to 'live like a European.'

[bbor]

You have some sources for “Sweden and France are failed countries”? Something tells me that’s not quite an objective take. “Inequality exists now so it will always” is also not the objective scientific take I think you’re implying it to be

[Nemrod67]

just a feeling of insecurity ;)

[hef19898]

At least those people moved on from raping refugees at German christmas markets and new year's eve celebrations. At least it some kind of progress...

[TheSpiceIsLife]

The future is hard to predict.

I'm willing to bet our descendants will be approximately as irrational and lucky as humans have always been.

There's a good chance that at least one of those ten billion are going to have some radically good ideas, and an even better chance than a few more will have some really good ideas.

[JumpinJack_Cash]

Increasing the number of brains won't help if their mental pattern correlation also increases.

People are acting more and more in unison, that means no variability and no room for radically good ideas

[bbor]

Jesus fucking Christ this is depressing. You just brought up how you think genocide inevitable, and you imply that we should start it so that we’ll win?

I don’t think there’s any reason we should take “let’s kill everyone else so we can keep our nice stuff” should make any more sense in 2023 than it has over the last… well, such arguments pop up in all of human history, I guess.

To answer your question: i think it’s more likely that we build an egalitarian global society, or at least continue on the path.

[toomuchtodo]

I didn’t say genocide, I said violence over scarce resources. They are distinct motivators. I also didn’t say to start it, I said to win.

> To answer your question: i think it’s more likely that we build an egalitarian global society, or at least continue on the path.

Good luck with that. Hope is not a strategy, but hopefully the future is not as bleak as the current data predicts. Show me a voter cohort that will willingly give up substantial go forward energy or resource quality of life for people on the other side of the world who they have not nor will never meet. Do you know how many people are dying right now at this moment because their basic needs are not being met? One every 4 seconds per Oxfam. This is before more frequent heat events, crop failures, aquifers reaching terminal depletion, etc.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/humanitarian-organiz...

Agreed it’s (extremely!) depressing, but facts are different than a reality based on feelings. Finding truth is following the facts to the (sometimes) unpleasant places it takes us.

[JumpinJack_Cash]

> > Good luck with that. Hope is not a strategy, but hopefully the future is not as bleak as the current data predicts. Show me a voter cohort that will willingly give up substantial go forward quality of life for people on the other side of the world who they have not nor will never meet.

Voters might never do it, but the guy who wins the Presidency and only has to face voters every 4 years, he starts thinking about Nobel Peace Prize the moment he sets foot in the WH, and to make a legitimate candidacy he needs to be a great humanitarian and/or getting some significant Foreign Policy victories.

Bush 43 took it upon himself to fund a whole lot of malaria and HIV prevention campaigns, and even Trump pursued the defeat of ISIS and normalization of relationships between Israel and the Arab world.