[DabAsteroid]

Would it matter if humans were also creative of resources, rather than simply consumptive of resources? http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR0...

Our whole evolution up to this point shows that human groups spontaneously evolve patterns of behavior, as well as patterns of training people for that behavior, which tend on balance to lead people to create rather than destroy. Humans are, on net balance, builders rather than destroyers. The evidence is clear: the civilization which our ancestors have bequeathed to us contains more created works than the civilization they were bequeathed.

In short, humankind has evolved into creators and problem-solvers. Our constructive behavior has counted for more than our using-up and destructive behavior, as seen in our increasing length of life and richness of consumption.

This view of the average human as builder conflicts with the view of the average human as destroyer which underlies the thought of many doomsdayers. From the latter view derive such statements as "The U.S. has 5 percent of the population, and uses 40 percent of resources," without reference to the creation of resources by the same U.S. population. (Also involved here is a view of resources as physical quantities waiting for the plucking, rather than as the services that humankind derives from some combination of knowledge with physical conditions.) If one notices only the using-up and destructive activities of humankind, without understanding that constructive patterns of behavior must have been the dominant part of our individual-cum-social nature in order for us to have survived to this point, then it is not surprising that one would arrive at the conclusion that resources will grow scarcer in the future.

[sadfsa]

We don't really create-- we merely transform physical resources from one form to another, increasing total entropy in the process. Because entropy can only increase and never decrease, our creative activities are outweighed by the destruction that is a direct consequence of it.

In other words, the only ways we can be "creative of resources" are to create energy from nothing, create matter from nothing, or to reduce entropy without increasing it elsewhere. All three of these are known to be impossible.

[DabAsteroid]

We don't really create-- we merely transform physical resources from one form to another

If I were to give you an equal mass of rocks in exchange for everything that you own, would you be equally wealthy (equally secure)?

If society were instantly given equal masses of rock and mud in echange for all of the artifacts that it had created over the past 100,000 years, and if in the same instant all of any otherwise technology gains of the past 100,000 years were also lost, would the 6.7 billion people alive today be equally as secure as before that instant change? If not, why not?

If humans have been able, over the past 100,000 years, to transform matter and energy into forms that better serve their security, why might they suddenly no longer be able to do that?

If nothing has been created, the how is it that 6.7 billion people today exist in relatively high security where previously only a handful of thousands could exist and in relatively low security? http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080425101050.cni2ks3...

Regarding energy:

Did our developed energy resources exist before humans created them? Are they imminently running out? Is general entropy imminent?

.

The matter/energy that exists naturally tends to either be too general to best serve human security, or if specific tends to be so in suboptimal directions. Do humans not improve their own security by transforming general and chaotically-specific resources into specific and orderly ones tailored to their own security needs? Are humans running out of general resources and chaos with which to transform into security-enhancing resources? Are humans running out of the creativity that has been driving this 100,000+ -year-long improvement in human security?

[sadfsa]

I'll answer the questions in order:

1: If humans lost all technology today, the vast majority of them would die off within a month, because only modern, high-energy farming can get enough food out of the ground to feed them. However, this high-energy farming is only possible because of oil, which not only transports the food, but provides the pesticides without which insects would be eating instead of humans. (Another finite, nonrenewable natural resource with no possible substitute provides fertilizer, without which our food wouldn't even grow).

2: Because, like other species before them, humans are destined to exhaust the resources on which they depend.

3: Nothing has been created (IOW, entropy has not decreased, and matter and energy are still conserved)-- we're merely better at transforming matter and energy than we used to be.

4: Before our developed energy resources were built, they existed as undeveloped energy resources and raw materials. For example, oil drills are made of steel from the ground, not steel magicked into existence, and they are built to remove oil from the ground, not to create oil out of thoughts.

4a: Since the aforementioned resources are finite, they are most certainly running out. The only scientific theory on the timing was formulated by one M. King Hubbert in the 1950s.

4c: General entropy is irrelevant. We're still over a trillion years away from seeing the entire universe burn out. The entropy of this planet, WRT its ability to sustain an ever-increasing human population, is increasing rapidly, as evidenced by global warming, desertification, deforestation, and other very obvious symptoms.

5: Yes, humans are running out of general resources (because they are finite) to transform into security-enhancing resources. No, humans are not running out of chaos, they are creating plenty of it: Polluted drinking water, fishless oceans, coalless coal mines, a toxic atmosphere, and dry oil fields (among other things) are all perfectly useless to our security. Eventually, there isn't going to be anything left but rocks and mud, and then the situation I described in (1) above will exist.

5a: 100,000 years is not a long time compared to the length of the history of life on Earth. There have been other species that lasted longer, but are gone today.

[xiaoma]

>3: Nothing has been created (IOW, entropy has not decreased, and matter and energy are still conserved)-- we're merely better at transforming matter and energy than we used to be.

Entropy on Earth has been decreasing for billions of years. The 2nd law of thermodynamics only applies to a closed system.