[krie]

The biggest problem is resource depletion and overpopulation. Overpopulation will be "fixed" through starvation and death. Resource depletion will leave the current young and future generations with far less extravagant lives. Adding to the overpopulation through vaccination programmes und su weiter is a misstep.

[fideloper]

Decreasing child mortality rates and increasing healthcare availability is statistically shown to decreased birth rate (among other improvements), resulting in fixing the issue of overpopulation (over time).

[krie]

Whether it stops at 8 or 9 billion doesn't really make an impact until 2150 at best. IF we had the resources to keep everything puffing till then. We don't. :)

[adventured]

We sure do. The human race will be just fine resource wise.

And that's just accounting for the existing base of resources and knowledge we have today. What we'll have in just another 50 years will be astounding, and further ensure that we won't have a resource problem. :)

[krie]

You're not even able to moderate yourself to "could" be astounding, it WILL be astounding, categorically? Is there anything pointing toward such being able to reach fruition? Not really.

[cbs]

Malthusian thought always strikes me as a comfortable little tautology to live in. It seems like it could be a neat way to contextualize one's efforts to delay the onset of, and diminish the impact of inevitable catastrophe. But I only ever see it being used to shit on ideas that on first glance would appear to accelerate the inevitable. Which in and of itself is bit odd. It may be a bit cold to see it this way, but if you're already resigned to that theory, what do you give a damn when the catastrophes happen?

[krie]

I think it's interesting to discuss it here, the zenith of technocopian optimism and futurism. There's a host of intelligent people frequenting Hacker News, but few have any idea what sort of trouble we are in. No conscious thought at all about the value chain that's involved for them to fill up their car in the awesome Bay area with amazing people doing fantastic work to "change" the world. Why aren't you guys picking up on these things? You are SMART, so WHY aren't you?

[moe]

Many people work on these things (renewable energy, electric cars, education, you name it) and many more donate to such causes when they can't or don't want to get involved directly. We also vote for political parties that we hope may improve things.

What are you doing other than posting "WE ARE DOOMED!!1" to seemingly every HN thread you come across?

[conjecTech]

Every generation claims this, yet life continues to become cheaper and more comfortable. Where is the economic evidence for what you are talking about?

[cbs]

Its priorities dude, most people aren't in it to "change" the world, they're in it to get filthy fucking rich in a way that lets them feel OK with themselves at the end of the day. We're on a website run by a venture capitalist to talk about tech. All the nonsense about being super smart, the futurism, and having any grasp on the world is simple puffery.

And the people here who do have meaningful discussion on topics other than tech sure don't do it here. I know, I live outside the cities encompassed by startup nonsense and work in medical research.

[krie]

I get it. Still annoying that I'm reduced to a simple "Malthusian" for espousing that resource depletion is a problem that's insurmountably difficult to "solve".

[cbs]

You just stated that it was difficult to solve and didn't say anything more, which I think is one of the problems most people have when talking with Malthusians.

For people who even vaguely know what they're talking about chances are pretty good they're aware of that the problems and hard and are still trying to make progress. Showing up and espousing that idea doesn't add anything to the conversation other than maybe suggesting your priorities are different than theirs (but that too can be articulated better).

I can compare it to talking to a libertarian, or alternatively someone who doesn't think anything matters but profit. All of their ideas are very sound within the realms of the overarching theory they subscribe to. That's all well and good, and sometimes makes for good conversation but they don't bother to extend their ideas to the current state of reality which exists outside of the already ideal conditions those philosophies provides.

Don't want to be reduced to "a simple Malthusian"? Make a post that says more than simply reiterating a watered down version of his thesis.

[adventured]

I like the part where the malthusians have never once been right.

[meaty]

Well actually the first world will rape all the resources, just as it's doing now and the population will sort itself out in the third world, much as it's doing now.

[krie]

Except, the population in the first world will be hit as well. Do you think 315 million Americans makes the USA not overpopulated?

[meaty]

There's plenty of resources to go around. They'll just have to eat corn instead of beef and lose some lard.

[illuminate]

"Except, the population in the first world will be hit as well."

Of course they will. They'll just be hit much later than the rest.

[specialist]

I upvoted you.

I'm sorry you're being dismissed as a Malthusian.

I also believe we humans are in deep trouble.

I volunteered at a treehugger organization for about a decade (the 90s). Trying save the birds and the salmon. These people were scientists working on policy. Like saving critical habitat such as wetlands.

Etc.

Pretty much everything I first learned in the 90s has come true. And the actual numbers are worse than the predicted worse case scenario (eg climate change).

I personally believe we're past the tipping point. Meaning climate change has entered into a positive feedback loop where even if we stopped burning fossil fuels, atmospheric CO2, methane etc will continue to increase. Because of the arboreal forests continue to burn and the tundra continues to thaw and the ocean (the biggest carbon sink) continues to acidify.

To stop this progression or even reverse it, decades from now, humans will have to aggressively retool our industry to remove CO2 from the atmospheric.

Weirdly, I'm strangely optimistic. I think it's possible. I'm not willing to give up hope.

I sometimes wonder if I'm just fooling myself. Things are so bad, I just go to my happy place. Like Sam Lowry in the movie Brazil.

[DanBC]

Resources are depleted by rich westerners. These are not the people dying from starvation.

[notdrunkatall]

Dear god, another Malthusian.

[krie]

There is no God, remember?

Also, are you trying to be clever, offensive or something else entirely by contributing with silly one-liners?

[jlgreco]

"Dear god" is an idiom...