Malthusianism and denialism [or 'nothing-to-see-here'-ism]

Milarky

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Why, oh why, oh why, do these idiots not project something more realistic. Like for instance the obvious case that oil, gas, and coal will steadily increase in price far, far before it all runs out.

The minute I see any prediction that acknowledges that things never go 'in straight lines' I will start to listen. But sadly, 'academics' seem to have blind spots in this respect.

This is 'asked and answered' in the video. The reason 'peak oil' was delayed from Hubbert's projections [that's all they were] was because of 'price shocks' in the 1970s and 2000s. But the point remains all that accomplished was

i) The price of oil goes up (about 3 or 4-fold) each time

ii) The curve leading to final exhaustion shifts by perhaps a decade each time.

IANAM* but it's self evident that each successive price hike after we pass peak oil/commodity buys even less additional time - because the rate of decline of [possible] supply is now increasing**.

And all commodities, whilst being used up at differential initial rates are just as finite as oil in the final analysis. Each [successful] adjustment changes the 'shape' of the curve slightly.

lemonjelly wrote: »

When we get those replicator thingys like they have in Star Trek, we'll be alright...;)

They don't seem to use money at all do they? Of course ST is a 'Western' really. There was cold in Calfornia once and Bison as far as you could see.

IronWolf wrote: »

As soon as cold fusion comes along we'll be laughin

Again an interesting speculation. If

i) Fusion - always just '50 years' away- could supply 1000 times our current needs and

ii) Could be switched on in just five years then

iii) Problem solved - oh, until 2115. So

iv) What power source are we using to get through to 2280?

* 'I am not a mathematician'

** Strictly speaking it's only increasing until about half way to the bottom and then the Bell curve's curvature (second derivative) changes sign

Milarky

Jonbvn wrote: »

OP,

Are you are Malthus inspired misery guts?
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10077/

Funny but not very insightful, is it, to brandish the phrase "so-called population mathematics."? There's nothing 'made up' about the the maths. Population does increase exponentially - even when birthrates fall [that word 'rate' tells us the change is in proportion to what's already there not in addition to what's there]

Yes, 'Malthus' is a phenomenon - or a 'big idea' [whilst being simple enough for children to debate without the rancour associated with 'so called' grown-up debate] but that doesn't change [either to confirm or refute] the central core of what it reports - that we live on a finite 'chessboard' and each 'year' our dear leaders have to open [the equivalent of] another square the same size of all the squares opened in history.

There is nothing to 'refute', people - only second-order discussion of how much extra time (or more accurately - how quickly we can move more squares onto a board of undetermined size using just what's to hand) we can buy.

Oh, and I hadn't even raised the question which Malthus [1798] probably didn't have in mind - how in a grossly unequal world [circa 2010], it's usually someone else who gets a bullet in the neck and provided that 'elbow room' for us lucky ones having the debate this afternoon?

Part of that 'ingenuity' which we are told will keep making the problem go away includes all forms of exploitation - including one man of another.

nearlynew

"Money" is only a abstract representation of the Earth's resources.


Without the Earth's resources, we have nothing.
And it doesn't matter how many IOUs you write, eventually they will become worthless.


What we are witnessing is the early stages of that decline in resources.

Every single problem facing us today - economic, social, political, environmental - is a result of that fact.

Jonbvn

Milarky wrote: »

Funny but not very insightful, is it, to brandish the phrase "so-called population mathematics."? There's nothing 'made up' about the the maths. Population does increase exponentially - even when birthrates fall [that word 'rate' tells us the change is in proportion to what's already there not in addition to what's there]

Yes, 'Malthus' is a phenomenon - or a 'big idea' [whilst being simple enough for children to debate without the rancour associated with 'so called' grown-up debate] but that doesn't change [either to confirm or refute] the central core of what it reports - that we live on a finite 'chessboard' and each 'year' our dear leaders have to open [the equivalent of] another square the same size of all the squares opened in history.

There is nothing to 'refute', people - only second-order discussion of how much extra time (or more accurately - how quickly we can move more squares onto a board of undetermined size using just what's to hand) we can buy.

Oh, and I hadn't even raised the question which Malthus [1798] probably didn't have in mind - how in a grossly unequal world [circa 2010], it's usually someone else who gets a bullet in the neck and provided that 'elbow room' for us lucky ones having the debate this afternoon?

Part of that 'ingenuity' which we are told will keep making the problem go away includes all forms of exploitation - including one man of another.

You do take yourself far too seriously.;)

Sorry but I reject your whole hypothesis as delusional!

Kohoutek

Putting it crudely, Malthus said that if population growth was left unchecked, the world would eventually run out of food. I don't see how anyone can disagree with that.

Even Norman Borlaug, the man who brought modern industrial agriculture (the "Green Revolution") to the then "Third World" recognised this:

Africa, the former Soviet republics, and the cerrado are the last frontiers. After they are in use, the world will have no additional sizable blocks of arable land left to put into production, unless you are willing to level whole forests, which you should not do. So, future food-production increases will have to come from higher yields. And though I have no doubt yields will keep going up, whether they can go up enough to feed the population monster is another matter. Unless progress with agricultural yields remains very strong, the next century will experience sheer human misery that, on a numerical scale, will exceed the worst of everything that has come before.

poppingjay

I'm with you all the way OP but I know many won't be on a forum such as this. It's the global ponzi scheme that keeps house prices rising and the factories churning out unnecessary plastic objects that we decorate our homes with.

We are shielded from the grunt end of resources and production so as long as the supermarket shelves stay full there's can't be a problem right? It's ok saying that man is infinitely resourceful, maybe we are but generally we don't try to fix things till they're broken and I'm not convinced that anyone is looking too hard at alternatives. The status quo is incredibly lucrative to policy makers, which I doubt are the same folk that we 'vote' for.

Also in past when man had to adapt to changes in his environment, we didn't have such a massive population addicted to oil. Maybe it's easier for people to bury their heads in the sand on this issue.... move along folks to your next shopping experience.

CLAPTON

I've put my faith in the neutron bomb; Cohen never did get the recognition he deserved

StevieJ

poppingjay wrote: »

Also in past when man had to adapt to changes in his environment, we didn't have such a massive population addicted to oil. Maybe it's easier for people to bury their heads in the sand on this issue.... move along folks to your next shopping experience.

There has always been people that enjoy self flagellation :eek:
That reminds me of that joke, Masochist to Sadist - Hit me, hit me.
Sadist in reply - No

CLAPTON

of course, the truth is that of all the species that has ever lived, 99.9999999 % are extinct

StevieJ

CLAPTON wrote: »

of course, the truth is that of all the species that has ever lived, 99.9999999 % are extinct

I like these facts, someone once wrote that 75% of the people born in the history of the Earth are alive today. I bet some people actually believe this (probably the Malthusians) What a ridiculous statement that was.