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[Sergarr]

Do you really think society is going to depend on gasoline combustion engines in 50-100 years?

If GOP continues to be as it is now, that may well be the case.

And I'm sure that millions of hungry people in Africa will be happy to hear that scarcity is an illusion.

[BFEL]

Do you really think society is going to depend on gasoline combustion engines in 50-100 years?

If GOP continues to be as it is now, that may well be the case.

And I'm sure that millions of hungry people in Africa will be happy to hear that scarcity is an illusion.

We have the food to feed all those hungry people in Africa...just nobody is throwing it at them because they can't really profit from doing so...

[martinuzz]

Largely because scarcity is an illusion. This isn't high school economics, and we're not playing Starcaft where there's only X crystal on the map and once you mine it, it's gone. For almost everything we care about resource scarcity isn't a meaningful concern. Unless you simply want to be pedantic and talk about entropy, the vast majority of all materials we use will last longer than we can reasonably expect humans to exist as a species.

The exploitation of rescources, and even more so our efforts to get at recourses that are harder to reach, or have to be attained from territories that are, say, less than stable, is destroying our ecosystem at an increasing rate still. Over half of the amazon rainforest is gone. The ocean microfauna along most of our coastlines is dead. Africa is being plagued by oil spills everywhere. Scarcity is not only determined by sheer amount of rescource, but also by sustainability, both ecologically as well as economically.
People saying scarcity is an illusion fail to look at the long term implications.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

“How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me. I mean, there are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster'; instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do. If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees. But then you take a look at what the corporation does, the effect of its legal structure, the vast inequalities in pay and conditions, and you see the reality is something far different.”
  ― Noam Chomsky

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

“Modern industrial civilisation has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilisation has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits in the classic formulation.

Now, it's long been understood very well that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice it entails as long as it's possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited: that the World is an infinite resource, and that the World is an infinite garbage-can. At this stage of History, either one of two things is possible: either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community-interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others; or, alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control.

As long as some specialised class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the community as a whole and, by now, that means the Global Community. The question is whether privileged élites should dominate mass-communication, and should use this power as they tell us they must, namely, to impose necessary illusions, manipulate and deceive the stupid majority, and remove them from the public arena. The question, in brief, is whether Democracy and Freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly-terminal phase of human existence, Democracy and Freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival.” - Noam Chomsky

"...energy of an isolated system cannot change—it is said to be conserved over time. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed,"

It can be converted though. From forms available for use to us, to forms that will cost more energy to convert to usable form that it would yield. Invoking the law of conservation of energy in a debate about scarcity is really silly.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

“My guess is that you would find that the intellectual elite is the most heavily indoctrinated sector [of society], for good reasons. It's their role as a secular priesthood to really believe the nonsense that they put forth. Other people can repeat it, but it's not that crucial that they really believe it. But for the intellectual elite themselves, it's crucial that they believe it because, after all, they are the guardians of the faith. Except for a very rare person who's an outright liar, it's hard to be a convincing exponent of the faith unless you've internalized it and come to believe it.” -Noam Chomsky

[mainiac]

First question is usually "who pays for it?" To which the answer is: we cannibalize existing benefits programs, and eliminate all the bureaucracy and means testing associated with them. Welfare, unemployment, social security, medicare....you get rid of all of those, divide the money spent on them by the number of people over age of majority in the country and write checks.

I don't think you want to gut healthcare programs to pay for universal basic income.  Healthcare costs work differently then food and housing.

[BFEL]

the world is an infinite garbage-can.- Noam Chomsky

[Gentlefish]

Okay so oil was a bad choice in terms of scarcity - Platinum. It's become so scarce that scientists are looking for ways to catch the excess platinum released by car exhaust through the catalyzer after it's been picked up by street sweepers because there's so little left in the earth itself.

There's so little platium on earth that the total area of it is about a basketball court, three feet deep.

And that's nearly the same case for neodymium, a rare-earth metal and magnet.

Yet we use both of these in many technologies that are crucial for us as a society. How will a robot synthesize materials that require platinum or neodymium, without access to either? There simply isn't enough keep making more everything.

[LordBucket]

The exploitation of rescources, and even more so our efforts to get at recourses that are harder to reach, or have to be attained from territories that are, say, less than stable, is destroying our ecosystem at an increasing rate still. Over half of the amazon rainforest is gone. The ocean microfauna along most of our coastlines is dead. Africa is being plagued by oil spills everywhere. Scarcity is not only determined by sheer amount of rescource, but also by sustainability, both ecologically as well as economically.
People saying scarcity is an illusion fail to look at the long term implications.

None of these are scarcity issues. If I want a greasy hamburger, and in the pursuit of a hamburger go to my kitchen and spill hamburger grease on the floor, yes I have caused damage to the ecosystem that is my kitchen. But this has nothing to do with scarcity of hamburger meat.

even more so our efforts to get at recourses that are harder to reach

Justify that. None of your examples support your premise. Rainforest deforestation is not because we're trying harder to get to increasingly out of the way forests. African oilspills are not because were trying harder to get to increasingly out of the way oil wells. Ocean microfauana is not being depleted because we're trying increasingly hard to eat those fish that are just a little bit harder to get to.

None of this has anything to do with scarcity.

Scarcity is not only determined by sheer amount of rescource, but also by sustainability, both ecologically as well as economically.

...ok, that's makes more sense. But what's the conclusion you're asserting based on this? What exactly is you're saying is "scarce" because even though there's plenty of it, financial/ecological concerns make it effectively limited? Yes, like in the example I gave of oil, there might come a point at which it's no longer economically viable to extract oil, but that point is, as cited, at least 50+ years away. Take a look at the shift to electric cars and I think it's extremely reasonable to suggest that we're never going actually reach that point because we'll stop using it before the point of economic unfeasibility is reached. If tomorrow morning the entire world forever stopped finding new oil resources, I personally have faith that 50 years would be enough time to transition off of it.

What specifically is it you're concerned we're going to "effectively" run out of?

Over half of the amazon rainforest is gone.

1) Ok, but set aside the sensationalism and explain to me why exactly this is a problem.

2) http://www.cfact.org/1997/01/01/the-rainforest-issue-myths-and-facts/

“Two U.N. studies and even [ecologist Norman] Myers agree closely in their estimates of the Brazilian deforestation rate — between 0.0025 and 0.004 percent per year"

3) What does this have to do with scarcity? Are you concerned we're going to run out of rainforest?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest

"...for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics"

- Noam Chomsky

- Noam Chomsky

- Noam Chomsky

If your own words now, please, explain to me what exactly is the problem?

It can be converted though. From forms available for use to us, to forms that will cost more energy to convert to usable form that it would yield.

Are you seriously worried about running out of energy?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2013/03/07/we-live-in-an-age-of-energy-abundance/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-way-to-the-most-abundant-energy/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy#Energy_from_the_Sun

"The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year.[8] In 2002, this was more energy in one hour than the world used in one year.[13][14] Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000 EJ per year in biomass.[15] The technical potential available from biomass is from 100–300 EJ/year.[10] The amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the planet is so vast that in one year it is about twice as much as will ever be obtained from all of the Earth's non-renewable resources of coal, oil, natural gas, and mined uranium combined,[16]"


All the silly stuff we're doing with coal and oil and so forth are temporary measures simply due to cost efficiency. Which is...indirectly, what I think you're trying to say. But there's no real scarcity problem here. The only problem is that we're metaphorically spilling grease on our kitchen floor. And yes, that's a dumb thing to do. But it's not a problem of resource scarcity.

[Sergarr]

Well the first thing we're going to run out of is the land. With the current population increasing trend, overcrowding will become more and more prominent in the upcoming years. And creating new land is extremely un-cheap, especially considering that with the climate change, the amount of land available now may decrease.

[Cthulhu]

Our problem is that we have too much faith in technology and not enough commitment to it.

The futurists were pretty silly but I think if they weren't just some crazy Italian dudes who drove a car and went insane they might have been on the right track.  Technology should bring revolutionary change, but as it stands we're just kind of idling.  The internet is supposed to be this huge thing that's changed the world but we're just doing the same shit we did before, faster. 

It's a normal thing, I mean books had been around for centuries before people got the hang of writing prose and stopped writing like they had to memorize it.  And likewise early film was mostly just theater with a camera, it took a while for people to get the hang of what could be done with the new medium.

But I feel like we're in a rut.  Nothing's really changed for all our talk of innovation.  Book-dropping again, a little more controversial this time.

Guillame de Faye's Archeofuturism.  This one's far right wing, I've heard it described as thinly-veiled neofascism, but a lot of its insights on the subject above are very cogent and worth thinking about.  We're continually expanding a system that's really not sustainable, causing irreparable damage to the environment, and it seems like a lot of people are just kind of looking to future technology to solve it all for us.  Just keep on trucking and we'll invent nanomachines or cold fusion or whatever and everything will suddenly be fine.  Singularitarianism and all that.  It's Cyberjesus.  It's christian eschatology repackaged.

Truly utilizing technology to make the world a better place will probably entail total revolutionary change to the way things currently work. 

[LordBucket]

platium

Basically the same situation as oil.

http://terresacree.org/platineanglais.htm

"Platinum: known economically workable deposits will be exhausted in 2064"

Again: "known, economically viable" deposits. So if we never ever find any more, and refining technology never improves...we have enough to last 50 years. And in 50 years, we'll probably still only have 50 years worth of "known, economically viable" deposits. Just like oil. Because extraction technology improves, and there's no point sending geologists to go hunt out yet more reserves when we already have 50 years worth located. How much food do you have in your refrigerator? Enough to last a few weeks? Are you worried about running out of food, or will you simply go get more in a week?

Also, remember that platinum doesn't "vanish" when used. Recyling is a thing. If cost effectiveness of mining new platinum begins to exceed the cost of recovering it from jewelry, vehicles and electronics, then we'll recover it from those sources.

This is an economics problem. Not a scarcity problem.

Finally 75% of platinum is used for jewelry and catalictic converters for combustions engines. These are not hugely important things. If tomorrow there were no more new platinum mined, cars, and some jewelry and medical equipment would be more expensive for a while, and then we'd simply adapt and use other materials. It wouldn't be a huge problem.

neodymium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium#Occurrence_and_production

"Although it belongs to the rare earth metals, neodymium is not rare at all. Its abundance in the Earth crust is about 38 mg/kg, which is the second highest among rare-earth elements"

Well the first thing we're going to run out of is the land.

This might be a legitimate concern, but once again it's not an issue of real scarcity so much as economic viability.  There's a lot of land...it's just land that nobody wants. Real estate in major cities might be limited. But we can build more cities.

If the entire world were developed and populated as densely as New York, we'd have room for 1.5973815e+12 (~1.6 trilion) people.

And after that, there's a lot of vertical space.

Before anybody jumps on "oh, but you can't do that because farms take space" ...again, we're not living in the 1900s anymore.

And doing a quick google search, the highest estimates I see for the point at which earth's population stabilizes claim ~15 billion people. Most estimates are in the 9-10 billion range. I'm not going to make any predictions on that myself, but we clearly have some room to maneuver.

[Sergarr]

...LordBucket, do you realize how much the current cities already damage the ecology around them? Building even MORE of them would basically kill the ecosphere around us. India is already living in shit conditions, coastline China is the same. They're somewhat extreme examples, but examples nonetheless.

Making more cities would not solve the population problem AT ALL. What you need is the ability for human individuals to survive in small group in very inhospitable conditions without huge infrastructure.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

What specifically is it you're concerned we're going to "effectively" run out of?

Over half of the amazon rainforest is gone.

1) Ok, but set aside the sensationalism and explain to me why exactly this is a problem.

2) http://www.cfact.org/1997/01/01/the-rainforest-issue-myths-and-facts/

“Two U.N. studies and even [ecologist Norman] Myers agree closely in their estimates of the Brazilian deforestation rate — between 0.0025 and 0.004 percent per year"

3) What does this have to do with scarcity? Are you concerned we're going to run out of rainforest?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest

"...for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics"

Did you really just link a 1997 editorial from an oil lobbyist group?

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545

[martinuzz]

If I want a greasy hamburger, and in the pursuit of a hamburger go to my kitchen and spill hamburger grease on the floor, yes I have caused damage to the ecosystem that is my kitchen. But this has nothing to do with scarcity of hamburger meat.

even more so our efforts to get at recourses that are harder to reach

Justify that. None of your examples support your premise. Rainforest deforestation is not because we're trying harder to get to increasingly out of the way forests. Ocean microfauana is not being depleted because we're trying increasingly hard to eat those fish that are just a little bit harder to get to.

None of this has anything to do with scarcity.

Apparently you have never been taught that to make your hamburger, rain forest is cut down, and a whole continental coast is losing / has lost a great deal of it's marine biodiversity?

It's quite easy. A large percentage of rainforest deforestation is to make room to grow soy. Yes, soy.
Now you can say: You see! Now that's why I eat hamburgers, instead of being a tofu-eating vegetarian whose self-presumed morally superior eating habits damage the rainforest!

But wait.. A closer inspection reveals, that this soy is actually grown to be processed into... livestock food. Mostly for cows, used in the meat industry that makes your hamburgers, and every bloody hamburger that is mondially being pushed through throats by certain 'international' franchises.

A direct effect of these soyfields, is that rainforest is cut down.
A less direct, but devestating consequence:
Live rainforest soil is a thick spongelike soil layer. It can absorb and hold tremendous amounts of rain. With this absorbtion, it makes sure the scarce nutrients are trapped instead of washed out, to be used by the vegetation which thrives upon it (rainforest, despite looking very lush, are actually on very poor soil, nutrient wise).
Then the rainforest is cut, more often burned, to make room for another high tech, corporate sponsored soy megafield.
Since the soil is so very poor, soy farmers need to use a lot of fertilizers.
This, combined with the soil's loss of capacity to trap and hold rainwater, after the rainforest has been burned down, leads to 1000s of tons of fertilizer being washed out of the farms, into rivers, and through those, into the ocean each year.
The South-American coastline has lost a lot of it's biodiversity, suffocated by algae and other microorganisms thriving on the massive influx of fertilizers.

Since we can safely assume that unless ww3 happens and escalates into nuclear mass destruction, or ebola learns to swim, fly, and jump through a hoop, world population will keep growing, as it does now.
Bearing that in mind I can only conclude that eating your greasy hamburger, and even taking it for granted, has a lot to do with scarcity. The fishermen along the South-American coast can tell you all about it.

African oilspills are not because were trying harder to get to increasingly out of the way oil wells.

I say they are. If oil was more sustainably available in countries that do have the political stability to make sure that thieves and saboteurs cannot cause oil spills, (or have the power of office to resist corporate bribes and actually enforce high-standard safety laws) Shell wouldn't be all over the place there. They are only there because global demand exceeds availability of more sustainable oil (or should I say, energy?).
Unfortunatly "sustainable" has been twisted in most corporate beliefs to mean "profitable", which further complicates matters

From another perspective - why are those countires prone to banditry, and corruption of office? Might that have something to do with scarcity, more in general? Scarcity of means to survive, perhaps? Or, to come back to my first reply I made in this thread, because for most people in Africa, money is scarce?

Take a look at the shift to electric cars and I think it's extremely reasonable to suggest that we're never going actually reach that point because we'll stop using it before the point of economic unfeasibility is reached. If tomorrow morning the entire world forever stopped finding new oil resources, I personally have faith that 50 years would be enough time to transition off of it.

I hope so with you. The older I get, the less optimistic I am that we will.

What specifically is it you're concerned we're going to "effectively" run out of?

The means to provide the global population with at least the basic nescessities of survival, needed to keep, or advance our level of civilization. Which is a combination of means to produce, and means to transport.
I fear we can't out-tech our current population growth rate in time to prevent bloody conflicts, and starvations on a scale that makes Ethiopia look like Disneyland.

[Tomcost]

Gentlemen, you are both talking about different subjects:

On one side, LB is discussing the possibilities of a sustainable economy in the future.

On the other side, martinuzz is discussing the possibilities of reaching that sustainable economy in the future with our current actitude towards the economy.

[LordBucket]

Gentlemen, you are both talking about different subjects:

On one side, LB is discussing the possibilities of a sustainable economy in the future.

On the other side, martinuzz is discussing the possibilities of reaching that sustainable economy in the future with our current actitude towards the economy.

That potentially makes my last hour of typing irrelevant. I'll wait and see what the others say rather than continuing and posting anyway.