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[mainiac]

A sustainable economy is possible but it also is different in essence to the one we've got here; i.e. everything does not orbit the "consumer engine".

A shift towards less energy and carbon intensity has already occurred within the framework of a consumer economy.  We just want more of a shift.  Or to put it a different way, the shift has happened in a handful of consumer societies (such as denmark) and we just want that shift to be more widespread.

A consumer economy is a broad range of outcomes.  It includes someone selling sustainably farmed marijuana in a walkable city as well as someone buying a Hummer to keep up with the Joneses.

[Rolepgeek]

Guys, let's be serious here.

Unfriendly AI is the most dangerous global catastrophe scenario, and the one we should really be spending our money on.

That aside, I would appreciate if you could be a bit more charitable in your argumentation, MSH, to fellow forumgoers. Though I must say I'd love to meet your sources for that secret atheist and secret global warming lovers stuff.

Though really, if we had some more mobility in terms of where we live, It wouldn't be too bad for humans. Just pack up and move inland and/or north. Canada/Siberia can be the breadbasket of the modern world. Ways away, though.

The most reasonable concern I've seen climate skeptics bring up is that people are using it as an excuse to gain power or pull shit nearly as bad as Big Oil, with the difference being that only one of them is contributing to climate change. But when public officials suggest suspending democracy, people who don't view it as true doomsday scenario get real worried.

I mean, we do need to shift, though I always find the idea to grab carbon from the atmosphere and shove it underground incredibly odd. That shit can be used to make stuff. :/

Though, Earth can sustain plenty large population. Issue is the resource distribution networks and utilization, not the carrying capacity.

[SalmonGod]

It doesn't matter what you're selling.  Unless economic growth becomes exclusively linked to selling intangible products, I cannot grasp how it is possible without increasing consumption of resources to match, and carbon/energy is not the only resource we should be concerned about.  Not when we have consumed 1/10 of the world's remaining wilderness in the last 25 years.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

A shift towards less energy and carbon intensity has already occurred within the framework of a consumer economy.  We just want more of a shift.  Or to put it a different way, the shift has happened in a handful of consumer societies (such as denmark) and we just want that shift to be more widespread.

My only real problem with this is that it's strongly reminiscent of "we don't have to worry about climate change because technology will solve it for us". If there's anything that's become clear to me about societal organization it's that you can't have your cake and eat it. Something has to be sacrificed. A consumer economy can take on higher sustainability, but I'm not yet convinced it can make that final step to existing as sustainable both in its economics and the physical effects.

For the record, I'm not making the qualifier violating thermodynamics or anything, just indefinite in human terms. Nauru's phosphorous sustains those dollar bills for as long as it needs to but it destroyed the island, no go.

A consumer economy is a broad range of outcomes.  It includes someone selling sustainably farmed marijuana in a walkable city as well as someone buying a Hummer to keep up with the Joneses.

Does it really qualify as a consumer economy when depletion matches restoration+replenishment? The priority is altered by making that a factor. Especially if businesses are assigned responsibility for their external impacts; they're certain to act differently.

[Rolepgeek]

Exclusively?

I mean, there'e recycling, there's innovations, there's productivity gains due to better understanding of how to make people happier (and thus work more efficiently), there's automation to make people's lives easier, there is, in fact, the massively growing information and games market, there's the ability to have managed wilderness...


Side question: Which do you think would be a better approach? Integration, or concentration? Integration being 'living alongside nature' and concentration being 'pulling away and staying away from nature'.

[SalmonGod]

Exclusively?

I mean, there'e recycling, there's innovations, there's productivity gains due to better understanding of how to make people happier (and thus work more efficiently), there's automation to make people's lives easier, there is, in fact, the massively growing information and games market, there's the ability to have managed wilderness...

Even if you reach 100% efficiency and recycling, that only allows you to sell as many widgets as the year before without increasing resource investment, not more.  In the business world, making the same amount of money as last year is considered failure.

Side question: Which do you think would be a better approach? Integration, or concentration? Integration being 'living alongside nature' and concentration being 'pulling away and staying away from nature'.

I don't really want 100% of either, personally.  But both can be done sustainably, so it doesn't matter.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Unfriendly AI is the most dangerous global catastrophe scenario, and the one we should really be spending our money on.

[Kurzweils Internally]

Though I must say I'd love to meet your sources for that secret atheist and secret global warming lovers stuff.

Feel the burn and feel the other burn.

Though really, if we had some more mobility in terms of where we live, It wouldn't be too bad for humans. Just pack up and move inland and/or north. Canada/Siberia can be the breadbasket of the modern world. Ways away, though.

Enjoy your methane permafrost, I guess.

The most reasonable concern I've seen climate skeptics bring up is that people are using it as an excuse to gain power or pull shit nearly as bad as Big Oil, with the difference being that only one of them is contributing to climate change. But when public officials suggest suspending democracy, people who don't view it as true doomsday scenario get real worried.

If anything like that does happen we frankly deserve it. The longer we wait, the worse it will be. Not above consequences.

I mean, we do need to shift, though I always find the idea to grab carbon from the atmosphere and shove it underground incredibly odd. That shit can be used to make stuff. :/

We're just not short on carbon, and I've never looked into it but I suspect it's just not worth breaking up. CO2 breaks down on average after 100 years of sunlight exposure. Whether sequestration is even a good idea is still hard to say because a large-scale project has never been done and everybody is afraid of causing mass death if the vessel is compromised.

A version of what you're talking about has been done though, they run the CO2 through an algal bed to accelerate growth. Works pretty well, I'm told.

Though, Earth can sustain plenty large population. Issue is the resource distribution networks and utilization, not the carrying capacity.

We're already over carrying capacity. More efficient distribution does not reduce depletion in the end.

Just stop having kids. Magic! But nobody wants to do that.

I mean, there'e recycling, there's innovations, there's productivity gains due to better understanding of how to make people happier (and thus work more efficiently), there's automation to make people's lives easier, there is, in fact, the massively growing information and games market, there's the ability to have managed wilderness...

Recycling is the smallest element of the "sustainability tree". It's a good thing, but while it saves material it doesn't have a major effect on depletion. It could probably have a higher impact if companies were convinced to use recycled materials more, but typically they use that for greenwashing instead of making real changes.

"Innovation" I have already stated my issue with, in that it doesn't mean anything real. We also could be using plenty of existing innovations more than we do, so it isn't a solution on its own. We could totally drop some of the bad shit we do if given the will and incentive. Innovation can also be very bad, such as with mountaintop mining and fracking. Imagine if we found a way to generate terrawatts of power through child sacrifice and you see the idea.

Side question: Which do you think would be a better approach? Integration, or concentration? Integration being 'living alongside nature' and concentration being 'pulling away and staying away from nature'.

Bit of a false dichotomy. Our cities should be living, but that's more for us than for the good of nature. Humans don't thrive as part of the machine much more than anything else. They've done studies and found that even if your home has only pattern similarities to a natural environment it starts to inhibit mental illness, to the point where that's now a study of building design.

I don't think we can truly "concentrate". We're kind of doing that now and it just results in having rural workers and far-flung transnationals do the dirty work. It provides no protection at all. We're a part of the whole whether we like it or not.

So I guess what I'm supporting is more "coexistance" than integration or concentration.

[Frumple]

Does it really qualify as a consumer economy when depletion matches restoration+replenishment?

Yes? Not just yes but obviously. The consumer part of consumer economy has basically nothing to do with the production end or how society's overall resources are used, just who the primary driver is.

[Max™]

It has again gotten overlooked that I am totally for getting us off of oil, I actively hate coal plants, it is impossible to work in one for any length of time and not think they're horrid I suspect. I don't see conspiracy theories though behind the AGW push though, that implies it being hidden and proceeding for some obscured goal. The closest to an AGW conspiracy theory--and craziest sounding thing--I could think of about my position would be that a tax on CO2 emissions seems like the top of a very slippery slope, and I'd worry what happens when you start pointing out that breathing involves CO2 emissions. Is that taxable? I don't think it should be, but I doubt it would ever go that far, and sincerely hope that any politician who seriously tried to suggest it would be laughed out of office.

Hell, even if it was really a secret socialist plot to redistribute wealth around the world from the rich emitters to everyone else I'd still be against using the fearmongering methods and presentation of model projections, consensus, and hypotheses as fact.

I do think a socialist redistribution plot would be great btw, we need to lean a lot closer to socialism here in the US.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ding! I worry that the politics pushing one doomsday scenario is taking away effort and funding from far more important issues. As I've said before, moving away from oil burning and coal plants is indeed the right course of action, scaring people into doing it with some sort of righteous crusade against warmth under the guise of science just seems like it is going to really confuse people about what science is and does, because it already has.

Global warming is scientific fact. You do not know better than 98% of the world's climatologists, or as I said before, at this point just observable events.

Like I said, people get confused about what science is and does, and yes, everything that pops up is pointed to as a result of global warming at this point.

It's very difficult to make someone believe something when their salary depends on them not believing it.

Terrifying that you so casually talk about "making someone believe something" and toss in corruption allegations, I wish I was being paid for not believing things I don't know to be true, fuck that would be the best job ever.

It's not a conspiracy. People who should know better while pushing creationist textbooks are also out there saying they believe it. There are secret atheists who run major churches and people who secretly accept climate change who hold stock in Exxon-Mobil. The exact form of rationalization or just not giving a shit varies between people and isn't really the important part here.

The only people who are actually paid by big business to deny are their think tanks, which unfortunately are very good at what they do.

Wut? I mean, what? I didn't reach this position by listening to some shmuck hick congressman talking about jeezus and shit, and my point was that the idea that people who disagree should be made to believe something is awful.

>.> I've been following this topic for most of my life (which will enter year 36 tomorrow), literally, you can't pull this on me.

I literally can. Your claims of watching and, if I'm remembering right, "disproving" climate change by doing an experiment in your garage or something, are meaningless. They directly contradict everything we consistently have shown to be true. If you really could demonstrate anything like that in a way that knocked out the mounting evidence of a doomsday scenario you'd be fucking rich dude. It's the same as all the people who say they can disprove evolution. They aren't the next name remembered in biology for centuries and yours isn't the one for climatology.

Nobody gets rich from science, but again, you don't seem to know what science is or does as you are discarding an experiment in favor of anecdotes.

I can rationally disagree with you about this subject, afford me the same courtesy? I'm not interested it getting into a big search for charts and data and whatnot, because it won't accomplish anything, I already tried that here, I've done it for years before, I'm done wasting time trying to change beliefs with facts, it's insane on my part at this point, but while you're looking at extreme droughts and hurricanes, google "cat 5 drought" next.

You know what's not rationality? Setting yourself up as the persecuted intellectual who's just trying to shine the light on the worming carcass of "big bad politically-backed science". I wish. If the governments of the world actually did take this shit seriously, then you really would have something to worry about.

So that is a no on the rational disagreement then, fair enough.

Eh, the conservationist/environmental movement had stuff starting to really fly somewhere in the mid 1900s, iirc. There certainly hasn't been much public awareness of or governmental attention to some of the problems until recently but folks in the fields in question were starting to see major problems a fair bit before either of us were born... definitely a good decade or two before the 80s. The earliest folks starting to propose stuff like greenhouse warming was in the late 1800s

True, Arrhenius did his stuff back then, but the difference between proposing something and it being turned into "this is going to doom us all unless we take action" was the rise of activist scientists in the 80's, and them getting the idea that the only way to get politicians to care was to start engaging in politics. Yes, there have been threads of it for a while, but the whole global warming/climate change/whatever discussion taking place today emerged in the late 80's, Hansen and them were working on it before, but started getting heard in Congress and stuff in 88 or 89?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Does it really qualify as a consumer economy when depletion matches restoration+replenishment?

Yes? Not just yes but obviously. The consumer part of consumer economy has basically nothing to do with the production end or how society's overall resources are used, just who the primary driver is.

Oi.

The priority is altered by making that a factor. Especially if businesses are assigned responsibility for their external impacts; they're certain to act differently.

That is the meat of the objection. When the groups that provide for consumers are required to account for externalities they might act differently, by way of focusing more on not having to account for them than distributing goods.

It sounds alien to the way we do things now but you could seriously end up with a dirth of production even existing or an entire sector devoted to replenishment efforts. Which would sort of cut out the consumerism we currently practice.

Like I said, people get confused about what science is and does, and yes, everything that pops up is pointed to as a result of global warming at this point.

Ever consider that there might be a real reason for that one?

Nobody gets rich from science, but again, you don't seem to know what science is or does as you are discarding an experiment in favor of anecdotes.

You don't meet rigor requirements on the basis that your garage is not the Earth.

And plenty of people get rich from science, especially people who really make the level of breakthrough that would be. It is, to borrow a phrase, "Fuck You Pay Me" research. Here's what you do: Hire a ghostwriter to write your autobiography, The Man Who Killed Global Warming. Market it to Republican voters who have been slavering for this for literal decades. Make millions. Then spend the rest of your life as a political subject case who's endorsement means something and will be further enriched on those grounds. Later on run for governor and live comfortably on lobbying fees. When you retire seek an immediate tenure professorship from a prestigious school and make your TAs do everything.

So that is a no on the rational disagreement then, fair enough.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

activist scientists

^{_{[wewlad intensifies]}}

[Rolepgeek]

If anything like that does happen we frankly deserve it. The longer we wait, the worse it will be. Not above consequences.

I disagree so vehemently I cannot express myself in words. Literally I think that the idea that we 'deserve' to have a dictator because we aren't shifting fast enough of our volition is the second worst attitude to take and is actually scary that you think that way.

We're just not short on carbon, and I've never looked into it but I suspect it's just not worth breaking up. CO2 breaks down on average after 100 years of sunlight exposure. Whether sequestration is even a good idea is still hard to say because a large-scale project has never been done and everybody is afraid of causing mass death if the vessel is compromised.

A version of what you're talking about has been done though, they run the CO2 through an algal bed to accelerate growth. Works pretty well, I'm told.

See! There we go. Efficiency! Yes.

On a similar note, trees love the current state of things. When they aren't being cut down. More CO2 means easier time growing.

We're already over carrying capacity. More efficient distribution does not reduce depletion in the end.

Just stop having kids. Magic! But nobody wants to do that.

For food? No, we're definitely not.

But yes, how strange that nobody wants to stop doing that one singular thing we were literally designed to do from the start of the existence of life. Or how our economy is not built on the idea of not having kids and that Japan is facing serious economic difficulties because they're doing just that. :/

Recycling is the smallest element of the "sustainability tree". It's a good thing, but while it saves material it doesn't have a major effect on depletion. It could probably have a higher impact if companies were convinced to use recycled materials more, but typically they use that for greenwashing instead of making real changes.

"Innovation" I have already stated my issue with, in that it doesn't mean anything real. We also could be using plenty of existing innovations more than we do, so it isn't a solution on its own. We could totally drop some of the bad shit we do if given the will and incentive. Innovation can also be very bad, such as with mountaintop mining and fracking. Imagine if we found a way to generate terrawatts of power through child sacrifice and you see the idea.

Wait, so what's wrong with fracking? Releases methane into the air, can go wrong if proper protocols aren't taken, it can cause small earthquakes (which to me seems like it's just releasing the existing tension, since the reason it happens is essentially lubrication). But yeah, I mean, child sacrifice, totally the same level here, I definitely see your point. >.>

By recycling, I just kinda mean eliminating waste. I love efficiency.

Bit of a false dichotomy. Our cities should be living, but that's more for us than for the good of nature. Humans don't thrive as part of the machine much more than anything else. They've done studies and found that even if your home has only pattern similarities to a natural environment it starts to inhibit mental illness, to the point where that's now a study of building design.

I don't think we can truly "concentrate". We're kind of doing that now and it just results in having rural workers and far-flung transnationals do the dirty work. It provides no protection at all. We're a part of the whole whether we like it or not.

So I guess what I'm supporting is more "coexistance" than integration or concentration.

At the moment, perhaps, but I mean in, say, fifty or sixty years. The idea of Arcologies is what I sorta meant by concentration, and something like the pacific Northwest (where I live) for Integration, only taken a bit further.

Like I said, people get confused about what science is and does, and yes, everything that pops up is pointed to as a result of global warming at this point.

Ever consider that there might be a real reason for that one?

I mean, replace global warming with JESUS and maybe you'll see why Max is skeptical. :/
There's plenty of stuff that happens as a result of global warming. But by no means everything, and the pattern is so wide and hard to see that we end up looking for it in every storm. >.>



Oh...and Max? Science is hard. Singular experiments literally prove nothing. You have to agglomerate studies and experiments to get any sort of accurate idea of what's going on.

[saigo]

Are you sure you're not being paid to deny climate change? It's baffling that you seem to think 99% of established and accepted research in support of the phenomenon - and its dangers - is invalid.

[misko27]

There is always conquering space. Space has a lot of stuff we haven't started even exploiting yet! And living space! Minerals, Hydrocarbons, water, solar-energy, adventure! It's like Imperialism without the part where you hurt people. But no one lives in space! Yet! See? Everyone benefits!

Space Imperialism is the way forward people.

[SalmonGod]

It would be great if colonizing space looked to be a simpler way forward than cleaning up our lifestyles on earth, but it doesn't.  I'd still like to see us move out into space.  It just can't happen soon enough to offer any solutions to our immediate problems.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I disagree so vehemently I cannot express myself in words. Literally I think that the idea that we 'deserve' to have a dictator because we aren't shifting fast enough of our volition is the second worst attitude to take and is actually scary that you think that way.

A dictator isn't good (though I don't particularly believe in democracy), but it is at least comforting that there's no getting away with it. I see every person who goes out of their way to sped lies, misinformation, and denialism. I see everybody who insists on having ten children and refuses to use a recycling bin because that's liberal shit. They don't have to believe me, but hey, eventually there's just what's gonna happen. Call it my own preemptive solace for collapse conditions.

Like, it's not really morally right to track down a person who killed your parents and torture them to death in front of their own family, but I think everybody can understand why. When we allowed extinction events to continue, when we overpopulated the planet, and when we drained resources to completion we already agreed to the consequences of those actions, even if we didn't know what they were (or more realistically, chose not to know).

On a similar note, trees love the current state of things. When they aren't being cut down. More CO2 means easier time growing.

Most of the CO2 is out of their reach and has to be destroyed by sunlight. This also only applies to C3 plants.

But yes, how strange that nobody wants to stop doing that one singular thing we were literally designed to do from the start of the existence of life.

If not for religious and traditional forces it would be obvious that this is the course of action that should be taken. Hell, it's obvious even with that. China understands that, related human rights abuses aside.

Or how our economy is not built on the idea of not having kids and that Japan is facing serious economic difficulties because they're doing just that. :/

I think that a century from now the Japanese people might be collectively sweating with the realization of just how lucky they actually got.

Wait, so what's wrong with fracking? Releases methane into the air, can go wrong if proper protocols aren't taken, it can cause small earthquakes (which to me seems like it's just releasing the existing tension, since the reason it happens is essentially lubrication).

Poisons groundwater, don't know how the hell you're just dismissing earthquakes, is an obvious diversion from actual sustainability just like "clean coal", nobody actually knows the health effects of fracking fluid because it's proprietary. Seriously, you get all up in arms about human rights abuses and you don't think destabilizing faultlines counts? All faults have existing tension. They're faults. They always have tension. But a dead fault can go for a very long time without causing trouble, and now in Oklahoma we've gone and woken them up. Or rather, irresponsible fucking companies have. Bet they wouldn't be so eager if they had to pay earthquake damages from now until heat death.

But yeah, I mean, child sacrifice, totally the same level here, I definitely see your point. >.>

I'm talking about the danger of innovation here, what some people refer to as "Moloch". If we could attain power by child sacrifice, even if we didn't necessarily agree with child sacrifice, we would. We would practically be forced to if anybody did agree with child sacrifice, in order to keep up with them. That is the danger of innovation.

I mean, replace global warming with JESUS and maybe you'll see why Max is skeptical. :/

Jesus does not have every climatologist in the world supporting him.