Overshoot

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Re: Overshoot

Post by MediumTex » Tue Feb 09, 2016 8:40 pm

Pointedstick wrote: It's a girl! Now we have the classic older boy younger girl thing going on, and can officially refer to "the kids." So far she's a pretty easy baby, much easier than #1 was at her age. Hopefully there's enough oil left for them when they're 50. ;)
Congratulations my friend.

Babies are so much fun, even though they are obviously a lot of work.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by MediumTex » Tue Feb 09, 2016 9:11 pm

TennPaGa wrote: My dad was nearly 30 when I was born.  That was old at the time, I think (at least, I seem to remember my dad being old compared to my friends' dads).  But, as we both know, 30 is nuthin'. :)
My understanding is that a lot of Millenials are projected to just be reaching puberty by age 30.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Pointedstick » Thu Feb 25, 2016 11:09 am

Okay, back to this topic!

Here's an article more or less explaining my feelings on the matter: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ev-oil-crisis/

In a nutshell, I acknowledge the apparently sound theoretical underpinnings of the theory, but simply put, none of the predictions that Catton made--either long term or short term--have come true. We've had 43 years to see. That's longer than a lot of people currently living have been alive for. This is why I said I got a very "Austrian Economics" vibe from the book. There are a lot of parallels:
- An intuitively appealing, intellectually rigorous theory explained by a persuasive writer
- The notion that one of our fundamental, foundational institutions is corrupt and rotten
- Assurances that the system is unsalvageably bad, and must be entirely thrown out and replaced with something from our past that we have already rejected
- No individually actionable solutions; the only option is total societal reversion to a past state of existence when it comes to the described problem
- Dire predictions of terrible consequences stemming from a failure to remedy this deficiency by following the author's un-implementable advice
- A total lack of those consequences actually manifesting in the multiple decades since the prediction was made
- The only way the theory still makes sense is if the consequences are simply farther off, perpetually over the next hill… anywhere off into the future in such a manner that makes the theory unfalsifiable

In this particular case, the longer the dire predictions fail to materialize, the stronger a case is made for "cargoism" as we innovate our way out of the problem. Simply put, if in 50 years we've almost completely weaned ourselves off oil by transitioning to electric power and renewable energy source electrical generation, then Catton's thesis will no longer apply.

Clearly that hasn't happened yet. But the world is just as clearly moving in that direction for many reasons, and the more time goes by, the closer we get to that point.
Last edited by Pointedstick on Thu Feb 25, 2016 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Pointedstick » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:14 pm

Bump, now that MediumTex is back. :)
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Re: Overshoot

Post by MediumTex » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:36 pm

Pointedstick wrote: Okay, back to this topic!

Here's an article more or less explaining my feelings on the matter: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ev-oil-crisis/

In a nutshell, I acknowledge the apparently sound theoretical underpinnings of the theory, but simply put, none of the predictions that Catton made--either long term or short term--have come true. We've had 43 years to see. That's longer than a lot of people currently living have been alive for. This is why I said I got a very "Austrian Economics" vibe from the book. There are a lot of parallels:
- An intuitively appealing, intellectually rigorous theory explained by a persuasive writer
I think part of Catton's analysis isn't intuitive to people who have grown up in a world where endless growth was a given.
- The notion that one of our fundamental, foundational institutions is corrupt and rotten
I think that Catton would say that it isn't the institutions that are corrupt, but rather that the beliefs they are premised upon are simply wrong.
- Assurances that the system is unsalvageably bad, and must be entirely thrown out and replaced with something from our past that we have already rejected
I think that Catton's premise is actually a bit darker than that.  My reading of Catton is that there is basically a virus in the human thought operating system.  Evolution shows us that you typically don't "fix" things like that.  You just see an extinction event and Mother Nature moves in a different direction.
- No individually actionable solutions; the only option is total societal reversion to a past state of existence when it comes to the described problem
Unfortunately, I think that's right.
- Dire predictions of terrible consequences stemming from a failure to remedy this deficiency by following the author's un-implementable advice
Right, and that's why it is disturbing.
- A total lack of those consequences actually manifesting in the multiple decades since the prediction was made
It hasn't been nearly long enough.  I read Catton's thesis as unfolding over several centuries.
- The only way the theory still makes sense is if the consequences are simply farther off, perpetually over the next hill… anywhere off into the future in such a manner that makes the theory unfalsifiable
Not perpetually beyond the horizon, just beyond the horizons we are conditioned to think about.
In this particular case, the longer the dire predictions fail to materialize, the stronger a case is made for "cargoism" as we innovate our way out of the problem. Simply put, if in 50 years we've almost completely weaned ourselves off oil by transitioning to electric power and renewable energy source electrical generation, then Catton's thesis will no longer apply.
I'm not against using our cleverness in every way we can to solve the problem.  The question is whether we overestimate the impact of our cleverness without the tailwind of cheap and easy energy.
Clearly that hasn't happened yet. But the world is just as clearly moving in that direction for many reasons, and the more time goes by, the closer we get to that point.
I agree that the more time that goes by, the closer we get to the point where we will find out if an economic system premised upon endless growth is viable in a world of finite resources.

Catton was essentially describing a historic tailwind to human progress turning into a headwind in the future.  It will be fascinating to see how humanity responds to it, but Catton's analysis of ecological constraints on growth was IMHO pretty sound.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by BearBones » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:57 pm

Nice point, counterpoint!
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Pointedstick » Thu Mar 03, 2016 8:46 am

MediumTex wrote: I think part of Catton's analysis isn't intuitive to people who have grown up in a world where endless growth was a given.
That makes sense; I can see how it would make intuitive sense to someone who lived through the 70s. But how much intuitive sense it makes is irrelevant. It is accurate or not regardless of how much or how little it appeals to any given person.

MediumTex wrote: It hasn't been nearly long enough.  I read Catton's thesis as unfolding over several centuries.
[...]
Not perpetually beyond the horizon, just beyond the horizons we are conditioned to think about.
[...]
I'm not against using our cleverness in every way we can to solve the problem.  The question is whether we overestimate the impact of our cleverness without the tailwind of cheap and easy energy.
[...]
I agree that the more time that goes by, the closer we get to the point where we will find out if an economic system premised upon endless growth is viable in a world of finite resources.
Now we're getting somewhere. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that Catton's book can be distilled down to the idea that over the next few centuries, the idea of limitless growth will be revealed to be a dangerous sham that has ill-prepared us for reality without infinite cheap fossil fuels.

Basically, I accuse Catton of building a strawman argument by extrapolating the course that the USA was on in 1973 out into the indefinite future and declaring that we humans will not change course even if it leads to disaster or potentially even extinction. This is a ridiculous argument, and the reason why I feel comfortable dismissing it after only 43 years is because we have already made very meaningful changes to the problems Catton identified and altered our trajectory in that time. As I keep bringing up, solar and wind are now cost-competitive with gas. This is a titanic change from the world Catton inhabited. And we are already adding more solar and wind generation capacity than gas!

Do you think that this process is going to stall out or something? To me, it really seems that this fundamentally challenges the fossil fuel leg of Catton's argument. If so, that leaves only the "infinite growth is impossible" leg, making it much more obvious and weak argument.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by MediumTex » Thu Mar 03, 2016 12:26 pm

Pointedstick wrote: Now we're getting somewhere. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that Catton's book can be distilled down to the idea that over the next few centuries, the idea of limitless growth will be revealed to be a dangerous sham that has ill-prepared us for reality without infinite cheap fossil fuels.
Yes, I think that's a good summary.
Basically, I accuse Catton of building a strawman argument by extrapolating the course that the USA was on in 1973 out into the indefinite future and declaring that we humans will not change course even if it leads to disaster or potentially even extinction.
I don't think it was just the 1973 course, but rather the entire 20th century course.

I think that Catton would say that humans WILL change course, but that it might happen later rather than sooner.
This is a ridiculous argument, and the reason why I feel comfortable dismissing it after only 43 years is because we have already made very meaningful changes to the problems Catton identified and altered our trajectory in that time. As I keep bringing up, solar and wind are now cost-competitive with gas.
Next up is the scalability problem.  Even if solar and wind are cost competitive as niche applications, they would not be cost competitive if you tried to scale them up beyond niche applications because you would start to run into all sorts of problems like scarcity of rare earth materials, the environmental damage associated with wind turbines, the down time when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, etc.
This is a titanic change from the world Catton inhabited. And we are already adding more solar and wind generation capacity than gas!
In Catton's time renewables were a niche segment of the energy market, and they are still a niche today.  When electricity generation is 30% wind and 30% solar, the world you are describing will have arrived, but not when it's closer to 3% and 3%, which is where we are today.
Do you think that this process is going to stall out or something? To me, it really seems that this fundamentally challenges the fossil fuel leg of Catton's argument. If so, that leaves only the "infinite growth is impossible" leg, making it much more obvious and weak argument.
It won't stall out.  It will simply start to bump into things like lack of suitable places to build more wind turbines and solar farms, the fact that battery technology still isn't all that great when it comes to using electricity for transportation, the fact that planes will always be fossil fueled, the need for fossil fuel inputs for modern agriculture, etc.

The bottom line is that I just don't think we will be able to concentrate solar energy as intensely as Mother Nature has done for us in the compacted ancient organic material that we know as fossil fuels.  We think we can, and maybe we can, but I think it will be more like the comparison of a human hand and a prosthetic hand.  The latter will never have the elegance of the former.

All I would suggest is that people put Catton's arguments on their short list of serious threats to our way of life that could present themselves within our lifetimes.  If it turns out that energy isn't that big of a deal and solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, etc. can gradually replace fossil fuels, then good for us as humans.  If, however, it turns out that an economic system premised on continual growth will eventually bump into hard ecological limits, then we are going to have some tough times to deal with at some point in the future.

Interestingly, von Mises touched on this topic in a very brief way in Human Action.  What he said was basically that he could imagine resource constraints pinching economic growth at some point in the future, but that it would be a long long time before anything like that happened, and basically left it at that.

Remember, too, that expensive oil is basically the same as expensive alternative energy sources.  What the world needs is cheap energy for business as usual.  In 2008, we found out how the world economy responds to expensive energy (e.g., $150 per barrel oil)--everything basically shut down until the price of energy fell to levels where things could function profitably again.

The relationship between energy prices and the financial markets is really fascinating.  Basically, the premise behind all debt is that people and businesses will have more money in the future than they have today, but this premise has certain energy input assumptions built into it, and once those assumptions are invalidated through experience, the entire rationale for debt starts to fall apart as well.  In a post-peak oil world, many believe that the only reasonable assumption will be that people will have less surplus in the future than they have today, since the cost of energy inputs will be higher at almost every level of production.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by BearBones » Thu Mar 03, 2016 8:01 pm

Great discussion! Keep going...
:)
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Pointedstick » Wed Mar 23, 2016 11:33 am

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/solar-a ... 35/411813/

Solar and wind comprise 61% of 2015 capacity additions, gas contributes 35%

Capacity additions in the United States slowed last year, but renewable generation made up more than half of the 14,468 MW completed in 2015, according to an analysis by SNL Energy.

Wind accounted for 47% of new generation capacity, followed by natural gas (35%) and solar (14%).

Last year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted that capacity additions would begin to slow, and from 2018 to 2024 the agency believes additions will average less than 4 GW annually.


And take a look at this:

https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazar ... sis-90.pdf

[img width=650]https://i.imgur.com/9ahpCCD.png[/img]

Observe how the only fossil fuel that still has the potential to be cheaper than any of the renewables is combined-cycle natural gas, and it is already being beaten out by wind in many markets.



I hear what you're saying about things like limited landmass available for wind and solar plants, rare earth metals being rare and the like. It is true by definition that nothing is literally limitless. But Catton is (was) much more worried by the overshoot. Not as much by the limitation of human carrying capacity but the fact that he believes we've overshot it with fossil fuels.

After 10 or 20 years of new capacity being more renewable than fossil-fueled, and with the closure of old fossil burners and replacement with this cleaner, more renewable new capacity, that overshoot is going to shrink. It already is. As renewables come to make up more and more of the grid--they already are--the overshoot will diminish and eventually disappear. And with no overshoot, there's really no problem; no mass die-off, no destruction of the standard of living, nothing traumatic like that. We can live with a limited carrying capacity. Cotton acknowledged that we did just that before fossil fuels. Population growth will fall, real estate will become expensive, things like that. That's basically Japan! We humans can clearly manage.

The growth of renewable fuel sources as economically competitive with fossil-burners gives me great hope, honestly. It's not a theory. It's happening before our very eyes.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Mountaineer » Wed Mar 23, 2016 1:58 pm

MediumTex wrote:
<snip> ..... the down time when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, etc.
All we need are a bunch of superconductors circling the earth - zero resistance.  The sun is always shining somewhere.  Or perhaps a perpetual motion machine.  Maybe Al Gore has already invented them.  ;)

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Re: Overshoot

Post by Mark Leavy » Wed Mar 23, 2016 7:29 pm

I haven't run the calcs. So this idea maybe stupid.  It seems that the most efficient bulk storage would be to just pump water uphill.

OK. I thought about it. That was stupid.

Better idea - just use hydrogen for bulk storage. There is plenty of water to electrolyse and we are seeing more effiicient electrode matrrials everyday.

Flywheels are also extremely under appreciated for energy storage.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Pointedstick » Mon Apr 04, 2016 2:32 pm

Some interesting and relevant snippets from articles on a site I've been reading recently:
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... 31410.html
After a while, it became clear to me that there were a great many problems that couldn't be solved with either "fiscal policy" or "monetary policy." Many people today are aware that "growth" -- doing what we're doing today, just more of it -- is not really going to get us anywhere. Indeed, I think that there is an undercurrent of resistance to "growth" that makes people shy away from "pro-growth" approaches. Let's just say that we could ramp up the U.S. economy and produce 10% growth rates for the next twenty years. Would that be a good thing? I can't really say that it would. You might call it "digging our hole even deeper." Even if you forget about the environmental consequences, the fact of the matter is that living in Suburban Hell is kind of a drag.
[...]
What is so good about "growth"? Depending on whether you talk to a Democrat or Republican, the answer usually is: 1) less unemployment, or 2) more profits. You can see we aren't going to solve any problems that way.
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... 61509.html
"Supply side economists" usually like to talk about "growth." You've probably noticed that I don't use the term "growth" too much, and prefer "economic health." What does "growth" mean? It tends to mean ... more of what we already have.

There have been times when people looked upon their handiwork with enthusiasm and celebration. In the 19th century, as the cities grew or the railroads were extended, this was thought to be a great collective accomplishment. Even in the 1960s, people genuinely looked upon their latest efforts, the personal automobile, the interstate highway system, commercial aviation -- walking on the moon! -- as another step in the increasing Glory of Man. It was Progress.

Have you noticed there is no Progress anymore? I look upon what we have today -- the environmental destruction, the ever-increasing horrors of the food production system, the insane medical system, the horrible and worsening state of cities and living environments, our descent into self-destructive car-addiction, the deteriorating education system, the general decline of society and the family unit -- as one hideous wall-to-wall catastrophe. (Except for the Internet.)

And I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not the only one.

Does "growth" mean more of this? There is nothing inherent to the Magic Formula -- Low Taxes, Stable Money -- that says you have to cut down the rainforest and sterilize the oceans and build strip malls far out in the Arizona desert to sell crap that nobody needs. Or murder people in other countries who aren't going along agreeably with our global empire. But, that's what seems to happen, at least for now. More of the same.

I have come to appreciate that many people don't really want further enable activity of this sort. I think that the people of France and Japan, for example, have become aware that this path of Westernization, modernization, globalization, whatever, doesn't produce desirable outcomes. I choose France and Japan because both have very rich cultures, built up over centuries, which are eroding and being replaced by the Wal-Mart consumerist suburban model of the U.S. Even people in the U.S., who don't have any of the cultural inheritance of France or Japan, and who are indeed infamous worldwide for their crassness and ignorance -- ignorance even of what a cultural inheritance is, and the fact that they don't have one -- are rather intensely aware that what they have doesn't quite add up to very much.

So, there is, I think, a resistance to "growth." What's it good for? Isn't there something we can get enthusiastic about? About the only thing people get enthusiastic about is "profit," this intangible abstraction. This "profit" is so desirable, that the means of obtaining the profit have become largely irrelevant. Building houses is no longer about houses, it's about "profit." Growing food is not about food, it's about "profit." However, the economy is, actually, things like food and houses. Greater "profit" entitles one to a bigger share of the pie, so if you have a shitty culture, then with more "profit" you just get a bigger share of a shitty culture.

None of these are new issues. They have been around for decades and centuries. Rather too many "supply side economics" types like to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend they don't exist. Sorry -- they exist.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Pointedstick » Mon Apr 04, 2016 5:16 pm

Another thing about what would happen after a "collapse" of some sort:
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... 40410.html
These "collapse" periods don't last forever. About five or ten years, maybe. After that period, either there is some recovery of the previous arrangement, so you can use the old existing stuff, or you start creating a new arrangement, and thus you start building things. For example, if, after five or ten years, you had no expectation that automobiles would ever be available again, except for a couple local warlords driving around in their G-Wagons, then you would go about arranging your activities so that you didn't need an automobile. On a large scale, this could be a no-car Traditional City.

I suppose some people would claim that all such "new arrangements" would be impossible, for some reason like fossil fuels are not available or what have you. This is nonsense. The fact of the matter is, people have time and energy and problems to solve, so they solve them. Why do you think people built trains in the first place? Because they wanted to get from Point A to Point B overland, in a way that was less laborious than a horse-drawn wagon on a dirt road. And they did it with their bare hands, without fossil fuels (the early trains burned wood), because they had time and energy and problems to solve.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Pointedstick » Mon Apr 25, 2016 12:59 pm

Another reason to be hopeful, or at least to doubt the "runaway population explosion" doom porn.


First, think about world fertility rates in 1970, when Catton was thinking about this stuff and starting to write Overshoot:

[img width=600]http://i.imgur.com/ZCKqxfW.png[/img]
(Graph taken and modified from From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate)

My god, families with five, six, seven, eight children per family everywhere! Impending population explosion!

And indeed, the world population increased a lot between then and now. But, something that Catton might not have expected happened to the fertility rates:







[img width=600]http://i.imgur.com/572vJp7.png[/img]

The long-term trajectory of world fertility is way down! World population growth is at its lowest point measured as a percentage of existing population. If this trajectory continues--and there's no reason to suggest it won't-- then the world population will probably stabilize at some point and may even begin to decline. Perhaps within our lifetimes.




Here's another juicy graphic: transportation-related energy use (mostly fossil fuels) per capita, across a variety of global cities:

[img width=600]http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... nsport.jpg[/img]

So for all the people who say it can't be done here, or in time, well they already did it in Hong Kong, in Moscow, in Tokyo, Singapore, Amsterdam, Vienna, Copenhagen…

So yes, they use literally ten times less energy to move people and things in Singapore than they do in Houston. And the answer of course is really narrow streets!  ;)

Doesn't seem so impossible anymore, does it? Not only is it not impossible, but it's already been done, if we just know where to look. And not only has it been done, but it's fabulous. These are cities people pay lots of money to travel to on their vacations.
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Re: Overshoot

Post by MachineGhost » Mon Apr 25, 2016 2:00 pm

God Save The Queen Capitalism!

Seriously, Hong Kong must be a literal meat packing plant for canned sardines and that is your solution for the future?  Increase the amount of the Great Packed Unwashed climbing, stepping, poking, jostling and butting all over each other so that the energy density per Great Packed Unwashed merely declines as a function of maths?  Overweight and Obese Fat Americans (OOFA) wouldn't even fit in their really narrow streets!  I wonder where India would fit into that scale.

Let's try this...  What have all those Great Packed Unwashed of Hong Kong provided to advancing civilization in terms of innovation, growth and progress?  Blank stare.  They're just not on the map anymore than Moscow is.  They simply don't matter.  (And please don't bring up their low levels of income taxation...  that's from the British).  So why do we want to emulate them if it kills creativity?
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Pointedstick » Mon Apr 25, 2016 2:31 pm

MachineGhost wrote: God Save The Queen Capitalism!

Seriously, Hong Kong must be a literal meat packing plant for canned sardines and that is your solution for the future?  Increase the amount of the Great Packed Unwashed climbing, stepping, poking, jostling and butting all over each other so that the energy density per Great Packed Unwashed merely declines as a function of maths?  Overweight and Obese Fat Americans (OOFA) wouldn't even fit in their really narrow streets!  I wonder where India would fit into that scale.

Let's try this...  What have all those Great Packed Unwashed of Hong Kong provided to advancing civilization in terms of innovation, growth and progress?  Blank stare.  They're just not on the map anymore than Moscow is.  They simply don't matter.  (And please don't bring up their low levels of income taxation...  that's from the British).  So why do we want to emulate them if it kills creativity?
Instead of pointing out the lunacy of your assertions and bringing up all the innovations coming out of Europe and Asia (I'm sure you have a functioning brain and can remember or notice them yourself), I have an even better idea: I'm going to invite you to do something other than throwing around a bunch of ignorant, uninformed, meaningless, hyper-agressive bluster that makes you seem like a spazz with a hormone imbalance; instead, why don't you live up to your self-image and educate yourself on the subject? Read everything here (I know you can and will). Start from the bottom:

http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... chive.html

I know that you have a personal blind spot for cars (and necessarily, a society that supports and eventually comes to require them), but try to get out of your own brain for a bit and imagine the possibilities. Because cars suck. Cars and their consequences are enormous major causes of pollution and excessive resource consumption. They're expensive and dangerous; they require that ugly fueling, repair, and transportation infrastructure be right in the middle of people's living spaces; they pollute the air and give people asthma; they cannot be converted to use alternative energy sources as they become available without enormous effort; they make people fat and lazy and destroy a region's walkability; they condition people to accept government intrusion and control of their mobility; they require garaging, storage, and parking facilities that balloon the size of houses, lots, and businesses; they discriminate against the poor by representing a barrier to mobility that is a far greater percentage of the income of the poor than others.

I could go on and on. But as far as I am concerned these damn machines are a blight on humanity and could be returned to the status of unnecessary luxuries owned only by those who actually enjoyed them (e.g. you) with no serious negative consequences. You could still have your car if you wanted it and were prepared to pay for it and keep it somewhere, just like how some people have a personal pool right now. But can you imagine how absurd it would be if we built a society in which it was nearly impossible to live without a personal pool? Madness!
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Re: Overshoot

Post by MachineGhost » Mon Apr 25, 2016 3:44 pm

8)
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes

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vnatale
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Re: Overshoot

Post by vnatale » Wed Jan 15, 2020 7:02 pm

Tortoise wrote:
Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:28 am
MediumTex wrote: Are you talking about cultural and sociological evolution or biological evolution?
In fact, such basic technological developments as antiseptics have allowed millions of people to live who otherwise would have been weeded out by Mother Nature at a very young age. Also, consider all the people on this planet who wear corrective lenses: what chance of survival would they have had before eyeglasses were invented? Most of them would have been much more likely to be eaten by predators and would have been at a huge disadvantage in hunting and gathering their food.

Yes, I think I recently stated so here.

At one point in my eye sight career all I could see was the big E on the eye chart. 20/400 vision. Which means that what the normal person could see from 400 feet away, I had to be 20 feet away to see it.

With that eyesight back in the cavemen days I would not have seen that saber tooth tiger until it was right on top of me.

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Overshoot

Post by Libertarian666 » Wed Jan 15, 2020 8:22 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jan 15, 2020 7:02 pm
Tortoise wrote:
Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:28 am
MediumTex wrote: Are you talking about cultural and sociological evolution or biological evolution?
In fact, such basic technological developments as antiseptics have allowed millions of people to live who otherwise would have been weeded out by Mother Nature at a very young age. Also, consider all the people on this planet who wear corrective lenses: what chance of survival would they have had before eyeglasses were invented? Most of them would have been much more likely to be eaten by predators and would have been at a huge disadvantage in hunting and gathering their food.

Yes, I think I recently stated so here.

At one point in my eye sight career all I could see was the big E on the eye chart. 20/400 vision. Which means that what the normal person could see from 400 feet away, I had to be 20 feet away to see it.

With that eyesight back in the cavemen days I would not have seen that saber tooth tiger until it was right on top of me.

Vinny
I was just as blind as you... until I got my cataract lens replacements.
Now I can drive without glasses!
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