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Actually, playing a medium range futurist is not that hard . . .
Yes, that's what they all think. What they all have in common is that they are all wrong, except possibly one, who gets a prediction right by luck (the "million monkeys with typewriters" model).
Regarding your specifics: The same could have been said -- and in fact was widely said -- in 1974. That's why the "At some point" notion needs to be quantified in order for a prediction to be meaningful. At some point we're all dead, and won't know whether some sweeping prediction will ever come true or not.
Here's one: The energy of sunlight falling upon the earth is enormous, far outstripping any foreseeable need at present. Will we ever be able to capture this energy efficiently? Answer: Probably, but I don't know for sure, and neither does anyone else reading this thread. When? Not a clue . . .
Yes, that's what they all think. What they all have in common is that they are all wrong, except possibly one, who gets a prediction right by luck (the "million monkeys with typewriters" model).
Regarding your specifics: The same could have been said -- and in fact was widely said -- in 1974. That's why the "At some point" notion needs to be quantified in order for a prediction to be meaningful. At some point we're all dead, and won't know whether some sweeping prediction will ever come true or not.
Here's one: The energy of sunlight falling upon the earth is enormous, far outstripping any foreseeable need at present. Will we ever be able to capture this energy efficiently? Answer: Probably, but I don't know for sure, and neither does anyone else reading this thread. When? Not a clue . . .
So you think that energy density of a technological civilization can grow forever?
Energy of Sun is enormous, but unfortunately Earth energy balance (making our environment livable) depends on that energy. Humans can't just divert substantial chunk of Sun's energy onto themselves without disturbing that very delicate balance.
It is shown that the energy consumption rate which meets the global thermodynamic balance and expected technical facilities cannot exceed a limit of 1014W, which is approximately an order higher of the contemporary rate of energy consumption by the mankind. The conclusion is made that we should learn how to restrict the energy consumption rate in the near future.
Bolded sentence is impossible under current economic and social control paradigm. Thus, for to avoid collapse current economical and social control schemes must go. That's 100% utopia. Thus, only imminent collapse remains. Futurology is easy .
Assuming current rates of energy consumption growth "an order higher of the current rate" will be reached in very foreseeable future.
So you think that energy density of a technological civilization can grow forever?
Why do you assume that is has to grow forever? In the US, we now use less energy per unit of GDP than we did in 1980. Third-world birthrates are dropping. The Gates Foundation predicts the end of extreme poverty in the foreseeable future. We now have hybrid cars which were not available even twenty years ago. And about solar diversion: what you have posted is thermodynamic hooey.
It seems that what you are saying is based on an apocalypse-relishing approach to life rather than anything else. Such people have been predicting this kind of stuff forever, while material circumstances have improved greatly all the while. The most recent example is "peak oil," which was fashionable among doomsdayers just two years ago, but has now largely dropped off the radar. And The Club of Rome's "limits to growth" of the 1970s. And so forth.
Knowledge is cumulative, and human beings are very clever. We are not going to see doomsday unless we have nuclear war. All the rest of it is baloney.
I think I explained that (using random scientific publications as references) in my two posts above. Energy "density" and total energy consumption must grow continuously or entire techno free market scheme would fall apart in chaos and carnage.
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In the US, we now use less energy per unit of GDP than we did in 1980.
So what? Less energy per GDP unit, thanks largely to trading financial instruments etc., multiplied by greater GDP = higher rate of energy consumption=higher complexity & "energy density" of the economy=more and more energy to sustain all of that.
What real (inflation-adjusted) GDP can be tied to, however, is the rate of change in how fast civilization as a whole is consuming energy, through the same constant of 9.7 ± 0.3 milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. This is illustrated in the figure above. Real, inflation adjusted GDP is tied to how fast energy consumption is growing through the constant λ. Inflation-adjusted wealth is tied to our current power production capacity through the same constant λ. Both wealth and Energy consumption grow at the same rate η, where the rate is in % per year.
So, at global scales, and over longer timescales, we must continue long-term growth of our capacity to consume primary energy reserves in order to sustain a positive real GDP. If consumption becomes too difficult, due to reserve depletion or accelerating environmental disasters (for example from accelerating carbon dioxide emissions), all our efforts to produce growth will be more than offset by inflation and decay. Energy consumption will continue. It may even be higher than it is today. But if energy consumption rates decline then global civilization will enter a phase of collapse.
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Third-world birthrates are dropping.
Only because third world energy density increases so they don't need that many kids because they have internal combustion engines now. Since I specifically assumed that mankind can destroy biosphere forever, high fertility of the third world is irrelevant anyway because their per capita energy consumption is a small fraction of that in the developed countries. But once fertility drops and third world would start to catch up in energy consumption, watch out.
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The Gates Foundation predicts the end of extreme poverty in the foreseeable future.
Since this noble end is to be achieved by the energy intensive technological means it would require more and more energy. I'll try simple arithmetic. Let's assume that third world population shrinks 4 fold but it's per capita energy consumption becomes 50% of that in USA in the name of war on poverty (it's at least 10 fold increase). Do I need to explain more?
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We now have hybrid cars which were not available even twenty years ago.
So what? Technological bonanza requires more energy to manufacture it. High techs goods are more energy intensive than conventional gear. It takes way more energy to manufacture a hybrid car than it takes to manufacture a conventional car, do you realize that? Even we are to assume that overall hybrids are more energy efficient, so what? That only means that people who can afford 20 miles round-trip to a fast food joint will drive 10 extra miles and such. People who couldn't afford a car because of high gas prices will be driving to walk their dogs and so on. There are no known cases where new technology decreased overall energy consumption. If you know examples to the contrary, share.
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And about solar diversion: what you have posted is thermodynamic hooey.
That's a silly "argument" only a child or talk radio caller can use. If your thermodynamics knowledge transcends that of the authors I cited, point to their conceptual mistakes.
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It seems that what you are saying is based on an apocalypse-relishing approach to life rather than anything else.
Nope, I cited two sources and made an attempt on rational argumentation. I'm still trying to figure out what you base your rosy fantasies on except strong belief that business as usual can be sustained forever because some of us are so clever.
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Such people have been predicting this kind of stuff forever, while material circumstances have improved greatly all the while.
Nope, you are making stuff up. "Forever" is a relatively recent phenomenon if we are to disregard religious doomsayers.
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The most recent example is "peak oil," which was fashionable among doomsdayers just two years ago, but has now largely dropped off the radar.
Whose radar you are referring to, yours? It's broken, sorry.
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Knowledge is cumulative, and human beings are very clever. We are not going to see doomsday unless we have nuclear war. All the rest of it is baloney.
So what? Knowledge can override the laws to thermodynamics? It would take truly "divine" knowledge for that. Knowledge tells you that yeast can't grow forever in a closed can, but you successfully disregarded that knowledge anyway.
We can rob other species of their share of food and space forever because we are so clever? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. All the "improvement" in human material consumption were paid for with other species lives or existence itself. We can do that just for that long before destroying livable biosphere. Your optimism regardless endless supply of energy we can tap into needs stronger evidence than your faith.
BTW, have you ever heard of the law of diminishing returns? Even if scientific method gave humans extraordinary advantage, it takes more and more efforts, people, and yes energy to sustain scientific machine producing less and less usable results per unit of investments. But it's another topic.
Your "worth" is not determined by the CEOs. What a common misunderstanding. If your job is in high demand and there isn't enough labor supply, the CEO will pay you more. They make decisions after market mechanism has sorted things out. It is about how marketable and rare your skills and trade are.
I think you managed to contradict yourself in just a couple of sentences, don't you think? Market mechanisms, what is that? It's owners and management coming together and saying, hey, we have this wonderful year, revenue increased 50% why don't we just freeze wages, fire a couple of bums and reward ourselves with a mega bonus, peons have nowhere to go anyway, what they gonna do about it? That's your market mechanism in a nutshell. Market mechanism is not an abstraction, it's people with proper names and titles + institutionalized wage slavery (held together by repressive apparatus of state). If not for wage slavery, who would work all those low level jobs for those wages? Thus, "market" must rob people of their right for the market-less subsistence before working them for cheap, and saying "hey, nothing personal, it's just market forces responsible for $8/hr". All people value their lives about the same, if people can be forced to do the least rewarding and the most damaging jobs for the least amount of money, it takes little bit more than "market" to achieve that.
What I identified were indeed just trends. It doesn't take much to realize it.
People make a major confusion. Economics is amoral. It is not emotional. It isn't here to warm hearts. It simply is a set of nature's rules. It's quite similar to the natural selection of evolution.
Policies, on the other hand, must consider human needs. The way to do things well is to balance the amoral nature and human needs. Strictly following nature's rule is cold. But ignoring it is unrealistic and harmful in the end. Nations must make nature's rule work for human needs, rather than changing nature's unchangeable rules. Americans have been too spoiled to recognize that.
People in the first world aren't more worthwhile than those in the developing world. Anti-offshoring, which many liberals and some conservatives support, is just another form of xenophobia. Not offshoring means opportunities stay in the wealthy world; offshoring means opportunities to go those countries and people who need them more than the first world. It is precisely the sharing of economic opportunities that brought millions of Chinese and Indians out of poverty. What exactly is wrong about globalization? Liberals' sense of equality lacks a global context. This "equality" runs undercurrents of xenophobia, not to mention it's the first world that caused the inequality among nations.
The world is a connected entity. The economy is destined to be global. This means jobs go around and people move around. This whole "our jobs" argument, both by liberals and conservatives, is problematic.
To speak of "globalism" as though it is a particular economic construct akin to the various economic theories is ignoring the most obvious aspect of our current form of global trade, and that is the exploitive nature of utilizing a severe compensation disparity to one's own interest. I think many people are attempting to posture the American trade expansion as something of a positive, the old "win-win" notion that implies a general spread of good as the underlying force behind such trade agreements.
I distinctly remember the arguments for NAFTA that included a view of the great expectations for the Mexican labor force, yet at the end of the first decade most of those Mexicans were again jobless as capital fled to other nations with even lower wages and more state giveaways. If foreign trade is so lucrative for the labor force why are they still pouring over our borders looking for a better life? Offshoring, as it stands today only exports a kind of misery that American's bitterly fought during the formative years of the industrial revolution. Slave wages cannot be considered an opportunity, unions were the creators of real opportunity for American labor, a job with low pay and dangerous working conditions certainly doesn't qualify as opportunity. Millions of Chinese and Indians are still living in squalor, and millions of American's are now facing a dim future, so the fact of a global spread of labor exploitation probably doesn't bode well for labor, here in the US, or abroad.
"The economy is destined to be global," is there a monolithic structure that we can refer to as "the economy"? Not really, the totality of trade around the world has little connection to a single all inclusive framework of agreements signed by ALL nations. The WTO is one such attempt to collectivize the worlds trade, but even as it tried in vain to appear as a solid front of bankers, traders, Lawyers, and statesmen, it failed to convince those who saw through the ruse and it was outed as another attempt by western powers to continue their dominance in world finance.
If we had a system of wage parity across the globe would there be any advantage in moving a labor function to India, or China? If we had an international treaty that bound the signatories to a goal of ecological and social parity would General Motors be running from their organized labor force in order to gain more profit? This is the crux of most arguments regarding the current disparities in labor law and ecological considerations that are the drivers for the so called "global economy". To attempt a re-definition of wage disparity by calling it xenophobia is being disingenuous at best and simply ignorant at worst.
Lastly, to think of economics (theories) as a natural phenomenon could be likened to a belief that man created gravity, theories are simply that, man made conclusions, and quite possibly utilizing errant observations in the process. Nature has no designs on a man's wealth, but not so for man against man and that is the reality that fronts for so many economic systems that grew out of modern man's financial dealings with his fellow men. Amoral men create amoral societies, and economics as theory is simply a reflection of what some men consider to be a fair and equitable framework of commerce. Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Democratic socialism, Statism, all theories, all man made, I've often wondered if we could create another "ism," one that fits the modern day human challenges of sustainable living.
I think I explained that (using random scientific publications as references) in my two posts above. Energy "density" and total energy consumption must grow continuously or entire techno free market scheme would fall apart in chaos and carnage.
Chaos and carnage? This is simply melodramatic nonsense.
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Originally Posted by RememberMee
[i]What real (inflation-adjusted) GDP can be tied to, however, is the rate of change in how fast civilization as a whole is consuming energy, through the same constant of 9.7 ± 0.3 milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. This is illustrated in the figure above. Real, inflation adjusted GDP is tied to how fast energy consumption is growing through the constant λ. Inflation-adjusted wealth is tied to our current power production capacity through the same constant λ. Both wealth and Energy consumption grow at the same rate η, where the rate is in % per year.
No. Nothing like this is tied to anything. It has been convenient in the past to model some empirical data in this way. There is no causal mechanism here. Are you mistaking correlation for causation?
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Originally Posted by RememberMee
But if energy consumption rates decline then global civilization will enter a phase of collapse.
Again, this is simply speculative nonsense. Didn't the Mayan calendar predict something like this? And then the Y2K folks? How about Nostradamus? I remember exactly these same kinds of ideas being taken seriously during the oil embargo of the early 1970s.
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Originally Posted by RememberMee
That's a silly "argument" only a child or talk radio caller can use. If your thermodynamics knowledge transcends that of the authors I cited, point to their conceptual mistakes.
Ah, yes. This is the key point, and here is their conceptual mistake. The authors of the cited paper, both of whom are in a semiconductor institute in Ukraine, have made exactly the same mistake that you have. The foundation of their paper is extrapolation using an exponential model. This never works, because of the inherent growth of the exponential. In other words, things that can't happen, which are the kinds of predictions given by exponential-growth models, won't happen.
Are you familiar with the logistic curve? The authors of your paper could just as easily fit a logistic to their data, such as it is, and reached an entirely different conclusion. The exponential and the logistic track each other closely during the growth phase.
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Originally Posted by RememberMee
I'm still trying to figure out what you base your rosy fantasies on except strong belief that business as usual can be sustained forever because some of us are so clever.
No. You continue to miss the point. Business as usual will not continue forever. Moreover, business as usual has never persisted for long. Things are always changing, and they will continue to change. The problem is that neither you nor I can predict how they will change. That's the point -- the stuff that you are mapping out will be shown to be nonsense in retrospect, just as the passing of time has shown all past doomsday scenarios to be nonsense.
I think you managed to contradict yourself in just a couple of sentences, don't you think? Market mechanisms, what is that? It's owners and management coming together and saying, hey, we have this wonderful year, revenue increased 50% why don't we just freeze wages, fire a couple of bums and reward ourselves with a mega bonus, peons have nowhere to go anyway, what they gonna do about it? That's your market mechanism in a nutshell. Market mechanism is not an abstraction, it's people with proper names and titles + institutionalized wage slavery (held together by repressive apparatus of state). If not for wage slavery, who would work all those low level jobs for those wages? Thus, "market" must rob people of their right for the market-less subsistence before working them for cheap, and saying "hey, nothing personal, it's just market forces responsible for $8/hr". All people value their lives about the same, if people can be forced to do the least rewarding and the most damaging jobs for the least amount of money, it takes little bit more than "market" to achieve that.
You don't seem to understand market mechanisms. If those with proper names and titles can keep your wages down, it means the market allows that. When you say the worker has nowhere to go, that's the market reality. There may not be enough opportunities, or at least the demand for your skills. If there is, you would quit and go to some place better. If the reality is that you have no place to go, then your manager can indeed make the decision to freeze wages. That decision is the result of market mechanisms, not simply managerial manipulation. There are lots of people whose skills are highly sought after and they do get paid very well. This is why businesses want more workers of that skill so that market mechanisms then works against the worker. One way to do it is through our "need" for immigrants, which the Left wholeheartedly support by the way. You can say that business manipulate the market by increasing labor supply. But unfortunately, they are just using what's available to them. They didn't create all these humans. But these humans made themselves available. In fact, immigrants are extremely hard working compared to those born with the privilege to be American. Privilege ultimately works against a people.
Offshoring, as it stands today only exports a kind of misery that American's bitterly fought during the formative years of the industrial revolution. Slave wages cannot be considered an opportunity, unions were the creators of real opportunity for American labor, a job with low pay and dangerous working conditions certainly doesn't qualify as opportunity. Millions of Chinese and Indians are still living in squalor, and millions of American's are now facing a dim future, so the fact of a global spread of labor exploitation probably doesn't bode well for labor, here in the US, or abroad.
The jobs offshored to China aren't all "slave jobs." Many of them are programmers, engineers, graphic designers, software developers, among others. They are not all low pay and dangerous working conditions. In fact, over the last 20 years, China has basically moved up the supply chain. Their labor cost went up, working conditions improved, and workers have more money in hand. Globalization has brought lots of people out of poverty and given them the opportunity for a job, in a factory, in a cubicle, in a shop, etc. This vast pouring of investment into China brought up various aspects of its economy. Why are these not opportunities? The average Chinese person is much wealthier than they were 30 years ago. They are sending ever more kids to American universities and buying properties in the U.S. Exactly what kind of slave can do that? The Chinese are aware of their labor problems, but thing is, you need people to invest in you to jump start. That jumpstart was provided by American companies. Gradually, China will ease its problems with more prosperity, the way that America got rich. You say that these are what Americans fought for, but you don't realize that China is half way through that process. That's how a nation gets rich and powerful. In a way, unions preferred short-term gains than long-term opportunities and they got what they wanted. The Chinese, by contrast, seized that opportunity to ride into the future. And they are on their way.
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Originally Posted by jertheber
If we had a system of wage parity across the globe would there be any advantage in moving a labor function to India, or China? If we had an international treaty that bound the signatories to a goal of ecological and social parity would General Motors be running from their organized labor force in order to gain more profit?
First of all, you have seen how nations compete and not collaborate haven't you? So to say if there was a treaty of ecological and social parity is not meaningful. The point is, there isn't that system, and there won't be one.
And what exactly does that system look like? Western nations protecting their accumulated wealth by keeping their businesses at bay? Then China and India get nothing, unless their labor cost is on par with Western labor cost? And what makes you think that China would want an equal strength of environmental regulation? You can't tell China what policies they have. They are competing in the global economy and they need to have an edge on things. Countries in Asia compete against one another for America's offshored jobs. Everyone wants a slice of the pie and a ladder to go up. What you are describing is a nice dream, and nice indeed, but a waste of time to seriously consider such an unrealistic scenario.
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Originally Posted by jertheber
Lastly, to think of economics (theories) as a natural phenomenon could be likened to a belief that man created gravity, theories are simply that, man made conclusions, and quite possibly utilizing errant observations in the process. Nature has no designs on a man's wealth, but not so for man against man and that is the reality that fronts for so many economic systems that grew out of modern man's financial dealings with his fellow men. Amoral men create amoral societies, and economics as theory is simply a reflection of what some men consider to be a fair and equitable framework of commerce. Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Democratic socialism, Statism, all theories, all man made, I've often wondered if we could create another "ism," one that fits the modern day human challenges of sustainable living.
Nature does have its own rules. Trees shade one another for sunlight. This isn't to say that humans should behave like those trees. But people in this country have literally adopted an illusion that is falling apart. They think they will not have to work hard, save for a rainy day, compete among others. You do. That was the way America's previous generations built this country and got rich. That is still the way so many immigrants strive for their future.
The truth is that if one doesn't want to work hard and compete, one would be losing out. Lots of native born Americans aren't as successful as immigrants. They are already losing out.
What I'm saying is that blaming businesses and the rich, though necessary, doesn't help much. Focus your energy on things that are possible. I agree that businesses are selfish and the rich just want what they want, and I agree that there should be more social programs to ease the pain of the unfortunate. Be careful when you go too far.
There is virtually nothing to study or consider in OP's posts so far in this thread. Most of his points are either (a) wrong, (b) obvious, (c) meaningless cliches, or (d) applicable to just about any time in history. I'm sorry, but assembling these together gives you no insight into anything. Other thinkers have done a more thorough job. By contrast one might read, for example, Arnold Toynbee's Study of History, which goes to twelve volumes.
I worked for about five years as a futurist for a large division of a "Fortune-10" corporation. Yes, it was fun. But we ultimately concluded that applications of mathematics and especially projections of trends are useless in getting a handle on the future. One good work on the subject, however, is The Art of the Long View, by Schwartz. His principal idea is that the best you can do is try to anticipate a plurality of scenarios, and have a plan for whichever comes to pass (if you're lucky) . . .
EDIT -- "I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh when he sees another soothsayer" -- Cicero, addressing the Roman Senate
I agree w/ you.
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