Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!gwydir!gara!pmorriso From: pmorriso@gara.une.oz.au (Perry Morrison MATH) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Future Work Summary: y Message-ID: <1486@gara.une.oz.au> Date: 14 Apr 90 13:27:10 GMT References: <9004101958.AA23998@stdc.jhuapl.edu> <1472@gara.une.oz.au> <22574@cs.yale.edu> Organization: University of New England, Armidale, Australia Lines: 122 In article <22574@cs.yale.edu>, news@cs.yale.edu (Usenet News) writes: > This is true. No technology, no matter how advanced, can avoid the problems > of exponential population increase, leading to ultimate overpopulation. But > there are some brighter possibilities in such a future: > > Our technology will be nonpolluting, so no matter how many of us there are, > there will be no oil spills, CO2 emissions, toxic wastes, or dead beached > dolphins. We'll be able to generate energy without shredding ecosystems. > The _only_ ecological damage we'll do will be the damage we do merely by > being on this planet and taking up space; byproducts of our technology, which > are what are causing almost all our current problems, will cease to mess > things up. Yes, but taking up (more and more) space drags a lot of baggage with it: animals we eat/use "need" cleared land, they fill the atmosphere with methane (farts!), we'll use more energy and generate more heat that needs to be dissipated, we'll place greater pressure on food supplies (fisheries etc). The problem is multifaceted, and includes population growth (which historically and paradoxically only declines when living standards improve. children are the only resource that poor people have control of), maldistribution of resources (the underlying basis of which is greed) and high energy technologies. Low energy technolgies don't give us the power and convenience we want, but they also (i think) don't provide us with Exxon Valdez, Bhopal, Chernobyl etc. Who knows, maybe the technology you are advocating is of this kind. > Space travel will become much more cheap and convenient, opening up new > potential resource pools and places we can colonize. One asteroid can provide > as much steel as has EVER BEEN USED since the beginning of the Industrial > Revolution.... Well, I'm skeptical about the prospects of colonization. Sure technology is increasing at a rapid rate, but we don't even have the capacity to reliably launch 5-7 people into space on the shuttle. A while ago the US was getting panicky about its capacity to launch satellites at all. Shifting millions seems a little doubtful to me. > Lifespan will increase, as will standard of living; and both factors will > tend to decrease reproduction rates. Yes. If the standard of living of the overpopulating countries can be raised. > > Essentially, if we're lucky and succeed in developing this technology before > we kill ourselves (by nukes or ecodeath), our one remaining problem will be > controlling our reproduction well enough to avoid crowding all other life > out of the universe. Seeing as the size of the universe is pretty big, I think we should cross that bridge when we come to it :-) > Also true. But our current technology requires massive resource rape before > things start to roll; why else is Brazil slashing their forests? They're > just doing what we did, back before we understood what a bad idea it is. > Our current technology also requires lots of money to implement. Neither > requirement will be a factor in the future technologies I'm hypothesizing. You could be right, but I think the time factor will diminsish its possibilities > Most people, though, would rather have both; and if > it comes down to a car and air that's a _little_ dirtier, they'll take the > car. The only problem is that when a lot of people take the car, the air > winds up being a _lot_ dirtier. Whose fault is it? I believe that this is called the tragedy of the commons. People make rational decicions for them (like adding one more cow to the common land) that end up being collective irrationalities. The benefits go to the individual and the costs (erosion etc) are spread amongst everyone. We need a legislative menas of controlling commons (air, fisheries, water). Some commons are protected (banks!). Why not the world's air? > >> Both the level of technology and the standard of living are likely to > >> increase drastically in the near future -- continuing and accelerating > >> the current levels of progress. Different people define progress differently. Sure, progress has saved from infectious disease, but it might have exposed me to greater levels of carcinogens. I donlt think that we have to accept all technology/"progress" or have none of it. I think we can choose. > Umm, this is true in that giving money and resources to a government with > the intention that they will pass them on to their people doesn't tend to > work to well when the government is corrupt, as you seem to be saying is the > case. But it is also definitely true that third world economies are very, > very depressed; and for them to take advantage of our current technology > requires lots of stuff that future technologies won't demand. The problems > need to be addressed at many levels; but the technological level holds out > the (long-range) hope for a really lasting, worldwide solution, which seems > more problematic with the other solutions which have been suggested. Yes, but it isn't just corrupt govt.s, dictatorships etc. Much of our efforts to bootstrap the 3rd world technologically have had awful consequences: somebody gets the capital to buy supercrops, fertilizers, pesticides and gets bumper crops, buys out the surrounding small landholders (who can't compete anyway) and they move to the megacity where x million others eke out a squalid existence with no prospect of employment. Are we responsible for that? Well, agribiz, the DDT sellers etc certainly are. Should we have left them in their state? Why not? We could have given the major benefits of our technology- immunization, sanitary practices and say antibiotics. Infant mortaility would decline and if people had control of their land (even with primitive, inefficient varieties and practices) they could have adjusted their fertility in line with life expectancy. As it is, we've given them greater life expectancy anyway, andtheir only hope is to produce enough children to (hopefully) drag them out of their economic predicament. Maybe it's my misguided values, but I believe that if people have a reasonable life expectancy and profess that they are happy (despite working hard) then we should let them get on with their lives. Unfortunately, they've always represented potential markets. Guess where the cigarette companies will target if they continue to get a hard time in the west?