by Boris Johnson » Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:31 pm
Well tdb, its sort of your argument to make. I've skimmed it a few times now. But if you really want me to start taking this post-scasity stuf seriously. Your going to have to start presenting serious solutions to the really fundamental problems. Yes consumerist society is silly, yes its wasteful. Yes wealth is concentrated. Awesome. However, raging against the machine does not somehow provide magical solutions to the basic Malthusian problem. Namely population growth is exponential, carrying capacity of an environment can be expanded but it is not infinite. If one considers we've got pretty lucky with being able to expand out utilization of carrying capacity already (The green revolution literally saved india from a f**k collosal famine). Predicating the 'plan' for the most basic goods on 'poor foreigners and robots' (that really is, as far I can see the most concrete proposal in the piece). Furthermore, there are even some who believe we've passed the sustainable population a few billion ago, thats without factoring in climate charge, and lions and tigers oh me oh my!
Also he seems to make some basic economic error's
1) he seems to base everything on the raise of GDP. Fun fact about GDP the reconstruction work post massive tsunami in a poor asian country makes it GDP rise as a whole, why? the reconstruction work is counted. Just using GDP is a bad idea, which is why no srs economics does.
2) All of his analogies seem to ever be linked to the service economy or veblen goods. As i've noted the important basic stuff he just skips over.
Anyway, to present some specific problems. Which i'm damn near sure doom 'post scarcity' talk to the crankorium, that is unless someone develops limitless energy and replicators. Which, would be nice.
Furthermore, i'll focus just on the american context as thats what he seems to be doing (which I think misses the point in a lot of big ways but hey, whatever).
How does he or you propose to solve the potable water problem in the south west? Once all the fat cats are put against the wall does the Colorado basin water cycle just suddenly speed up or something?
Also with the 'we make enough food' yes, america does, its actually quite rare in that. However, given a lot of that food production is currently predicated on the High Plains Aquifers, of which the Ogallala is taxed beyond sustainable levels. How will food production just always be ok?
Energy, just pfft.. whats the plan here?