How far to the abundance economy?

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-13 20:52:10

Amazon came up with this blurb for "SuperAbundance"....

There ** may ** be a free pdf available, but I could have mis-interpreted one of the Google snippets...

Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet Hardcover – August 31, 2022
by Marian L. Tupy (Author), Gale L. Pooley (Author), & 1 more
4.5 out of 5 stars 90 ratings

The reference to population in the blurb quoted above reminds me of another part of the interview I caught this evening .... the author (as i remember the segment) asserted that abundance is a natural consequence of increased population. Here i'm grasping at memories of the discussion, but I ** think ** the argument is that as population increases, a certain number of new humans are genius class inventors who can ** see/envision ** solutions to whatever problems may seem insurmountable to ordinary humans.

(th)

Calliban · 2022-11-14 23:33:03

tahanson43206 wrote:

Amazon came up with this blurb for "SuperAbundance"....
There ** may ** be a free pdf available, but I could have mis-interpreted one of the Google snippets...
Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet Hardcover – August 31, 2022
by Marian L. Tupy (Author), Gale L. Pooley (Author), & 1 more
4.5 out of 5 stars 90 ratings
The reference to population in the blurb quoted above reminds me of another part of the interview I caught this evening .... the author (as i remember the segment) asserted that abundance is a natural consequence of increased population. Here i'm grasping at memories of the discussion, but I ** think ** the argument is that as population increases, a certain number of new humans are genius class inventors who can ** see/envision ** solutions to whatever problems may seem insurmountable to ordinary humans.
(th)

Hmmme. This guy seems to think that invention is an endless game that we can play, pulling any solution out of thin air, so long as our minds are big enough.

The problem is that there is no escaping the conclusion that more people, enjoying higher living standards, require a lot more energy and more throughput of materials. There just isn't any way of escaping that conclusion and the environmental impact that results. Plot global GDP against global energy use on a graph and you can map a straight line. One is a linear correlation of the other. Debt produces a minor distortion since the 1980s. Presumably, economies of scale and technological improvement help a little as well. But both have proven marginal in practice and are subject to diminishing returns. Ultimately it is impossible for a continuously growing population to enjoy continuously growing living standards on a finite planet. Even if we had some superclean energy source and perfect recycling, eventually, simple waste heat would melt the crust and boil the oceans. Given the complexity of the systems that keep us alive, resource limitations will aplly long before we reach that theoretical absurdity.

It is indirectly this realisation that has led us to this board. None of us would bother coming here if we believed that there really were ample opportunities on our little planet for a human population as large as it has become. For various reasons, it is time to move out.

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-15 07:26:37

For Calliban re #52

Thank you for your thoughtful assessment of the opening presentation on the book "SuperAbundance".

I decided to invest in the hard copy, and expect it to show up in a week or so. I'll pay close attention to the issue of energy that you raised.

The members of this forum (er, ... ** some **members ) have provided insights into how abundant energy could be provided for every resident of the planet, if we humans could/would put our minds to solving the problem.

The misadventures of Mr. Putin in Ukraine show (at least to me) that motivations for human behavior can (and do) include theft/destruction of property of others, instead of productive exchange of goods and services.

It seems to me that a mindset of scarcity leads inevitably to conflict, as perceived lack by one party leads to attempts to steal from others.

In like manner, it seems to me that a mind set of abundance would lead to generosity, so that excess material or energy is shared with others without expectation of gain of some kind.

It seems to me that selfishness and generosity may be genetic factors in human lives. They may be overcome with thought, but in the absence of thought, they may exert their influences on behavior without modification.

My guess is that even with abundant energy and material structures available, there will be some who will horde or even steal from others, due to the structure of the brain.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-20 11:35:08

For Calliban (and anyone else who may be interested) ....

"superabundance" arrived yesterday, thanks to the hard working Amazon driver, who left it in the package box despite the freezing temperatures of the day.

I have had your question about energy foremost in mind, so I zoomed to the index to find the word "energy" and it was NOT present.

The authors are NOT engineers. One is a business oriented person, and the other is an official representative of the Cato Institute.

It falls to me to (attempt to) translate the 548 pages of this tomb into an answer to your question.

My first impression from an initial scan, is that these folks simply ** don't ** care about the details of how humans create abundance.

The entire book appears to be devoted to page after page showing ** how ** humans create abundance.

So! At this point, the impression I come away with is that if there is an answer to your question, I'll have to really dig for it.

However, it appears Angus Deaton (a professor at Princeton) thinks the effort will be rewarded:

With great writing and a mountain of good evidence, Tupy and Pooley remind us that we are immeasurably better off than our ancestors. In this day of pestilence, war, and climate change, we need that reminder, and we can hope that the doom-mongers will be wrong about the future, just as they have always been wrong about the past.

There is another long paragraph of praise from Paul Romer, but I don't feel like typing it in right now.

The bottom line (for me) is that ** I ** need to see some evidence that the worries of Calliban about energy are addressed at some point in this long academic work. It is quite likely this will be a slog through masses of data that address everything under the Sun ** except ** energy, but in nearly 600 pages, there ** has ** to be ** something ** about energy.

No one should expect quick results.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-20 14:01:30

For Calliban re your "energy" question ....

I dove into the book "Superabundance" (by Tupy and Pooley) today, and found the word "energy" in the text.

It was (obviously) not considered important enough to print in the index.

That said, the word appears in a paragraph along with mention of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion.

I'm (tentatively) planning to quote that paragraph later today.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2022-11-20 14:51:01

The issue with a simple search for energy is that it takes on many forms and conversions to come out as electrical in AC or DC formats for use. That said it is also has many saved forms as well which comes in a variety of methods from lifted mass to compressed or saved hydrogen or other combinations.

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-22 07:17:41

It is rare to catch Calliban in a good mood! This post from the Gasoline topic is a perfect fit for the Abundance topic.

Calliban wrote:

Historical construction costs of the global nuclear power reactor fleet.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 1516300106
This pdf is free to access from science direct.
What it shows is that the high capital cost of new nuclear powerplants is a recent (and western) phenomena. Before 1980, nuclear powerplants were completed at costs <$2000/kWe in 2010 dollars in the US. Quite a few were completed for $1000/kWe. Cost increases rapidly with increasing build time. This is where SMRs may provide a distinct advantage. For the Nuscale SMR, the entire steam supply system is built within a factory and shipped as a single component to site, by road or rail.
If we could install new nuclear capacity at $1000/kWe today, then nuclear generated synthetic fuels could potentially undercut the price of gasoline produced from shale. Cheap fuel and cheap electricity could enable a new era of manufacturing growth that would lift a lot of people out of poverty.
The potential for nuclear power to generate at very low costs is a direct result of its high power density. The steam supply system for a 1000MWe PWR has a wetted volume of only a few hundred cubic metres. That is about the same volume as a detached 4 bedroom house. And a powerplant of this size would provide the electrical power needs of a city of 1-2 million people. A solar power system generating the same time averaged power would be as large as the whole city.

The problem of achieving abundance is almost entirely a social problem.

As Calliban has shown in the post above, abundance is available to the human race, if it's members can overcome natural tendencies.

Fear of radiation is an understandable consequence of nuclear weapons development.

Fear of other humans is an understandable consequence of behavior of some humans over the entire course of development of the human race.

Fear of change is a fundamental and understandable part of the mental tool set of humans.

Fear of risk of loss (or failure) is a pervasive part of the human mental fabric.

Encumbered by all these fears, and many others not listed, it seems unlikely humans will be able to achieve abundance any time soon.

However, since this ** is ** the abundance topic, I'll close with a ray of hope that a few humans can overcome fear enough to allow some attempts to achieve abundance to advance.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-22 10:33:22

In response to the question of Calliban, about energy, the authors offer an optimistic view, based upon their study of human innovation...

The text quoted below is from a tomb published by the Cato Institute.

I offer it with a figurative ten foot pole.

However, the topic is about abundance, and these folks make a 600 page argument that abundance has already occurred, and that more is to come.

The authors are NOT scientists or engineers, but they do APPEAR to be students of human behavior.

They spend the first 400 pages making their case that abundance has already occurred, and they offer plenty of evidence to support their thesis.

Of relevance to the NewMars forum, and specifically to the question of Calliban about "energy", I'm quoting a paragraph from pages 401-402.

Can superabundance continue? Superabundance, we believe, depends on two main components, people and freedom. People who are free to think, speak, read, publish, and interact with others generate idea, and market-tested ideas lead to progress. The more people the planet has and the more freedom they enjoy, the greater the likelihood that new good ideas will be generated to tackle the problems that still remain and those that will arise in the future. Consider just one such problem. Fossil fuels have freed humanity from reliance on human and animal muscle and ushered in the modern era dominated first by the steam engine and later by the combustion engine. But they have also contributed to the warming of the planet that we are currently experiencing. Nuclear fission is a very safe and reliable source of energy that emits no CO2 into the atmosphere, but most countries refuse to build new nuclear reactors partly because of highly publicized accidents at places like Chernobyl and Fukushima.[6] Nuclear fusion would be safer still.[7] During the nuclear fusion process, smaller atoms fuse into larger ones, releasing huge amounts of energy. Alas, nuclear fusion is difficult, and to make it viable, humanity needs to go on innovating.

From ISBN 978 195 222 3396
(c) 2022 Tupy and Pooley

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-11-22 11:40:07

Fear is indeed a very powerful motivator, but so is NIH Syndrome and sacred cows. A lot of people seem to think omelettes can be made without breaking any eggs. This is especially applicable to our "green energy" / "renewable energy" crowd who don't seem to want to know or accept that all the things they claim to want are made almost entirely by obscene over-consumption of coal and gas and diesel, or that there's nothing "environmentally friendly" about how electric vehicles or photovoltaics or wind turbines or batteries are made. That entire technology set consists solely of artifacts of extreme levels of fossil fuels abundance, relative to what they can afford to pay.

The motivations of many of these fake activists for purchasing those electronic devices seem to be driven by pure narcissism rather than any genuine concern for the environment, similar to buying an iPhone and then bloviating about child labor laws or how much you care about "worker's rights". If you truly cared about that, then you'd quit inventing new ways to bankrupt them through taxation and spending. It's more, "Hey everyone, look at me! I'm so wealthy I can afford to buy a Cadillac, pay $1,000 per year for new tires, put solar panels on my house, and pretty anything else to showcase my narcissism. You filthy plebes with your gas cars shouldn't be allowed to exist."

Well, the plebes exist, they don't exist as a piggy bank for rich people to steal from every time one of them has another evil "think and grow rich" scheme they want to try out on people who may even idolize them, but will never be them.

The level of entitlement required to believe that buying a special kind of car is equivalent to "saving the planet" is mind-blowing. You have to be completely consumed by your own brain-dead consumerism to believe something like that. It's like the people burning trees and tires claiming that they're using "biofuel".

And yes, all that fear / animosity / hatred / self-loathing (worse than narcissism in some ways) is wrecking the place far faster and in more serious ways than burning stuff ever could. Rather than allowing for different choices for different income levels and requirements, there's always a "final solution" to every problem, except that there's not unless you're one of those goose-steppers or wannabe goose-steppers.

RGClark · 2022-11-24 12:51:16

On the topic of the approaching "abundance" you may want to read the books of Peter Diamandis, probably the most well known proponent of this idea. Diamandis became well known as the proposer of the X-Prize for the 1st private flight to the suborbital space won by SpaceShipOne. See:

"Abundance", "The Future is Faster Than You Think", and "Bold".
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0855V482G?bi … 353&sr=8-1

Bob Clark

Last edited by RGClark (2022-11-25 04:17:00)

RGClark · 2022-11-25 04:44:07

A big feature of Diamandis books is exponential advancement of technologies. He argues this applies also to the energy sector. He along with Ray Kurzweil explains that solar is undergoing exponential growth. However, a phenomenon Diamandis discusses is that exponential growth early on is "deceptive". If you look at the exponential curve, the early part of the graph just looks flat. But later on the exponential growth becomes apparent and the growth then becomes quite rapid and even the rate of growth is increasing. He says following this model the majority of total world energy needs will be provided by solar by the 2030's.

Robert Clark

Void · 2022-11-25 08:50:15

I am inclined to be optimistic myself, long term. However, if the young lefties do get to do what they wish, they may pull us all down into a nightmare. At this moment, young society seems almost like it is mentally ill.

But in the absence of a mentally ill domination, I anticipate a future where technological advancements accumulate, to a point of clear profit, and at that point, a vast expansion of energy availability should become a real thing, I feel.

Done

Last edited by Void (2022-11-25 08:52:02)

tahanson43206 · 2022-12-29 19:59:29

This post is specifically for Calliban, but comments by all are welcome...

The issue for discussion is whether the economists who wrote a 600 page tomb about abundance (as contrasted with the doctrine of scarcity they oppose) might be mistaken due to their (apparent) lack of grounding in physics, chemistry or any discernible hard science.

This may be a classic example of mistaking coincidence for causation.

Calliban has made a strong case that the abundance of energy, liberated by discovery and mastery of fossil fuels, accounts for the increase in population on Earth, and the many fold increase in material wealth. These two authors, educated as they surely are in political theory and economics theory, argue at great length, that it is the increase of human population that has led to innovation and thus to material well-being.

Their 600-page tomb includes the word "energy" on only one occasion (that I've found so far) and it was regarded by them as so insignificant that the word is not even listed in the index.

Having a (very modest) grounding in the physical sciences, I am inclined to agree with what I understand to be Calliban's position, that the abundance of energy released by coal, and then by oil deposits, and then by gas deposits, accounts for the well-being that inspired humans to have confidence that raising children would be worth attempting.

This is not to discount the many occasions when children were created for the sheer fun of the exercise. The availability of refined energy supplies made it more likely that children would survive to adulthood, and would themselves enjoy lives of modest plenty.

Calliban and these gents may indeed be arguing about the chicken-egg problem, in that the availability of refined energy might be accounted for by human ingenuity occasioned by increased population (the Tupy and Pooley view) while Calliban might argue that the discovery and distribution of refined energy facilitated the growth of population and encouraged innovation.

The Foreword is written by the Economist George Gilder.

I'll hand transcribe what appears (to me at least) to be the argument these folks are going to have with Calliban, in this forum if nowhere else.

The "idea" referred to in this quote is the idea of basing the science of economics on scarcity.

Tupy and Pooley prove this idea itself unsustainable. They consummate the argument of their inspirer, the late economist Julian Simon, showing that the only ultimate scarcity is human lives. Tupy and Pooley reshape economics from a "dismal science of scarcity" into redemptive science of abundance and creativity. The test and testament of economic abundance is an almost eightfold rise in world population since 1800, with people living on average 45 years longer than their forbears and consuming exponentially more commodities of all kinds.

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-12-29 21:14:39

The population of Africa increased despite many of them having little to no access to coal, gas, oil, or electricity. Their societies didn't improve as a result. No greater prosperity was achieved, because their lords of war prevented access to education. A base level of education and societal stability is required to achieve prosperity. You cannot have one tribe hacking off the limbs of the next tribe / raping their women / killing their children, assuming you wish to achieve better education / health care / food security / technology / cleaner energy. Furthermore, easy access to clean drinking water is foundational to human civilization. That really sucks for everyone living under such conditions, but it is what it is.

tahanson43206 · 2022-12-29 21:33:31

For kbd512 re #64

Thank you for engaging with Tupy and Pooley! I shall do my best to represent what I ** think ** their response might be ... I'll return to this post tomorrow with more detail, but I ** think ** their answer would be that you are absolutely right! Population growth by itself does not have any positive effects.

I've been able to scan only a tiny part of this 600 page pile of paper so far, but I did run across a footnote that addresses the excellent point you made!

To paraphrase, they say (I'll get the exact quote tomorrow) that population growth must take place in an environment characterized by the Rule of Law, Property Rights, and two or three more characteristics we (Americans anyway) would recognize as familiar in our (somewhat fragile) way of being.

Respect for Intellectual Property is probably in there somewhere.

In any case, thanks again for engaging with the authors!

For Calliban ... I found the word "energy" in the Foreword by George Gilder ... in page xvii, at the end of the piece, Gilder says:

... not by wasting energy but by using it more ingeniously.

Gilder is (I gather) noted for his theory that wealth is human knowledge....

Adam Smith is quoted frequently in this tomb ... Smith is notable for his exposition of the idea that the Wealth of a Nation is measured in the productivity of it's people. That concept is a bit different from what I ** think ** Gilder would say, in that the productivity would be of material things and services.

In any case ... back tomorrow with detail.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-12-30 22:41:23

This is a follow up to post #65

For kbd512 ... I'll paste the full quote from Tupy and Pooley below. I hope it provides a starting point for further observations you might have, which will (hopefully) give me some focus as I work my way through this tomb.

For Calliban ... I found another reference to energy, in the footnotes. This one is ** not ** an offhand mention, but instead, what appears to be a full acceptance of the importance of energy in the development of civilization:

Footnote 83 Chapter 1:

See Pierre Desrochers, <snip> and "Energy and Civilization: A History" (MIT Press, 2017), Energies 13, no. 20: 5306, https://doi.org/10.3390/en13205306.

For kbd512:

Quote from Superabundance by Tupy and Pooley

In response to post by kbd512, pointing out that population growth by itself cannot account for abundance.

On page 495, in footnote 38 of Chapter 2, we find:

As will be explained in Chapters 7 and 9, ppulation growth is a necessary but insufficient precondition for sustaining innovation and growth. People also need the freedom to speak and associate (i.e., to exchange ideas), property rights to incentivize them to discover new things, markets to test their ideas, the rule of law to ensure that they benefit from their discoveries, etc. These institutions are a cause and and effect of innovation (ie., a virtuous cycle). China, in spite of a massive population, was a very poor place, until greater freedom and better institutions allowed the country to flourish.

To these items I would add, as recommended by Calliban:

1) Energy

To Energy, I would add

2) atoms from the entire periodic table in abundance...

(th)

Calliban · 2023-01-02 19:21:47

Global yield curves have inverted for the first time ever.
https://wolfstreet.com/sponsored/the-20 … -been-set/

Yield curve inversion usually heralds the approach of recession. It means a collapse in the value of short dated bonds. That happens when companies are struggling with solvency. For this to hapoen everywhere in the world is unprecedented. I begin to wonder if 2023 is going to look like 1929.

Last edited by Calliban (2023-01-02 19:23:19)

Void · 2023-01-02 20:35:08

Good Chances. The changing of the guard. They have dirty diapers but refuse to pass the torch, so they will be forced.

The opinion of VOID for what it is worth. Not that much really. If I was a wizard, I could fix it. But I am not.

Done.

tahanson43206 · 2023-01-02 21:43:30

This topic is about the Abundance economy.

This topic is NOT about the scarcity economy, or fears of the scarcity economy, or speculations about what the scarcity economy might look like if it were to happen.

There is more than enough energy flooding the surface of the Earth to provide every resident with a comfortable and rewarding life, if humans were able to organize themselves to take advantage of Nature's generosity.

There is more than enough energy welling up from the core of the Earth to do the same.

There is more than enough energy waiting to be tapped in radioactive materials, or in materials that can be converted to radioactive, to do the same.

(th)

Calliban · 2023-01-03 08:04:46

Terraformer wrote:

I consider a society to have reached post-scarcity when each person does not have to devote a sizeable fraction of their labour to fulfil their material needs, of shelter, food, energy, water and clothing, to such a standard that they will not be risking health problems from doing so.

Terraformer wrote:

When I say post scarcity, I am referring to a state of affairs where the material needs of a person, as well as the the material necessities to meet the next few tiers of Maslow's hierarchy (for want of a better term; I mean things like access to the universal commons through the internet, and transportation to meet friends and relatives) can be met with a labour expenditure of only a couple of hours each day from said person, and where that is available for everyone. A civilisation where someone could live comfortably working 10 hours a week in a minimum wage job I would consider post-scarcity by that standard.
Or another way of putting it, it is one where people are free to pursue their self-actualisation.

Hard to know exactly what to say TH. Suffice to say that demographic trends and energy resource depletion, are now taking most of humanity further away from Terraformer's definition of an abundance economy. North America may buck that trend in the 21st century. But most of humanity is facing extremely hard times as working age populations shrink, oil production declines and global supply chains break down. The 21st century will be a time of declining abundance for most people. I think people will look back on the 1960 to 2020 period as a kind of golden age.

tahanson43206 · 2023-01-03 08:40:24

For Calliban re #70

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, and for the reminders of Terraformer's launch of the topic.

It seems possible that (to me at least) that Terraformer would agree with inclusion of gloom and doom in this topic, in-so-far as the argument is that the abundance economy is receding further into the future.

Hopefully Terraformer is still checking in with the forum occasionally, and will clarify the goals for this topic.

In the mean time, there appears to be an opportunity for a robust debate as to whether abundance for all is nearer or farther than was the case yesterday.

I have a 600 page tomb on my desk that appears to be arguing that all the gloom-and-doom artists we have in the world (and there are a lot of them) are in (understandable) error, because they lack the data accumulated by the sages from the Cato Institute.

We appear to have a horse race in progress, with the distinction that instead of all the horses trying to reach the goal of abundance, we have a team harnessed together and not pulling together, but instead composed of some horses who are being dragged along as dead weight, and some who (like Putin) are actively working to impose drag on the process.

In any case, thanks again for your thoughtful reply, and for restoring Terraformer to a rightful place of recognition for launching the topic.

(th)

Void · 2023-01-03 08:45:46

Well, I understand your feelings. And I will strike an optimistic note later in this post. What I was referring to is what impedes abundance. If the impediment could be cured, then abundance might have a clearer path. But I don't believe in a situation where you use politics to get rid of that impediment. That just plays into the hand of the problem. I see is as something like catching a cold or the flu. You just have to work your way thru it if you can. There will always be people who think it is more important to be in charge of (Not(Abundance)), than to promote the well-being of society. As I have said here already words and politics are their main currency, that and a pinch of organized violence and terror.

But we do have the chances that the technological side of humanity will bear fruit, even if the wordy side seeks the dark ages.

If the Helion or other fusion reactor works out, then that may do a lot.

If SpaceX does get the Starship going, then that will be important. There are other rocket developments that may improve things as well. This could possibly be space based "electric" power.

Both of the above would also be important towards reaching Extra-Earth minerals.

Also important may be the Teslabot and it's like.

So, yes we have vastly bright prospects, but it would appear the Ceasar has taken the wheel and we may have trouble progressing until Ceasar crashes the car, and the public(s) at large stop trying to make the general public into serfs.

But as I have said, I feel that we have no particular useful recourse except to work towards technical progress and hope the dopes fall off their horses.

It is my belief that reality is structured to ultimately unhorse Constantine.

But this is not a call to action. There is nothing that type likes more than war and words. We don't want to play that card.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2023-01-03 08:58:18)

Calliban · 2023-01-03 09:16:46

Most of my information comes from the work of Peter Zeihan. What he offers up is grim reading. But it is backed up by hard data and research and is therefore difficult to dispute. The most intractible problem is demographics. Most of the world experienced a baby boom between WW2 and 1960. As that population reached adulthood, they formed consumer bases that allowed newly global industries to achieve huge scale economies. They also generated a lot of cash that was available for investment. When coupled with largely untapped global oil reserves and greatly improved mechanisation after WW2, there was nothing standing in the way of explosive industrial growth and huge leaps forward in living standards.

But even as the world reaped these benefits, the seeds of destruction for globalisation were being sown. As the world increasingly urbanised, birth rates declined beneath replacement levels across much of the world. For a long time this looked like a divident for places like Japan and EU. Fewer children mean lower costs, higher working age employment and more disposible income. But now the post war generation are retiring en mass. As they do so, they take with them their labour and investment capital. Their replacement generations are much smaller and must support their elders in old age. In many parts of the world, both shrinoing and ageing population will make it impossible to ever reconstitute their populations. Unless someone can invent a way of printing lots of babies, Europe, Far East and Russia, will litterally disappear over the next century. And their economies will shrink as both working population and consumer base decline.

Energy resource depletion is something that we could, under the right conditions, find technological solutions for. But it is difficult to find a solution to the problem of human resource depletion. We just didn't have enough kids. The idea behind the abundance economy is that incomes will continue to rise and the cost of essentials will decline to the point where material needs will no longer exist. The real world is heading in the opposite direction. Inflation in essentials is eroding discretionary incomes everywhere. The US has a population structure and resource base that should allow it to get through the next 50 years with what most people woukd consider first world living standards. But most of the rest of the world is facing outright collapse. It will be ugly to see and even more ugly to live through.

Last edited by Calliban (2023-01-03 09:24:32)

tahanson43206 · 2023-01-03 10:12:12

For Calliban re #73

I ** really ** appreciate your separating yourself from the wild imaginings of Mr. Zeihan!

In like manner, I wish to separate myself from the Right Wing extremism of the Cato Institute.

Despite the dubious nature of each of these protagonists, each ** does ** (occasionally) have something useful to say.

It is up to us to try to find the nuggets of Real Universe reality that are buried in all the fluff.

I'm busy for the next several hours, but look forward to (hopefully) finding time to look in detail at the points you've quoted.

I see a number that are calling out for attention. In anticipation of that future time, I am prepared for the possibility Mr. Zeihan may occasionally be right, but my bets are on the Cato Institute in any serious exchange.

One observation I would make is that both Mr. Zeihan (as you've represented his point of view) and the Cato Institute have population in focus. The difference seems to be that Zeihan is worried about falling population, and Cato is encouraging more population.

Something to keep in mind is that global population is growing.

Zeihan's prediction of disappearance of specific genetic groups seems quite reasonable to me. Genetic groups have been coming and going throughout the history of the planet.

If some groups have lost their zest for living, then their place in the global population will be taken by groups whose enthusiasm is on the increase. That is how it always has been, so a change seems unlikely.

For anyone following this topic ... please post numbers for global population, with numbers for specific genetic subgroups.

That would most certainly be useful for this discussion.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2023-01-03 21:14:22

People want just about everything and that requires that same amount of cash to provide for it. So, do resources equal only cash for abundance?
Back a few centuries where cash was the only thing that allowed for an abundant life or economy?
At one point in the past, we were happy with just being warm, dry and full of food but that all changed and not for the better in some cases.

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#51 2022-11-13 20:52:10

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#52 2022-11-14 23:33:03

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#53 2022-11-15 07:26:37

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#54 2022-11-20 11:35:08

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#55 2022-11-20 14:01:30

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#56 2022-11-20 14:51:01

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#57 2022-11-22 07:17:41

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#58 2022-11-22 10:33:22

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#59 2022-11-22 11:40:07

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#60 2022-11-24 12:51:16

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#61 2022-11-25 04:44:07

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#62 2022-11-25 08:50:15

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#63 2022-12-29 19:59:29

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#64 2022-12-29 21:14:39

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#65 2022-12-29 21:33:31

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#66 2022-12-30 22:41:23

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#67 2023-01-02 19:21:47

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#68 2023-01-02 20:35:08

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#69 2023-01-02 21:43:30

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#70 2023-01-03 08:04:46

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#71 2023-01-03 08:40:24

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#72 2023-01-03 08:45:46

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#73 2023-01-03 09:16:46

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#74 2023-01-03 10:12:12

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

#75 2023-01-03 21:14:22

Re: How far to the abundance economy?

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