Re: The joy of actual numbers, was Democracy

On Wed, 30 Oct 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 30/10/2024 09:59, D wrote:

  On Wed, 30 Oct 2024, rbowman wrote:
 

On Tue, 29 Oct 2024 21:43:13 +0100, D wrote:
 

Many centuries left. We'll mine the ocean floors, we'll reach for the
stars (or at least asteroids). Eventually we'll expand beyond the earth.
The people predicting crashes and famines have been wrong every time,
except for when alternatives to capitalism has been tried. Then there
have been real famines.

 I worked summers for the NYS Dept. of Education and the basement corridors
were filled with pallets of newspapers. (and 5 gallon buckets of water,
reusable as toilets after the Ruskies attacked) I don't know if they were
waiting to be microfilmed or stacked and forgotten.
 I mostly read the funnies and old ads but I found a trove of 1929
editions. "The fundamentals are sound!" as they took the express route
down from the 30th floor.
 I love a good science fiction yarn but I realize the space travel genre is
mostly fiction. The dystopian worlds run by AI probably aren't.

 Well, it is future, so by design fuzzy around the edges. But looking at the history of the planet, and the fact that despite being capable of destroying our planet several times over, we've managed not to do so (with all the crazy people in power) gives me enormous hope. Yes, I'm an optimist!

>
Oh we wont destroy the planet. Just our own civilization
Read Joseph Tainter.

Doubtful. It will change form and shape. We might have a recession or two, but it will hardly be the end of civilization.

He lays it all oy very plainly. A society finds a better way to exploit nature. It grows, and extends, as it does so it needs rules and regulations laws taxes and competent bureaucrats. Then its resource base starts to get strained, and it needs even more complexity and bureaucracy to keep it going.
Eventually the quality of people needed to keep it going also runs out.
And it collapses into autonomous fragments.

What I think will happen in the near term is that socialism will temporarily destroy a lot of value in the world, in line with what Joseph says. This is proven, and a fact, and should not surprise anyone.
But as we've done in the past, we learn the lessons, start again. End of civilization? Hardly. A bump in the road, definitely.