Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - The money and banking system

Yakk · 03-07-2007, 09:47 AM

If you want to be dirt poor and starving to death, you are allowed to. Right now. Nothing is stopping you.

Because that is what exponential wealth creation has done. Taken what used to be "well off" and made it "dirt poor" -- people who where in the top half of their societies wealth curve, even as recently as 1000 years ago, would be considered dirt poor and starving to death today.

Note that exponential growth of the economy doesn't mean you will extract and produce an exponential amount of goods.

We don't create horseshit anymore, industry isn't fueled by wood stoves, and transportation isn't bottlenecked by the supply of tall trees to build masts. Technology progressed, and better alternatives where found.

The power plants of today generate insanely more power than the ones 100 years ago, and generate ridiculously less pollution per unit of power produced. Smog in north american cities has plummitted when we noticed it was a problem, and starting making cleaner burning cars.

Exponential wealth creation is not exponential stuff -- it is exponentially better stuff. It does mean we get exponentially better at extracting resources, and rather than leaving the resources in the groud we do did them up and use them -- but that isn't why we are getting exponentially wealthier.

The planet earth has a finite surface -- but humankind has only touched a fraction of the resources earth can provide. Assuming improved technology, there is a ridiculous amount of resources that can be extracted from the earth -- I mean, our deepest mines are only a few miles deep, and the earth has a radius of 1000s of miles. We haven't even started deep ocean mining. And then there is asteroid mining.

We know how to get more resources than we currently extract, but the stuff we are grabbing is the easy stuff to get ahold of. Why are we grabbing the easy stuff? Because it is a waste to go after the hard stuff when there is easy stuff we can extract.

The fact of the matter is, when you talk about "sustainable development" you are talking about a moving target. As technology progresses, the level of development we can sustain grows. And we are consuming non-renewable resources to fuel the economy right now, because mankind has learnt that in 20 years we will have technologies that make large numbers of todays problems and key resources quaint.

London isn't buried under a mile of horseshit, dispite what people predicted. They stopped using horses.

03-07-2007, 09:47 AM	#53 (permalink)
Yakk Wehret Den Anfängen! Location: Ontario, Canada	If you want to be dirt poor and starving to death, you are allowed to. Right now. Nothing is stopping you. Because that is what exponential wealth creation has done. Taken what used to be "well off" and made it "dirt poor" -- people who where in the top half of their societies wealth curve, even as recently as 1000 years ago, would be considered dirt poor and starving to death today. Note that exponential growth of the economy doesn't mean you will extract and produce an exponential amount of goods. We don't create horseshit anymore, industry isn't fueled by wood stoves, and transportation isn't bottlenecked by the supply of tall trees to build masts. Technology progressed, and better alternatives where found. The power plants of today generate insanely more power than the ones 100 years ago, and generate ridiculously less pollution per unit of power produced. Smog in north american cities has plummitted when we noticed it was a problem, and starting making cleaner burning cars. Exponential wealth creation is not exponential stuff -- it is exponentially better stuff. It does mean we get exponentially better at extracting resources, and rather than leaving the resources in the groud we do did them up and use them -- but that isn't why we are getting exponentially wealthier. The planet earth has a finite surface -- but humankind has only touched a fraction of the resources earth can provide. Assuming improved technology, there is a ridiculous amount of resources that can be extracted from the earth -- I mean, our deepest mines are only a few miles deep, and the earth has a radius of 1000s of miles. We haven't even started deep ocean mining. And then there is asteroid mining. We know how to get more resources than we currently extract, but the stuff we are grabbing is the easy stuff to get ahold of. Why are we grabbing the easy stuff? Because it is a waste to go after the hard stuff when there is easy stuff we can extract. The fact of the matter is, when you talk about "sustainable development" you are talking about a moving target. As technology progresses, the level of development we can sustain grows. And we are consuming non-renewable resources to fuel the economy right now, because mankind has learnt that in 20 years we will have technologies that make large numbers of todays problems and key resources quaint. London isn't buried under a mile of horseshit, dispite what people predicted. They stopped using horses. __________________ Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.