What Are You Optimistic About?

[ConstantineX]

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4) re-localization of food and the collapse of industrial monocropping

5) a massive population loss - I'm not optimistic about this happening obviously, it's going to be awful, but if it happens it will be because it is inevitable, and after the inevitable, a possible new paradigm will emerge that recognizes the presence of ecological boundaries and dismisses hubris about humans being above nature as, quite literally, insane


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What you propose in #4, directly begets #5. I would think human death would be immoral to you? Anyway, I'm optimistic that healthy food will become an item like computers today - you pay a premium to get it, but it's still affordable at a wide range of budgets. I think we should also expect to see an explosion of these sorts of foods at all income levels - it's a huge unexploited market, even if we lack the technology or werewithal right now. And don't forget the role of farm subsidies in creating this whole mess.

[latefordinner]

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What you propose in #4, directly begets #5

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I'm not really proposing anything. I simply think it is inevitable. As a species we have far far overshot the viable carrying capacity of our habitat due to what has been virtually-free energy. As energy use declines, which I believe it must, so too will complexity.

I don't think it's a good thing, or a desirable thing - I simply think it is a given. However, I'm optimistic about what will arise out of that.

[ConstantineX]

You want us to become poor, in other words. We will never become "enlightened" barbarians living in hovels. The Luddites of the 1800s too thought they were living in an age of unlimited consumption - "surely we have everything we need!"

I do agree with you that human consumption is insatiable. In the very long run, humans will transform the Earth, worlds, suns. If not us, *something*. I think we are going to "order" the universe - transform it using energy to a more ordered state, which we determine (if we are really determining [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) My best science analogy is dropping a crystal into a supersaturated solution. That's what we're destined to do, in the VERY long run.

[ConstantineX]

I'm very optimistic about China, and to a lesser extent most of the Pacific rim. I do not think the Chinese will easily forget the bounties of globalization and free trade, having risen so fast from so low.

I'm also optimistic about robotics and genetics. I really think realistic robots will be able to change elderly life fundemntally in about 10-20 years. Genetics will allow us to more accurately ponder and identify what truly makes us inequal. It will lead to medicines that will usher an age of unprecedented prosperity. Look at 1900 till 2000 - can you imagine another 100 years? Secretely I speculate that in a couple of decades we shall become so individually wealthy these debates will have become academic.

[ConstantineX]

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I'm very optimistic about China, and to a lesser extent most of the Pacific rim. I do not think the Chinese will easily forget the bounties of globalization and free trade, having risen so fast from so low.

I'm also optimistic about robotics and genetics. I really think realistic robots will be able to change elderly life fundemntally in about 10-20 years. Genetics will allow us to more accurately ponder and identify what truly makes us inequal. It will lead to medicines that will usher an age of unprecedented prosperity. Look at 1900 till 2000 - can you imagine another 100 years? Secretely I speculate that in a couple of decades we shall become so individually wealthy these debates will have become academic.

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[Arnfinn Madsen]

I am optimistic about almost everything, I can't think of much which was better 100 years ago, and I have no reason to think the next 100 will differ in that regard.