We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Too many people London mayor Boris Johnson chides the United Nations for urging the planet to go vegetarian as a way to conserve resources. Instead, says Mr Johnson, the UN should, as it used to do, focus on the problem of “over-population”. I have written quite a lot about how fears about a population “explosion” have often proved wide of the mark. Suffice to say that in western Europe, for example, birthrates have been falling; the problem if anything is the reverse.
Of course, as a father of four children, Mr Johnson does not think that concerns about too many people should be a reason for making changes to his own personal sexual behaviour. No siree (as he would no doubt put it), that’s for other people, old bean.
Meanwhile, here is an old and wonderfully acerbic review of a book touting Malthusianism by Ronald Bailey.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Boris Johnson, like a number of the bureaucrats succumb to the tendency to prescribe the same solutions for all problems at all times. One can always predict that corporate greed, consumerism (whatever this means) and or population explosion will always be raised as the solutions to any perception that there’s a problem.
As a general rule, the precursor to a civilisational collapse is a frantic misdirection of resources. An orgy of human sacrifices, temple building, erection of giant statues. Our passing will be marked by the silent masts of the windmills, scattered across the landscape and out to sea like grapeshot. Future archaeologists, when their civilisation has reached a comparable technological level, will only then grasp their purpose.
The dark age will take care of any population excess quite neatly. If some of our texts survive, the people of the next civilisation will peruse them amazed at our madness, describing the hatred of our own species that accompanied our final civilisational convulsions. Just as we debate and argue about the causes of the downfall of our predecessors, they too will wonder at what was cause and what was effect, but one imagines that they will be staggered by the sheer effort we expended in our determination to bring ourselves down. The arguments about whether to starve ourselves, cripple our energy production, decimate our industrial base or simply prevent our own reproduction will read as the purest insanity.
Civilisations rise and fall, and each new one learns from those previous. We will bequeath many lessons; how to create societies which are free, and wealthy, and comfortable- and how to throw it all away.
There was but a hundred years from the Goths’ crossing the Danube to the quiet removal of the last Western Emperor. We probably don’t have long.
-the above text was discovered on a fragmentary parchment which was fortuitously preserved in a ceramic jar with various obscene drawings, during excavation of an ancient town known at the time as “Northampton”. Its author is unknown, but is thought to have been one of the apocalyptic sect known as the “Eeyores”-
Malthusianism is crap. Malthusianism will always be crap.
Resources are not running out, resources will never run out.
I know that is heresy, but I am right, Paul Ehrlich was wrong and the Club of Rome were spouting bollocks.
People who are worried about “overpopulation” haven’t paid attention to any new facts since 1974, which is particularly strange given that the things
Paul Erlichthey predicted in 1974 to have happened by now haven’t actually happened. There still seem to be a lot of them, somehow.Actually, what I should have said is that I am right and Paul Ehrlich is still wrong.
Because he is still spouting his drivel.
Nice post, countingcats. The world has an infinite habitable land area and contains infinite amounts of steel, copper, coal, oil etcetera?
Please also do not label all ideas about overpopulation as ‘Malthusianism.’ Malthus had fairly specific ideas and his writings predated mechanised farming and electricity. In some ways he was quite a libertarian:
http://www.umbc.edu/history/CHE/InstPg/RitDop/Discovery-of-poverty-Malthusianism.htm for those that would like to read more.
On a worldwide level, as has been pointed out above, the ‘producers’ (of food aid) are decreasing their populations whereas the ‘consumers’ (of food aid) are increasing theirs – which is exactly what Malthus was discussing.
…which statement pretty much reveals the mindset of the Malthusian. It’s the intellectual who peers through the window of his ivory tower at the beggars in the street below and starts trying to think up convincing arguments for having them done away with, forgetting that his comfortable study and its contents were all manufactured by those indolent poor.
It’s just that constant nagging terror felt by every elite class; the knowledge that they’re outnumbered by those upon whom they depend, but who they utterly despise.
Humans occupy so little of the land area on Earth (let alone the oceans), that yes, Anonymous, for all practical purposes it is “infinite.” Copper, steel, etc., are recyclable and reusable, so they, too, can be considered “infinite,” and while there may in fact be finite amounts of coal and oil the reserves are huge and growing as more oilfields are discovered and better ways of extracting it are developed. We are not in danger of running out of either, except for self-imposed limitations on extraction.
You excuse Malthus’ errors by noting that his writings “predated mechanised farming and electricity,” but that is precisely why Malthusians are always wrong: they never anticipate or even allow for technological change. For those who fret about overpopulation, I recommend that they adopt Swift’s “Modest Proposal.” It would benefit us all.
“Too many people” and “conserve resources” – what preposterous ideas!
Or are they? Maybe we should tell the Ethiopians, Bangladeshis and other seemingly overpopulated, under-resourced and poverty-ridden countries that “It sucks to be you”?
Whatever our views on the matter, I suspect that Z59.5 will probably sort things out for us, one way or another.
I recall in my childhood (1960s) watching a fascinating BBC TV documentary about pollution, where the point was made that it was not pollution that was the problem, but population – i.e., pollution was the symptom, and population growth was the cause.
When I later studied economics, I examined the theoretical economic assumption that growth was an objective of all commercial entities (and that includes national economies). This theory was not proven as feasible in the long term, since it seemed to require continued demand growth, which seemed to require growth in the population of people with personal disposable incomes and the propensity/potential to spend/consume. In theory, it could only be a matter of time before finite planetary resources became scarce – depleted or exhausted – and priced out of a market where demand was price-flexible, thus causing a drop in demand growth. (You can see elements of this in operation in bee swarms.)
Though theories of objectivism and examples from modern history suggest that in such situations mankind can find alternative/substitute resources, this would seem to be an article of faith or a dogma, rather than an established fact that we can always do it. Of course, if we could get resources from other planets or satellites, then that could perhaps keep the wolf from the door. (Look to the stars.)
I live in hope, but the Greens would probably see us as hell-bent on a path of population growth/explosion which will make it less likely that “This could be Heaven for everyone” (from the Queen song lyrics).
In another comment on another post (“After humans have gone”), veryretired wrote:
– I wondered: What would happen in the event that our brothers and sisters became competitive threats to our survival? (Survival of the fittest.)
Then we may have to regard them as enemies. So, how likely is it that we could regard them as enemies? Well, human nature being what it is, the potential would seem to be high – but how likely? For answer, you can see examples in human communication. Observe the capacity we have to despise and condemn any ideas – and their proponents – that do not conform to our own beliefs. We are “Putting them down”. This is the ego doing our thinking for us, and it is “deep” inside us – “a limbic response that is reptilian and without thought” – as someone observed elsewhere. This comes from a learned behaviour called “competitive thinking”. We potentially all have this capacity, and where it occurs it actually frustrates our ability to think clearly and rationally, and it can take considerable effort and practice to stop performing that behaviour – to change ourselves. After all, why should we change when our ego regards the way we are as “just fine” and so there’s no need to change? Resistance to change. Intellectual deadlock.
So rather than change, you enforce your paradigm, and move from looking upon your brothers and their ideas with the contempt that they thoroughly deserve, to feeling them as less deserving to live than yourself.
Thinking a thing is arguably half-way to doing it, and once you despise your “brother”, it can become easier to contemplate killing him or allowing someone else to kill him. This is probably at the root of fascism.
Is it likely that we will cause our own demise? It may well be – as the Greens may believe, but we have no way of knowing for sure – that an awful lot of us will have to die off before we arrive at a reduced, sustainable global population level. If not disease, then genocide, starvation and scarcity wars could be the means to effect this. Starvation could be Death’s scythe. It is linked to extreme poverty – which is arguably a disease (see below) – and we have shown ourselves seemingly incapable of doing much to overcome it to date – despite some well-intentioned pop concerts (remember them?) that were going to magically fix things.
In the World Health Organisation publication “World Health Report 1995”, section “The state of world health” – executive summary, it stated that:
Sorry but the phrase the poor in their natural indolence suffers from nothing aside from outdated wording. The Victorian ‘undeserving poor’ are today’s ‘underclass’ – or, as some might put it, ‘feckless chavs on benefits’ and the most vocal complaints about them come not from the elite but from the lower middle classes who have to deal with them and live alongside them.
Replace ‘indiscriminate charity’ with ‘the dole’ and ‘pointless civil service jobs created purely to absorb the unskilled’ (which didn’t exist in his time, of course) and as far as I’m concerned you’re spot on.
Pedant,
“When I later studied economics,…”
I strongly suggest you study the economist Julian Simon’s book The Ultimate Resource. It covers all the subjects you mention in more depth than I can manage in a blog comment. Seriously, it’s a great book.
As you say, there can never be any guarantee that the discoveries will continue. But there is no surer way to guarantee that they won’t continue than to scale back to a “sustainable” level, which of course is no such thing. The more of us there are, the wealthier we are, the more industrialised we are – the more sustainable we are. The only resource we need is human ingenuity. While there are people who would hide forever in the sewers, on the basis that there was no guarantee that the outside world would be better, or that it would last, or that no jealous God would destroy us for our presumption; we prefer the light. Even if it doesn’t last.
“It is linked to extreme poverty – … – and we have shown ourselves seemingly incapable of doing much to overcome it to date”
On the contrary. The progress has been spectacular. And don’t you find it really strange how many people aren’t aware of this? It’s almost as if they didn’t want us to know…
Anonymous,
Not infinite, but in any practical sense, resources are unlimited.
Oil? Gas? who cares, these are not important in themselves but as energy carriers. If they run out then what? The Japanese, right now, are extracting uranium from seawater at $1,000 per pound. This is ten times the cost of digging it from the ground but the fuel cost of generating atomic energy is a small component of the total cost, and there is enough uranium in sea water to maintain current world wide electricity generating capacity for five billion years. The cost of extraction will collapse as technology improves
Within fifteen years, on current long term trends, the cost of orbital solar energy generation will fall to the point where it will become economically viable to use it. Cheap energy and unlimited energy for as long as the sun shines.
Land area? Unlimited. Multi storey building gives as much extra surface area as we wish, at a cost which is about to start collapsing. In building we are now seeing the next steps in the sort of productivity increases that we have become accustomed to in digital electronics.
http://www.countingcats.com/?p=753
http://www.countingcats.com/?p=757
Food? green revolution + cheap building + cheap energy = viable vertical farming. This is a hundred, hell, maybe two hundred times the level of productivity per acre of earths surface. More if you want to build higher or dig deeper.
Factory made food? Sometime in the next five years –
http://www.countingcats.com/?p=112
Copper? Iron? Cause they can be recycled. Besides, you think that in the next hundred years metals, metals, will be of much importance to human civilisation? Gads, how low tech.
Silicon and carbon man.
Given the technology and energy, there is no practical limit to resources.
The main impediments to clean and staggering wealth for all is – all out war, and green lunacy.
Limits to growth? What tripe.
Quote from Boris in his article –
This is, of course, complete twaddle.
If the cows were not eating the greenery the grass would eventually die, decompose, and release both CO2 and CH4 (methane) into the atmosphere. If the cows eating greenery makes for both a more rapid release of the stuff then likewise it makes for a more rapid uptake in increased vegetable growth. The effect of breeding cattle for dairy and consumption may result in the change of carbon concentration in the soil, but otherwise it has no effect whatsoever on the levels of atmospheric carbon.
The carbon in cows farts came from the atmosphere. The fart puts it back, just any decomposition of organic matter would do. We learnt it in school, it is called the carbon cycle.
Whether you are a vegetarian or a carnivore has no effect on atmospheric concentration of carbon in any way shape or form whatsoever.
Idiots.
People (particularly on the left/green side of things) frequently describe growth as an “objective” as if people sit in a room and decide the economy will grow. That is a flawed understanding. Growth is a consequence of progress. Progress allows us to produce goods and services with fewer resources- either material or human. New, better materials and new production methods. What once was made by hand from metal or wood is made by machine from plastic.
This frees up the resources that would have been consumed in the low efficiency production method to be used elsewhere. A factory lays off 10 workers- now those 10 workers can go and make something else. The economy grows. It can’t help it. Which is why when greenies ask for a no-growth economy, they are implicitly asking for an end to progress- an end even to the factory manager reorganising production to improve efficiency or offering a productivity pay inducement to his workforce. Growth is not a goal. It’s a consequence.
I think it was Keynes who popularised the flawed idea that this will lead to us running out of demand. It’s especially ludicrous when you consider the standard of living when he was writing. The idea that everyone had enough stuff in the 1930s was ludicrous. The idea that everyone has anywhere near enough stuff now is equally ludicrous, and we are far wealthier. The people I know are constantly balancing what they’d like with what they can afford, and much that they’d really like is forever beyond their grasp. There is no shortage of demand.
Growth is also caricatured as requiring infinitude. “The economy can’t grow forever”. But nobody needs it to. One can imagine a point at which we have invented everything worth inventing, and found every most efficient production method, and when such a point is reached the economy stops growing, naturally. We’re nowhere near that yet.
Ian,
Off topic I know, but did you know you went viral(Link) a couple of weeks ago?
Countingcats, regarding my legendary virality-
Thanks, I didn’t know it had spread that far. I was chuffed to see that John Brignell had quoted it at numberwatch (in his “March Of The Zealots” article) and I saw it somewhere else (can’t remember where now). I feel slightly funny about it because it’s not entirely accurate and was written in my deliberately ranty no pauses for breath “and and and” stylee more for rhetorical intent than accuracy. Most of it’s supportable, but “tequila slammer” isn’t actually illegal, I think, the drink industry “voluntarily” dropped it under government pressure. Stuff like that. If I’d known it’d be quoted all over I’d have come up with some better stuff as well (it’s mostly lifestyle stuff like smoking bans, the intent was to emphasise the everyday and, sort of working class lifestyle angle).
Is this my 15 minutes, then? 🙂
Well, I saw you in about six different places in about a week before I put that posting up.
Yep, I think that was your 15 min, this time.
Well, back to limits to growth idiocy.