The Impossibility of Growth

[kentonio]

Once those robots become self-replicating

Let's just not, eh.

[Lorizael]

What's wrong with self-replicating robots? Either they usher in a new era of industry, or they user in a new era of destruction. Either way, it'll be awesome.

[pchang]

Let's just not, eh.

Your irrational fear is what is preventing us from achieving our non-working socialist utopia

[Kidlicious]

What's wrong with self-replicating robots? Either they usher in a new era of industry, or they user in a new era of destruction. Either way, it'll be awesome.

Why can't it be both?

[Lorizael]

It might be both! Double awesome!

[kentonio]

Your irrational fear is what is preventing us from achieving our non-working socialist utopia

The one where the people making the self replicating robots come to the conclusion that they don't actually need the rest of us?

[pchang]

The one where the people making the self replicating robots come to the conclusion that they don't actually need the rest of us?

That's the kind of paranoid thinking that holds us back as a species. Besides, we don't need you now.

[kentonio]

That's the kind of paranoid thinking that holds us back as a species. Besides, we don't need you now.

At least I'll die with the smug knowledge that sooner or later all will fall beneath the merciless feet of our new robot overlords.

[Geronimo]

I think the history of the industrial age to date has shown that heading off tragedy-of-the-commons mistakes, at least in pluralistic societies, has been most successful where awareness of the potential adverse consequences is most widespread while demonstration of potential adverse consequences as alarmist BS or exaggerations is minimal. Permanent high profile destruction of enormous profitable resources like fisheries or the passenger pigeon through behavior that was in hindsight grossly shortsighted leads to willingness to accept conservation costs by those exploiting other at-risk resources. Dire, quantifiable predictions that fail to come to fruition despite the obvious continued presence of the conditions implicated in the predictions, on the other hand, has the opposite effect.

Vague Malthusian pieces like the OP probably have done more harm than good in modifying the behavior of society by appearing to be discredited in hindsight and become especially counterproductive strawmen for opponents to sustainability action when they rely on such obviously flawed reasoning to support their conclusions.

In general, the population of a pluralistic society needs to be educated just enough to recognize how utterly dependent on innovation and conservation civilization has needed to be to avert past Malthusian catastrophes and beyond that focus should be on education of the values of specific actions where the consequences for inaction and the solutions themselves can be made indisputable. Even this, however, proves astonishingly difficult for sustainability activists to get right as they passionately advocate for all manner of demonstrably anti-sustainability platforms, such as simplistic opposition to use of specific technologies like GMOs, nuclear power, fracking, domestic energy intensive industries (but not consumption of their products and services), and on and on and on.

The OP only serves to discredit serious discussion of potential sustainability issues while failing to cite anything useful that could be done about it, even if we were to accept the premise being promoted with such obviously flawed and weak arguments.

[Kidlicious]

The one where the people making the self replicating robots come to the conclusion that they don't actually need the rest of us?

Most people are already useless.

[Kidlicious]

I think the history of the industrial age to date has shown that heading off tragedy-of-the-commons mistakes, at least in pluralistic societies, has been most successful where awareness of the potential adverse consequences is most widespread while demonstration of potential adverse consequences as alarmist BS or exaggerations is minimal. Permanent high profile destruction of enormous profitable resources like fisheries or the passenger pigeon through behavior that was in hindsight grossly shortsighted leads to willingness to accept conservation costs by those exploiting other at-risk resources. Dire, quantifiable predictions that fail to come to fruition despite the obvious continued presence of the conditions implicated in the predictions, on the other hand, has the opposite effect.

Vague Malthusian pieces like the OP probably have done more harm than good in modifying the behavior of society by appearing to be discredited in hindsight and become especially counterproductive strawmen for opponents to sustainability action when they rely on such obviously flawed reasoning to support their conclusions.

In general, the population of a pluralistic society needs to be educated just enough to recognize how utterly dependent on innovation and conservation civilization has needed to be to avert past Malthusian catastrophes and beyond that focus should be on education of the values of specific actions where the consequences for inaction and the solutions themselves can be made indisputable. Even this, however, proves astonishingly difficult for sustainability activists to get right as they passionately advocate for all manner of demonstrably anti-sustainability platforms, such as simplistic opposition to use of specific technologies like GMOs, nuclear power, fracking, domestic energy intensive industries (but not consumption of their products and services), and on and on and on.

The OP only serves to discredit serious discussion of potential sustainability issues while failing to cite anything useful that could be done about it, even if we were to accept the premise being promoted with such obviously flawed and weak arguments.

People aren't wearing enough hats.

[Elok]

Geronimo:

A. Welcome back.
B. Re: over-simplistic fears, it occurred to me one day when I was subbing a science class that the question "are GMOs safe?" is a lot like the question "are cars safe?" If you mean "are cars in general a safe technology," or "can cars be used safely," the answer is yes. But it remains entirely possible for individual cars, or individual GMOs, to be unsafe, unwise or poorly planned. Radical scaremongering seems likely to decrease the odds of sensible regulation, thus making all the scaremongers' own fears come true.

[pchang]

GMOs also have very different purposes and characteristics. There is a GMO rice that produces vitamin A. This reduces blindness in impoverished areas where rice is a staple (like India). It has no known adverse effects. Then, there is GMO corn that is resistant to Roundup herbicide. Its purpose is to increase the sales and use of Roundup herbicide. This usefulness is highly debatable and has a host of potentially adverse effects.

[Geronimo]

Geronimo:

A. Welcome back.
B. Re: over-simplistic fears, it occurred to me one day when I was subbing a science class that the question "are GMOs safe?" is a lot like the question "are cars safe?" If you mean "are cars in general a safe technology," or "can cars be used safely," the answer is yes. But it remains entirely possible for individual cars, or individual GMOs, to be unsafe, unwise or poorly planned. Radical scaremongering seems likely to decrease the odds of sensible regulation, thus making all the scaremongers' own fears come true.

Thanks for the anecdote! I think understanding why the public will ask that question for some technologies while intuitively understanding its poor application to other technologies (like the car in your example) could go a long way towards finding approaches to defuse these Quixotic diversions of otherwise precious environmentalist capital that are perversely increasing net environmental damage in their attacks on select technologies rather than the unwise usage of all of the technologies.

[Lorizael]

I think the reason why people tend to treat those questions differently is one of familiarity. Cars are a commonplace thing that, while certainly quite dangerous, people are very well acquainted with. People can have nuanced opinions about cars because cars are readily observable. Genetics, on the other hand, is that thing you talked about for a couple weeks in your high school bio class. Beyond that, genetics is a very unfamiliar subject. Thus, it is difficult to have a nuanced opinion about it. And unfortunately, when that's so, people sometimes have rather absolute opinions instead of no opinions at all.