«
»

the solar system is ours for the taking

Zero-sum thinking by John Holdren, Obama’s science czar:

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/09/ob…

H: I think ultimately that the rate of growth of material consumption is going to have to come down, and there’s going to have to be a degree of redistribution of how much we consume, in terms of energy and material resources, in order to leave room for people who are poor to become more prosperous.

Is there not enough energy and material in the solar system for everyone?

Do I need to give up my relatively modest house, truck, and energy consumption in order to reduce inequality?

Heck, no!

Rope!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 8:40 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to “the solar system is ours for the taking”

  1. Sameer Parekh Says:
    September 10th, 2009 at 8:47 am

    I just finished reading Accelerando.

    The total mass/energy in the solar system is limited. It was fun reading about a future where all the dumb matter in the solar system was converted to “computronium” so the whole solar system itself became a giant intelligence. At that point the giant intelligence known as the solar system became resource constrained.

    So yeah, the rate of growth of material consumption is going to eventually have to come down, as soon as the entire solar system is one big post-human hyperintelligent being.

  2. tjic Says:
    September 10th, 2009 at 9:42 am

    [quote comment="219159"]I just finished reading Accelerando.
    [/quote]

    I’m sorry.

    Would you like some Listerine?

  3. tjic Says:
    September 10th, 2009 at 9:42 am

    [quote comment="219159"] the rate of growth of material consumption is going to eventually have to come down, as soon as the entire solar system is one big post-human hyperintelligent being.[/quote]

    Beyond the sun there are more stars…

  4. Joseph Hertzlinger Says:
    September 10th, 2009 at 11:23 am

    Rope?

    Have you gotten into the recycling spirit?

    After all, the rationale for using rope instead of bullets is that rope is reusable. (See “A Little Knowledge” by Poul Anderson.)

  5. Bob Smith Says:
    September 10th, 2009 at 7:20 pm

    Can somebody explain to me how my consumption of X units of resource R prevent person P from increasing their consumption of resource R from A to A+N units? Because that’s exactly what that quote of Holdren’s says.