Africa is still growing. You don’t mention it but you are making a great argument for investing in making Africa more prosperous and well educated. It should start with making sure the nearly 1 billion people there still relying on kerosene have a few watts of electricity for decent light to study with. All that needs is a small solar panel and battery.
Yup. Improving human capital (and physical capital) in the poor places of the world is an important near term priority. Briefing Book is fairly U.S.-policy focused. We talk about the developing world much more in our book, After the Spike.
The planet is grossly over-populated already, yet the demand for workers/consumers keeps growing. Here's a thought: Why not stop the pogrom against immigrants long enough to satisfy that demand instead of this right-wing "replacement theory" attitude the govt. is engaged in?
Another consideration in the U.S. at least is the cost of college. It’s prohibitive from a financial perspective for families to send 3 or 4 kids to college in the U.S. these days. Coupled with soaring housing costs and you can see why people have smaller families or even no kids.
Feels weird to argue "we need to have more babies so that more science will get done someday" rather than "we need to make education free and accessible, and ensure that research programs that improve our long-term quality of life don't live and die at the whims of market fads", an approach that would have short-term and long-term benefits. It really captures our current unsustainable economic system to argue that the only solution is unlimited permanent future growth, rather than maximising the opportunities and achievements of the people who are already here.
The claim that "people wanting and needing something increases the odds they'll get it" is also an audacious thing to say in the context of US public transit (to say nothing of healthcare). The country would benefit immensely (in energy efficiency and carbon reductions, and in quality of life, for starters) from a drastically more extensive rail system, and the reason that's not going to happen any time soon is most certainly not a lack of public support. The idea that a bus network (a primarily fixed-cost endeavour) needs to pay for itself (via unreliable point-of-use fees) is also arbitrary and financially inefficient, even before engaging in ideological debate. The USA used to know what a public service was. Imagine if people had to pay the public defender and the judge just to contest a charge laid against them.
You assume that the status quo is necessary and must be preserved. The ecological damage we have already inflicted on the earth tells us otherwise.
As the supply of people goes down, the value of each goes up, which will ensure that current technology is spread to them. In and of itself that will benefit both them and the environment (think solar stoves vice dung stoves in India).
In the race between environmental damage and potential “new ideas,” the damage will assert itself first. It is already doing so.
The earth does not need new people. Only our current economic structure does.
Africa is still growing. You don’t mention it but you are making a great argument for investing in making Africa more prosperous and well educated. It should start with making sure the nearly 1 billion people there still relying on kerosene have a few watts of electricity for decent light to study with. All that needs is a small solar panel and battery.
Yup. Improving human capital (and physical capital) in the poor places of the world is an important near term priority. Briefing Book is fairly U.S.-policy focused. We talk about the developing world much more in our book, After the Spike.
The planet is grossly over-populated already, yet the demand for workers/consumers keeps growing. Here's a thought: Why not stop the pogrom against immigrants long enough to satisfy that demand instead of this right-wing "replacement theory" attitude the govt. is engaged in?
Another consideration in the U.S. at least is the cost of college. It’s prohibitive from a financial perspective for families to send 3 or 4 kids to college in the U.S. these days. Coupled with soaring housing costs and you can see why people have smaller families or even no kids.
Feels weird to argue "we need to have more babies so that more science will get done someday" rather than "we need to make education free and accessible, and ensure that research programs that improve our long-term quality of life don't live and die at the whims of market fads", an approach that would have short-term and long-term benefits. It really captures our current unsustainable economic system to argue that the only solution is unlimited permanent future growth, rather than maximising the opportunities and achievements of the people who are already here.
The claim that "people wanting and needing something increases the odds they'll get it" is also an audacious thing to say in the context of US public transit (to say nothing of healthcare). The country would benefit immensely (in energy efficiency and carbon reductions, and in quality of life, for starters) from a drastically more extensive rail system, and the reason that's not going to happen any time soon is most certainly not a lack of public support. The idea that a bus network (a primarily fixed-cost endeavour) needs to pay for itself (via unreliable point-of-use fees) is also arbitrary and financially inefficient, even before engaging in ideological debate. The USA used to know what a public service was. Imagine if people had to pay the public defender and the judge just to contest a charge laid against them.
You assume that the status quo is necessary and must be preserved. The ecological damage we have already inflicted on the earth tells us otherwise.
As the supply of people goes down, the value of each goes up, which will ensure that current technology is spread to them. In and of itself that will benefit both them and the environment (think solar stoves vice dung stoves in India).
In the race between environmental damage and potential “new ideas,” the damage will assert itself first. It is already doing so.
The earth does not need new people. Only our current economic structure does.