> Which is to say, that by maximizing first and then optimizing, you may be only ensuring the extinction of our species, and the fact that your civilization will still be around when the lights go out will be cold comfort.
Compared to not being around anymore before the lights go out ? I'd say that, yes, it's the more comfortable situation. But you're being dramatic, there's plently of places in nature where you can observe how this actually happens. It's almost never the case that resources fully run out, so some people/places will survive. And it may take tens or hundreds of thousands of years, but they will recover from that, as unlikely as that seems.
Population explosion, like humans are experiencing now, is followed by ... a die-off. Not by an extinction. If humans are different, that will be the first exception to the rule in 4 billion years.
> How about, an economy that achieves hegemony, ... and seeks out and destroys rival upstart economies that are a threat to it
Of course the key here is that you attack BEFORE the other guys become a threat. Most species in fact do that, in combination with maximizing resource usage. In fact, that's what they use the resources for, to a large extent.
Now there's plenty of economies currently around. Are you saying we should attack all of them right now ? Watch out, China !
Of course, if we don't, maximizing resource usage will be what "naturally" happens. Resource stewardship is a tactic that's trivially defeatable by a single bad actor, so that won't be what happens.
One caveat does exist. This is a law like the second law of thermodynamics. On the whole, you can't avoid this, as that would be similar to creating a perpetuum mobile. But keep in mind that there is no such thing as a law that states nothing can remain in motion for a very, very long time. The longer the timeframe you look at in the future, the better the odds we'll be maximizing resource usage. But similar to perpetuum mobile, even relatively long-term exceptions can happen, and in fact, happen often (a big misunderstanding people have about large-scale random/chaotic processes : situations don't repeat and the future does not look like the past at all). But it will always come back to the rule.
I wonder why we see this so much in political discussions. You think we have a choice. The only choice we really have is death now, or death later. You'll find that humans got were they are by choosing death later.
Compared to not being around anymore before the lights go out ? I'd say that, yes, it's the more comfortable situation. But you're being dramatic, there's plently of places in nature where you can observe how this actually happens. It's almost never the case that resources fully run out, so some people/places will survive. And it may take tens or hundreds of thousands of years, but they will recover from that, as unlikely as that seems.
Population explosion, like humans are experiencing now, is followed by ... a die-off. Not by an extinction. If humans are different, that will be the first exception to the rule in 4 billion years.
> How about, an economy that achieves hegemony, ... and seeks out and destroys rival upstart economies that are a threat to it
Of course the key here is that you attack BEFORE the other guys become a threat. Most species in fact do that, in combination with maximizing resource usage. In fact, that's what they use the resources for, to a large extent.
Now there's plenty of economies currently around. Are you saying we should attack all of them right now ? Watch out, China !
Of course, if we don't, maximizing resource usage will be what "naturally" happens. Resource stewardship is a tactic that's trivially defeatable by a single bad actor, so that won't be what happens.
One caveat does exist. This is a law like the second law of thermodynamics. On the whole, you can't avoid this, as that would be similar to creating a perpetuum mobile. But keep in mind that there is no such thing as a law that states nothing can remain in motion for a very, very long time. The longer the timeframe you look at in the future, the better the odds we'll be maximizing resource usage. But similar to perpetuum mobile, even relatively long-term exceptions can happen, and in fact, happen often (a big misunderstanding people have about large-scale random/chaotic processes : situations don't repeat and the future does not look like the past at all). But it will always come back to the rule.
I wonder why we see this so much in political discussions. You think we have a choice. The only choice we really have is death now, or death later. You'll find that humans got were they are by choosing death later.