Re: [asa] A Sustainable Future and Exponential growth

Burgy: "It is a fact that govt' MUST step in to regulate some things -- even in our free society."

Agreed, but governments are far better at constraining bad behavior than stimulating good behavior. If a government overdoes its constraining, it can inadvertently make sure "the come" never comes.

The commies are relevant because they (Russians, and Chinese before enlightenment) are poster boys for strong central governments that, through ideologically based interventions, made sure their economies never flourished. Central governments seem to become addicted to the feeling of power and are always looking for more things to control even though they don't understand the world well enough to do a good job of it and hence generate all sorts of unintended bad consequences.

The US economy is the poster boy for the efficiency and progress that can come from relatively unconstrained markets.

It is of course possible that "the come" will never get here. It's possible that we'll never find a good substitute for hydrocarbons, for example. In that case the world will go downhill pretty fast. But in view of recent history and growing world prosperity it would be foolish to act as if that's the most likely outcome.

Don

 
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: j burg<mailto:hossradbourne@gmail.com>
  To: Don Winterstein<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
  Cc: asa<mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; Christine Smith<mailto:christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com>
  Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2008 7:06 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] A Sustainable Future and Exponential growth

  On 5/24/08, Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>> wrote:
>
> The problem with this kind of thinking is that no one knows enough or is
> smart enough to do the job. History teaches that neither governments nor
> scientists could be trusted. Consider that Earth's land areas are mostly
> open space, meaning that vastly larger populations could be accommodated if
> we could figure out how to do it wisely. No one predicted the technological
> advances of the past that have made life better for people, no one can
> foresee the technological advances of the future that may make life even
> better.
>
> Vastly more people today are living better lives materially speaking than at
> any time in the past. Why try to shut this trend down, since you're not
> smart enough to know how to do it? Only the commies were smart enough,
> until they realized they weren't.
>
> Only when things start getting noticeably worse for the average human than
> they were previously will we have an indication that we may be up against
> some kind of limit. Even then the deterioration could be only temporary.
>

  The operative word here is "may." In some technological areas, it is
  called "betting on the come."

  The other operative word is "smart enough." That implies, of course,
  that our kids will excell at "smartness" over our accomplishments. But
  it is more likely that all they will be is somewhat technologically
  more advanced -- that's not "smartness."

  Are there limits to technology? Those who say "no" are "betting on the come."

  No, our knowledge IS imperfect. But at any point we must chart the
  most probably course. It has nothing to do with "commies" by the way.
  It is a fact that govt' MUST step in to regulate some things -- even
  in out free society.

  The devil, of course, is in the details.

  Burgy

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Received on Mon May 26 05:38:11 2008