In short, Simon posits that humanity will always be able to do something; to improve methods, to recycle, to find new resources; and that to talk of resource shortage is thus not meaningful.
(Correct me if you feel I'm misrepresenting his position here.)
Unfortunately, this doesn't square with the physics and it doesn't square with the history.
In physical terms, retooling requires spare energy; you have to keep running your society whilst also investing enough to develop new techniques; and once you have new techniques, you need to expend more energy to roll them out across your civilisation. Also, energy is not infinitely recoverable or renewable; as overall system entropy has to increase as per the Second Law.
In historic terms, there are any number of historic societies with intelligent, adaptable problem-solving humans which collapsed due to their inability to deal with resource shortage and related factors; the Easter Islanders, the Greenland Vikings, the Polynesians of Mangareva and Pitcairn, the Anasazi Pueblo, the Classic Mayans.
(It would be massively arrogant to assume we're significantly brighter or more inventive than the average Mayan or Anasazi!)
Julian Simon's cornucopia argument is ultimately faith-based - wishful inductive thinking. It's a religious position, not a rational one.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-01-07 04:30 am (UTC)In short, Simon posits that humanity will always be able to do something; to improve methods, to recycle, to find new resources; and that to talk of resource shortage is thus not meaningful.
(Correct me if you feel I'm misrepresenting his position here.)
Unfortunately, this doesn't square with the physics and it doesn't square with the history.
In physical terms, retooling requires spare energy; you have to keep running your society whilst also investing enough to develop new techniques; and once you have new techniques, you need to expend more energy to roll them out across your civilisation. Also, energy is not infinitely recoverable or renewable; as overall system entropy has to increase as per the Second Law.
In historic terms, there are any number of historic societies with intelligent, adaptable problem-solving humans which collapsed due to their inability to deal with resource shortage and related factors; the Easter Islanders, the Greenland Vikings, the Polynesians of Mangareva and Pitcairn, the Anasazi Pueblo, the Classic Mayans.
(It would be massively arrogant to assume we're significantly brighter or more inventive than the average Mayan or Anasazi!)
Julian Simon's cornucopia argument is ultimately faith-based - wishful inductive thinking. It's a religious position, not a rational one.