[p2p-research] Scientific American on the coming Malthusian Crisis

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Ryan Lanham wrote:
> "Sustainability is still an unsolved problem, it is the same problem Malthus
> identified about 200 years ago," Sachs added. "How we feed the planet, slow
> population growth<http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=is-birth-control-the-answer-to-envi-2009-09-23>,
> and thereby raise living standards is still an open question."

All bunk, for reasons previously cited:
   http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming
   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
   http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

Our main problem is not enough educated and resourceful people empowered by 
access to a basic income, tools, and communications. :-)

The truth is more like that (almost) every person can be a huge net benefit 
to society. We have a "Peak Population" crisis.

With that said, your other reply to Michel about the power of states to do 
big things is true. States just should not be things like mandatory birth 
control. China would be pretty awesome right now with double the population. 
:-) They might be building habitats in the oceans and in space instead of 
dealing with a nation of "Little Emperor".
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Emperor_Syndrome

And China may soon be eclipsing the rest of the world in sustainability:
   http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=1
"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a 
reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have 
great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult 
but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 
21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us 
in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power 
and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding 
populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean 
power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure 
that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, 
including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down."

Maybe it would be *better* for the human race if there were twice as many 
Chinese right now? :-)

Really, what we need is both you and Michel. Both hierarchies and meshworks. 
As Manuel de Landa wrote:
   http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
"Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains 
and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly 
turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and 
hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory 
alone but demand concrete experimentation"

Still, I urge you both to read "Voyage from Yesteryear" for both an 
understanding of how states can go wrong and what an alternative might look 
like, and how any conflict might get resolved, and why a vision of an 
abundant future is so important to making that all work out well.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear

By the way, why not do some math rather than hand wave saying, when you say: 
"It isn't clear that outputs from small farms, small manufacturing, etc. can 
give the world what it needs."

Put some numbers to that.

How much does the world need in different areas? How much could small farms 
and small manufacturing supply of that?

The numbers might surprise you.

I met several people in NJ who wanted to run small farms bout could not 
because of high land prices. I'd suggest there are lots of people who would 
produce more locally if they got the chance, plus had access to modern 
equipment (whether robotic cow milkers or fancy CAD/CAM machines). But most 
will never get the chance because the capital is tied up in large ventures 
or appreciated land assets devoted to essentially frivolous ends (like 
suburbs instead of functional towns and cities). Still, there is a lot of 
land in the USA.

What we may need most in new cities built along new paradigms. The USA has 
only about one tenth the population of Europe. We could fit two Chinas in 
the USA and still be less dense than Europe. The USA has plenty of room for 
new cities that would support hundreds of millions of more people.

And that's without even building out into the oceans or up into the sky.

Examples:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0119080/stories/2003/02/20/interestsTheMillennialProj.html
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
http://space.mike-combs.com/

What population control generally means in practice is eugenics and racism. 
Maybe we might need to think about it someday. Maybe after we fill up the 
solar system. :-)

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/