Quote from: mother_of_another on June 04, 2011, 11:22:24 PM

Quote from: Vitalik Buterin on June 04, 2011, 08:15:21 PM

I think that there is a big difference between natural resources and total wealth. The main reason why the world's wealth is increasing in modern times is not because we're using up more and more resources but because of technology. Technology allows us to get more utility out of the same resources - a computer now is far more useful than a pot made five thousand years ago out of the same raw materials was then; a genetically engineered plant (including selective breeding) produces twenty times the usable food for twice the nutrients and the same amount of effort. While natural resource consumption will inevitably hit the latter half of its S-curve, technological progress will continue and accelerate without any currently visible limit.

This. The only resource we can truly run out of, and be stuffed as a species, is minds for critical thinking.

We create the resources. Until it is desirable and valuable to humans it is an inanimate, worthless, object. When it has utility it becomes a resource. 300 years ago large, untapped oil, gas and uranium deposits were unknown to man and worth nothing. The prized resources from that same era likely have been substituted by better, cheaper, technically superior alternatives and are now worthless again.

Resource scarcity is the same old Malthusian myth that won't die, no matter how many times it is proved wrong. Like Keynesian monetary theories.

So we all agree that humans have reached this point of civlization because of science and technology. From fire to microwave ovens what really solves our problems at the end of the day is technology, not tribalism, feudalism, comunism, capitalism or any other thing. Thats why a RBE is based around science and technology, not money, profit or politics.

I couldn't care less about keynesians or the church, to me its all based around beliefs and faith, not scientific facts. Science has no ego, contrary to beliefs that think they posses the ultimate truth. Science has no room for opinion. You either prove that something is right or wrong or you stfu and play other games.

I dont think you have disproven my "myth" at all. Again, give me facts that scientifically prove that earth's resources renew following an exponential function or will in the future. Prove to me that exponentially consuming oil, for example, will not end with oil depletion.
Your myth, on the contrary, falls under its own weight and it should be evident. What you have is faith. And I know its difficult arguing with people that are not able to question their beliefs. "Its the truth and theres no room for opinion". Who is your leader?

Nature IS a dictatorship. And its the only dictatorship we cannot end no matter how smart we think we are.