: : In thermodynamic terms; in physical terms, the Earth is very definitely a zero-sum-gain system; and the whole human concept of 'wealth' as applied to cars becomes redundant as soon as the oil runs out.: : What use is a luxury commodity made out of plastic if you can't power it? What use is land if it becomes too polluted to produce food?
: Farinata, look around and it's obvious that the Capitalist system is producing those things that peasants from all over the world want.
Really? Can it be said to be providing a marked improvement to the lot of the common man worldwide?; or is it just benefitting the richer tenth of the world's population; who justify their greed with the weak excuse that it will somehow 'trickle down' to the poor people in the end - against all the evidence.
: You have to little faith in man's creative powers. The new plastic of fifty years ago will one day be replaced by a new synthetic material created by a man who refuses to be locked into a zero sum world.
From where? Care to state any potential sources?
Fact remains, fossil and vegetable-based fuels are humanity's sources of energy; and have been since the beginning of history. I can give you combustion reactions for all of the major chemical processes involved. There are only so many things that will burn or oxidise or combust; and most of them are already exploited in some way.
This is ignoring the fact that combustion of carbon-based fuels on a sufficient scale to support an industrial society (even at the present level) will result in global warming sufficient to disrupt large parts of society over the next 200 years; as this research published today finds.
What is actually needed is moderation of consumption, not just new forms of consumption; and industrial capitalism is lousy at self-regulation.
: New oppoortunities will be created, old technologies will wither, but man will survive.
Great. Large parts of humanity will wish they hadn't, though; we're talking mass suffering here.
: If there are savage tribes that live in a jungle, cold, infected and ignorant, why wouldn't any person say "That's a tragedy, let me show you something better"?
There are human beings that live in a polluted and deeply unequal society divided into the haves and the have-nots. 40,000 under-fives die of poverty-related causes every day; and the last 30 years have seen the gap between rich and poor grow from 30-to-1 to 74-to-1 as more wealth became concentrated in the hands of those who already have enough.
It's a tragedy. Let me show you something better.
: The original post is a good illustration of propaganda at work on illiterates. That "doctor" ought to be pistol whipped, tarred and feathered and driven out of town.
Why? Because he brought them to the realization that they didn't have to just do as they were told? Because he put them on the road to self-government?
Just what kind of libertarian are you, to say such things?
Farinata.
