From a comment in a different thread:
wobbly asks:
What will be scarce in the future.
As I've noted in the past...I consider Julian Simon's work to be among the most revolutionary ever done. His fundamental thesis is:
Non-renewable resources are NEVER scarce for long.
If you take this seriously...you run into a crazy position (along with Simon), that I agree with: the only shortage that is even sane to talk about is a shortage in innovation.
Shortages in innovation come from 2 places:
1. Insufficiently many minds (underpopulation)
2. Crappy regulatory structures.
Now...if you stack Drexler's conservative hypothesis (When a desktop computer has somewhat more than the computing power of a human brain, it will be roughly as able to innovate as a human brain, regardless of whether we call it intelligence)... that leaves running out of resources subject to exactly one constraint:
Bad Government.
If you further include Mancur Olsen...the problem is that existing interest groups capture the regulatory apparatus in order to solidify their own relative standing, thus slowly killing innovation. I'm personally creeping towards the conclusion that Cowen's great stagnation is (a) true, and (b) the necessary result of ever increasing numbers of regulations put out by government agencies...which has happened under every regime ever built (Including recently Singapore). The problem, unsurprisingly, is then:
Too Much Government.
If we can restrain it...we don't have resource constraints. If we can't, we do.
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13 comments:
1. Insufficiently many minds (underpopulation)
Based on what evidence? It seems almost the opposite: small countries like Finland and Israel innovate magnitudes more than big countries like Mexico and Nigeria.
Small towns and rural areas hit above their weight in supplying creative people (though the dynamic seems to be going from a small town to the big city to find the audience/infrastructure.)
2. Crappy regulatory structures.
To an extent, but low regulation states such as Somalia give us nothing, while stifled states such as Sweden and Germany lead in industrial innovation. There is more to it.
I agree that Finland does well...but the question is...what tends to do better: larger vs. smaller. To do that, you have to either play heavy statistics, or else you have to do similar-country comparisons. We can't compare Pakistan to the USA, but rather to India.
Julian Simon did the #s...and they're pretty clear. More population is better. On damn near every measure you care to choose. And he started off as a population-control guy...it wasn't an expected conclusion.
2. Yes there's more to it. Somalia is starting from SO poor a place, that it doesn't have the surplus to play. Yes, it's doing better than many of the other governed African Kleptocracies...but starting from near zero.
Why do people think that somalia has low regulation?
Who sets the laws in Somalia? The local tribal structure. The local clan leader with some gunmen.
Who is just about the most conservative, stick-in-the-muds you can imagine? Traditional clan hierarchy who are unsure of their position. Who are uneducated and so don't really understand your ideas. And who are basically at cold war with all the other groups in the country.
Can anyone really argue that trying to set up a factory in Somalia, with supply lines running through several clan's territory, would involve less exhaustive negotiation, hoop jumping and delays than doing so in Finland?
More population is better. On damn near every measure you care to choose.
??? I've been Googling Julian Simon and haven't found anything epiphenal. There are so many counter examples: Haiti-Dominican Republic; Egypt-Israel. The number's game is too simple.
Somalia is starting from SO poor a place
Kind of the point: numbers can't overcome bad governance, tribalism, or low human capital.
Maybe I've read Jared Diamond too closely, where he documents societies that outran their resources. I don't see where the modern world is particularly immune from such in the long run.
Dr. Pat...
I think Somalia is a lot more complex than you seem to by saying. You're talking tribal thug...there's a lot of folks saying Somalia is running off something that looks a lot like traditional polycentric Irish common law.
Here, for instance.
RSF,
It's all in the book: Ultimate Resource 2. Near the last chapter... and the title of the book.
The issue is that natural resources are, come the industrial revolution, not natural. Rather they're discovered/created. Oil that's 2 miles beneath the surface, nearly impossible to find without modern technology, and fully impossible to extract without modern technology. Oil that we will extract in 10 years was not a resource 5 years ago. The resource is created. Alcoa N-tupled (with N large) the supply of aluminum in the world by starting the aluminum recycling program.
Resources are NOT finite (over time) by any appreciable measure come the industrial revolution. The idea is mind-boggling...and obvious after you get it.
2.
Somalia was conquered by Europeans, and left to languish for years. If you check some of Hans Rosling's information (here maybe)...he has a pretty solid dataset saying that colonialism held back everyone who was colonized.
Kleptocracies also screw everyone who gets one...and post-colonial times...that's what Africa got, almost to a Tee.
So...BAD governance, BAD governance, and BAD governance are pretty shitty for a place. but that's what my original argument said. Hell...North Korea, with it's genetically pretty smart folks is not richer than Somalia...
Please, not the colonialism argument. Ahhhhggggghhhh! The universal solvent: it can turn lead into gold. It explains everything.
I think you are trying too hard here. Natural resources are unlimited? More is always better? Are you a salesman?
North Koreans show their capability just by surviving under their regime. I wonder sometimes about the utility of adversity: don't bet against the North in the survival game.
Koreans thrive when transplanted to more benevolent surroundings, more so than Somalis or Mexicans. It speaks to their inherent qualities.
RSF,
I assume we miscommunicate here. Let me rephrase:
Somalis have had a tremendously shitty government which has actively prevented them from doing well for the last ~100 years at least. So has North Korea, for the last 40. We've determined that governments bad enough (Like those mentioned) can screw a society up completely. Given that, we don't need any other discussion of why. The government for the past 100 years is a sufficient condition.
RSF...I'm not trying to hard. The argument sounds insane...but that's because it is SO opposed to conventional wisdom. Here it is:
Natural resources are indeed unlimited in any reasonable sense of the word: We will NEVER run out of ANY non-renewable resources. And any opposing position is either unfamiliar with Julian Simon, or else willfully ignorant. It's up there on obviousness with: normal goods drop in price when quantity supplied increases.
I see what you are saying, I just disagree, and see whelming counter examples.
Good government is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for innovation. We see ethnic groups transplanted to the US, and its encouraging climate, in significant numbers yet show scant innovation. Mexicans are almost invisible in this regard. I don't see evidence that piling up more bodies gives one more innovation. Indonesia is large with not too bad of a government, yet most of the innovation there comes from market minorities (Chinese and Europeans). I don't see any evidence that piling up more Indonesians gives us more innovation.
To use "unlimited" and "non-renewable resources" together seems to be for people who can't do math. SOMETHING physical puts an upper bound on how many people the Earth can support. The Doomers erred in putting the number too low.
RSF,
Again...I think I'm making a narrow claim here, and you're making a broader claim that I'm ignoring.
My claim, which you seem to agree with:
Good government is a dominating factor in innovation.
Claim #2: When you factor out other things...more population ( and density ) increases innovation (rates).
Claim #3: If resources are liable to run out at current rates of growth and innovation in a million or 10 million years...that constitutes unlimited for any reasonable purposes. FWIW, I don't think Aluminum in particular has so short of a time horizon (only multi-million year). I agree that it sounds innumerate to call them non-renewable and unlimited.
Grab the Ultimate Resource II next time you're in a bookstore...Read the first chapter or two and the last chapter or two. It's eye-opening.
I agree that in a limited sense, more population gives you more innovation, but there are so many caveats to render it almost moot. You have to have people capable of innovating in the first place. More people requires more innovation and resources devoted to quartermastering. Look at our own country: welfare increases while the space program declines.
If we have infinite people, do we get infinite innovation?
I wouldn't use "millions" to describe the time horizon for current consumption patterns. We're in the process of closing major phosphorus mines in Florida, something I find a bit ominous.
1. The population correlation is rather strong, if I remember correctly. I'm not at home to look at the #s in the book. I can, however, say that calling it moot is wrong, according to the statistical analysis. More people makes net better growth rates/innovation/etc.
US Space program is an atrocious waste of resources...corporate welfare. And my Grandpa was a NASA engineer for Apollo. Private space is doing it for reasonable numbers, without the massive corporate welfare.
Millions was used intentionally in order to frame the discussion. IF it's millions, then we might as well be unlimited...so the question is what's our time frame for running out of stuff...Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, or Millions of years?
Julian Simon's argument is that running out in Tens of years is insane...and out of ~1 Million predictions that we're running out of something over the last 500 years...roughly 0 have turned out to be correct.
Are innovative people a subset of the general population? Are they identifiable? Would it be fair for them to segregate? Do we get this now, with Silicon Valley, NYC, USA, etc., soaking up the talent?
I wonder about increasing technology coupled with segregation, e.g DNA testing and increased communication would allow healthy people to pool together in a low rate insurance pool. Such is resisted now, but can we keep the genie in the bottle?
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