[ExI] Beowulf EP

[hkhenson]

At 11:02 PM 11/21/2007, spike wrote:

> > So no matter how much stuff we have, any prospects of less stuff next
> > year will set off the mechanisms leading to wars.
> >
> > Keith
>
>Ja, that is how I understood it.  But unlike all other approaches to world
>peace I have ever seen, including pacifism, religion, MAD, etc, the notion
>that we could continuously produce more and better stuff indefinitely seems
>downright achievable.  Achievable is an understatement, it is foreseeable.

Maybe. Just more stuff won't do it if the population is going up 
faster than the wealth since the trip is dependent on average 
population outlook. Short term we are in for a rough time because of 
the carbon and energy crisis. From an engineering perspective there 
are ways or at least a way to solve the problems. Effectively we eat 
energy. I could see the population dropping by 2-4 billion over a 
couple of decades  if they are not solved.

But a lot of the world is already in "bleak prospects" -> xenophobia 
-> war or related social responses such as terrorism. The problem 
with our stone-age evolved psychological mechanisms is that they 
adversely affect our ability to think rationally when turned on.

Keith