[ExI] it was the best times, it was the best of times

Kelly Anderson kellycoinguy at gmail.com
Mon Oct 7 17:29:36 UTC 2013


On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 07, 2013 at 09:12:33AM -0700, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>
> > Among the free services I get - nope.  I see no data, either statistical
> or
> > anecdotal from my own experience, that suggests we are anywhere near a
> peak
> > on this.
>
> I'm referring to advanced dumpster divers here. Probably not many freegans
> are reading this list. I would be genuinely interested about their pickings
> in UK (London, largely) and US. My theory is that there's less waste now,
> but I have no actual data.
>

Even the government isn't wasteful enough to collect data on something this
useless. If there is less waste, then that is a GOOD THING. Conservation is
always the lowest hanging fruit. I didn't even laugh so much when Obama
said "Inflate your tires" though he got dumped on for saying so. Dumpster
diving may be a way of life for a fringe, but that's not what I'm talking
about when I talk about stuff being free in great amounts these days.


> > You are right to point out that free services are not free products,
> > though.  Someone always pays for the products eventually - even if that
> > price often (though not always, especially for raw ingredients such as
> oil)
> > gets lower over time, as more efficient ways to make and/or use the
> > products are discovered.  (For instance, if oil gets 1.2 times as
> expensive
> > but cars get twice the MPG, then it net costs less to drive a certain
> > distance.)
>
> What we're seeing empirically, in the US, is that nonessential driving
> is reduced, aka demand destruction. I wonder when the reality of fuel
> prices at the pump and economy versus the rhetoric will percolate through.
> It doesn't seem to, so far.
>

But even products can be free to the users. For example, Google paid for
hard drives that store my email. Yes, they made up for it with advertising,
which I read. But the hard drive space is "free" to me in terms of actual
cash. I do pay for it with a minimal amount of time.

> "completely stopped".  If mining ceased no later than 2000 (depending on
> > where you put the century mark), then what's with all the active,
> > productive mines today in 2013?
>
> I don't know when copper production is supposed to peak, some say
> 2040 http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3086 -- I think we don't have
> sufficient data to be able to tell, quite yet.
>

Should be enough time to develop space based copper mining... don't you
think?


> Some minerals are critical, others are less so
> http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5239
>
> > And, of course, there's the potential for asteroid mining.  It hasn't
> > started yet, and there's quite a bit to do, but the amount of energy
> needed
> > to get it seriously productive seems to be within current reserves - so
> > long as that effort is started soon enough, of course.
>
> I'm very optimistic long-term, but we must get there first. I'm not
> at all optimistic mid-term, simply because the evidence shows that
> we're making pretty much all mistakes in the book. If you make too
> many mistakes, there's a critical mass beyond which you no longer
> can recover. That possibility should scare people shitless, and make
> them move in order to avoid that scenario. Unfortunately, we monkeys
> are quite lousy dealing with abstract threats.


But some monkeys are more clever than others. Fortunately, we still have
money enough that some of the clever monkeys can amass the fortunes
necessary to do this (Elan Musk, Paul Alan anyone?) despite the government
attempting to take most of it away to keep the non-functional monkeys
breathing and voting for the socialist agenda.

If we take all of Musk's money away from him and those like him, then
perhaps we will not be mining asteroids in the end and we can all eat
terrestrial rocks with Eugen.

-Kelly
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