[ExI] Cross post

[Keith Henson]

I sometimes read and comment on Gail Tvenberg's Our Finite World blog.
Gail was an editor with The Oil Drum and edited/published two of my
early papers on power satellites.  This post by Kowalainen is in reply
to Norman, dedicated doomer.  (Lightly edited.)  It seems like it
would interest Extropians of old, if not the current readership.

Keith

@Norman,

Your human chauvinism proves nothing. You are so close, yet so far away.

Is it that huge of a cognitive leap to realize that most economic
activity of today is directed towards more automation, computation and
information exchange? It is an absolute fact. An observable
continuation of the ingenuity originating in the first living
organism, to hunter-gatherers and modern civilization, yes, even as
far back as evolution leads us. It is a process which converts raw
materials and energy into ever greater complexity and sophistication.
Technology together with enabling capital is a process which is its
natural continuation.

It is not a question of using technology for mass production for the
benefit of mankind, it is about using advanced production methods to
render more advanced pieces of technology possible to starve off the
decadence and despair of a status quo, a trap which past civilizations
fell into and self-destructed in an 0rgy of decadence, horror, and
perpetual war.

In a situation of energy surplus, those means of production can and
will be used for mass production. Once resource limits hit, it will no
longer be available for the masses.

Henry Ford did not advance science and engineering one bit, as a
businessman, he realized that there is money to be made by using
existing technology to mass-produce personal transport. The increase
in economic activity and prosperity which he, and other businessmen
created by doing so, supercharged this process by a magnitude. Adding
cheap energy, fiat currency and debt increased this by another few
magnitudes.

Now, what does this entail when you follow this process it to its
logical limit? Well, of course, it means that the whole show will be
totally automated. The minuscule surplus which will be left for human
consumption. Whatever ‘mankind’ will be at that late stage of human
civilization. If it even makes sense at all to speak about mankind
then.

Thus believing that there must be a human end-user is a delusion. Once
there is a system in place which closely mimics the fundamental
principles of nature and enables those principles to be enhanced by
technology, they will be created and rendering people irrelevant.

Thus our job is complete and we can fade into obscurity as our
“children” pushes for the stars.