> But it's what we do. Always have. Always will.
You can’t extrapolate from the past because never before in history we had the capacity to have impacts at that scale (e.g. atomic bomb). We are in uncharted territories.
I'm always amused by the doomsaying Malthusians. They're always so confidently wrong.
If you cut down a few trees to build a house then 50 years later the forest will reclaim the land. If you instead cut down the entire forest then that can't happen.
>We have been using nonrenewable resources for hundreds (tens of thousands?) of years, and yet we keep finding more.
Multiple civilisations in the past have collapsed at least in part due to resource shortages. Again though, because none of these civilisations were _global_ the collapse was local and could be recovered from using outside resources.
Seriously, we can't even consistently land on the moon but everyone is convinced we're going to have space mines operating by the end of the century. Keep dreaming.
The rate of technological progress has if anything _slowed down_ in the last 50 years. Compare the difference if you look at the 40s vs the 60s, then the 2000s vs the 2020s.
But i do not see how thats relevant
More and more technological solution I see nowadays are the solution to problems technology created in first place.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end...
In the middle of an environmental crisis? Are we not going to factor that outcome into our measure of progress?
You have to prove the analogy, not just state it.
"Plumbing Facilities
In 1990, only 1 percent of our homes lacked complete plumbing facilities. But, things were much different in 1940, when nearly half lacked complete plumbing. Then, about ten States had rates approaching or exceeding 70 percent. In succeeding decades, the proportion of homes lacking complete plumbing dropped dramatically, falling to about one-third in 1950 and one- sixth in 1960. It is interesting to note the States with the lowest percent- age of such homes in 1940 were higher than Alaska, which topped the 1990 list."
In the 1940s - cities smelled like sh!t, were so polluted you almost never wanted to go outside, healthcare was still largely snake oil, the average person was still working 10 hours a day 6 days week, human rights outside of straight white christian men were questionable, AND we were in our second world war in 20 years - at the advent of the nuclear bomb.
Look at where we are now.
If you don't see progress, and if you can't see how people back then thought the world was surely coming to an end, and you think it's worse now, I'm honestly amazed.
At no point in time, was progress a up and to the right with no impediments. Every advance we've had, people have worked HARD for. So thank your lucky stars so many people get up every day and keep working for it.
Because it isn't easy. But it's what we do. Always have. Always will.
Eventually, we will reach the physical limits of how good technology can get. But we are laughably far away from that point in so many major aspects of life, that we've got a long way to go before the 10 & 20 year future might not be better.