Re:The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)
by taygetea on Sunday April 05, 2015 @04:05PM
(#9325157)
The comment you were responding to wasn't referring to the 1970s, it was referring to the repeated cries of Malthusian catastrophes dating back to Malthus himself. The unexpected technology mentioned was a 50-fold increase in agricultural productivity per person working in agriculture. Several times in the last several hundred years, similar patterns were pointed out. All of them were solved with technology they had no way of knowing about.
This is a cautionary tale about something that stock market traders know well: never try to call the top of a bubble. You'll just look like a fool, and if you bet on it you will lose all your money.
The "Population Bomb" crowd in the 70s and the peak oilers of today tried to do just that: to call the top. They were not wrong about the underlying realities, but they were absolutely wrong about the timing -- which is nearly always the case. Bubbles almost always go higher and further than anyone ever expects or imagines.
We're exponentially growing on the back of finite resources that we are consuming without replenishing. That's a bubble. I don't know when it will pop, but it will. Question is what happens then, and will we have enough alternatives available to keep going or not?
On the counterpoint side:
Life faced a similar situation prior to the advent of photosynthesis. It was growing exponentially and consuming chemical resources that would have been depleted. Had photosynthesis not evolved in time, life would have likely mostly died out and retreated to small colonies around a few hydrothermal vents.
That might have been one of the first great filters. We seem to be past that one.