>This is probably one of the worst posts about minimal technology I've ever seen online.
>You can build a slightly less efficient industrial society on the basis of such an energy source. Technology and energy are not going to be the problem.
Which was never any assertion of mine. People are going to be the problem. Workers are going to be the problem. A shrinking population doesn't have a surplus. And while you're busy trying to build the slightly less efficient industrial society without enough people to run it, your population continues to shrink... meaning you have to downgrade again. But you never quite seem to downgrade enough, because right when you think you've struck the balance, you have fewer people necessitating another downgrade.
Remember all the posts here that talk about how the reason people don't have kids is that the economy's bad? They need more pay and more child care subsidies and diapers are too expensive and people would rather spend that money on themselves and blah blah blah? Do you think they're going to feel so prosperous in your "slightly less efficient industrial society"? They aren't going to be cranking out 8 or 10 babies. All the things you're doing to make it so that civilization can hang on a little longer make them miserable in ways that you all have identified as the disincentive to parenthood.
How is this not obvious to you? What sorts of willful denial of reality does it take to arrive at your conclusion? In my city of 350,000 people we have more dog groomers and pet stores than we do pediatrician clinics. They're closing elementary schools (the Facebook posts about these are hilarious, no one seems to get it). And you think that solar panels can fix what's broken (are there any solar panel factories in North America, come to that?).
>You can build a slightly less efficient industrial society on the basis of such an energy source. Technology and energy are not going to be the problem.
Which was never any assertion of mine. People are going to be the problem. Workers are going to be the problem. A shrinking population doesn't have a surplus. And while you're busy trying to build the slightly less efficient industrial society without enough people to run it, your population continues to shrink... meaning you have to downgrade again. But you never quite seem to downgrade enough, because right when you think you've struck the balance, you have fewer people necessitating another downgrade.
Remember all the posts here that talk about how the reason people don't have kids is that the economy's bad? They need more pay and more child care subsidies and diapers are too expensive and people would rather spend that money on themselves and blah blah blah? Do you think they're going to feel so prosperous in your "slightly less efficient industrial society"? They aren't going to be cranking out 8 or 10 babies. All the things you're doing to make it so that civilization can hang on a little longer make them miserable in ways that you all have identified as the disincentive to parenthood.
How is this not obvious to you? What sorts of willful denial of reality does it take to arrive at your conclusion? In my city of 350,000 people we have more dog groomers and pet stores than we do pediatrician clinics. They're closing elementary schools (the Facebook posts about these are hilarious, no one seems to get it). And you think that solar panels can fix what's broken (are there any solar panel factories in North America, come to that?).