by Oakley » Mon 13 Dec 2010, 01:05:59
It seems to me that there is some thinking on this board that it is inconsistent to both place a high value on freedom, including freedom in economic transactions, and to also think that we are facing the end of the energy driven industrial age and a related dieoff.
Free markets cannot magically defy the laws of nature. One misconception relates to "technology" as if we can invent our way out of disaster. Technology is knowledge applied to resources. If you don't have knowledge then you don't have technology, but just resources, and if you don't have resources, you don't have technology, but just knowledge. So lacking knowledge, for a long period of human history we walked around on large quantities of resources without the ability to use them. And after they are gone, we will again be unable to use them, so any knowledge of how to use them will quickly expire.
Technology cannot possible bail us out in a resource scarce future because one of the two requirements for technology will be missing.
The idea that we collectively can defy the laws of nature is just as absurd as the idea that free market inventiveness will defy the laws of nature. The political arrangements that exist will only affect who will likely survive and who will likely die. With the collectivist arrangements that now exist, it is more likely that the average man and the poor will not be survivors, but those who occupy the seats of power will. If we were to throw off the chains of slavery that bind most of the world population, then the survival of the fittest would more effectively operate and those who have the capacity to individually and in small groups navigate the future will have a better chance than the thugs who now occupy the seats of power and use that power to plunder and control the majority.
"The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence" Thomas H Huxley