I think part of what throws people is that the concept of an ‘economics of abundance’ is so beyond the pale of experience that what the concept entails is hard to grasp.
What if we could redesign every technological good without having to substitute less expensive materials in their design and construction? What if the optimal material could be used in all instances, allowing for significant increases in efficiency and output?
And what happens when governments start legislating that commodity goods have to include the costs of environmental remediation in the market price? To date the resource extraction industry has been very effective in passing on the costs of extraction to third parties (like us taxpayers through government-led environmental remediation efforts (read EPA), or future businesses that have to bear the cost of clean-up in the prices of their unrelated goods). This passing off of costs to others while maximizing profit to themselves may have worked in good times, but the pressure will come for them to start bearing the costs of their work as well as its benefits.
It is then that the benefits of sourcing resources from off-planet will become increasingly self-evident.
Following your links was an argument that we have less than four centuries before we are producing so much waste heat we boil ourselves to death. Going into space doesn’t change that. It looks like we’re heading for an extreme die off.
I learned something a while back–don’t read the comments to space-related articles on general news sites. It’s a good tip for staying sane.
To date, no one has figured out how to make money from space.
That will come as a shock to Space Adventures, Nanoracks, the communications satellite industry, etc.
FYI:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/mining-minerals-asteroids-or-why-cornucopians-space-deliver-dangerously-misguided-message
I think part of what throws people is that the concept of an ‘economics of abundance’ is so beyond the pale of experience that what the concept entails is hard to grasp.
What if we could redesign every technological good without having to substitute less expensive materials in their design and construction? What if the optimal material could be used in all instances, allowing for significant increases in efficiency and output?
And what happens when governments start legislating that commodity goods have to include the costs of environmental remediation in the market price? To date the resource extraction industry has been very effective in passing on the costs of extraction to third parties (like us taxpayers through government-led environmental remediation efforts (read EPA), or future businesses that have to bear the cost of clean-up in the prices of their unrelated goods). This passing off of costs to others while maximizing profit to themselves may have worked in good times, but the pressure will come for them to start bearing the costs of their work as well as its benefits.
It is then that the benefits of sourcing resources from off-planet will become increasingly self-evident.
Following your links was an argument that we have less than four centuries before we are producing so much waste heat we boil ourselves to death. Going into space doesn’t change that. It looks like we’re heading for an extreme die off.
Spacers will get to see it happen.