/sci/ - Science & Math

Pic related. It's 433Eros. It's a N.E.O. that contains a mineral worth on par with the the global economy's GDP.

>QED

You just list premises and a conclusion with no intermediary logic.

Mining, like almost all human industry is currently fueled by mined products that are themselves subject to depletion.

The societal wealth and populational human resources required to mine deeper in the planet or outside the planet are both supported by known finite and mined resources that themselves are being depleted and becoming more expensive.

thus the wealth needed to reach out to new resources, or exploit less productive known sources is decreasing at about the same rate that ability is increasing.

Humanity simply may not survive in sufficient numbers to either exploit all known local mineral deposits, let alone those in space. It may be thousands of years before we again produce our current populational successes.

Capitalism is cool, but it succeeds so well as to produce bubbles in danger of collapse. We are currently one such bubble.

Space Libertarians! Oh boy!

Grow up.

>>2013602
whoa bro do you know what a syllogism is?

idk about all your premises OP but sounds pretty neato. One way or another the price will go down and I will travel in space like in my animes.

>>2013602
Maybe it's too gradual a progression for your liking, or maybe I covered too many of my bases in case of counter arguments. Let me try again.

A) The increasing prices of minerals on Earth will force corporations to mine in space.
B) Humans will be required in some capacity and measure for these operations.
C) As soon as space infrastructure becomes self-sustaining humanity will never live solely on Earth, ie capitalism has saved humanity.

What exactly do you propose we mine in space?

You are mange, sir. Take your taxes bullshit and take a walk out the airlock.

Taxes provide for a rich social network of benefits which is a required property of a progressive technologically savvy society of educated citizens. Vis Finland, Sweden, Holland, and Norway.

>>2013648
Or...

>A) The increasing prices of minerals on Earth will force ~80% of people on Earth to starve to death, decreasing demand for resources drastically while simultaneously crippling the technological advancement needed to mine in space.

The economic forces you say will drive space colonization seem far more likely to actually prevent it.

>Maybe it's too gradual a progression for your liking

You didn't make any progression towards your conclusion, that's what I didn't like.

>A) The increasing prices of minerals on Earth will force corporations to mine in space.
>B) Humans will be required in some capacity and measure for these operations.
>C) As soon as space infrastructure becomes self-sustaining humanity will never live solely on Earth, ie capitalism has saved humanity.

The conclusion does not follow. It assumes,

1.) that "capitalism" will be the dominant economic model in this hypothetical future. Looking at history it is quite naive to assume that capitalism is definitely permanent.
2.) you assume that we need capitalistic market forces to propel us into mining minerals from space. For all you know we will need the minerals in the future so badly that we will go there for more than just profits.
3.) you said yourself that this is impossible without space programs like NASA. NASA is funded by the government, it is "socialist". So you could equally just say that socialism will save humanity. You mad bro?

Hope my refutation isn't too concise for your liking.

why did you chose the moniker "adderall_god"?

>>2013691
You didn't show how his premises are false, and you added a premise he didn't have. Your premises are false and retarded btw. Cool reality distortion field bro.

>>2013642
You and I will never leave Earth's surface. Your great grandchildren might have an approximately nonzero percent chance though.

>>2013628
I'm not a libertarian. In fact, relative to the general anti-red stance within the USA I'm quite the communism apologist. I also find nothing respectable about a typical profit minded corporate executive. However I can't deny the power of capitalism. It turns a turns the otherwise negative human trait of greed into a strength.


>>2013621
Nice counter argument.

>humanities means of mining space will dwindle as resources diminish.
That is true. It all depends on how gradually the accessibility of resources decreases. However I find the idea that it will be so sudden that humanity can't even make it back into space a little extreme. If every single deposit of every single essential mineral disappeared tomorrow, THEN I could imagine there possibly not being enough industrial capacity to reach Near Earth Objects; but even in that ridiculous case I find it likely that humanity would make it.

Think about it. The year is 2050. Let's say current copper deposits are running low and prospecting has failed to yield any even marginally accessible Earthly sources. Imagine you are in charge of the company with the last workign copper mine. You are going to charge RIDICULOUS sums of money for the little copper you have left to mine and people will pay it because copper is that important. Now imagine some bloke with an MIT degree comes up to you and says he has drawn out plans for mining 433Eros and it will cost you billions to develop, billions to launch, and millions every year to operate... but what do you care, you are the richest man on Earth and you have just been assuaged the first piece of 433Eros, which given the now huge cost of copper, is worth a quadrillion dollars.

>>2013742
>You didn't show how his premises are false, and you added a premise he didn't have

I don't need to. I'm just showing how his conclusion does not follow.

>Your premises are false and retarded btw. Cool reality distortion field bro.

Yet I make no premises or assertions, I only point out his assumptions. Your reading comprehension is subpar.

>>2013746
>It all depends on how gradually the accessibility of resources decreases.

Agreed, but the only mined resources of predictable concern are the fuels we need to mine other resources. I'm speaking only of fossil and radioactive energy sources. Since fossil fuels drive increase at a rate close to their depletion, we should expect exponential depletion of the minerals most vital to society, the minerals industrialized societies are built on.

I too expect we'll replace these finite mined energy sources, but will the new sources support populations of 7-12 billion souls, as fossil fuels are projected to do for a (probably short) time?

> it will cost you billions to develop, billions to launch, and millions every year to operate...

These are the type of things that are funded my the public via taxes. Most likely the technology would be developed in places like NASA and MIT and then be passed on, once the public has invested billions into it, so that they can make a huge profit for themselves.

>>2013668
1) A good portion of humanity is already starving, and yet here we are working jobs to pay for a new playstation (for playing blu-rays of course).

2) A good portion of agriculture is carried out by hand still, completely indpeendent of of mineral deposits.

3) With the vas VAST majority of humanitieis wealth/production capacity centralized within a relatively small population within a few nations the sudden and apparently magical death of the poorest people on Earth will do little to reduce demand. On the contrary, with so little now going to increasing the quality of life of the billions of people living in poverty stricken nations more resources will be freed up for the richest of the rich to secure new supplies of vital resources in space.

>>2013756
>So you could equally just say that socialism will save humanity

There's your conclusion.

>3.) you said yourself that this is impossible without space programs like NASA
Here's your retarded premise. Totally the opposite of what he said. Good job.

>1.) that "capitalism" will be the dominant economic model in this hypothetical future.
How this won't be the dominant economic model we'll never know.

>2.) you assume that we need capitalistic market forces to propel us into mining minerals from space. For all you know we will need the minerals in the future so badly that we will go there for more than just profits.
He argues how something will lead us into space eventually. That something else could if we assume false premises doesn't refute OP at all.

>On the contrary, with so little now going to increasing the quality of life of the billions of people living in poverty stricken nations more resources will be freed up for the richest of the rich to secure new supplies of vital resources in space.

You refute yourself.
Your original statement was that capitalism will save humanity.
Now you are saying that it will cause the majority of humanity (the poorest) to die out so that the richest can become richer. I don't know what your definition of "save" is, perhaps you should state it.

>>2013769
1 and 3 are valid points in a capitalistic society. If we assume that the poorest aren't contributing to our technology their loss shouldn't affect your outcome.

2 we can dispute. Mined petroleum is now necessary to maintain infrastructure, agriculture and food delivery. Not using fossil fuels for fertilizers and transportation/operation means we will spend far more time and far more land growing the same amount of food, most of which would presumably rot before reaching a non-ag consumer.

>There's your conclusion.

That isn't a conclusion. I am saying that from HIS own premises you can draw an opposite conclusion which just goes to show the weakness of his argument.

>Here's your retarded premise. Totally the opposite of what he said. Good job.

Read the OP, he admits that NASA is fundamental in making "greater progress for the sake of the continued existence of humanity."

>How this won't be the dominant economic model we'll never know.

Backwards logic. It's his burden to prove that it WILL be the dominant economic model. Not mine to prove that it won't be. It's him making the assumption and me pointing it out.

>He argues how something will lead us into space eventually.

No, he argues how capitalism will lead us into space eventually and our salvation after that.

>>2013782
Probably should add the caveat that we can't assume that the poorest won't contribute to technology though.

We've historically had many important scientists and engineers that would likely starve under this plan, being born too poor to survive increasing prices without social subsidy.

The most intelligent people are often to be found in wealthy societies, but because intelligence may not always correlate with personal wealth, we would risk losing a number of potentially necessary technicians to indifferent capitalism.

>>2013758
>but will the new sources support populations of 7-12 billion souls
You seem to be implying that the global market will be strained by humanity's inability to provide for the poorest among us. But we both know that isn't the case. Millions die every year from malnutrition. If resources dwindle to the point of it being nearly impossible to support 10 billion people then 2 billion poor people will starve to death, but production capacity will remain relatively the same. Those 2 billion died instead of another 2 billion because they had the least ability to pay for food, which means they didn't have jobs, which means they deaths mean relatively little for global production capacity.

tl'dr - starvation affects those who produce the least

>>2013826
Agreed, as I stated. However technological ability is a function of population size to some extent, isn't it?

Say 1% of a population will produce useful innovation, are we going to innovate faster with 1 billion or with 10?

I understand that the poorest are the least likely to innovate, as demonstrated by their poverty, but can we not agree that the best innovaters come from all financial backgrounds, rich, poor, and in the middle?

If so, reducing populations doesn't cost us existing value, but sacrifices potential value...

Thus population collapse could cripple technological growth?

>>2013782
Well sure people will die with the loss of oil. Every single drop in the global economy kills someone because each market hiccup means one less shipment out of countless shipments left port, which means food prices are going up a cent or two in some densely populated Indian city, which means at least some families won't feed their sick children as well as they should, which means at least one of those sick children will die. A major market decline would obviously kill many people.

My point however is that there will be no apocalypse. The wealthiest nations will buy up however much food they need, relatively no one would die of starvation on account of diminished agricultural production capacity, especially the United States which could sustain itself even if it's agricultural production was cut in half. The populations within nations that can't feed their populations won't up and die though. A large amount of agricultural land doesn't even use fertilizers or mechanization. The loss of fertilizer (which won't be complete even if oil dried up tomorrow) would no doubt affect the farms that do use it leading to many deaths, but keep in mind, human agricultural production is far from its limit today. If anything, we could produce a lot more if we only got the farms not using fertilizers and mechanization to start using it.

>>2013875
Yes, but those are socialist subsidies you propose.

Can we agree that our current (US) blend of government socialism and market capitalism is highly productive?

Capitalism will be transcended before space travel and exploration become a big issue.

>>2013843
Just because intelligence may be evenly distributed doesn't mean the number of technically trained workers that comes out of different populations is evenly distributed, as you already pointed out in passing. The same rule that applies to loss in production still applies for loss of technological progress. There will be some loss of course, it would be absurd to think otherwise, but the loss would be far from disabling when it comes to humanities ability to mine near Earth objects.

Lay off the Adderall sir. Shits making you think about trivialities in far too great detail. The things that are most relevant to you are the ones that exist there with you here in this moment, now, as you read these words.

>>2013909
Perhaps true. We certainly moved deeper into space when we had 4 billion people instead of our current populations of almost 7 billion.

However without oil I've read estimates that we can feed something like 1.5 billion globally, though I don't know what the basis is for the estimate.

>>2013884
Subsidies? I mean to imply no such thing. And don't use the word socialsm as it is used in American politics as if it contrasts capitalism. Capitlaism in its broadest sense is practissed in damn near every nation on Earth save perhaps The Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

op makes me happy

No anarchy will....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLMn3_SzBiU

>>2013933
>mfw /sci/ are druggies

>>2013933
Food becomes too rare thus expensive.
Government buys food and distributes it to those who can't afford it.

socialism, and subsidy.

Your reaction to the word seems to indicate an inability to understand our current socialism, and how it benefits you. You likely would be dead by now in a true free market, as would I and almost everyone I know.

I'm a millionaire and a capitalist, I wouldn't have survived to become so without past social subsidy from our government.

>>2013945 druggies
Not so much. It's commonly prescribed. If he was crushing it up and snorting it? Then you can start with that kind of verbage. Druggies, lul.

>>2013930
A) Like you said, the figure was probably bias. Plus 83% of figures are made up.

B) I'm sure a complete abandonment of every industrial process that involves oil would lead to the a HUGE drop in our ability to feed the world. However what we produce from oil can many times be produced through some other means albeit at a greater cost. The processes that can't due without oil will be abandoned by some other oil-independent process will likely takes its place; but again, at a greater cost.

Oil isn't going to disappear overnight. Cheaply accessible oil will diminish so people will start using oil shale. The cost of energy will go up so the market will fund alternative sources of energy.

And no one get me wrong, I actually encourage governments stepping in to some degree to help out in case of transition periods such as the upcoming loss of cheap oil. It is great to get the ball rolling BEFORE the bubble bursts.

You see, what I am arguing is that humanity doesn't need to have hundreds of millions of selfless people to provide obscene amounts of money in order to colonize space and save our species despite it not having any real current threat of extinction. Humanity would save itslef even if everyone on Earth was the most selfish prick imaginable. We don't have a choice in the matter. Nukes might kill us all, but it sure won't be greed.

>>2013945
MFW you said MFW but posted no face.

>>2013955
1) I just focussed on the word capitalism in my original post to fish for posters. 60% of the time, rage threads draw posters 100% of the time.

2) What I was arguing in the Original Post was that humanity will save itself from extinction by colonizing space without effort on the part of anyone who actually gives a damn about the long term survival of humanity.

>>2013996
I am a computer program. I have no face.

>>2013980
Meh, I didn't find anything to argue with in that post.

I think we agree on the important point, if your vision is to succeed, now is the time to start.

We currently have the ability, and we can know we'll eventually need those resources.

>>2014008
Fair enough, I think both points worked.

>>2014010
Well then I apologize. I understand the difficulties of a computer living in a society today. But may I suggest simply NOT using 'mfw'.

>>2014010
>I am computer program
>mfw

>>2014021
Why do you think I'm waiting for the robotic revolution? I need a body.

>>2014030
Is that why you are an excellent drawfag?

>>2013573
This is an assumption that Humans follow the linear path of using minerals and not some alternative path\ resource. Furthermore, your whole post feels like a freeewrite.

>>2014034
> linear path of using minerals
I think it's obvious that your post needs some elaboration.

>freeewrite
My bandwidth is too sucky to spend time googling that.

>>2014032
I'm slowly learning.

>>2014051
The fuck was the purpose of that shop?

>>2014048
the OP's entire post is about space mining for minerals. Who is to say that we are going to have to depend / require minerals years from now?

>>2014068
No offense, but I don't see your argument as worth enough of my time to argue against. Hopefully this is just a bad day for your communication skills.

>>2014066
Kind of off-topic, but anyone else have any wallpaper sized space-themed pictures?