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Re: The Limits To Growth



John McCarthy wrote:
> 
> It is not my position that "unlimited growth is possible at least for
> the farthest forseeable future."  I argue in my Web site
> 
> http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
> 
> that 15 billion can be supported at the U.S. level of material
> consumption.
> 
> I also do not claim that "nothing can go wrong".  My ideas of what the
> dangers are differs considerably from that of the political environmentalists.

John,

After reading _Unlimited Wealth_ by Paul Zane Pilzer, I became convinced
that unlimited growth is possible for a long, long time.  Don't know if
you read this before making your website's argument, but I'd recommend
it.  

If you're interested in a specific emerging technology that could yield
unlimited wealth for everybody on the planet (...one that may be only a
decade or two away), it's described vividly in _Engines of Creation_ by
K. Eric Drexler.  If he's correct, we will no longer have any need for
macroeconomics (the economics of scarcity).  

Then we'll have to find another newsgroup to have chats in besides
sci.econ, I guess. 

-- Steve

*-----------------------------------------------------------*
 "The problem of the economists is that despite years of 
  effort to predict economic change, they remain nearly 
  oblivious to the vital processes of innovation and new 
  company formation that constitute economic development."
  --George Gilder

 "Nothing is more conducive to progress than the widespread 
  belief that it can occur."
  --Charles Van Doren
*-----------------------------------------------------------*



References: