From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Global Sterilization (was Re: The Marching Morons)
Date: 3 Jan 93 01:14:09 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester

In article <pete.726014986@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU> pete@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Peter Alexander Merel) writes:

>  Now natural
> resources are controlled as commodities. They cost money. Even natural
> resources that are in plentiful supply are doled out as if they were
> scarce in order to profit their owners. That's capitalism.

Excuse me, but that's just silly.  Natural resource industries are
typically cutthroat and uncontrolled.  Profit margins are usually
quite thin.  Inflation-adjusted raw materials prices show, in general,
a long term downward trend.  Natural resources are *not* doled out as
if they were scarce; the problem is usually that prices fall so low
that mines (or whatever) get closed.

There are some exceptions here (for example, oil, where a single
dominant player, Saudi Arabia, has quite nice profit margins), but
even there the market has set limits that have tightened with time.


> Because natural resources are commodities they are priced to scale
> with the wealth of the first world economies. This puts them out of
> the reach of the overpopulated countries, who are of course not
> weathy. Poor access to natural resources means poor industrialization
> means poor education.

A significant and growing fraction of the raw materials consumed by
the first world countries comes from the third world.  As it turns
out, having an economy based on raw materials exports is not a good
thing (unless you are in a quasi-monopoly position, like S. Arabia) --
prices are just *too low*.  Prices for many metals are near all time
lows (in constant dollars), as are prices of many foods.

The third world has problems because they just aren't productive
enough, for various reasons.  Once the social impediments are removed,
however, they can explode with growth, since they need not reinvent
the wheel, and can start with modern, resource-efficient technologies
(for example, 50% efficient gas turbines rather than 10% efficient
steam engines).  Witness Korea, and Thailand, and soon China, Mexico
and India.


> will be first worlders. And you have sidestepped the issue of juvenile 
> availability for education; in third world countries every set of hands is
> put to work trying to acquire food - and children who are not available for 
> education will not be educated. Vicious Circle.

An unexpected thing happened in China when the market was liberalized
in rural areas.  All sorts of light manufacturing enterprises sprang
up there.  In some rural areas fully half the workers are now of the
farms.  Contrary to dogma, in most parts of the world outside Africa
food has been getting more abundant, and prices have declined.  As in
the US, these gluts are making farming a low profit activity that will
drive workers to other sectors of the economy.


> But just a couple of weeks ago in this thread some of your compatriots
> were complaining that your populace is becoming less well educated as
> they become crowded and impoverished in your cities.

We have a long tradition in the US of exhortations to crack down on
crime.  It's a Hot Button that social engineer wannabees press all the
time (for example, with the Prohibitionists in the early part of this
century).  A Crime Wave Threatens Society at least once a generation.
In retrospect, there's a substantial amount of demagoguery here.


>>How about this: list a nonrenewable resource, and I'll argue how it
>>can be extended, substituted for, or be made available in effectively
>>unlimited amounts.

> Rainforests.

That's simple: for all the hype, rainforests are not a vital
resource, and we could easily live without them (although their
destruction would be a shame on grounds other than their effect on our
material wellbeing.)


> "let the world industrialize"? What, industrialization is something
> that just happens in the natural course of events? Are you saying that
> overpopulated countries should just forget about their poverty and
> grow up? Are you saying that the rich don't get richer and the poor
> don't get poorer? Are you saying that the planet has unlimited natural
> resources in every respect? Are you saying that tens of billions of
> happy healthy well educated first worlders can be supported without
> massive disruptions and terminations of ecosystems?

Yes!  If the poor are allowed freedom to improve their lives, if free
economies are allowed to operate, then growth and improved standards
of living follow naturally.  This has happened again and again all
over the world.  Poor countries will, unfettered by stifling
bureaucracy, disorder or oppression, grow *faster* than rich
countries, since they need not reinvent the technological wheel.

Natural resource prices have tended to *decrease* with time.  This is
because we've become more clever in their extraction.  The ultimate
limits imposed by thermodynamics are far away.


> How does affluence limit population growth? Don't people reproduce with full
> bellies?

The "demographic transition" is an observed effect.  One thought is
that prosperity makes women more independent of men for their
survival.  With women more free to decide for themselves how many
babies to have, birth rates drop (birth is dangerous and painful, so
this isn't surprising).  There is a delay, so growth rates first soar
as death rates fall.

All countries in western europe, save Ireland, have negative intrinsic
growth rates, as does Japan.  This means (ignoring immigration) their
populations will be declining once their demographic distributions
reach equilibrium (fraction of population of a given age).  West
Germany's intrinsic rate (before unification) was -1.6%/year, enough
to decrease the population by 80% in a century.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu