Atheism Explained

[dre]

*facepalm*

[WIP]

Your premises and conclusions are all wrong,

No, they're not....not if we're looking at the longer term timescale of the human race. The unequivocal embrace of new technology did not begin until the Enlightenment, when a linear interpretation of history also started - that man emerges from a primitive, beast-like past to an ever brighter future, thanks to the promise of turning every and any idea into building of new inventions to enable the extraction of greater and greater amounts of the Earth's resources.....can you see where this is going? Unfortunately, not enough techno-optimists do! Instead, they somehow combine the awareness of living in a finite world with the expectation that human innovation and the possibility of substituting burned out resources can keep the joyride going indefinitely into the future no matter how many billions of people are living on the planet! Well, that's at least what the most absurd and pollyanish techno-optimists like Julian Simon and Tom Friedman believe. And that belief is very popular, and lucrative for its authors because it's a dream that allows present trends to just continue on....but, that dream is turning into a nightmare right now, at this minute, because if you really want to know why world economies are stagnating and unable to spur real economic growth, you have to delve below the surface of politics and economic theory, and look at what's happening as natural resources become inelastic in supply, and unable to meet demands for continued growth.

and the statement that the human race "stands at the brink of extinction" is, frankly, absurd and has no supporting evidence. Not even the worst serious predictions of the effects of climate change, nuclear winter, super-viruses, resource depletion, etc, talk about extinction of the human species. You need to start talking in realistic terms if you want people to take you seriously.

You might want to check in with Stephen Hawking on that one! Or, since environmental sciences and biology are not his specialty, take an honest look at what those pessimists like Paleontologist Peter D. Ward have to say about our species's future prospects. A paleontologist who studies and tries to understand past extinctions is a good place to start, as the first lesson to be learned is that most extinctions are not sudden, dramatic wipeouts (not even the dinosaurs disappeared all at once), instead, numbers of animals go into a death spiral of decline....as many species of animals are doing today also. It's difficult to tell exactly where a species has past a population bottleneck, where lack of genetic diversity prevents those remaining from making a comeback. If we take an honest look at the numbers: the size of today's world population, the increasing size of our ecological footprint, the shrinking of agricultural zones, the warming of planet Earth, which will lead to a hot world with an uninhabitable zone in the Tropics, a 270 foot rise in sea levels, and no ice left at either pole sometime in the next century -- something unseen since the Eocene Optimum.

And, we put the data together with the realization that there are only a few places left on Earth like the Arctic, which may still have an abundance of the NNR's necessary to keep building machines and provide energy for whatever is left in a hundred years or so, it's not doom and gloom to predict the likelihood that our species is on course for a self-inflicted extinction. Self-inflicted because it has been our inventions of the last few centuries that have allowed us to grow and foul our environment to the point where it will likely seal the fate of future generations. It's just a realistic assessment of what the future holds for the human race, and those who claim that it's irrational and unfounded, are the ones who just want to live in denial and keep doing what they are doing now....because, as we can already see with the latest bullshit round of climate summit talks in Doha, there is not enough commitment even now to prioritize what is necessary, rather than what is the minimum that can be done and keep our present economic system functioning.

[WIP]

Developing "the bomb" is an amoral thing.

It's like when Nietzsche stated: There are no moral phenomena at all; only moral interpretations of phenomena.

We animals (aka humans) do the natural thing by building "the bomb."

We then make moral judgments/interpretations about building it and using it.

Scientific discovery is really just us figuring out how the world works - nothing moral or immoral about that.

Now, using "the bomb" is a whole other matter.

Can we have a process that tries to evaluate the repercussions of building the bomb or other technologies? I would say that if we look at the long game, technologies developed to extract more carbon fuels from the ground have been a greater threat to life on Earth than the N-Bomb.

I know that technology critics - Michael and Joyce Huesemann, are also critics of The Enlightenment (this is the part where this issue dovetails with the discussion of atheism and secular humanism), because it wasn't until Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon started viewing the future as having a capacity for unlimited progress, that we started down the road of viewing all change and innovation as a good. Before that, new ideas were viewed with skepticism, and that included new inventions as well. Well, now we've invented and innovated our way into living a comfortable life (for some of us) and have lots of inventions, but we have spent most of the planetary capital to do it! Among the various branches of atheistic philosophy that I come across -- whether liberal, libertarian or conservative, I don't find many....possibly not even a single one, who is not hinged at the hip to the notion of progress. The growth of secularism and decline of religion is usually presented from a worldview that, aside from a few hiccups, progress will continue on and we will escape the restrictions of this planet before we have to worry about using it up.

[Pliny]

No, they're not....not if we're looking at the longer term timescale of the human race. The unequivocal embrace of new technology did not begin until the Enlightenment, when a linear interpretation of history also started - that man emerges from a primitive, beast-like past to an ever brighter future, thanks to the promise of turning every and any idea into building of new inventions to enable the extraction of greater and greater amounts of the Earth's resources.....can you see where this is going? Unfortunately, not enough techno-optimists do! Instead, they somehow combine the awareness of living in a finite world with the expectation that human innovation and the possibility of substituting burned out resources can keep the joyride going indefinitely into the future no matter how many billions of people are living on the planet! Well, that's at least what the most absurd and pollyanish techno-optimists like Julian Simon and Tom Friedman believe. And that belief is very popular, and lucrative for its authors because it's a dream that allows present trends to just continue on....but, that dream is turning into a nightmare right now, at this minute, because if you really want to know why world economies are stagnating and unable to spur real economic growth, you have to delve below the surface of politics and economic theory, and look at what's happening as natural resources become inelastic in supply, and unable to meet demands for continued growth.

You might want to check in with Stephen Hawking on that one! Or, since environmental sciences and biology are not his specialty, take an honest look at what those pessimists like Paleontologist Peter D. Ward have to say about our species's future prospects. A paleontologist who studies and tries to understand past extinctions is a good place to start, as the first lesson to be learned is that most extinctions are not sudden, dramatic wipeouts (not even the dinosaurs disappeared all at once), instead, numbers of animals go into a death spiral of decline....as many species of animals are doing today also. It's difficult to tell exactly where a species has past a population bottleneck, where lack of genetic diversity prevents those remaining from making a comeback. If we take an honest look at the numbers: the size of today's world population, the increasing size of our ecological footprint, the shrinking of agricultural zones, the warming of planet Earth, which will lead to a hot world with an uninhabitable zone in the Tropics, a 270 foot rise in sea levels, and no ice left at either pole sometime in the next century -- something unseen since the Eocene Optimum.

And, we put the data together with the realization that there are only a few places left on Earth like the Arctic, which may still have an abundance of the NNR's necessary to keep building machines and provide energy for whatever is left in a hundred years or so, it's not doom and gloom to predict the likelihood that our species is on course for a self-inflicted extinction. Self-inflicted because it has been our inventions of the last few centuries that have allowed us to grow and foul our environment to the point where it will likely seal the fate of future generations. It's just a realistic assessment of what the future holds for the human race, and those who claim that it's irrational and unfounded, are the ones who just want to live in denial and keep doing what they are doing now....because, as we can already see with the latest bullshit round of climate summit talks in Doha, there is not enough commitment even now to prioritize what is necessary, rather than what is the minimum that can be done and keep our present economic system functioning.

The reincarnation of Robert Malthus.

[WIP]

The reincarnation of Robert Malthus.

Let me know when you actually have something to say! FWIW Malthus wasn't proven wrong about his basic contention that populations will grow exponentially beyond the capacity of their available food supplies. Malthus made his observations over 200 years ago, before emigration and colonization relieved the overpopulation crisis in England and the rest of Europe....and, before plantations set up in those colonies, started sending substantial quantities of food back to the Empire. The subsequent industrialization....especially the industrialization of agriculture responsible for most of the gains made during the Green Revolution of the 60's did not deny Malthus either! They only deferred his predictions...postponing the due date a little forward into the future. But, each time Malthus has been denied by increasing production, that means expanding the total human ecological footprint ever further beyond the carrying capacity of Earth's resources.

We don't know where the exact limits are, where there will be no further significant withdrawals from the Earth's bank account, but, judging from recent events since the beginning of this century, it appears that we are closing in on a final day of reckoning, where there is a major crash in world food production that cannot be recovered because of habitat destruction and degradation, and billions more people on the planet than can be sustained permanently.

And, once again, whether you are an atheist or not, you obviously have your worldview set up with the notion of our world being a cornucopia waiting to be harvested by expanding human ingenuity and technology. The only part where this issue of progress touches on the atheist movements and secular philosophies, is that they seem to all be tied up with this faith in human innovation....so, the real lesson is that atheists, who mostly would describe themselves as skeptics and rationalists, are not rational and skeptical about everything! When it comes to having faith in spite of evidence against it, atheists by and large have the highest amount of faith in progress, while the religious...typical faith-based believers in various gods may be techno-optimists if they are your average conservative/libertarian, nationalistic Christians -- or they may fall on the opposite side of that debate and hold the traditional Christian skepticism of wealth and new inventions and ideas. Which faith is the most dangerous? Well, that actually depends on the circumstances! Because I would say our reckless embrace of every new technology and business innovation is the single greatest cause of the present crisis facing the human race.

[Bonam]

And, once again, whether you are an atheist or not, you obviously have your worldview set up with the notion of our world being a cornucopia waiting to be harvested by expanding human ingenuity and technology. The only part where this issue of progress touches on the atheist movements and secular philosophies, is that they seem to all be tied up with this faith in human innovation....so, the real lesson is that atheists, who mostly would describe themselves as skeptics and rationalists, are not rational and skeptical about everything! When it comes to having faith in spite of evidence against it,

It's not "faith" to use basic methods to extrapolate past trends into the near future, nor is it faith to look at the technologies that are currently under development and consider the impacts of them being applied in the future. As for evidence, you have not presented any "evidence" of our impending doom at all, none whatsoever. Rants prophesying extinction are not evidence.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Bonam

[GostHacked]

Why are people even wasting time on explaining what Atheism is to trolls? Seems counter productive.

[WIP]

It's not "faith" to use basic methods to extrapolate past trends into the near future, nor is it faith to look at the technologies that are currently under development and consider the impacts of them being applied in the future. As for evidence, you have not presented any "evidence" of our impending doom at all, none whatsoever. Rants prophesying extinction are not evidence.

I have posted lots of evidence on other threads where I raised these issues in the usual debates about environmental policies, and that's not the specific topic here. Nevertheless, I can't help notice that you have presented no evidence, and trying to extrapolate present trends into the future has to take resource declines into consideration. The basic fallacy of modern capitalist economic theory...whether we're talking liberal theories or the ones from the right, is that they have made land and resources a collection of commodities to be exploited for development, rather than using the commonsense approach that guided most of humanity for thousands of years -- that nature is the real economy...the natural economy, that makes every human desire possible. If present trends are just based on past performance, they are essentially worthless. And that goes for other trend analysis that is done from narrow lines of evidence, such as the UN-sponsored population report that projects a world population of 9.5 billion in 2050, and ignores the necessary food supply trend evidence from another UN organization - the FAO. Or the recent projections of 6 degrees warming by the end of this century. That may occur, but it's necessary to point out that those trends are based on continued growth in carbon fuel use, which is already being constrained by the exhaustion of the world's major oil fields, and the costs of getting oil from unconventional sources. It may happen....but, a better analysis would incorporate how likely future economic growth is actually going to be possible.

I posted stuff from a book I have by a resource analyst named Christopher Clugston, who makes the point that it's not just oil -- it's at least 63 of 89 essential non-renewable natural resources that are past peak availability, so prices are essentially driven by demand for available supplies. And, half the book is an index of each resource stats from USGS and other sources. If you haven't noticed the trend of resource prices climbing every time there is an increase in GDP, and falling again during recessions, you haven't been paying attention over the last 10 years!

[Bonam]

I posted stuff from a book I have by a resource analyst named Christopher Clugston, who makes the point that it's not just oil -- it's at least 63 of 89 essential non-renewable natural resources that are past peak availability, so prices are essentially driven by demand for available supplies. And, half the book is an index of each resource stats from USGS and other sources.

Interesting. And does he also track how the demand for some of these "essential" resources decreases as they become obsolete and how new types of resources that were not previously used become relevant? How many of these 89 resources were even considered as resources 100 years ago, and how many new resources will be used 100 years from now? Further, "peak availability" also depends on extraction methods. No, an analysis of this sort ignores the simple reality that we do not live in a technologically static world.

If you haven't noticed the trend of resource prices climbing every time there is an increase in GDP, and falling again during recessions, you haven't been paying attention over the last 10 years!

Of course prices fall during recessions, since demand drops due to reduced economic activity. And of course prices go up during periods of growth since that is when demand is highest. Those same trends apply to the price of labor and just about anything else.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Bonam

[bush_cheney2004]

Interesting. And does he also track how the demand for some of these "essential" resources decreases as they become obsolete and how new types of resources that were not previously used become relevant? How many of these 89 resources were even considered as resources 100 years ago, and how many new resources will be used 100 years from now? .....

Good point....I specifically recall the precious metals predictions when catalytic converters were mandated for automotive emissions control. Platinum, Palladium, and Rhodium were going to be in short supply and we would have to go back to the much hated smog air pumps. Didn't happen.

Methinks a lot of folks without education in engineering or the sciences don't realize how much investment in made in materials science and applications. We're not going to ever run out of alternatives and improvements developed from R&D.

[Bonam]

Methinks a lot of folks without education in engineering or the sciences don't realize how much investment in made in materials science and applications. We're not going to ever run out of alternatives and improvements developed from R&D.

No doubt WIP will now dismiss your statement as "religious techno-optimistic faith" or something.

[bush_cheney2004]

No doubt WIP will now dismiss your statement as "religious techno-optimistic faith" or something.

That's OK.....it is an optimism based on experience. Anybody who capitulates to predicted resource limits will become a self-fulfilling prophet. Fortunately, there are others who embrace the challenge and develop solutions that are often an improvement to the status quo.

Never underestimate the power of the Periodic Table !

Edited December 1, 2012 by bush_cheney2004

[Bonam]

That's OK.....it is an optimism based on experience. Anybody who capitulates to predicted resource limits will become a self-fulfilling prophet. Fortunately, there are others who embrace the challenge and develop solutions that are often an improvement to the status quo.

Never underestimate the power of the Periodic Table !

Indeed, and not only new materials, but new energy sources, new ways to extract old resources, ways to regenerate or artificially produce materials that before were non-renewable, ways to achieve the same results while using reduced quantities of resources, etc. As always, civilization will continue to move forward while some few defeated men waste away their lives prophesying doom and damnation.

[Mighty AC]

As always? Really? When has any dominant species always moved forward indefinitely?

[Bonam]

As always? Really? When has any dominant species always moved forward indefinitely?

Sorry, "as always" there was meant to mean "as always within recent history". And it doesn't have much to do with a "dominant species" but rather a technological civilization, of which we have just one example, ourselves, and said civilization has been progressing steadily (with some bumps along the road) for thousands of years.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Bonam

[Sleipnir]

As always? Really? When has any dominant species always moved forward indefinitely?

Members of the genus Culex lol

[Mighty AC]

Don't ever feel the need to apologize to me, my man... "Civilization" has existed for an infitessimally short spec time. In that time we have a lot of evidence of degradation of natural processes. So, is there any reason to think "civilation" will continue? I am confident the planet will go on, like Celine Dion's heart....but I'd bet against humans. Especially in our current egocentric form.

[Bonam]

Don't ever feel the need to apologize to me, my man... "Civilization" has existed for an infitessimally short spec time.

Everything first exists for a short spec of time. Then as it keeps existing, it exists for longer and longer. Until eventually it's existed for a very long time. That statement may seem kind of trivial and tautalogical, but the point is that just because something has only existed for a short time doesn't in any way suggest that it will only continue to exist for a short time to come. 4 billion years ago and change, the Earth had only existed for a short time. That doesn't mean that a rational observer would have expected it to stop existing soon.

In that time we have a lot of evidence of degradation of natural processes. So, is there any reason to think "civilation" will continue?

We have very limited data on the longevity of civilizations, given that humankind has basically been one civilization since the dawn of recorded history. and we know of no other civilizations as yet. But what data we do have shows a civilization exhibiting a trend of continuing growth and prosperity for the span of its known history, even when various resource shortages were encountered in the past. So the question is not is there any reason to think that it will continue, but is there any reason to think that it will discontinue. And in my opinion, the "evidence" that WIP has presented to this effect is very weak and flawed.

I am confident the planet will go on, like Celine Dion's heart....but I'd bet against humans.

A bet against humans seems inherently self-defeating. If you win, you've already lost. I on the other hand bet on humans and intend to collect.

[Mighty AC]

Seems like you're trying to play both sides of the coin on this one sir. The planet has another 4 billionish years before a collision and the extinction of our sun...but we humans likely do not. I only base this on past species that destroyed fundamental natural process and nutrient cycles less than us...and still died out However, maybe you're right... Maybe our resource sucking, waste making, natural process destroying ways are not damaging....or maybe they will change before we're toast. No way to know for sure.

My arguments are not self defeating, since I'll be long gone prior to any critical problems....they are just logical.

[Bonam]

Seems like you're trying to play both sides of the coin on this one sir. The planet has another 4 billionish years before a collision and the extinction of our sun...but we humans likely do not. I only base this on past species that destroyed fundamental natural process and nutrient cycles less than us...and still died out

Some died out, while others evolved to the changing environment and prospered. They were limited in the rate that they could adapt to changing environments by the speed of natural evolution, which is a very slow process that acts over many generations. We, on the other hand, can quickly adapt to a changing environment through the use of technology, an advantage that no other species enjoyed.

However, maybe you're right... Maybe our resource sucking, waste making, natural process destroying ways are not damaging....or maybe they will change before we're toast. No way to know for sure.

Whether the effects are "damaging" or not is a subjective judgement. What is objectively true is that "our ways" certainly cause change. But what change will these ways cause that will result in the Earth having a human carrying capacity of zero?

My arguments are not self defeating, since I'll be long gone prior to any critical problems....they are just logical.

On the contrary, neither you nor other proponents here of a comparable position have proposed a realistic mechanism by which humankind will become extinct. Not even the most grim and pessimistic projections that are supported by any kind of real science forecast the entirety of the Earth becoming completely uninhabitable to humans or otherwise causing the extinction of humankind.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Bonam

[Pliny]

I think what WIP is suggesting is that we keep the population down to about a million and we'll be ok.

In the face of a lack of environmental challenges to the human species itself, it's numbers will decline.

[bush_cheney2004]

I think what WIP is suggesting is that we keep the population down to about a million and we'll be ok.

Hominids have been very successful with far fewer numbers over millions of years, Modern humans haven't set any records in this regard, including the atheists.

[WIP]

Interesting. And does he also track how the demand for some of these "essential" resources decreases as they become obsolete and how new types of resources that were not previously used become relevant? How many of these 89 resources were even considered as resources 100 years ago, and how many new resources will be used 100 years from now? Further, "peak availability" also depends on extraction methods. No, an analysis of this sort ignores the simple reality that we do not live in a technologically static world.

Can't help notice that you put 'essential' in quotations...does this mean you don't consider any natural resource to be essential? I can tell you from my own little corner of the universe, that, if you want to make something from stainless steel, you need iron and chromium. Stainless steels require varying amounts of chromium, depending on which type is being produced (anywhere between 12 and 18%) and you can add nickel and more exotic metals like titanium and molybdenum....but you can't substitute your way out of requiring the two basic ingredients. When it comes to the most essential and most used metal for the last 3000 years - Iron - grade quality has been in steady decline as mines are running out of better grades of ore and extracting ores with progressively lower amounts of metals. Anyway, since you asked:

From page 57:

We may be able to mitigate or even overcome NNR scarcity in some cases through technical

innovation, substitution, conservation, recycling, efficiency improvements, and productivity

enhancements. We cannot, however, possibly mitigate or overcome NNR scarcity in all or even

most cases.

NNR scarcity is epidemic, domestically (US) and globally; and it is increasing both in terms of

incidence and severity despite our efforts and hopes to the contrary. Our incessant quest for

global industrialization—and our consequent ever-increasing demand for nearly all NNRs within

an environment of increasingly constrained NNR quantities and continuously diminishing NNR

quality—will overwhelm our efforts to mitigate the ultimately devastating effects of NNR scarcity

.

From page 94:

NNR Substitution will Eliminate NNR Scarcity

Myth:

NNR substitutes have displaced scarce NNRs historically and will continue to do so going

forward, thereby dramatically reducing demand for today’s increasingly scarce NNRs.

Reality: Technically viable NNR substitutes exist in many cases; however, the vast majority of

these technically viable substitutes are not economically viable—that is, the technically viable

NNR substitutes are inferior from a price/performance perspective. [Note that both silver and

aluminum are price/performance inferior substitutes for copper in the manufacture of electrical

wire; each for a different reason!]

In other cases, substitutes that are both technically viable and economically viable exist, but are

becoming increasingly scarce as well. In the remainder of cases, NNR substitutes simply do not

exist.

It is safe to assume that if technically and economically viable substitutes for increasingly scarce

NNRs were readily available, they would be in use today.

Note too that “forced substitution”—substituting a price/performance inferior NNR for a

price/performance superior NNR—while physically possible in some cases, constitutes a

suboptimal allocation of resources, and always suboptimizes total economic output (GDP) and

overall societal wellbeing.

Technical Innovation Will Insure Sufficient Incremental NNR Supplies

Myth

: New technologies will enable us to discover additional NNRs and to recover greater

quantities from the NNR deposits that we discover.

Reality

: It is true that new technologies have enabled NNR discoveries in increasingly remote

and difficult to access regions; and it is true that new technologies have enabled the recovery of

increasing NNR quantities from existing NNR deposits.

However, because remaining NNR deposits are of continuously declining quality, technical

innovation is subject to diminishing marginal investment returns—i.e., after some point, each

incremental unit of technology investment yields continuously smaller quantities of economically

viable NNRs—initially in individual deposits, then in nations, and ultimately globally.

So despite continuous technical innovation, technology must always play catch-up to declining

NNR quality; and technology inevitably falls further behind.

That we must resort to increasingly complex and expensive “just-in-time” technologies to

discover, extract, process, and provision sufficient supplies of dwindling “low ROI” NNRs—the

only remaining NNRs—is the most telling evidence of increasing NNR scarcity.

Unfortunately, perpetuating our industrial lifestyle paradigm requires ever-increasing quantities of

“high ROI” NNRs.

Note too that while technology can enable us to discover additional NNRs, recover additional

NNR quantities from existing deposits, conserve NNRs, and use NNRs more efficiently; it cannot

create additional NNRs. Technology is limited both in terms of its marginal effectiveness and its

absolute effectiveness.

Of course prices fall during recessions, since demand drops due to reduced economic activity. And of course prices go up during periods of growth since that is when demand is highest. Those same trends apply to the price of labor and just about anything else.

I'm beginning to wonder when you are going to get to the realization that constant growth will eventually paint the modern industrial globalized economies into a corner that can't be wiggled out of! The problem begins before resources are extracted, and new products are designed and built, and begins with the assumption that there will always be more available. As long as we live in a finite world that we cannot escape from this is a total absurdity. And the question I started asking in the last year or two, is what role has humanism and expectation of unending progress played in creating the mess the world finds itself in now! When it comes to dealing with the supernatural, atheists who follow naturalistic thinking may think they are completely rational and their worldview is untainted with irrational expectations.....but, atheists who either deny we are in a global crisis, or minimize it as a temporary phase that we will invent our way out of, are just as delusional as anyone standing on their roofs waiting for the end times to come.

[WIP]

I think what WIP is suggesting is that we keep the population down to about a million and we'll be ok.

In the face of a lack of environmental challenges to the human species itself, it's numbers will decline.

It does seem clear to me that we have likely run out of time to reduce population numbers the easy way....like waiting for birth control, family planning movements to reduce overall population numbers. Whenever we really hit crunch time with resources....specifically, like when world grain production totals start declining more rapidly....the more people there are with less food available, the greater the size of the calamity. We could feed a greater population if food distribution was in any way connected to need, but it's not! Those with more money are using their new wealth to increase the amount of meat in their diets and drive grain prices higher. Biofuels are also having a negative effect....especially the idiotic strategy of producing ethanol from corn. As long as the global economy functions in the manner that it does at present, we are headed for an increasingly violent and desperate fight for the resources that are available. No human society has functioned very well when it is in a state of decline. But previously, collapses of local governments and economies have been local; this time, in our globalized world, a collapse will also be global.

[Bonam]

Having read the above mentioned excerpts, I can tell the book isn't worth much. See here:

We may be able to mitigate or even overcome NNR scarcity in some cases through technical

innovation, substitution, conservation, recycling, efficiency improvements, and productivity

enhancements. We cannot, however, possibly mitigate or overcome NNR scarcity in all or even

most cases.

The last sentence is presented as fact, but absolutely no supporting evidence is given. It is pure opinion.

NNR Substitution will Eliminate NNR Scarcity

Myth:

NNR substitutes have displaced scarce NNRs historically and will continue to do so going

forward, thereby dramatically reducing demand for today’s increasingly scarce NNRs.

Reality: Technically viable NNR substitutes exist in many cases; however, the vast majority of

these technically viable substitutes are not economically viable—that is, the technically viable

NNR substitutes are inferior from a price/performance perspective. [Note that both silver and

aluminum are price/performance inferior substitutes for copper in the manufacture of electrical

wire; each for a different reason!]

Duh. Of course more expensive substitutes aren't used while the relevant "NNRs" are plentiful. If and when said resources become scarce their prices will increase, making alternatives economically viable. Just like rising oil prices make new methods of extracting oil economically viable, for example.

In other cases, substitutes that are both technically viable and economically viable exist, but are

becoming increasingly scarce as well. In the remainder of cases, NNR substitutes simply do not

exist.

So because something does not exist now means it will never exist? No. Again, he is ignoring technological progress.

The excerpts are nothing but a pile of unsubstantiated opinions intermixed with logical fallacies. Frankly, I don't see the author's opinion as any more valid "evidence" than your own personal opinion, WIP.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Bonam