Kind of. First, the big exception: If you manage to enforce global authoritarianism, you can stockpile surplus indefinitely, basically tiling the world with charged-up batteries. But what’s the point of that?
Secondly, “waste/signaling cascade” is kind of in the eye of the beholder. If a forest is standing in some region, is it wasting sunlight that could’ve been used on farming? Even in a very literal sense, you could say the answer is yes since the trees are competing in a zero-sum game for height. But without that competition, you wouldn’t have “trees” at all, so calling it a waste is a value judgement that trees are worthless. (Which of course you are entitled to make, but this is clearly a disagreement with the people who like solarpunk.)
But yeah, ultimately I’m kind of thinking of life as entropy maximization. The surplus has to be used for something, the question is what. If you’ve got nothing to use it for, then it makes sense for you to withdraw, but then it’s not clear why to worry that other people are fighting over it.
Kind of. First, the big exception: If you manage to enforce global authoritarianism, you can stockpile surplus indefinitely, basically tiling the world with charged-up batteries. But what’s the point of that?
Secondly, “waste/signaling cascade” is kind of in the eye of the beholder. If a forest is standing in some region, is it wasting sunlight that could’ve been used on farming? Even in a very literal sense, you could say the answer is yes since the trees are competing in a zero-sum game for height. But without that competition, you wouldn’t have “trees” at all, so calling it a waste is a value judgement that trees are worthless. (Which of course you are entitled to make, but this is clearly a disagreement with the people who like solarpunk.)
But yeah, ultimately I’m kind of thinking of life as entropy maximization. The surplus has to be used for something, the question is what. If you’ve got nothing to use it for, then it makes sense for you to withdraw, but then it’s not clear why to worry that other people are fighting over it.