That said, I suspect that this is not a major aspect of the Filter. If the cost goes up, the main impact would be on consumer goods which would become more expensive. That’s unpleasant but not a Filter event. It also isn’t relevant from the standpoint of resources necessary to bootstrap us back up to the current tech level in event of a major disaster since there will be all sorts of nearly pure copper that could be scavenged from the remains of civilization.
This may however be a strong argument for either finding new copper replacements (possibly novel alloys), or for the development of asteroid mining which will help out with a lot of different metals.
Article discussing how the cost of copper has gone up over time as we’ve used more and more of the easily accessible, high percentage ores. This is another example of a resource which may contribute to Great Filter considerations (along with fossil fuels). As pointed out in the article, unlike oil, copper doesn’t have many good replacements for a lot of what it is used for.
That said, I suspect that this is not a major aspect of the Filter. If the cost goes up, the main impact would be on consumer goods which would become more expensive. That’s unpleasant but not a Filter event. It also isn’t relevant from the standpoint of resources necessary to bootstrap us back up to the current tech level in event of a major disaster since there will be all sorts of nearly pure copper that could be scavenged from the remains of civilization.
This may however be a strong argument for either finding new copper replacements (possibly novel alloys), or for the development of asteroid mining which will help out with a lot of different metals.
Thoughts? Does this analysis seem accurate?