I really like the poetry and potential rigor of this… but I’m wondering how the philosophy deals with the problem of entropy?
Some resources are just plain finite and can’t be renewed.
For example, there is “only so much sun to go around for so long”. A current iconic image of self sufficiency is the solar panel, but eventually the sun will run out and we’ll either need to find a new and younger star or give up the game.
Long before we run out of real estate for solar panels we will probably need to radically up our mining of rare earth metals, maybe reaching out to the asteroids for such metals.
And so on with a process of discovering and then applying creative problem solving to a series of natural limits… Essentially, a lot of what counts as “Sufficient” probably depends on technological feasibility and the artbitrary choice of the time window we choose to consider.
The longer the timescale, the more clear it is that either we defeat entropy itself, or we can’t be “Sufficient”.
If there’s an acceptance that its OK to “punt” on some kinds of sufficiency because we can’t ultimately beat entropy, then the question of when and how to make the call to stop caring about some scale of analysis arises. Is there a finite amount of fresh water? A finite amount of phosphorous? A finite amount of neodymium? A finite amount of rich fools who will buy overpriced junk?
With sufficient energy we could make fresh water, phosphorous, neodymium, and rich fools to buy overpriced junk, but (probably) no amount of energy will let us make energy.
Basically, given that “being alive” is inherently extractive and doomed to eventual entropic collapse, where does a person being Sufficient draw their line in the sand with regard to resource sufficiency?
Basically, given that “being alive” is inherently extractive and doomed to eventual entropic collapse, where does a person being Sufficient draw their line in the sand with regard to resource sufficiency?
I think it is a socially agreed thing. If someone is trying to make interstellar colonisation a thing and you want you or your offspring to benefit from the potential new suns this provides, then you should be helping out in that global good (and trying to encourage other groups/entities that will benefit from it to also help out).
If you don’t try and help out, then eventually the people expending resources to try the hard thing will be outcompeted in the various markets by the people that people who are looking for the quick wins.
It has to be a socially agreed thing, as societies knowledge improves all the time. We didn’t know we were depleting the ozone layer with our polution of CFCs. When society figured out that was a problem, the ozone layer became a resource we were destroying and it was up to everyone to try and stop it. This worked because it was cheap to fix.
It might be that there is no solution to a particular entropic bind and no one is trying to solve it. Then everyone can just give up.
So if one person is seriously working on perpetual motion. Like they are acknowledging that they are probably not going to succeed, but they argue that if we don’t find an exception to the 2nd law somehow then we’re all doomed… Then in that case, a Sufficient person has to help because “social agreement”?
By social agreement I meant more that everyone would look at their models and see if they thought that a certain endeavour was useful. If they thought that they wanted that behaviour to continue in the future they would include them in their concept of Sufficiency (and they would try to encourage other people to help them too, by paying a small premium to them).
The concept of what is Sufficient would be individual, but if lots of people agreed then people might adopt aspects of it for the benefits they get.
I don’t think people should be forced to pay for a thing, if they think it is bad time for it. People shouldn’t club together to try to do AI safety on a difference engine, for example.
I really like the poetry and potential rigor of this… but I’m wondering how the philosophy deals with the problem of entropy?
Some resources are just plain finite and can’t be renewed.
For example, there is “only so much sun to go around for so long”. A current iconic image of self sufficiency is the solar panel, but eventually the sun will run out and we’ll either need to find a new and younger star or give up the game.
Long before we run out of real estate for solar panels we will probably need to radically up our mining of rare earth metals, maybe reaching out to the asteroids for such metals.
And so on with a process of discovering and then applying creative problem solving to a series of natural limits… Essentially, a lot of what counts as “Sufficient” probably depends on technological feasibility and the artbitrary choice of the time window we choose to consider.
The longer the timescale, the more clear it is that either we defeat entropy itself, or we can’t be “Sufficient”.
If there’s an acceptance that its OK to “punt” on some kinds of sufficiency because we can’t ultimately beat entropy, then the question of when and how to make the call to stop caring about some scale of analysis arises. Is there a finite amount of fresh water? A finite amount of phosphorous? A finite amount of neodymium? A finite amount of rich fools who will buy overpriced junk?
With sufficient energy we could make fresh water, phosphorous, neodymium, and rich fools to buy overpriced junk, but (probably) no amount of energy will let us make energy.
Basically, given that “being alive” is inherently extractive and doomed to eventual entropic collapse, where does a person being Sufficient draw their line in the sand with regard to resource sufficiency?
I think it is a socially agreed thing. If someone is trying to make interstellar colonisation a thing and you want you or your offspring to benefit from the potential new suns this provides, then you should be helping out in that global good (and trying to encourage other groups/entities that will benefit from it to also help out).
If you don’t try and help out, then eventually the people expending resources to try the hard thing will be outcompeted in the various markets by the people that people who are looking for the quick wins.
It has to be a socially agreed thing, as societies knowledge improves all the time. We didn’t know we were depleting the ozone layer with our polution of CFCs. When society figured out that was a problem, the ozone layer became a resource we were destroying and it was up to everyone to try and stop it. This worked because it was cheap to fix.
It might be that there is no solution to a particular entropic bind and no one is trying to solve it. Then everyone can just give up.
So if one person is seriously working on perpetual motion. Like they are acknowledging that they are probably not going to succeed, but they argue that if we don’t find an exception to the 2nd law somehow then we’re all doomed… Then in that case, a Sufficient person has to help because “social agreement”?
By social agreement I meant more that everyone would look at their models and see if they thought that a certain endeavour was useful. If they thought that they wanted that behaviour to continue in the future they would include them in their concept of Sufficiency (and they would try to encourage other people to help them too, by paying a small premium to them).
The concept of what is Sufficient would be individual, but if lots of people agreed then people might adopt aspects of it for the benefits they get.
I don’t think people should be forced to pay for a thing, if they think it is bad time for it. People shouldn’t club together to try to do AI safety on a difference engine, for example.