In a recent email exchange, my correspondent wrote, “they say if everyone consumed like the US, we would need 2.5 earths.” That sort of claim is commonly made and readily accepted as true. A June 2015 BBC magazine article titled “How many Earths do we need?” begins with the claim “that if everyone on the planet consumed as much as the average US citizen, four Earths would be needed to sustain them.”[1]
Those types of claims are half-truths, and like most half-truths, they confuse rather than clarify. Fortunately, a little bit of reasoning and checking the facts are sufficient to get closer to the truth.
Earth is an Open System
The undeniable fact is that the earth is finite, which means nothing on earth — soil, water, minerals, etc. — is infinite. But for all practical purposes what we need is virtually infinite. The reason for virtual infinity in a finite earth is that the earth is not a closed system.
If you have some content in a finite box, that content has to be finite too. If you can neither add anything to the box or take anything out of the box, it is a closed system. Conversely if you can add or remove stuff from the box, it’s an open system.
The earth is an open system because it receives energy from the sun. That makes an enormous difference in that it enables material to be recycled. A simple example of that is water. We never “use up” the water we use. Though the amount of water is finite, the amount of rainfall on earth is unbounded because of the hydrological cycle: the sun’s energy continually evaporates water into the atmosphere and that falls back to earth as rain. This cycle has been going on for billions of years and will continue for the indefinite future. We cannot “use” up the limited water because it gets naturally recycled. Continue reading “Finite System, Infinite Cycles”
In an essay titled “Sham Battle” published in October 1936 in the Baltimore Evening Sun, H. L. Mencken enunciated a truth that is one of the core axioms of public choice theory. That axiom is the homely truth that politicians are people just like the rest of us. Homely truths, as Mark Twain recognized, are unpalatable. But they are true nonetheless.
To me it appears to be true that servitude of the masses have to be largely voluntary because the serfs always outnumber the masters. Two quotes on servitude follow but first a bonus quote from Ayn Rand.
There are a couple of things I find remarkable about US elections. First, the date of practically all elections is fixed and therefore predictable. Every year, all elections at all levels of government — city, county, state and federal — are held on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November. If the first Monday of November falls on the 1st, then election is on Nov 2nd — the earliest possible date; and the lastest possible date will be Nov 8th. That happens every year, and every four years, it is a presidential election year. That too is totally predictable.
Today it’s Sharad Purnima, a Hindu tradition. It is a harvest festival that is celebrated on the full moon day of the lunar month of Ashvin. It’s also called Kojagiri Purnima. It’s the birthday of Devi Lakshmi, and she is worshipped on this day. Also worshipped are Indra, and Shiva and Parvati. Lots of worshipping going on among Hindus.
Economists are uniquely qualified in their understanding of one particular aspect of human activity, and that activity is unique to humans. No other animal trades, or exchanges, among its kind. Adam Smith wrote that “the propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.” And no other discipline focuses on trade as much as economics does. Indeed, the most parsimonious description of economics is that it is the systematic study of trade, and trade-offs.
In school I learned the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic reasonably well. That may be partly due to competent teachers, a stable family and school environment, and my being somewhat diligent. However, I am convinced that I would have learned a whole lot more if I had had access to the enormous number of excellent teachers and the virtually infinite amount of content on every conceivable subject we have available today: not in person but over the internet.
If you need any more evidence that people in government are generally incompetent and cause immense harm due to their ignorance and stupidity, not to mention for the moment their obvious cupidity and greed, there’s no greater example of that incompetence than their handling of the Chinese virus, aka Covid-19, pandemic.
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 