Just need to implement clacks
.Fun fact, animal waste including humans' can actually be prepped and used as fairly effective fertilizer. In some cases, the effects are actually better than most artificial fertilizers.
Given that the USA and Canada currently sit on the largest untapped petroleum reserves on Earth...
I'm not particularly sold on that view. Humans have always been unnecessary, much like the rest of existence.
Malthusian Industrialism - civilization survives, but the screws are turned down on ordinary people to a horrifying degree
Sorry but, no, technological limitations are the reasons why things like slavery and serfdom existed. We've literally become the horse in the car analogy. That's a sad reality we must face in the end.
Not really. The thing is that we've got the technology to produce synthetic petrochems; the problem is that the only real energy source for making that process viable right now is fission.
The "problem" you are referencing is paradoxically the only truly "green" source of energy that can help civilization transition away from fossil fuels.
Petrochems are more than just fuel, mind you; it's plastics, medicines, and even fertilizers. Fission's (and fusion's) energy-to-weight ratio is immense, and people's resistance to it is why I said it's a problem.
The steam engine was invented at several times in the past (and each time was largely ignored) and yet industrialization in many places occurred after slavery was already on the way out or gone. It wasn't a question of technical limitation, those places didn't cease to exist during the gap period. It was a question of social limitation/choices.
I really should've done the quotation thing to make my post clearer originally but alas I didn't.
Yeah, but I'm pretty sure all industry being devoted to producing jackboots and military parades would ultimately see greater overall environmental destruction than a few extra tons of plastic in landfills.
I wouldn't count on any battery tech that isn't "liquid-form chemical energy storage", joke entirely intended.
You'd be surprised at how destructive the production of batteries for all those fancy consumer electronics actually is, but especially for all those stupid EVs and assorted superfluous goods that technophiles wank themselves off to, in figurative and literal terms.
I was more concerned with the depleted uranium armor and ammunition so lovingly employed by main battle tanks. Seriously. Uranium isn't near as radioactive as some people think, but its toxicity is pretty concerning.
...eh, a bit of Gulf War Syndrome never hurt anyone...
I meant the crap in mass production for the civilian market, in all its planned obsolescence glory, stuff that is entirely superfluous outside of maximized consumer engagement.
That first option leans into ecofascist narratives (which ought to be enough to disqualify the idea on its own) but similarly importantly as far as pollution and ecological impact goes, a small comparatively rich minority of the global population is responsible for most of it so a very localized reduction would be far more effective (or possibly the only actually effective take on it) than the oversimplified "there's too many humans" line used in the west and wouldn't be quite as wildly unethical (still pretty damn awful though).
Moving on, the second option "degrowth" (of bad naming choices that relies on a very regional type of French...) is such an option which requires no genocides and might legitimately improve the living standards of many by simply giving up on "lucrative waste" as I'd call a lot of monkey-brained "numbers go up" GDP-inflation measures that are by any other rational observation often completely pointless or actively harmful.
That's really only because of the myopic obsession with energy density. Aqueous-electrolyte batteries are far less damaging and for stationary applications are perfectly viable.
No. But looking at one of the worst offenders and saying "I wanna do things that'll give them more power and excuses" just sounds suicidal to me.
Because that's quite literally the only way to take away peoples' rights, freedoms, and ability to act on their own desires.
Perhaps. But the ways you're describing all more or less immediately result in the people doing it voted out of office, and the new guys promising to undo it getting in.
My money's still on synthetic hydrocarbons solely because of how well a decent blend of diesel or kerosene can stay stable and because the infrastructure for its distribution is already there and there wouldn't be a need to spend gargantuan amounts of resources and energy tearing it down alongside the old electric grid and building a much bigger one in place of both.
And that's what all of this boils down to: No-one is allowed to escape utopia, and everyone must suffer, and only a few will ever be allowed the "luxury" of experiences that were almost universal and considered key aspects of human dignity in years past.