Enough
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Jul 25, 2019
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Sometimes it feels and sounds like we humans are running out of things. There's overcrowding, homelessness, and poverty; people talk a lot about living on Mars (which is completely ridiculous).
A recurring thought I've had is that there's enough of pretty much everything for pretty much everyone. Sure there's overcrowding in cities, but go literally anywhere else and all you see is open space. Most of the state of Arizona, for example, is just empty. Sure it's hot and dry, but that didn't stop Phoenix or Las Vegas. Overcrowding is a solvable problem. It might be difficult, but it's not existentially impossible.
Poverty is also completely solvable. I haven't done the math, but my hypothesis is that there's enough money for everyone. The ultra-super-mega rich can part with a few extra dollars, and poverty and homelessness would disappear in an instant. Obviously it's a bit more complicated than that, and not all problems can be fixed by throwing money at them. And then there's the whole "welfare makes people lazy" argument, which is dumb, but also irrelevant for my point. My point is that there's enough money in the world to buy everyone enough food, clothing, and shelter. There are a multitude of reasons why this doesn't happen, and few of them are reasonable.
I'll add to this list: energy, which isn't limitless, but with the perpetual nuclear reaction happening at the center of our solar system (i.e. the sun), is essentially limitless. We're running out of oil, and gas, and the wind doesn't always blow, and ... climate change. But seriously the sun will put out more energy than we will ever use for much longer than our species will exist.
Each of these are technological, organizational, and logistical problems. There are enough resources, there's enough space, and there's enough energy to do pretty much anything. #science
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