CoachAny t1_iuinwcj wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:54 PM

Reply to comment by Wassux in Giant farming robot uses 3D vision and robotic arms to harvest ripe strawberries by Anen-o-me

Vertical farms can take the shape of towers and reach to the sky and they can also be built underground. Animal agriculture is definitely something our civilization should cease to pursue. It consumes too many resources and is barbaric. However, lab grown meat seems like the way to go. As for water, it can be made from thin air: all you need is to either wait for temperature to drop and collect the water before the temperature raises in the morning by letting the dew condensed on a mesh which you can shake it out of or you can cool the air down artificially. We should try to imitate termite castles which are passively cooling themselves. Desalination is also an option. BTW good models are meant to test life sized systems.

Wassux t1_iuita2k wrote on October 31, 2022 at 5:29 PM

That's a very naïve way to look at it. I'm a nuclear physicist and I can say with complete certainty that collecting water from the air will never, ever be enough to feed 50 billion people. I can prove it if you want. Won't even be enough to feed anyone.

Vertical farms can be towers and reach the sky, but what I am asking you is what if you run out of space? Not when. Because we will eventually have to choose by making more space for farming or humans, how will we choose on a global scale?

usaaf t1_iuiv22u wrote on October 31, 2022 at 5:41 PM

I think you're proceeding from a false, Malthusian assumption, that is that population will grow without bounds given unlimited resources.

Would you say the developed world is richer than ever ? With more food than ever ? With more stuff, more resources, more technology than ever ?

Most would.

Yet, where is the ever-expanding population growth ? It's not there. Countries like the US have to import people to show any demographic growth. Japan is facing a shrinking population because it does not do this.

The link between 'more food' and 'more people' is not, probably has never been, as clear as the Malthusian approach to analysis would suppose. So the idea that UBI is going to lead to ballooning population just doesn't seem viable, considering the resources humanity has developed in the past two centuries.

Also, the goal of post-scarcity needs to be redefined I think. Most people think it means freedom from want, but it would better proposed as freedom from need. Because as some joker always says "huk huk who gets all the beachfront property," we're clearly not going to solve that kind of scarcity. But we can make sure we live in a world where no one is starving nor do they have to work three jobs to achieve that goal, and then worry about how we'll divide up all the luxury shit later.

CoachAny t1_iuize5q wrote on October 31, 2022 at 6:09 PM

A hydroponic system is best if is airtight and recycles the humidity. As the extreme weather conditions of climate change results in desertification, in general humanity has to build it's habitats similarly to Mars or Moon bases. This way the water conservation is absolute and the collection of additional water is just for surplus and backup reasons. Not to mention reverse osmosis is a perfectly viable solution around oceans. It's a technology which works.