Comment by maxbond
2 days ago
Adding more resources doesn't solve the problem that they aren't being managed sustainably. We can't exhaust all the resources in space, but we could definitely exhaust all of the resources accessible to us in space. Like how we can't exhaust all of the oil or all of the gold on this planet, but we could exhaust all of the resource which can be mined economically.
This was once explained to me with a metaphor of a bacteria colony in a jar. The colony doubles every 24 hours. So they quickly exhaust the space in the jar. No problem, you give them another jar. 24 hours later, their population doubles, and they have filled both jars.
Yes, it does
Would you care to elaborate?
Resource intensity of GDP has been falling for decades, most quickly in developed economies. Space-based resource extraction isn’t going to be radically cheaper (if it ever is cheaper) than terrestrial sources with known propulsion, so that balance is unlikely to shift. Herego, replacing terrestrial extraction with moderately-cheaper space-based extraction would reduce harm to our ecosystem without changing our economies to turbo-consume materials and thereby accelerate terrestrial extraction.
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