XPost: alt.politics.immigration, alt.anarchism, alt.politics.socialism   
   From: blockspam_thardman@thomashardman.com   
      
   Dersu Uzala wrote:   
   > In article ,   
   > jxrodri@yahoo.com says...   
   >> On Dec 18, 8:36 pm, n...@isp.com (Dersu Uzala) wrote:   
   >>> In article   
   >>> ,   
   >>> dann...@bezeqint.net says...   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>>> On Dec 18, 5:09 am, n...@isp.com (Dersu Uzala) wrote:   
   >>>>> We live on a finite planet, with finite resources.   
   >>>> But resources can be created. It only takes a lot of time, will and   
   >>>> hard work.   
   >>> Is english your second language? Resources, in the meaning used here, can   
   > not   
   >>> be created. You can "exploit" resources at a higher rate with more work,   
   > but   
   >>> you can't make them magically appear.   
   >>> ...   
   >> Resources can be created.  Before modern industrial technology   
   >> was developed, for instance, petroleum was very nearly useless.   
   >> It was not a resource.  The development of machines which could   
   >> use petroleum turned it into a resource.  The same is true of many   
   >> thousands of other resources.   
   >>   
   >> Believe it or not, I was enlightened about this by a disciple of   
   >> Ayn Rand.  Pretty strange, eh?  You never know....   
   >   
   > I believe you are making an error in logic. I think geologic forces made   
   > petroleum a resource of stored chemical energy, not man's new ability to   
   > exploit oil. Of course, less physically manifest resources can be created, as   
   > seen in the explosion of scientific knowledge, but we are talking here about   
   > physical resources. An unexploited resource can be developed into a utilized   
   > resource, but this isn't creating the resource. An example is nuclear fusion   
   > as an energy source. The hydrogen resource it would use wouldn't be created   
   > now, hydrogen dates back to the origin of the universe.   
      
   I find it almost astonishing to see the so-called "magical thinking" coming   
   from someone who claims to be a Randist.   
      
   Your analysis is entirely correct, unless people wish to bend semantics and   
   use alternative personal dictionaries.   
      
   I encounter such arguments with an appalling frequency, considering that   
   they are made by people who otherwise seem to be fairly intelligent and   
   well-educated. I generally counter arguments such as "so what if we are   
   running out of water, we will build an immense constellation of desalination   
   plants" with the return argument of "it is possible that one day all of the   
   green cheese of the moon will be made into pie in the sky, but that isn't   
   the way to bet to deal with problems we have today". Generally I never again   
   hear these exact people making the same arguments. Usually they turn out to   
   be young intellectuals who have just discovered rhetoric but who have not   
   yet been acquainted with the Formal Fallacies of Rhetoric.   
      
   I call them "smart, but half-ignorant". What is the saying? "A _little_   
   knowledge is a dangerous thing". See also Kung Fu-Tse, quoted below.   
      
      
   --   
   		 To study and not think is a waste.   
   	       To think and not study is dangerous.   
   	          -- Confucius, _Analects_, 2:15   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)