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Z_M_Davis comments on Why safety is not safe - Less Wrong
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Resources don't become scarce overnight. It happens a little more slowly, the price of the scarce resource rises. People find ways to use it more efficiently; they find or invent substitutes.
Nor would unprecedented levels of resource scarcity be likely to lead to a war between major powers. Our political systems may be imperfect, but the logic of mutually assured destruction would be clear and compelling even to the general public.
When was the last time a government polled the general public before plunging the nation into war?
Now that I think about it, the American public, for instance, has already voted for petrowar: with its dollars, by purchasing SUVs and continuing to expand the familiar suburban madness which fuels the cult of the automobile.
I encourage you to write more serious comments... or find some other place to rant.
Please attack my arguments. I truly mean what I say. I can see how you might have read me as a troll, though.
In the next century I think it is unlikely 1. resource scarcity will dramatically lower economic growth across the world, or 2. competition for resources will lead to devastating war between major powers, e.g. U.S. and China, because each country has too much to lose.
I believe my opinions are shared by most economists, political scientists, politicians. Do you agree that you hold a small minority opinion?
Do you have any references where the arguments are spelled out in greater detail?
Yes, of course.
I was persuaded by the writings of one Dmitry Orlov. His work focuses on the impending collapse of the U.S.A. in particular, but I believe that much of what he wrote is applicable to the modern economy at large.