Paul J Gans <gans@panix.com> wrote:

In talk.origins tgdenning@earthlink.net wrote:

[massive deletions]

Once again, the distinction between correlation and causality must be
explained.

The human population has increased in correlation with technological
innovation. That *does not* mean that if there is a small population,
technology will vanish. Indeed, if the population were to start
dropping tomorrow, it would likely *stimulate* the development of
technology to replace labor.

First-world high-tech high-consumption living standards are perfectly
'sustainable' as long as there are few enough people.

I agree.  I suspect it would be far easier to create an
electric generator than to start over with stone age
technology.

After all, how many of us know how to chip stones so as to form
a proper stone age tool?  But lots of us know the fundamentals of
building a generator.

Which is great until the reserves of copper wire start to run out... you
can (in the right region) always find chertz. Thought occurs: will
post-apocalytic society be a mix of stone aged and electrical age
technologies? "I will trade all these flints for that electric razor"...
-- 
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Philosophy
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, 
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."