Running out of Ice on the Moon. How we Forgot the Problem of Resource Depletion
“The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” by Robert A. Heinlein, (1966), translated into Italian as “La Luna è una Severa Maestra.” It was probably the first science fiction book for adults I ever read in my life, I still remember buying it and taking it home in awe, as if I had in my hands a religious relic. It was also, possibly, the first time that I read about resource depletion. It was mentioned in the novel as a problem for the inhabitants of the Moon but, clearly, also as a metaphor of the limits to growth of Earth.
Thomas Huxley said that “it is the customary fate of new truths, to begin as heresies, and to end as superstitions.” It is a sentence that describes the cycle of ideas, you can call them memes, which tend to have a life-cycle similar to that of living creatures. They are born, grow, and disappear.
The popularity of ideas is not necessarily linked to reality. The virtual world of ideas (the memesphere) may well be completely disconnected from the real world. So, the fact that an idea is forgotten or rejected doesn’t mean it is false or wrong. It is just the effect of memes going in cycles, growing and declining.
So, during the past few years, the idea that resource depletion was a serious problem for humankind became thoroughly unmentionable. In parallel, the memesphere got infected with a completely different set of memes.
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the seneca effect, ugo bardi, resource depletion, robert heinlein, thomas huxley
