I'm dumbfounded. By all accounts he seems like a smart guy. I read his second book. But to me it seems like he has the mother of all blind spots when it comes to understanding resources and depletion. Even if we spent trillions to somehow find a way to generate limitless energy that doesn't solve any of the other problems that, when viewed holistically, point to the fact that this entire economic model simply isn't sustainable.
If we did find these technological unicorns doesn't he think that surplus would result in increases in population not a peak and slow decline? Did he really say that all will be well if we print all the that money assuming we can still get cheap labor off the backs of the third world?
Chris did an awesome and gentle job attempting to steer his line of thinking into that blind spot but he simply wouldn't go there. It reminded me of the discussion with Keen, where Keen pointed out that people making these policy decisions really will not allow themselves to think outside of the mental model they have trained in academically.