[HN Gopher] Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession with Growth ...
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Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession with Growth Must End
Author : cwwc
Score : 149 points
Date : 2022-07-18 19:35 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| thepasswordis wrote:
| In other words: got mine.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _When your caterpillar morphs into a butterfly, harping on how
| your butterfly is "failing to thrive according to standard, well-
| established caterpillar metrics used globally for the past
| thousand years and certified as super duper accurate for
| caterpillars by many respected institutions." is basically
| gibberish that says damn near nothing about the state of the
| butterfly's actual health for which we have zero established
| metrics, having never seen one before._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22028732
| [deleted]
| slt2021 wrote:
| Without peaceful growth, eventually there will be military growth
| [expansion by the means of military violence].
|
| Op is right that our Earth is limited and cannot grow
| indefinitely. Sometimes it will be followed by redistribution of
| growth, so that someone will continue to grow, while others will
| experience radical negative growth
| newsclues wrote:
| Why can't we have stability?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Because humans are hardcoded for maximising personal gain.
| There will always be someone who will not accept stability
| and escalate at a different level.
| peppertree wrote:
| Without growth everything becomes a zero sum game. There's no
| incentives to cooperate.
| bsedlm wrote:
| fear of stagnation... ?
| gryn wrote:
| because you only need a few people not wanting that (ie
| people with a mindset somewhat similar to: I'd rather see
| people suffer than cooperate and compromise resulting in
| having less share of resources) for the rest to not matter.
|
| that 'stable' state is unstable (in the control theory sense
| of the word).
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| Inequality and (rightful or wrongful) envy.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| "I know a profound pattern which humans deny with their words
| even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security
| and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak,
| they create the seeds of turmoil and violence. If they find
| their quiet security, they squirm in it." - Dune
| caramelcustard wrote:
| Encouraging stagnation among the easily impressionable English-
| speaking audiences of the economically successful nations i see.
| Good luck convincing certain Asian countries that they should
| stop their growth in the name of the "steady-state economy" just
| because. It's amusing how he goes from "...You can do fantastic
| computations now with a small material base in the computer..."
| to criticizing the concept of GDP ("We really don't know that the
| standard is going up.") contradicting himself so quickly. The
| standard doesn't go up, but i sure like me my computer!
|
| "...Does growth, as currently practiced and measured, really
| increase wealth? Is it making us richer in any aggregate sense,
| or might it be increasing costs faster than benefits and making
| us poorer?..." increasing costs of what exactly? Manufacturing?
| Materials? Servicing? Marketing? Privately held assets? State
| corporation stocks? The cost of a pint at your local bar?
|
| The interviewer isn't any better. "... to accept the idea of
| having "enough" and that constraining the ability to pursue
| "more" is a good thing. Those ideas are basically anathema to
| modern Western society ..." completely CLUELESS take that implies
| that the ideas of striving for wealth, growth, luxurious
| consumption and people wanting things are exclusive to Western
| countries, but then you read about "Making ecological room" and
| it becomes clear what is the exact point of all that fancy talk.
|
| But back to the economist: "My duty is to do the best I can and
| put out some ideas. Whether the seed that I plant is going to
| grow is not up to me." _wink-wink_
|
| With all due respect to academia, i don't think that ignoring the
| harsh reality of how people behave, attempting to lightly enforce
| a feeling of guilt towards upon the society thanks to which the
| academia has the privelege to just "...put out some ideas" is
| responsible at all. I sure hope that this is just a one off case
| of a bad interview.
| [deleted]
| strongpigeon wrote:
| What Daly is saying really is more that growth as currently
| measured (i.e. GDP growth) isn't a good measure and is one that
| can't go on forever. He's not (in his own word) agains't growth
| of wealth, but he's rather asking whether GDP growth is the
| metric to optimize for.
|
| Saying we're bound by the laws of thermodynamics is a bit silly
| in my opinion. It's almost like saying we shouldn't invest in
| solar panels as the sun will eventually explode and won't shine
| anymore. A lot of GDP growth in developed nations comes from
| increase in efficiency, not increase in resource usage. Higher
| agricultural yields from better crops, self-driving cars, more
| efficient computers; they're all things that have the potential
| to drive much higher growth than their resource usage. Which I
| guess in ecological economics would be differentiated as
| "developments" rather than "growth".
|
| Now I do agree that higher growth doesn't automatically means
| higher standards of living. Things like automation, while highly
| efficient, result in most of the gains going to capital owners.
| How society should deal with this is another interesting
| question.
| gsatic wrote:
| Decent Ultimate End would be:
|
| defense spending world wide=0
| bequanna wrote:
| If growth becomes a zero sum game as "Economists" like this one
| would like, you better hope you live in country with a defense
| budget>0
| gsatic wrote:
| What he is encouraging you to do is ask yourself what do you
| want the Ultimate End to be? You can't design anything new if
| the mentality is we can't change.
| gryn wrote:
| I don't understand why you are down voted, you're absolutely
| right. if growth grinds to a halt and people still want that
| growth at all cost they will use the same old ways they
| achieved it before. and even if 90 out of 100 don't want to
| the 10/100 will force their hand.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Then we'll be sitting ducks for the extra-terrestrial
| invasion...
|
| Really though, good luck getting to that state.
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| Daly makes the case that conventional economics deals with
| "intermediate" means and ends, such as food production and
| health/leisure; and that we should instead be more concerned with
| "ultimate" means and ends.
|
| He explains that "ultimate means" are necessarily constrained by
| entropy. He equivocates on what the ultimate ends are, but
| professes his own Christian belief in a creator [sic].
| Unfortunately, he ends his argument by doing the very thing of
| which he accuses his non-religious counterparts -- accusing them
| of sticking up their noses at religious people, and positing a
| ridiculous straw-man: "They look down their noses at religious
| people who say there's a creator: That's unscientific. What's the
| scientific view? We won the cosmic lottery. Come on."
|
| Otherwise, I'm on-board with sustainable living. I think our
| current economic model is doomed, and our ancestors will suffer
| for our excess. Accounting for ecological cost and implementing
| tariffs for those countries that don't seems like a reasonable
| step.
| xxpor wrote:
| >Every politician is in favor of growth," Daly, who is 84,
| continues, "and no one speaks against growth or in favor of
| steady state or leveling off."
|
| Mr. Daly hasn't been to the Bay Area recently then, I see.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not financially
| motivated to think otherwise.
|
| The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which
| people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market"
| growing over their lifetime. And the hopes that if they get lucky
| enough with the market they can retire early (or at all). This
| system of course is built 100% on governments/employers not
| wanting to guarantee financial security of elders and offload the
| risk to the individual. Also the rich have a massive incentive
| for everyone to "invest" ( _cough_ ) and drive prices up, because
| the rich benefit _insanely_ more by market movements than a
| standard person does.
|
| Maybe the system will explode in our lifetime, maybe not. But all
| this insanity focus of growth, profits, etc with no genuine
| regard to real social issues (providing basic stability to people
| whether it be healthcare, housing, food, childcare) is so sick I
| can barely even think about it. And there's almost nothing to do
| about it- that's the way things currently "work" and it seems
| insurmountable to do anything about it.
| pm90 wrote:
| The pandemic made it clear that elites are ok with mass death
| and debilitation. It may not be a conspiracy, but people in
| power simply don't care. So the logical conclusion is that a
| lot of the most vulnerable people are going to perish, the
| hardier ones will hobble by in filthy conditions like what you
| see in old age homes today (but there will be a gun around if
| they wanna quickly end their misery).
|
| Structural change on a massive scale is required to change the
| status quo.
| FiberBundle wrote:
| Severe pandemics are actually really bad for elites, since
| large scale death increases the value of employees. See e.g.
| "The Great Leveler" by Scheidel.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| Demographically did this happen with covid?
|
| The lockdowns and staying home clearly affected the labor
| market, but deaths within the labor demographics were not
| that high.
| [deleted]
| TheCowboy wrote:
| I really wish posters on HN would be forced to specify who
| they are talking about when they say "the elites" because
| it's often so vague as to be meaningless grandstanding and
| allows people to engage in goalpost shifting.
|
| No one can even have a meaningful interaction with this
| comment. It's also trivial to come up with 'elites' who were
| not okay with mass death and debilitation.
| aaomidi wrote:
| There isn't a single person though. How about the ones that
| are actively wanting wage labor to keep going so they can
| keep getting richer?
|
| I do legitimately wonder, after you've earned your first
| few hundred million, why tf do you keep going.
| TheCowboy wrote:
| We are likely considered 'the elites' by wage labor. Even
| though neither one of us have made a hundred million.
|
| There exist many working class people who wanted to get
| back to normal (polling demonstrates this), or at the
| very least wanted policies that tried to keep schools
| open. They also believe the things you're saying make you
| one of the elites. It's also easier for 'established
| elites' to want perpetual work-from-home since they're in
| work that best positions them to experience little
| economic pain doing that. It might even be somewhat
| elitist to dismiss this POV.
|
| That's the problem with using such a vague term.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Arguably what people "want" is also extremely impacted by
| the "elite".
|
| The way we consume media and culture is controlled by a
| very small group of people.
| spicymaki wrote:
| When looking at class we would be called the archaic term
| bourgeoisie. We can live comfortably and buy things we
| want, but are not part of the elites (noblesse) who have
| privileges and influence beyond money. We should define
| new terms to clarify the class strata.
| Uehreka wrote:
| Yeah, elites really feel like a sort of "Schroedinger's
| enemy". If people oppose the argument you can claim that
| they're standing up for billionaires who don't care about
| them and don't need their support. If the reception is
| friendly it might turn out that the "elites" are actually
| middle class college activists who are "elite" because they
| went to college.
|
| Like, some people's definitions are so warped that a
| millionaire small business owner (think someone who owns a
| successful downtown restaurant in a mid-sized city) is "the
| common man" while an artist who works at a coffee shop and
| lives in a rundown studio apartment is somehow "elite".
| pydry wrote:
| Elite pretty much means anyone with political and
| economic power. Politicians, billionaires, lobbyists,
| CEOs, etc. It's not a particularly fuzzy honorific.
|
| Of course they dont like all the negative attention so
| sometimes they will try to designate elites as "anybody
| with a college degree" as one of many means of
| rhetorically disguising their power. For example, the
| economist does here:
|
| https://www.economist.com/finance-and-
| economics/2020/10/22/c...
| bko wrote:
| Elite is a loosely formed group of individuals that has a
| lot of influence on culture and government. There's
| concentration everywhere you look. For instance there's 6
| companies that control almost all of media [0]. There are
| 10 companies that own nearly all global food products [1].
| Look at ETFs and you'll see they own the majority of all
| stocks (on behalf of others), but they exert a lot of
| influence on corporate governance. If you look at the board
| of directors of any of these firms, you'll see the same
| people and more importantly the same general thinking.
|
| There really aren't any firebrands or unconventional
| thinkers, so when someone like Musk came around and wanted
| to wield control over a tiny sliver of the media, people
| were freaking out. Think about it, even the former
| president voiced concern[2]. If you look at political
| donations of the major influential orgs, they're all highly
| skewed to D [3]. In fact, if you do donate ($534) to R at a
| large org (Goldman), you'll risk having some editor in the
| NYT choose to publish your name and donation which could
| get you fired [4]. You have to admit, something is weird.
|
| Everywhere you look you'll see the same kind of people
| saying the same ideas. It's not so much that it's centrally
| organized. It's just that you wouldn't ascend in any of
| these organizations without holding completely orthodox
| views on the topic-du-jur.
|
| [0] https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-
| that-own...
|
| [1] https://www.good.is/money/food-brands-owners
|
| [2] https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3463150-musk-
| buying-twit...
|
| [3] https://www.businessinsider.in/this-graph-
| shows-90-political...
|
| [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/nyregion/donald-
| trump-nyc...
| throw8383833jj wrote:
| but elite's aren't really the ones calling the shots.
| Everytime I investigate some political issue, no matter
| how disgusting or crazy the idea (housing issues,
| transportation, prop 13, zoning/building regulations,
| etc, etc), you'll find huge swaths of the voting
| population that agree with what's going on. Politicians
| are mainly just responding to voter demand, as it turns
| out. If anything, the issue is the voting masses. And, it
| seems to be like that at all levels of government, from
| federal, to state to city, all way down to my insane HOA
| (not technically govt I know).
| narrator wrote:
| I think the WEF (World Economic Forum) is who I think of
| when I think of "the elites.". They have Xi Jinping give
| key notes and most recently had Henry Kissinger debate
| Soros over what to do with Ukraine at their annual private
| jet fueled get together in Davos. Many major government
| leaders like Trudeau are listed on their website as "WEF
| Young Global Leaders.". Vladimir Putin was even in there,
| but his page got deleted when the Ukraine war started.
|
| I struggled through Klaus Schwab's "Covid-19: The Great
| Reset." Klaus talks about Degrowth as a future economic
| model. He also talks about the Doughnut which is the gap
| between abject poverty and the limits of the Earth's
| resources as determined by earth system scientists that
| everyone must live between. He also says that workers will
| not be advantaged due to large numbers of them dying during
| COVID as they were advantaged after the bubonic plague
| because they will be replaced with automation. I'll say
| that none of their programs and goals would be benefited by
| there being more people around.
| paganel wrote:
| > who they are talking about when they say "the elites" b
|
| Not the OP but I understand as "the elites" the people who
| hold the reins of power in the West (I don't know that much
| about the Chinese or Indian elites, to be honest). That
| would be multi-billionaires, some national-level
| politicians, the higher-ups of some supra-state entities
| (things like the World Bank, the IMF, even the European
| Union), some recognisable "artists" who are used mostly for
| propaganda material (think Hollywood actors like Matthew
| McConaughey, Di Caprio and the like) and last but
| definitely not least, members of the defence and security
| apparatus (even though I have lately started having my
| doubts about anyone higher-up at the Pentagon or at NATO
| actually thinking for himself). Ah, I had forgotten, also
| some media people, too many to name, the most recent that
| comes to mind is this marvellous Guardian journo named
| Simon Tisdall that just this weekend had proposed that the
| West should attack Russia [1] so that we'd all get, well,
| blasted by nuclear strikes. But the journos are mostly
| tools, truth be told.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/17/p
| utin-...
| Guthur wrote:
| No more massive scale anything. We can not manage societies
| like that.
|
| If you feel they should have shut down more and harder to
| save lives you are categorically wrong. It would never have
| worked in any degree of severity and has caused such damage
| as to have pushed us to disaster.
|
| The vaccines are nothing more than a redistribution of wealth
| to big pharma, wealth that many of us can not afford. I work
| and earn what should be a good salary yet I own nothing.
|
| I will not be locked in my house again by the government or
| anyone else, you will have to kill me.
| kennywinker wrote:
| It's ok, this kind of thinking will have you locked in your
| house by climate catastrophe not government.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >The pandemic made it clear that elites are ok with mass
| death and debilitation
|
| I don't know what elites you have in mind but the average
| Spring Break attendee seemed to be significantly more okay
| with an uncontrolled pandemic than Bill Gates
|
| the few members of the political elite who were okay with it
| usually happened to be put in their positions of power by the
| not-so-very-elite section of our democratic electorate.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I see your Bill Gates and raise Musk, Murdoch and whichever
| billionaire is in meat-packing plants who were all against
| shutdowns. Let's be honest, (today's) Gates is an outlier
| among billionaires.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| What about the lockdowns, mandates, eviction moratoriums,
| handouts, and mass vaccination campaigns?
| CottonMcKnight wrote:
| I would absolutely love it if dividend yield stocks made a big
| comeback.
| closeparen wrote:
| For the government to redistribute real productive capacity and
| resources to the elderly, they first have to exist. The
| demographic crisis already means the elderly are going to need
| quite a bit relative to what we can produce; without growth
| things would be even tighter.
| [deleted]
| mrharrison wrote:
| I don't think it's obvious. Growth and innovation go hand and
| hand. A tug of war between capitalism and socialism is
| essential for a healthy society that can solve exciting
| problems via markets. It's not perfect, but the growth model
| keeps society agile, with many options via startups and market
| competition. It gives us the toolbelt to solve complex problems
| quickly. It's challenging to start up industries and maintain
| the plumbing to combat world problems when we have non-
| innovative, non-incentivized markets. It's apparent that I'm
| rattling off some generalizations.
| orev wrote:
| False Dilemma fallacy: capitalism vs socialism
| mrharrison wrote:
| I didn't say VS, I said a tug of war. Meaning they pull at
| each other, and play with each other well. Growth and
| government stability via policy, keeping each other in
| balance. Too much socialism leads to a central authority
| with too much power, too much capitalism leads to
| monopolies with too much power. And yes there is more than
| capitalism and socialism. But the author was OP was focused
| on growth and socialist policies.
| convolvatron wrote:
| I don't know any socialists that want to completely
| disassemble capitalism. I do know several capitalists that
| want to completely disassemble socialism, or at least
| greviously wound it at any opportunity.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| The typical counter-argument to complaints about the
| impossibility of endless growth is that growth/gdp are usually
| sufficiently vaguely defined that it is possible to go on
| forever - there isn't any fundamental relationship between
| growth and resource use.
|
| I don't really understand your last paragraph; it feels to me
| like it is written from a very American perspective. There seem
| to exist countries that achieve economic growth while having
| sane healthcare, childcare, etc, and it feels clear to me that
| U.S. issues are more related to the current local optimum the
| political system has come to rest in than to some obsession
| with growth. So what is the argument here about growth? Is it
| that the other countries don't actually have growth or that
| they don't actually provide stability on social issues or what?
| prichino wrote:
| The problem is when a civilization stops providing ways for its
| inhabitants to keep winning inside of it, the civilization
| collapses. In Western civilization, if there is no growth, how
| will you motivate people to keep working? The only thing left
| is to steal from the people who already have things.
| turns0ut wrote:
| We have two options; intentionally iterate away from this
| society or it will collapse for SOME reason; bigotry,
| environment catastrophe...
|
| Physical laws do not give a fuck about our philosophy. Accept
| figurative death, cowards.
|
| Steal from people who intentionally changed the rules to
| deflate our wealth. The laws and their interpretation are no
| accident.
|
| What this debate is is deference to the elderly or the youth.
|
| Tacit ageism against the future or well reasoned action
| against the past.
|
| Gramps; you had a good run. Bye.
|
| Edit: I have an MSc in elastic structures, used to work in
| high powered switching equipment. I understand rates of
| change in high energy systems like a planets climate. This is
| not an emotional argument from a place of ignorance.
| caust1c wrote:
| Many if not most philosophies and religions arise precisely
| to answer this very question. It's possible to live happily
| and healthily without growth.
|
| People will always work because work needs to be done. Food,
| shelter, power, all of it requires active work by people. No
| stealing necessary. The laissez-faire rhetoric of "no growth,
| nobody to work" is exactly the problem mindset this economist
| is trying to address.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| You don't need growth in zero-sum areas or areas that would
| make us face environmental collapse for people to want to
| survive and see their needs met.
|
| Perishable goods still exist. People will still work to
| create perishable goods to consume. They will still change
| cultures and create solutions in areas where the game is not
| (pseudo-)zero-sum.
|
| You also can't grow everything, as real estate is showing.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Frankly the only other currently implemented alternative is
| state funded pensions, which instead of the market rely on an
| ever expanding population of workers paying their taxes to fund
| it and is not exactly better.
|
| In countries where population growth levelled off it seems to
| have recently resulted in raising of the retirement age ever
| higher. It's basically a state run ponzi scheme. I frankly wish
| we had a tax free investing account option available instead.
| supernovae wrote:
| isn't that a 401k?
|
| I wish they raised the limits.. it's woefully inadequate
| after years of inflation.
| jnwatson wrote:
| The IRS raises the limits every year. I imagine they will
| raise it quite a bit next year.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Yeah we don't get that one nor Roth IRA in most of Europe.
| Afaik it's only a USA thing (though on second thought I do
| think pensions are optional in the UK so they may have a
| similar system).
|
| The main difference between this and a 401k is that the
| money you pay into it isn't yours and doesn't affect what
| you get in the end, only your work years fed into some
| chart determine that. The taxes go directly to current
| payouts as it would be in a literal ponzi scheme.
| arecurrence wrote:
| Canada has similar in the TFSA and RRSP.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| The biggest difference being that typically the state
| assumes the underperformance risk for a pension, versus the
| individual for a 401k.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| A 401k is like a state funded pension? No, not at all?
| gruez wrote:
| You got the quotes mixed up, the relevant parts are:
|
| >>I frankly wish we had a tax free investing account
| option available instead.
|
| > isn't that a 401k?
| caramelcustard wrote:
| "Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not
| financially motivated to think otherwise." which implies that
| the interviewer and the economist are acting in good faith and
| are not financially motivated to push certain ideas.
|
| "The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which
| people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the
| market" growing over their lifetime." ah so trade and
| supply/demand that are moved by "standard persons" = rich
| people, ah yes.
|
| "This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers
| not wanting to guarantee financial security of elders and
| offload the risk to the individual." great idea, have people at
| governments mercy and build a voter block that is going to put
| the tick where they're going to be told to for some of that
| extra pension plan dough.
|
| "...the rich benefit insanely more by market movements than a
| standard person does..." while also contributing the most tax
| revenue...
| bergenty wrote:
| What are you smoking? The rich pay capital gains which is
| way, way less than the average person is paying.
| caramelcustard wrote:
| "The latest government data show that in 2018, the top 1%
| of income earners--those who earned more than $540,000--
| earned 21% of all U.S. income while paying 40% of all
| federal income taxes. The top 10% earned 48% of the income
| and paid 71% of federal income taxes."
| https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-
| much-t...
|
| Nice of you to imply that only "the rich" can buy/sell
| assets, especially in a post-Gamestop world.
| orwin wrote:
| Now, add VAT to income taxes, and change the referential.
| Top 1% gives back X% of their income as taxes, top10%
| gives back Y%. If Y>X, you have inequality issues.
| caramelcustard wrote:
| Inequality in percentage but not the actual revenue. Not
| sure what is the point of adding VAT though. "The rich"
| does not pay it i presume, just like "average people" are
| free of capital gains taxes (lmao).
| rr888 wrote:
| > The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in
| which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the
| market" growing over their lifetime.
|
| Not really, half retired Americans live off Social Security
| alone, and another big chunk I'm guessing a quarter rely on it.
| Many others have property, business or keep working. I'm
| guessing its about 10-20% of Americans really have enough 401k
| savings to live off.
| PeterisP wrote:
| I don't know much about details of the USA Social Security
| model, however from what I recall doesn't it effectively
| require continued economic growth to plausibly be able to pay
| out what it should without significantly raising the starting
| age to decrease the number of years it pays out?
| rr888 wrote:
| There is definitely a problem with people living longer and
| bulge of baby boomers. There are alternatives to fund this
| such as raising taxes or debt, but yes likely people will
| have to work longer if they keep living longer.
| mc32 wrote:
| I'm not an economist and don't pretend to be...
|
| For thousands of years of our existence, progress was very slow
| and sometimes we went in reverse in some regions.
|
| Economic growth plus innovation resulted in progress and pulled
| the 99% who were not wealthy out of utter subsistence poverty
| over the last few hundred years.
|
| Also, we cannot grow forever (unless we figure out how to
| colonize other planets). We have to figure out how to live in a
| worldwide demographic "Japan" zero to negative pop growth,
| decline and be comfortable and work with it. New generations
| don't have to be richer than the last. We can achieve some
| maintainable level of comfort and be okay with that.
|
| Of course the assumption of growth underpins most modern
| societies, as far as I know, but we will have to find a new
| model for a new reality.
| [deleted]
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > New generations don't have to be richer than the last. We
| can achieve some maintainable level of comfort and be okay
| with that.
|
| I think 1950s USA middle-class was probably comfortable
| enough, certainly it was far far from "utter subsistence
| poverty" -- if the entire world population can live at 1950s
| USA middle-class levels, without destroying the ecology that
| sustains us, we should count ourselves lucky (it's not clear
| we can).
|
| Note that was without computers, cell phones. It was much
| more expensive clothing you'd keep until it wore out. Etc.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| recent graeber/wengrow research shows your understanding of
| human progress is way out of date
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Care to elaborate?
| mc32 wrote:
| I think they aim to say that ancients weren't dumb
| dullards. Which I don't think people are saying they were
| so. We're saying that to get where we are took as long as
| it took humanity to get where we are (Outside of some
| fabulous thinking that there existed "modern" historical
| societies that disappeared).
|
| When Hobbes said life would be 'solitary, poor, nasty,
| brutish, and short' he was referring to life outside of
| the outcast's society.
| dataflow wrote:
| I haven't really read it to know the relevance, but I
| think this is the article: https://www.theatlantic.com/ma
| gazine/archive/2021/11/graeber...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The author of that article would not know a steelman if
| it hit them in the face.
|
| The "conventional account" of human history they describe
| is one that I personally have never heard espoused and I
| am not quite sure if anyone really ever believed.
|
| I think I would prefer to read the general source
| material, I find professional "essayists" often tiresome
| to read.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| "the dawn of everything", or you can find papers they've
| published
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Why can't we have economic growth forever? Economic growth is
| fueled largely by innovation. What it is the barrier to
| perpetual innovation?
|
| Will Apple say "Sorry, no more new iPhone versions. All out
| of ideas?" And all their competitors agree?
| Aperocky wrote:
| > What it is the barrier to perpetual innovation?
|
| Physics and humans shortsightedness.
|
| There are limited resources on Earth and by the looks of it
| we're stuck here for the long haul.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| The system is totally unsustainable... unless we're willing to
| have a society of debtors, noone is going to buy homes from the
| boomers.
|
| The majority of retirement the average middle class has is
| their home.
| bequanna wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to "the system" but
| the extradorinaiy price increases in homes were caused by
| boomers printing an unprecedented amount of money for
| themselves and lowering interest rates.
|
| If history repeats itself, real estate valuations should
| revert to a long term mean which would make homes somewhat
| more affordable. There are some early indications that this
| is happening.
| seibelj wrote:
| You can have endless growth as long as productivity is
| increasing faster than population loss. Increasing productivity
| needs technological advancement. Alternatively we can stem the
| tide of population loss by having humans live longer, or by
| waiting for the current generation of non-breeders to die off
| allowing the breeders' children to reproduce. Likely they are
| more genetically predisposed to reproduction.
| dionidium wrote:
| > _Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not
| financially motivated to think otherwise._
|
| The problem here is that there's no grand conspiracy to pursue
| growth. People make the individual decision to pursue growth
| because of the individual benefits.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| > governments/employers not wanting to guarantee financial
| security of elders and offload the risk to the individual
|
| One can argue for a well-fare state that provides all
| guarantees one wants.
|
| But you're flipping the issue here. First, you have a risk of
| not aging. But most people are inevitably going to age and
| retire. This risk is inherent to the individual. Now we can
| offload that risk to the government (please, it's not the other
| way around), but it's going to have costs. And I think
| offloading it to the government is even riskier, because
| governments make stupid decisions and are subject to massive
| corruption.
| Magnusmaster wrote:
| I live in Argentina where the government took over pensioner
| funds and gave away millions of pensions to people who have
| never worked in a formal job, and therefore never put a penny
| into a pension fund. The result is that almost every pensioner
| earns peanuts regardless of how much they worked or how much
| they gave to the pension fund, and almost every pensioner earns
| half the poverty line basket.
|
| Guaranteeing financial security to anyone is impossible.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| > Guaranteeing financial security to anyone is impossible.
|
| Plenty of countries have done just fine. What you described
| is horrible mismanagement and not the only way to do things.
| nostromo wrote:
| Retiring off of investment into the economy in return for a
| piece of the growth is a very happy situation for everyone
| involved. Companies get access to capital. Retirees get money
| to live off of. Capital is allocated to those who can make the
| most value in return.
|
| Retiring off of pensions is a zero sum game. Companies charge
| more to pay pensioners. Customers don't get any additional
| value, they just pay higher costs for the same goods and
| services. Owners get lower returns from the company. Retirees
| are stuck on fixed income, which is devastating during an
| inflationary period.
| zwkrt wrote:
| Right but the world is a bigger place than that of capital,
| customers, investors, and companies. That's the problem. As
| an example, there are trees, which is a class of thing that
| doesn't fit into any of those above categories. And even
| worse it doesn't really work, it just works maybe amortized
| over time for people who start far enough ahead.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| > This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers
| not wanting to guarantee financial security of elders and
| offload the risk to the individual.
|
| The growth obsession phenomenon _also_ happens in countries
| which demonstrably put more effort into caring about the
| elderly and the poor. They still get left behind, albeit at
| marginally lower rates than in a country like the US.
|
| It's the juiced economic statistics and obsession paper growth
| that's the core problem, not _necessarily_ "rich people have
| influence"
| mongol wrote:
| Is not growth inevitable? I hear criticisms of it but is it not
| what happens automatically when there is competition for
| resources? I can't really see what the alternative would be. I
| mean, ideally if you could just agree with everyone in the entire
| world that no one should strive for something better, we could
| stay where we are, but reaching such agreement seems impossible.
|
| And let's say instead we change direction to reshape society, to
| become more ecological, more sustainable etc. That will require
| innovation, labor, capital etc. That is also a kind of growth!
| Like a child stops growing in height at some point, but continues
| to evolve intellectually etc.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| > That is also a kind of growth!
|
| Yes, but not one that benefits from investment, which is how
| rich people get paid for being rich. Rich people want very,
| very, very much to be paid for being rich. Since a dollar is a
| vote, this concern completely dominates our political and
| cultural thought processes.
|
| The tricky part is that retirement funds use exactly the same
| mechanism, so those of us with retirement accounts have
| incentives to keep quiet. The wheels won't come off the cart to
| Ponzi town until a minority of people are net asset holders,
| but that's well on its way to happening. Exciting times!
| neojebfkekeej wrote:
| It's not that growth is inherently bad. It's that we've turned
| a blind eye to the _costs_ incurred both on an individual level
| and a planetary level to sustain that growth.
| jstx1 wrote:
| Now imagine that everyone's retirement is tied to the child's
| growth in height only and the people with most power and
| influence benefit the most from every additional inch of
| height.
| [deleted]
| ekkeke wrote:
| Can someone explain to me why we can't keep growing until the
| death of the sun? Growth doesn't mean more materials or natural
| resources necessarily, a microprocessor uses some of the cheapest
| and most abundant materials and uses less of them now than
| before. Why might we not continue to find new designs and
| discoveries that allow us to make ever more efficient and complex
| objexts, that in turn are worth continually more than what we
| have now?
|
| Look at software, most of it all uses the same commodity hardware
| to run but it gets more powerful and complex every year. But by
| rearranging the same bits of hardware we can get a basic
| calculator or matlab. The productivity difference between the two
| is massive and becomes more so every year. Can't we always have
| new circuits, new software, new FPGAs, new rocket designs, new
| and better algorithms or even hardcoded solutions calculated once
| and distributed, that don't use more resources but by being more
| complex increase productivity?
| gryn wrote:
| sure the end result (microprocessor) don't use too much
| resources, but the process that produces it does. you can keep
| improving but a point you reach physical and economist limit
| that you just can't outrun.
|
| the second thing economist usually talk about a growth in
| profit, and that can't always go up.
| seoaeu wrote:
| "There exists a limit to growth" and "we are remotely close
| to hitting the limit" are vastly different claims.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| Club of Rome part 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome
| scythe wrote:
| After this topic gained my attention for the umpteenth time, I
| have come to believe that the reason that growth remains a very
| high priority in the face of all the costs is a truly unpleasant
| justification.
|
| Consider the Soviet Union. During its early development the
| working day was progressively shortened, reaching seven hours by
| 1929 [1]. Certainly, many people would consider "working less" a
| nice alternative to endlessly pursuing growth. But then something
| funny happens. Adolf Hitler comes to power in Germany and the
| Soviet workday gets longer [2].
|
| The reason that we pursue growth so doggedly is not because we
| have a collective wish to do so. It's because we are afraid that
| $Enemy is going to grow faster than we are, for various values of
| $Enemy. The solution cannot be merely political; it must be
| geopolitical.
|
| 1: https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1929-2/churches-
| closed/churche...
|
| 2:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_industry_in_World_War_I...
| it wrote:
| There's a whole universe out there. We're not even close to
| exhausting how much we could grow.
| [deleted]
| api wrote:
| Space migration is possible but would it matter?
|
| You could build a big Mars settlement and that would have its
| own economy but how much would that add growth to Earth?
| Transit times are long and the cost to move goods is high for
| fundamental physical reasons, leaving intangibles as the only
| thing that could trade in really high volume.
|
| I doubt an increase in software or media from Mars could
| compensate for limits to growth on Earth.
|
| On a side note: I suspect that demand limits to growth from
| stabilizing or falling population and decreasing marginal
| utility of goods and services ("saturation") will be as
| significant as limiters of growth as supply side limits.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It seems like services, information, tech are all huge
| contributors to modern growth beyond just "raw physical"
| goods. Seems like it could have a substantial impact on
| Earth, especially when you consider innovations.
|
| Imagine having high billions-trillions of people and millions
| working on a given innovation or line of research or
| whatever.
| convolvatron wrote:
| if we cared about higher levels of innovation or research,
| we don't need to have a trillion babies. we just need to
| educate the ones we have already, and give them the
| opportunity to do that kind of work.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| it's obviously no answer for increasingly short term concerns
| on earth
| hn_version_0023 wrote:
| Yes, but, critically we cannot access those resources _yet_.
| Will be gain that ability before we poison the biosphere to the
| point where extinction is inevitable?
|
| Were I a betting man I'd bet against us, given our current
| trajectory.
| smeeth wrote:
| In practice I find that people who bemoan our "obsession with
| growth" or some such generally fall into one or more of the
| following buckets:
|
| - Wish they lived in a world we do not live in, such as one
| without violence or one where people were happy with what they
| have and do not strive for more.
|
| - Actually want growth, but the kind of growth where the things
| that grow are the things they like and the things they don't like
| go away.
|
| - Have a feeling or rationale that existing wealth and output can
| be easily redistributed, leading to a state of global contentment
| we would not need to improve on.
|
| All dreams, sadly.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| You have provided no reason to believe any of your claims apply
| to the economist in question. I can say "I find people who
| defend our obsession with growth tend to be benefit heavily
| from our racist status quo, and would prefer for it to
| continue".
|
| It's lazy, and anti intellectual
| smeeth wrote:
| Well I didn't think I needed to spell it out since he spends
| most of the interview explicitly stating my second and third
| points.
|
| But if I must:
|
| - Daly points out that GDP growth != welfare growth. In fact,
| growing GDP has negative externalities that might decrease
| aggregate welfare. By reducing GDP growth in wealthy
| countries he argues we might open up resources for developing
| economies to grow. This reduces to something like: Daly likes
| GDP growth when its in in poor places but doesn't like the
| costs associated with growth in rich places and wants them to
| go away. This is my second point explicitly: he wants growth,
| but only the type he likes and not the type he doesn't.
|
| - Daly talks about richer countries needing to make
| "ecological room" for poor countries to grow. What he means
| is that the growth of richer countries requires the use of
| natural resources that could otherwise be used to fill the
| more basic needs of poorer countries. Weird zero sum-ism
| aside, this is essentially my third point, that we can
| redistribute wealth/outputs (technically inputs, but let's
| not split hairs) to reach a state of stable global
| contentment.
|
| I have no way of knowing if your statement was entirely
| rhetorical or not, but indeed, I have both benefitted
| significantly from our imperfect status quo and I wish for
| something like it to continue.
|
| Over a billion humans have been lifted from extreme poverty
| since 1990 [0]. I like that. I want more of that. Thats not
| to say I would like for our system to remain totally
| unchanged, however. You and I probably agree on a lot.
|
| [0] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
| marcell wrote:
| Wrong, wrong, wrong.
|
| Once growth ends, the pie isn't growing. Pie not growing means
| the focus becomes dividing the pie. Dividing the pie means
| endless infighting, politics, and anger in a society. This may
| work in certain societies, but it will never work in America.
|
| Second, a growth-oriented society will naturally outgrow and
| overtake a non-growth oriented society, by definition. Societies
| choosing low growth will fall to the side.
|
| Third, you need an outlet for people in society who are
| entrepreneurial. Steve Jobs starting Apple is the exact same
| mindset as a punk kid spraying grafitti on a billboard. It's just
| a different implementation ambition and rule breaking. If you
| impose a non-growth mindset on society, what will all the
| glorified "crazy ones" [1] do? Nothing good.
|
| The answer, of course, is space exploration. Elon Musk has talked
| about this in detail many times:
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1544720926020968453
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z4NS2zdrZc
| JauntTrooper wrote:
| Economic growth does not need to be extractive, nor is it zero
| sum. A vaccine is worth more than the sum of its parts. So is a
| bridge.
|
| We can achieve economic growth through productivity growth,
| increasing outputs without increasing inputs through design and
| efficiency gains.
|
| The economic growth we've experienced over the past 250 years has
| been an extraordinarily positive development in human history. We
| are experiencing serious consequences from this growth most
| notably climate change and the extinction crisis. We should
| absolutely consider the ecological costs of economic growth and
| work to minimize them. However we should try to fix these without
| dismissing the engine of economic growth that's lifted humanity
| out of the miserly wretched existence we experienced through most
| of human history.
| uoaei wrote:
| Matter and energy limits constrain volume. Entropy challenges
| efficiency. There are no exponential curves in nature -- only
| sigmoidal ones.
| karol wrote:
| Sounds like a limiting belief.
| xnx wrote:
| Growth is clearly unsustainable until we can decouple happiness
| from exhaustion of finite material resources.
| sfvisser wrote:
| Economic growth is more than just using finite material
| resources. It's technical innovation, labor productivity
| increase, efficiency improvements due to economies of scale,
| specialization, efficiently recycling scarce commodities, etc
| etc
|
| Yes, we obviously need more economic growth, there simply is no
| alternative.
| ttgurney wrote:
| Reminds me of the well-known quote I always enjoyed, though I
| never looked much into the context:
|
| "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."
|
| https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herbert_Stein#Quotes
| nostromo wrote:
| Ok, but...
|
| You better get used to higher taxes when you're of working age.
| And you better get used to reduced Social Security payments.
| Because these things rely on growth.
|
| You better get used to a flat stock market. If you want to live
| off your investments when you're old -- you're going to have to
| save a whole lot more.
|
| Growth helps governments inflate away their (very large) debts.
| In a static economy, this won't work -- so you better get ready
| to pay off all that money our government has borrowed.
|
| People are not "obsessed" with growth -- growth is built into our
| economy in a fundamental way -- and ending growth would be
| extremely painful to regular people.
| havblue wrote:
| Ironically, economists know that people aren't obsessed with
| growth as much as just acting according to their own nature...
| nyolfen wrote:
| cool, what happens when a rival doesn't want to stop growing?
| scifibestfi wrote:
| Exactly. This sounds like a psyop.
| moffkalast wrote:
| You watch them become unable to support themselves when the
| last square meter is paved, see them slide into poverty and
| ruin?
| csours wrote:
| I have a heretical thought: the integrated circuit revolution has
| made capitalism and the economy in general look much better than
| it actually is.
| robocat wrote:
| How do we measure the economic value of technology?
|
| Solow productivity paradox: "the computer age was everywhere
| except for the productivity statistics" -
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox
| kalupa wrote:
| A finite system cannot sustain infinite growth. Not that this
| summarizes the article, but that'd be a pretty logical statement.
| bequanna wrote:
| We are nowhere near exhausting the resources we have available.
|
| We are also nowhere near optimal efficiency when using
| resources.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| the externalities of resource use are arguably reaching
| catastrophic tipping points that will hit before depletion is
| an immediate concern
| ardoise wrote:
| But couldn't a finite system be configured and reconfigured in
| such a large number of ways that to all intents and purposes
| the possibilities are infinite? What if "growth" is about
| creating better and better knowledge of how to configure the
| system in more and more valuable ways?
| krm01 wrote:
| I've had this sickness of growth in my early twenties. Rushed
| into a startup, burnt through 7 figures of VC money. Then took an
| other shot at it, but slower growth and no VC money. Bootstrapped
| that company and got acquired. Then started an agency [1] where
| we get to design B2B software products for a variety of startups.
| We are keeping it small on purpose and growth is never discussed.
| The focus is to do work we love with amazing teams of engineers
| and entrepreneurs. Accidentally we're generating more money than
| in my previous ventures, even with a clear cap on growth. It just
| adds to our runway and makes working every day more fun and
| fulfilling.
|
| [1] https://fairpixels.pro
| uhuruity wrote:
| As someone with a graduate degree in economics: often when people
| think about 'growth' in a negative light, they're imagining an
| ever increasing use of resources to produce more output. But the
| desirable type of growth (in the economic discipline) is
| generally Total Factor Productivity growth: (very) roughly
| speaking, being able to produce more output with the same input.
| This is basically akin to technological progress. As a forum of
| tech aficionados, I cannot see how this would repel anyone here?
| orwin wrote:
| People here also can calculate Pearson's coefficient between
| GDP and energy usage and understand by themselves that this is
| bullshit and that energy efficiency is less than minor in the
| grand scheme of things.
|
| And those who did not brush up their math know about the
| theorical max efficiency of Carnot engines and can evaluate
| without calculation how much growth must be driven by
| efficiency increase and how much is driven by energy use
| increase. I mean, we did increase oil production by roughly 2-3
| percent per year. If Carnot engines efficiency had risen as
| much as growth in the last 50 years, we would have those
| infinite energy motors...
|
| And there is probably a lot of other way to reach that
| conclusion without thinking about it. I don't understand why
| people don't just think about it.
| chobeat wrote:
| under capitalism, this simply doesn't happen. More efficiency
| due to automation or other factors always result in constant
| hours worked, resources exploited more efficiently, humans
| squeezed harder and less worker's autonomy.
|
| Any reduction in the work time was won by unions and as soon as
| they were destroyed, we got stuck with the 40 hours workweek.
|
| Your narrative worked maybe one century ago: now the world is
| on fucking fire and everybody is in therapy. Nobody believes
| this stuff anymore.
| skybrian wrote:
| You're misunderstanding the argument. Hours worked can remain
| the same while production and wealth increase. There are many
| jobs this isn't true of, but there are enough where it is
| true that that it can drive up housing costs. (A few rich
| people wouldn't be enough to do that, so there have to be
| lots of people.)
|
| A better counter to this argument is that national averages
| are misleading and irrelevant for many people.
| dionidium wrote:
| This pretty clearly isn't true. You could simply work fewer
| hours and live a 1920s lifestyle, if that's what you want.
| You won't have good healthcare (neither did people in 1920),
| you probably won't go to college (just like most people in
| 1920), you won't be able to buy lots of fancy and complicated
| consumer goods (exactly like people in 1920), you won't own a
| laptop (just like every single human being in 1920), or live
| in an apartment with AC (like almost everyone in 1920), and
| you won't drive a car (like the average person in 1920), or
| own a lot of nice clothes (like most people in 1920) and so
| on and so on.
|
| This option is available to you and to everyone else, but
| hardly anybody chooses it. People pursue full-time employment
| _because of all the enormous benefits_ , but absolutely
| nobody is making you do it.
| nicodjimenez wrote:
| The only real alternative to growth is decline and eventually
| death.
|
| This is true for companies, individuals, and even countries.
|
| I say our obsession with _not_ growing must end!
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well there is another option: finding a balance and keeping it.
|
| There's nothing wrong with keeping a replacement level
| population and producing enough goods for everyone, instead of
| trying to achieve some kind of maximum output while destroying
| the landscape around as quickly as possible. Doesn't mean
| improvements can't be made to quality of life despite that.
| nicodjimenez wrote:
| In nature, nothing is constant for very long.
| [deleted]
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| Where do you see an obsession with not growing in the world?
| Some rhetoric? Because there are a fuck ton of actions and
| power on the side of increasing gdp at all costs.
| nicodjimenez wrote:
| > Because there are a fuck ton of actions and power on the
| side of increasing gdp at all costs.
|
| Like what? The most basic thing you can do to help GDP growth
| is try to promote families and childbirth, and keep energy
| prices low. Right now birth rates are plummeting and oil &
| gas industry has become politicized, and people see the
| result at the gas pump.
|
| If there's some big heroic effort to actually grow the
| economy in a real way I'm not seeing it. You see what
| happened to the last guy that tried to do that. It did not go
| well for him.
| borroka wrote:
| The comparison between an artificial system (an economy) and a
| natural system (the growth of individuals) is as valid as that
| between the neurons in our brains and the "neurons" in the
| neural network, that is, it is wrong. Senescence and then death
| do not result from failure to grow, and this is empirically
| found in any organism. Most fish continue to grow after sexual
| maturity (indeterminate growth), but still die from natural
| causes, from the accumulation of damage in their biological
| systems.
|
| In the course of the organism's life, energy is allocated to
| different functions; after sexual maturity, in most species
| energy is spent in directions other than growth, because it is
| reproduction that determines species' persistence.
|
| It may be interesting to note that in aquaculture, salmon are
| selected for late sexual maturity so that they can spend more
| time growing and thus be more valuable to the aquaculturist,
| who can see their resources going to tissues that can be sold
| (e.g., meat) and not to tissues (e.g., gonads) that cannot be
| sold.
| narrator wrote:
| Serious egyptologists correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Egypt
| not change at all between 3000 B.C and the Bronze Age collapse
| almost 1000 years later? Is that where we're headed: perpetual
| stagnation?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I don't think economists use terms like 'growth' in a very
| consistent manner.
|
| For example: trees are constantly growing in a forest, and trees
| are also constantly dying, but the overall population size
| (number of trees in a forest) remains generally stable, in the
| absence of major changes in climate and animal predation of trees
| (such as clear-cutting forests).
|
| A lot of uses of growth in economics appear to be related to
| growth of _rates_ , not growth of something like mass. For
| example, carbon flows through grasslands at a greater rate than
| it does in forests; the carbon in a grassland was in the
| atmosphere at most a few years ago while a tree in a forest can
| be several hundred years old. The rate at which money flows
| through an economy (less misers, basically, mean higher
| transactions) is linked to economic growth.
|
| However, growth in terms of growth of the number of buildings in
| a city and numbers of humans in a city, that's absolutely tied to
| the amount of arable land each human needs for food production,
| so obviously that's not an open-ended system, and in particular,
| if there's not enough water then the land isn't arable.
|
| Again, if a city of fixed size improves the average quality of
| life for its inhabitants, then that's a kind of economic growth,
| isn't it? Even if resource use (in terms of conservation of mass
| and energy) is fixed, you can still have economic improvements
| within that steady-state system, can't you?
| mongol wrote:
| I also don't understand how they take into account innovation.
| A carrot was a carrot 1000 years ago, and is a carrot today.
| While the production of carrots certainly have increased
| manyfold between then and now, we also have innovations whose
| value we can't quantify in numbers but certainly are indicators
| of growth. What is the value of toothpaste compared with no
| toothpaste, and how much growth did the invention of toothpaste
| account for? While no number can be reliably given, it should
| account for some growth. If we halt growth, we halt progress.
| TheCowboy wrote:
| It's not really as bad as you think within the field of
| economics. If you were to major in economics, you would be
| taught that there is no single or multiple perfect measures
| of growth or innovation. It's important to have multiple
| metrics, understand their pros and cons. It's also important
| to have active research advancing the current state of
| understanding and not believe everything is settled theory.
| krallja wrote:
| Carrots are a bad example, as they have also improved
| dramatically via innovation: cultivation and breeding. A
| carrot like those grown a millennium ago are barely
| recognizable compared to the beautiful orange giants we can
| all get at the grocery store for a few cents apiece. Heck,
| the entire species was only domesticated 1100 years ago.
|
| https://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/history.html
| mrob wrote:
| >What is the value of toothpaste compared with no toothpaste
|
| As best I can tell, very little. It might have some value as
| a fluoride delivery system, but:
|
| "The cumulative evidence for this systematic review
| demonstrates that there is moderate certainty that
| toothbrushing with a dentifrice does not provide an added
| effect for the mechanical removal of dental plaque."
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27513809/
|
| I haven't used toothpaste for about a decade. I find brushing
| with plain water to be highly effective, and I drink a lot of
| tea so I don't think I need any additional fluoride. I think
| the most underrated factor is toothbrush wear; a fresh
| toothbrush leaves my teeth feeling noticeably cleaner with
| the same effort compared to a worn toothbrush.
| sfvisser wrote:
| > Even if resource use (in terms of conservation of mass and
| energy) is fixed, you can still have economic improvements
| within that steady-state system, can't you?
|
| Sure, technical innovations and efficiency improvements to get
| more for less is also economic growth. And therefore by
| definition not steady-state.
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