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I'm sympathetic to this cause, but that introduction contains a lot of waffle. If the author is reading this, you can summarise the key driving forces for chang

I'm sympathetic to this cause, but that introduction contains a lot of waffle. If the author is reading this, you can summarise the key driving forces for change as... 1. Cannot rely on infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources. 2. A better balance between human life and the rest of life on the planet relies on allowing nature to regrow without competing with human development. You don't need to have all the answers up front, the solution is going to evolve naturally once we agree on what why it's desirable to change and get the discussions going.

stevetrewick 11y ago
The authors summarise their disagreement with your 1 in TFA. Despite frequent assertions starting in the 1970s of fundamental “limits to growth,” there is still remarkably little evidence that human population and economic expansion will outstrip the capacity to grow food or procure critical material resources in the foreseeable future.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  So the suggestion is that because it hasn't been a problem for us already it won't be a problem in the foreseeable future? We can have an economy based on abundance rather than scarcity, but that's not going to be achieved overnight, the priority for now is to slow down the damage. To give an example, look at the problem of overfishing. Taking the attitude of the authors you could argue it's not causing us problems in the foreseeable future, but the longer we leave it the worse it gets, and our depletion of fish populations is directly linked to our consumption and growing our economy without addressing this problem is going to cause problems with decreasing the variety of life found in rivers, lakes, seas and oceans.
logicchains 11y ago
>Cannot rely on infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources. On a longer timescale this might not even be an issue if efficient technology is developed for interstellar travel and terraforming other planets.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  Why is a lack of infinite economic growth a problem? What do you hope to gain from it? As a side note, I'm all for space exploration, but I also appreciate why the prime directive from Star Trek is worth following.
  - DennisP 11y ago
    There are probably plenty of dead planets out there where the Prime Directive wouldn't apply. Or at least, plenty of dead asteroids that we can turn into orbital colonies.
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      I didn't say we wouldn't make use of other planets as places to live, but I believe we should respect the native life that almost certainly exists on some planets. I'm glad we're taking this attitude towards Mars at the moment, exploring but being careful not to bring Earth's lifeforms over to Mars to breed. In any case, my question still stands, what do you/we hope to gain from infinite economic growth?
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Personally, I don't think infinite economic growth will be a problem once we stop caring about it. Right now economic growth is something we measure and try to keep (and increase); e.g. some people look at the growth rates and try to create programs to make them go up. At some point I think we'll reach a level on which we can just stop caring and enjoy living. People will naturally want to improve lives for themselves and their children and yes, this would register as economic growth, but there's a significant difference between just observing it and trying to affect the metric on purpose.
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      I agree to some extent, the problems are partially with people misunderstanding economic growth, and once we move away from that then at least some of the problems will go away. In the economy of barter, we gave what we had for what we wanted. Money was invented because it allowed us to buy from those we had nothing to sell to, facilitating easier trades. If you consider an economy as an engine, money would be the lubricant, it helps the engine run more smoothly, and just like engine lubricant it only works when it flows. Using the engine analogy again, what we should realise is that it's the engine that does the work and produces the goods, why do we need ever increasing amounts of lubricant for this engine? Two reasons, the lubricant gets hoarded, taking it out of use, and there's an ever increasing demand on the engine to produce more. Breaking away from the engine analogy now, whilst some of the increased demands on growth come from increasing population size, the other reason for the increase is extra demands on material wealth. Whilst there are those in poverty that clearly would benefit from increased material wealth, is that universally true? I don't know about you, but I know I've felt a certain amount of emptiness from the whole process, it's rare that I'll be excited about a new item, and yet I'm working a good chunk of my time for items I barely want. Perhaps material wealth only brings you happiness up to a point, and after that it's a case of diminishing returns. Perhaps you need to have grown up comfortably to see that, though clearly some people are happy with endlessly chasing material wealth so it doesn't appear to be a view held by everyone.

stevetrewick 11y ago

The authors summarise their disagreement with your 1 in TFA. Despite frequent assertions starting in the 1970s of fundamental “limits to growth,” there is still remarkably little evidence that human population and economic expansion will outstrip the capacity to grow food or procure critical material resources in the foreseeable future.

ZenoArrow 11y ago
So the suggestion is that because it hasn't been a problem for us already it won't be a problem in the foreseeable future? We can have an economy based on abundance rather than scarcity, but that's not going to be achieved overnight, the priority for now is to slow down the damage. To give an example, look at the problem of overfishing. Taking the attitude of the authors you could argue it's not causing us problems in the foreseeable future, but the longer we leave it the worse it gets, and our depletion of fish populations is directly linked to our consumption and growing our economy without addressing this problem is going to cause problems with decreasing the variety of life found in rivers, lakes, seas and oceans.

logicchains 11y ago

>Cannot rely on infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources. On a longer timescale this might not even be an issue if efficient technology is developed for interstellar travel and terraforming other planets.

ZenoArrow 11y ago
Why is a lack of infinite economic growth a problem? What do you hope to gain from it? As a side note, I'm all for space exploration, but I also appreciate why the prime directive from Star Trek is worth following.
- DennisP 11y ago
  There are probably plenty of dead planets out there where the Prime Directive wouldn't apply. Or at least, plenty of dead asteroids that we can turn into orbital colonies.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    I didn't say we wouldn't make use of other planets as places to live, but I believe we should respect the native life that almost certainly exists on some planets. I'm glad we're taking this attitude towards Mars at the moment, exploring but being careful not to bring Earth's lifeforms over to Mars to breed. In any case, my question still stands, what do you/we hope to gain from infinite economic growth?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Personally, I don't think infinite economic growth will be a problem once we stop caring about it. Right now economic growth is something we measure and try to keep (and increase); e.g. some people look at the growth rates and try to create programs to make them go up. At some point I think we'll reach a level on which we can just stop caring and enjoy living. People will naturally want to improve lives for themselves and their children and yes, this would register as economic growth, but there's a significant difference between just observing it and trying to affect the metric on purpose.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    I agree to some extent, the problems are partially with people misunderstanding economic growth, and once we move away from that then at least some of the problems will go away. In the economy of barter, we gave what we had for what we wanted. Money was invented because it allowed us to buy from those we had nothing to sell to, facilitating easier trades. If you consider an economy as an engine, money would be the lubricant, it helps the engine run more smoothly, and just like engine lubricant it only works when it flows. Using the engine analogy again, what we should realise is that it's the engine that does the work and produces the goods, why do we need ever increasing amounts of lubricant for this engine? Two reasons, the lubricant gets hoarded, taking it out of use, and there's an ever increasing demand on the engine to produce more. Breaking away from the engine analogy now, whilst some of the increased demands on growth come from increasing population size, the other reason for the increase is extra demands on material wealth. Whilst there are those in poverty that clearly would benefit from increased material wealth, is that universally true? I don't know about you, but I know I've felt a certain amount of emptiness from the whole process, it's rare that I'll be excited about a new item, and yet I'm working a good chunk of my time for items I barely want. Perhaps material wealth only brings you happiness up to a point, and after that it's a case of diminishing returns. Perhaps you need to have grown up comfortably to see that, though clearly some people are happy with endlessly chasing material wealth so it doesn't appear to be a view held by everyone.