5 ms·

Endless growth is impossible.

by anon4 11y ago

anti-shill 11y ago
and some forms of growth are akin to cancer
vlehto 11y ago
Generally "Physical growth" and "GDP growth" are not really similar. A number can grow infinitely. Tree or human population can not. GDP approximates perceived value prodced by society. In capitalism, saying GDP cannot grow anymore is essentially saying humans don't want anything you can buy with money to be better in any perceivable way. Give average guy huge amount of money, if he burns it for shits and giggles, then GDP cannot grow anymore.
- orthecreedence 11y ago
  > Generally "Physical growth" and "GDP growth" are not really similar. No, two different things. But just the same, neither can grow infinitely. > A number can grow infinitely. Especially if it's a measure of a scale that's constantly adjusting itself. Your explanation of economic growth sounds like how American capitalists justify the existence of growth economies. Economic growth cannot be infinite, just like physical growth. Economic growth depends on resources just like any other kind of growth. When the resources run out, the everything stops. You can't math your way out of that. The only way to sustain our current economic burn at our current (and growing) population is to move off-planet.
  - ingas 11y ago
    > Economic growth depends on resources That's a point from ... long past. Dollar, yen, euro, bitcoin(!) have no direct relation to resources. So, I agree with your opponent that economic growth is not limited in principle.
    - will_pseudonym 11y ago
      Real economic growth (NB: inflation adjusted) cannot grow infinitely. In fact, growth of the value of the currencies you've listed points instead to the finite nature of resources, since they have no intrinsic value, except as a measure of exchange for other goods and services. Supply of resources being constricted means that fiat currencies will go up over time. That doesn't mean that economic growth is infinite.
    - orthecreedence 11y ago
      > Dollar, yen, euro, bitcoin(!) have no direct relation to resources. Made up numbers (ie the value of the dollar, bitcoin, etc) need to be reconciled at some point. The value doesn't come from nowhere. If the bitcoin value GOES UP it's because people are putting money into it. The price doesn't go down when people buy it, it goes up. That's a currency exchange, it's not creating value from nothing. That's what I'm referring to as a "resource." Not just iron or silicon. The entire 2008 crash happened because people were trying to create massive amounts of value from nothing. The idea that any system needs resources to grow isn't an opinion, it's a universal constant.
  - vlehto 11y ago
    There is nothing American about it. Global sum of all GDP's has grown for all recorded history. Even if inflation adjusted. If you mean that GPD can't grow "infinitely" as infinitely high value, then I agree. If you claim it can't grow for infinitely long time, well at some point sun is going to swallow earth or heath death happens, I agree again. If you claim that GDP doesn't necessarily grow exponentially, I agree again. I'd say the last one is even likely. But my point was that there is no known inherent phenomena, that would force economic growth to end in the timescale of human life. End of oil could be it, or it could be offset with different energy sources, different types of consumption and more energy efficiency.
    - orthecreedence 11y ago
      I see your point and I think you and me may have different ideas of what growth means. To my credit, wrt "growth" I was referring to GP's comment "Endless growth is impossible" which doesn't mean GDP inherently, and the statement is true as far as "if a system is growing, it needs growing resources to support itself." Sure, if we convert to solar and maintain our population, then we can sustain ourselves until the sun explodes, but that is not growth no matter what our GDP says. My point is that if GDP, as a measure, somehow indicates that economic growth can be sustained indefinitely (barring acts of God of course) then it is flawed.
      - vlehto 11y ago
        GDP is very much flawed in the sense of "how much humanity has achieved". You need some kind of moral framework for that. And I really don't think you can go with money = good. And you might also need some kind of better measure for achievement as separate from ethics. But it's answering a completely different question. It's trying to answer the question "has the system we call economy optimized itself during the time span we are looking". The "optimized" here is referring to Pareto efficiency more than anything else. But GDP is not that good tool even for this. I chose it to have something definite to discuss. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency Personally I see capitalism as quite shitty tool for distributing and managing resources. But in globalized and interconnected world we have to operate in low trust environment. With such mutual lack of trust, capitalism is suddenly the best possible system for doing stuff. EDIT: Theoretically perceived value can be added to system with constant amount of resources. You would probably gladly pay 10$ for very fine stamped shovel that light weight. If there is 15$ crude, rusty, heavy welded shovel right next to it, it doesn't look all that appealing. You normally don't perceive situations like this because the system is working so well. Any product out there could be optimized for slightly less material usage while not making it worse in any way, that would directly increase the profit margin. That would show in GDP. Currently we don't do that, because engineers are busy doing other stuff. But if there would be price increase in materials, the picture changes automatically.

Endless growth is impossible.

by anon4 11y ago

Endless growth is impossible.

anti-shill 11y ago

and some forms of growth are akin to cancer

vlehto 11y ago

Generally "Physical growth" and "GDP growth" are not really similar. A number can grow infinitely. Tree or human population can not. GDP approximates perceived value prodced by society. In capitalism, saying GDP cannot grow anymore is essentially saying humans don't want anything you can buy with money to be better in any perceivable way. Give average guy huge amount of money, if he burns it for shits and giggles, then GDP cannot grow anymore.

orthecreedence 11y ago
> Generally "Physical growth" and "GDP growth" are not really similar. No, two different things. But just the same, neither can grow infinitely. > A number can grow infinitely. Especially if it's a measure of a scale that's constantly adjusting itself. Your explanation of economic growth sounds like how American capitalists justify the existence of growth economies. Economic growth cannot be infinite, just like physical growth. Economic growth depends on resources just like any other kind of growth. When the resources run out, the everything stops. You can't math your way out of that. The only way to sustain our current economic burn at our current (and growing) population is to move off-planet.
- ingas 11y ago
  > Economic growth depends on resources That's a point from ... long past. Dollar, yen, euro, bitcoin(!) have no direct relation to resources. So, I agree with your opponent that economic growth is not limited in principle.
  - will_pseudonym 11y ago
    Real economic growth (NB: inflation adjusted) cannot grow infinitely. In fact, growth of the value of the currencies you've listed points instead to the finite nature of resources, since they have no intrinsic value, except as a measure of exchange for other goods and services. Supply of resources being constricted means that fiat currencies will go up over time. That doesn't mean that economic growth is infinite.
  - orthecreedence 11y ago
    > Dollar, yen, euro, bitcoin(!) have no direct relation to resources. Made up numbers (ie the value of the dollar, bitcoin, etc) need to be reconciled at some point. The value doesn't come from nowhere. If the bitcoin value GOES UP it's because people are putting money into it. The price doesn't go down when people buy it, it goes up. That's a currency exchange, it's not creating value from nothing. That's what I'm referring to as a "resource." Not just iron or silicon. The entire 2008 crash happened because people were trying to create massive amounts of value from nothing. The idea that any system needs resources to grow isn't an opinion, it's a universal constant.
- vlehto 11y ago
  There is nothing American about it. Global sum of all GDP's has grown for all recorded history. Even if inflation adjusted. If you mean that GPD can't grow "infinitely" as infinitely high value, then I agree. If you claim it can't grow for infinitely long time, well at some point sun is going to swallow earth or heath death happens, I agree again. If you claim that GDP doesn't necessarily grow exponentially, I agree again. I'd say the last one is even likely. But my point was that there is no known inherent phenomena, that would force economic growth to end in the timescale of human life. End of oil could be it, or it could be offset with different energy sources, different types of consumption and more energy efficiency.
  - orthecreedence 11y ago
    I see your point and I think you and me may have different ideas of what growth means. To my credit, wrt "growth" I was referring to GP's comment "Endless growth is impossible" which doesn't mean GDP inherently, and the statement is true as far as "if a system is growing, it needs growing resources to support itself." Sure, if we convert to solar and maintain our population, then we can sustain ourselves until the sun explodes, but that is not growth no matter what our GDP says. My point is that if GDP, as a measure, somehow indicates that economic growth can be sustained indefinitely (barring acts of God of course) then it is flawed.
    - vlehto 11y ago
      GDP is very much flawed in the sense of "how much humanity has achieved". You need some kind of moral framework for that. And I really don't think you can go with money = good. And you might also need some kind of better measure for achievement as separate from ethics. But it's answering a completely different question. It's trying to answer the question "has the system we call economy optimized itself during the time span we are looking". The "optimized" here is referring to Pareto efficiency more than anything else. But GDP is not that good tool even for this. I chose it to have something definite to discuss. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency Personally I see capitalism as quite shitty tool for distributing and managing resources. But in globalized and interconnected world we have to operate in low trust environment. With such mutual lack of trust, capitalism is suddenly the best possible system for doing stuff. EDIT: Theoretically perceived value can be added to system with constant amount of resources. You would probably gladly pay 10$ for very fine stamped shovel that light weight. If there is 15$ crude, rusty, heavy welded shovel right next to it, it doesn't look all that appealing. You normally don't perceive situations like this because the system is working so well. Any product out there could be optimized for slightly less material usage while not making it worse in any way, that would directly increase the profit margin. That would show in GDP. Currently we don't do that, because engineers are busy doing other stuff. But if there would be price increase in materials, the picture changes automatically.