4 ms·

It's sad how anything but continuous growth is "bad".

Qwertious 9y ago
It's bad for the companies. This is bad for us because companies can become political lobbying parasites. Assuming they aren't parasites already.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
Rising living standards are bad? Growth doesn’t have to consume more material resources. (Computation and thus energy, on the other hand, it probably does.)
- opencl 9y ago
  This is literally an article about how improvements in energy efficiency are preventing growth of utility company profits.
ThomPete 9y ago
I don't think you want to live in a society that doesn't grow.
- croon 9y ago
  There's a finite need for ovens, or lamps, or whatever. In some countries, I'm sure that need isn't met, maybe everywhere, who knows. But at some point you can't sell more product than what breaks down and needs replacing, which I would call maintenance mode, not growth. At that point, you either start designing obsolescence into the products (arguably already done in both lamps and other various electric appliances), or you need to disrupt the industry to supply something worth replacing to, or you (or at least a majority of the workers) move to another industry where growth can happen. I absolutely don't want to live in a society where electricity needs grow in perpetuity, or every house gets more and more lamps "just cuz". The end goal for any company should be monopoly in their market, at which point they slash their workforce to just keep the market, and divest into another market (where they can then employ the workers again).
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    Growth isn't just about consumerism it's about human flourishing. We grow not just because we produce things we grow because we get better and better at using the resources around us which provide more flourishing for more and more humans. Without growth we can't do that as we won't have the surplus to invent and invest in new technologies. Improve medicine, explore space, optimize production methods, invent new energy method etc. for more and more people. Those require growth.
    - croon 9y ago
      I don't think that definition applies to what you initially responded to though, as it was about the utilities market. Other than the definition, I agree with what you're saying.
      - ThomPete 9y ago
        I understand that but I don't think you can isolate the two.
- spodek 9y ago
  I recently finished reading Affluence Without Abundance, about bushmen in Southern Africa https://www.amazon.com/Affluence-Without-Abundance-Disappearing-Bushmen/dp/1632865726 https://www.amazon.com/Affluence-Without-Abundance-Disappear.... Their culture survived stably without growth for over 100,000 years. They enjoyed more leisure time with less work than us. By contrast, in under 250 years since Adam Smith our culture's growth is trashing the planet in nearly every place we measure. The Growth Delusion develops and documents problems with growth further https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Delusion-Poverty-Well-Being-Nations/dp/0525572503 https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Delusion-Poverty-Well-Being-Na.... Many times we make an advance like, say, anesthetics, growth leads to things like opioid epidemics. You can live how you want, but you may want to reconsider what sounds like an unqualified faith in a pattern that may have worked when we had a lot of empty planet to expand into, but creates problems when we learn that we don't any more.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    But they didn't live very long, they died from natural catastrophes, they lived extremely simple lives and most likely in complete ignorance of the world around them, weren't that many of them, if an asteroid had come to hit them they would be wiped out with any chance of doing anything about it and most of importantly, don't live in a world like that any because the same humans that the book seems to glorify evolved into us. So that's kind of a moot point. Also keep in mind it's the same kind of bushmen that would use fire to burn huge parts of vegation. The fact is that we have gotten increasingly better and better at converting the earth's resources into serving our needs and have been able to effectively optimize and improve our ability to get more out of less. Most importantly wherever you see humans flourish and get wealthy enough the environment improve because we start to care about it and get the power to do something about it. Humans didn't use to live in harmony with nature, they used to live in fear of nature. Mother nature is brutal to humans and it's only because we have gotten better and better at controlling it that humans could flourish. I am unconvinced that minimizing our impact on nature is the moral thing to do and unconvinced that what we are doing right now is by any metrics worse than what those bushmen did. Too many people romanticize humans relationship with nature.
    - 9y ago

It's bad for the companies. This is bad for us because companies can become political lobbying parasites. Assuming they aren't parasites already.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

Rising living standards are bad? Growth doesn’t have to consume more material resources. (Computation and thus energy, on the other hand, it probably does.)

opencl 9y ago
This is literally an article about how improvements in energy efficiency are preventing growth of utility company profits.

ThomPete 9y ago

I don't think you want to live in a society that doesn't grow.

croon 9y ago
There's a finite need for ovens, or lamps, or whatever. In some countries, I'm sure that need isn't met, maybe everywhere, who knows. But at some point you can't sell more product than what breaks down and needs replacing, which I would call maintenance mode, not growth. At that point, you either start designing obsolescence into the products (arguably already done in both lamps and other various electric appliances), or you need to disrupt the industry to supply something worth replacing to, or you (or at least a majority of the workers) move to another industry where growth can happen. I absolutely don't want to live in a society where electricity needs grow in perpetuity, or every house gets more and more lamps "just cuz". The end goal for any company should be monopoly in their market, at which point they slash their workforce to just keep the market, and divest into another market (where they can then employ the workers again).
- ThomPete 9y ago
  Growth isn't just about consumerism it's about human flourishing. We grow not just because we produce things we grow because we get better and better at using the resources around us which provide more flourishing for more and more humans. Without growth we can't do that as we won't have the surplus to invent and invest in new technologies. Improve medicine, explore space, optimize production methods, invent new energy method etc. for more and more people. Those require growth.
  - croon 9y ago
    I don't think that definition applies to what you initially responded to though, as it was about the utilities market. Other than the definition, I agree with what you're saying.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      I understand that but I don't think you can isolate the two.
spodek 9y ago
I recently finished reading Affluence Without Abundance, about bushmen in Southern Africa https://www.amazon.com/Affluence-Without-Abundance-Disappearing-Bushmen/dp/1632865726 https://www.amazon.com/Affluence-Without-Abundance-Disappear.... Their culture survived stably without growth for over 100,000 years. They enjoyed more leisure time with less work than us. By contrast, in under 250 years since Adam Smith our culture's growth is trashing the planet in nearly every place we measure. The Growth Delusion develops and documents problems with growth further https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Delusion-Poverty-Well-Being-Nations/dp/0525572503 https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Delusion-Poverty-Well-Being-Na.... Many times we make an advance like, say, anesthetics, growth leads to things like opioid epidemics. You can live how you want, but you may want to reconsider what sounds like an unqualified faith in a pattern that may have worked when we had a lot of empty planet to expand into, but creates problems when we learn that we don't any more.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  But they didn't live very long, they died from natural catastrophes, they lived extremely simple lives and most likely in complete ignorance of the world around them, weren't that many of them, if an asteroid had come to hit them they would be wiped out with any chance of doing anything about it and most of importantly, don't live in a world like that any because the same humans that the book seems to glorify evolved into us. So that's kind of a moot point. Also keep in mind it's the same kind of bushmen that would use fire to burn huge parts of vegation. The fact is that we have gotten increasingly better and better at converting the earth's resources into serving our needs and have been able to effectively optimize and improve our ability to get more out of less. Most importantly wherever you see humans flourish and get wealthy enough the environment improve because we start to care about it and get the power to do something about it. Humans didn't use to live in harmony with nature, they used to live in fear of nature. Mother nature is brutal to humans and it's only because we have gotten better and better at controlling it that humans could flourish. I am unconvinced that minimizing our impact on nature is the moral thing to do and unconvinced that what we are doing right now is by any metrics worse than what those bushmen did. Too many people romanticize humans relationship with nature.
  - 9y ago