3 ms·

Thats a bit of a straw man. Most people even Pinker would agree that there are limits to growth they just don't agree that we are currently at the limit.

dredmorbius 9y ago
Julian Simon. Herman Kahn. John Maddox. William Nordhaus. Thomas Piketty. Paul Krugman. Milton Friedman. Christine Lagarde. M.A. Adleman. Robert Rubin. Robert Bryce. Stewart Brand. Ray Kurzweil. Michael Lynch. Robert L. Bradley. Peter Huber. Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize in Economics, 1976, also awarded the National Medal of Science (1988), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1988), and the John Bates Clark Medal (1951)), in "The Energy Crisis: A Humane Solution", 1977: You will all recall ["Limits to Growth"] was a report in which engineers were saying we have finite resources -- a finite amount of coal, a finite amount of space, and so on and so on; things grow at exponential rates, and so long as things grow at exponential rates they are ultimately going to become infinite; and since resources, are finite, we're going to bump into it and therefore we are faced with a terrible future in which sooner or later we are going to run out, of steel or coal or whatever you want to name. We're going to run out, and we really have to adjust our sights; we can no longer take the view that we can have growth forever; we must recognize that there are, in their title, limits to growth and reconcile ourselves.... Now this approach, whether adopted by the Club of Rome or by Mr. Schumacher or by the CED, is completely wrong. The plain fact is that from an economic point of view the volume of resources available to us is larger today than it has ever been in history. We are less dependent today on natural resources than we have ever been. http://0055d26.netsolhost.com/friedman/pdfs/other_commentary/BP.1978.1.pdf http://0055d26.netsolhost.com/friedman/pdfs/other_commentary... (I've made a small hobby of collecting all the action figures: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=cornucopians&restrict_sr=on https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=cornucopians&r...)
- ThomPete 9y ago
  "The plain fact is that from an economic point of view" Thats a different discussion than the one I read the parent talking about.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    You're welcome to read Friedman's remarks in full to see that, as I understand your comments, it isn't.
dredmorbius 9y ago
Or a peer comment to yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16930843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16930843 https://web.archive.org/web/20180426113749/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16930843 https://web.archive.org/web/20180426113749/https://news.ycom...

dredmorbius 9y ago

Julian Simon. Herman Kahn. John Maddox. William Nordhaus. Thomas Piketty. Paul Krugman. Milton Friedman. Christine Lagarde. M.A. Adleman. Robert Rubin. Robert Bryce. Stewart Brand. Ray Kurzweil. Michael Lynch. Robert L. Bradley. Peter Huber. Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize in Economics, 1976, also awarded the National Medal of Science (1988), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1988), and the John Bates Clark Medal (1951)), in "The Energy Crisis: A Humane Solution", 1977: You will all recall ["Limits to Growth"] was a report in which engineers were saying we have finite resources -- a finite amount of coal, a finite amount of space, and so on and so on; things grow at exponential rates, and so long as things grow at exponential rates they are ultimately going to become infinite; and since resources, are finite, we're going to bump into it and therefore we are faced with a terrible future in which sooner or later we are going to run out, of steel or coal or whatever you want to name. We're going to run out, and we really have to adjust our sights; we can no longer take the view that we can have growth forever; we must recognize that there are, in their title, limits to growth and reconcile ourselves.... Now this approach, whether adopted by the Club of Rome or by Mr. Schumacher or by the CED, is completely wrong. The plain fact is that from an economic point of view the volume of resources available to us is larger today than it has ever been in history. We are less dependent today on natural resources than we have ever been. http://0055d26.netsolhost.com/friedman/pdfs/other_commentary/BP.1978.1.pdf http://0055d26.netsolhost.com/friedman/pdfs/other_commentary... (I've made a small hobby of collecting all the action figures: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=cornucopians&restrict_sr=on https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=cornucopians&r...)

ThomPete 9y ago
"The plain fact is that from an economic point of view" Thats a different discussion than the one I read the parent talking about.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  You're welcome to read Friedman's remarks in full to see that, as I understand your comments, it isn't.

dredmorbius 9y ago

Or a peer comment to yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16930843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16930843 https://web.archive.org/web/20180426113749/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16930843 https://web.archive.org/web/20180426113749/https://news.ycom...