5 ms·

Low grow is good. You can't sustain growth forever.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
killjoywashere 8y ago
There's a "Talk at Google" about this. I think it's Douglas Rushkoff (1), who wrote Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus. Basicly, if you rethink the economy in terms of a global garden, where you're spatially bounded, you just have to accept that there's only so much carbon, silicon, water, etc. Paul Romer (Nobel Economics 2018, 2) has a similar point (again trying to recall a lecture here...): if you take all the copper in the world, you can only make so many circuits. So tech can only get you so far. There's some kind of upper bound on "just make more motors". Progress may well occur, but it will take innovations not yet foreseen. (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EnmH95016w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EnmH95016w (2) https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/romer/lecture/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/rom...
ggm 8y ago
The long-term rate of growth in financial investment is said to be 7% at best. For much of economic history the value of currency was so stable that agricultural workers pay as essentially unchanged across generations. Look at the chrts in http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/long_march_of_history.pdf http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/long_march...
crazygringo 8y ago
Can't you? Growth just means the human race getting smarter at being productive, so we can grow more food with less effort, get around in transportation with less cars and drivers, buy the things we need at lower prices and with less friction. You could argue that once literally everything is roboticized and automated with strong AI then there's no more growth... except humans will be looking for even better real-life experiences, better art, better teaching, better personal connections... and robots and technology will still evolve to be better designed, use less energy, use less resources... I'm not sure I can imagine a world in which people didn't want anything else to be improved that could possibly be improved, which is what a world with no growth would have to be.
- fallingfrog 8y ago
  We’re upright walking apes. If productivity in every other sector goes to infinity, you’re still left with raising your kids, eating meals, socializing with friends, and a few other things that humans just do for the same reason that fish swim and birds fly. At some point you’ve got to ask the question, what does productivity actually mean, when you’re talking about those kinds of activities. What is there to optimize?
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"You can't sustain growth forever." Of course you can. We've been doing for most of the last 2000 years, we'll keep doing it. Mostly.
- fallingfrog 8y ago
  Wrong. Learn how exponential functions work. Plug in 1.03^2000 and multiply by current gdp per person, tell me if that result makes sense.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    The question of 'finite resources' comes up a lot when it comes to growth, and the question essentially betrays a lack of understanding of what growth is. We can definitely grow by 3% per year forever, it's easy if you first consider we don't need any real material change for that to happen - it could just mean the 'numbers on our money change' i.e. just inflation. But more likely, there will be material progress and 'growth' for the next 2000 years, just as there was for the last 2000 years. (Mind you, most of it has been since the dawn of the industrial revolution). If you open your mind just a shade and consider how vastly the world has changed over the last 100 years alone, it's not hard to imagine how things could change in the next 100. I was alive when the internet went from nothing to 'world changing' and nobody - I mean nobody really guessed at the profound changes it would mean. There were a few thinkers who got a few things right, but nobody had the faintest idea. The same can be said for the dawn of the automobile/airplane one century ago. There are a few technologies on the horizon which could shatter our world view, namely quantum computing and fusion. Just to name two that we know of. We don't know if they will fly, but if they do, it will change everything. Quantum computing may imply de-facto near unlimited computing for everyone. Consider that Deep Learning was only on the chalkboard until we had cloud computing, imagine what we will be able to do when it takes 0.1 seconds for insanely complicated neural networks to 'learn'? If fission flies, it could mean unlimited energy for everyone. Imagine if the cost of electricity went to 0.0001 cents/kwh? What does that mean? It sounds crazy, but remember that 200 years ago, before the dawn of the industrial revolution, you did it 'by hand, or by horse' hence 'horsepower' as a unit of measure. When coal and machines came around it would be comparable to fission happening now - the world literally came out of the dark. Vast changes are afoot, and will be for a very long time as long as we wipe ourselves out by some series of stupid acts.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

There's a "Talk at Google" about this. I think it's Douglas Rushkoff (1), who wrote Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus. Basicly, if you rethink the economy in terms of a global garden, where you're spatially bounded, you just have to accept that there's only so much carbon, silicon, water, etc. Paul Romer (Nobel Economics 2018, 2) has a similar point (again trying to recall a lecture here...): if you take all the copper in the world, you can only make so many circuits. So tech can only get you so far. There's some kind of upper bound on "just make more motors". Progress may well occur, but it will take innovations not yet foreseen. (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EnmH95016w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EnmH95016w (2) https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/romer/lecture/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/rom...

ggm 8y ago

The long-term rate of growth in financial investment is said to be 7% at best. For much of economic history the value of currency was so stable that agricultural workers pay as essentially unchanged across generations. Look at the chrts in http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/long_march_of_history.pdf http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/long_march...

crazygringo 8y ago

Can't you? Growth just means the human race getting smarter at being productive, so we can grow more food with less effort, get around in transportation with less cars and drivers, buy the things we need at lower prices and with less friction. You could argue that once literally everything is roboticized and automated with strong AI then there's no more growth... except humans will be looking for even better real-life experiences, better art, better teaching, better personal connections... and robots and technology will still evolve to be better designed, use less energy, use less resources... I'm not sure I can imagine a world in which people didn't want anything else to be improved that could possibly be improved, which is what a world with no growth would have to be.

fallingfrog 8y ago
We’re upright walking apes. If productivity in every other sector goes to infinity, you’re still left with raising your kids, eating meals, socializing with friends, and a few other things that humans just do for the same reason that fish swim and birds fly. At some point you’ve got to ask the question, what does productivity actually mean, when you’re talking about those kinds of activities. What is there to optimize?

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"You can't sustain growth forever." Of course you can. We've been doing for most of the last 2000 years, we'll keep doing it. Mostly.

fallingfrog 8y ago
Wrong. Learn how exponential functions work. Plug in 1.03^2000 and multiply by current gdp per person, tell me if that result makes sense.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  The question of 'finite resources' comes up a lot when it comes to growth, and the question essentially betrays a lack of understanding of what growth is. We can definitely grow by 3% per year forever, it's easy if you first consider we don't need any real material change for that to happen - it could just mean the 'numbers on our money change' i.e. just inflation. But more likely, there will be material progress and 'growth' for the next 2000 years, just as there was for the last 2000 years. (Mind you, most of it has been since the dawn of the industrial revolution). If you open your mind just a shade and consider how vastly the world has changed over the last 100 years alone, it's not hard to imagine how things could change in the next 100. I was alive when the internet went from nothing to 'world changing' and nobody - I mean nobody really guessed at the profound changes it would mean. There were a few thinkers who got a few things right, but nobody had the faintest idea. The same can be said for the dawn of the automobile/airplane one century ago. There are a few technologies on the horizon which could shatter our world view, namely quantum computing and fusion. Just to name two that we know of. We don't know if they will fly, but if they do, it will change everything. Quantum computing may imply de-facto near unlimited computing for everyone. Consider that Deep Learning was only on the chalkboard until we had cloud computing, imagine what we will be able to do when it takes 0.1 seconds for insanely complicated neural networks to 'learn'? If fission flies, it could mean unlimited energy for everyone. Imagine if the cost of electricity went to 0.0001 cents/kwh? What does that mean? It sounds crazy, but remember that 200 years ago, before the dawn of the industrial revolution, you did it 'by hand, or by horse' hence 'horsepower' as a unit of measure. When coal and machines came around it would be comparable to fission happening now - the world literally came out of the dark. Vast changes are afoot, and will be for a very long time as long as we wipe ourselves out by some series of stupid acts.