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It depends what you call and measure as value. If it’s production or goods, there’s obviously an upper limit. Even if in distant future, we begin assembling at

It depends what you call and measure as value. If it’s production or goods, there’s obviously an upper limit. Even if in distant future, we begin assembling atoms into making novel rare elements, all that process consumes energy and possibly would produce waste. Production is not free. In the exponential limit, we will hit some constraint. If we are talking about services, we should realise that even they cost energy. Even if we tomorrow think that long distance travel will be replaced by VR, production and delivery of such experiences cost energy. Fundamental argument is then about energy. Can we keep harnessing it infinitely? No. Even if we make energy efficient processes, Jevon’s paradox suggests we will simply start using more energy. The only way physical limits can be respected is by limiting the growth of economy and population. (Otherwise if we keep printing money without increase in production, it isn’t really economic growth)

cinquemb 7y ago
> Fundamental argument is then about energy. Can we keep harnessing it infinitely? No. Even if we make energy efficient processes, Jevon’s paradox suggests we will simply start using more energy. The thing about infinity is that while it is a limit, it can always be approached based on ones understanding. And I would not state that our knowledge and application of energy collection/generation (and even energy itself) is fairly limited. >The only way physical limits can be respected is by limiting the growth of economy and population. (Otherwise if we keep printing money without increase in production, it isn’t really economic growth) I disagree (and debt monetization != printing money), naturally markets and systems will correct. They always have, even when people try to distort it and keep them from correcting.
- paraschopra 7y ago
  >naturally markets and systems will correct. Markets and systems obviously correct, but the key question is at what cost and to whom. Imagine for a moment that we find ourselves in a situation where energy is limited. Markets will correct themselves by making it expensive, but who'll suffer the most is the poor (while markets might have been reacting to overconsumption by the rich). Saying markets will correct themselves is like saying things sort out themselves. They do, but usually who takes a hit isn't fair and ethical (as was evident by 2008 crisis).
Kalium 7y ago
> If it’s production or goods, there’s obviously an upper limit. Is there? I have a difficult time imagining any meaningful inherent upper limit to the value of creative works. Perhaps you intend a narrower point?
- paraschopra 7y ago
  Creative works are ultimately embedded in physical world. If our exploitable physical world is limited, there is indeed an upper limit to the value of creative works. Just like we're facing the prospect of peak oil, is it really hard to imagine that we could face the prospect of physical limitations imposing themselves upon creation and distribution of creative works?
  - Kalium 7y ago
    You're absolutely right. The limits of the physical world certainly impose limits on the physical creation and distribution of creative works. With that said, is it perhaps possible that creation and distribution might not quite be the same as value in every scenario? A given mass of aluminum can be formed - and recycled - into a functionally infinite series of unique artistic works. I can see no reason why the hard limits of the physical world you so wisely point to would inherently force an upper limit on the value of the artwork. Have I misinterpreted you? Or perhaps I fail to understand your points correctly. Can you help me? I seem to have suffered a failure of imagination.
ThrustVectoring 7y ago
Yes, in current and recent economic regimes, the primary way of providing more value is simply by doing more of the similar valuable work. Instead of manual production of a shirt, a factory worker makes orders of magnitude more. Increasingly though, modern economies are shifting away from this sort of work. Instead of the energy-constrained primary and secondary sectors, more things are being done on the knowledge and attention-constrained tertiary sectors. Like, economic growth through giving people better advice is much less energy constrained than you're suggesting. There's still some limits, but overall it's not something that needs anything as drastic as economic growth limits for their own sake.
- paraschopra 7y ago
  Yes, it is true that providing a service or an information consumes less energy than materials. The real issue though is not about absolute amount of energy. The author is talking about exponential growth - the one where every year economy must grow as a percentage of existing base. At any base, even with a majority service based economy, exponential growth will hit a bottle neck. For example, take this (from https://www.energuide.be/en/questions-answers/do-i-emit-co2-when-i-surf-the-internet/69/ https://www.energuide.be/en/questions-answers/do-i-emit-co2-...) >In 2018, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) account for 6 to 10% of global electricity consumption, or 4% of our greenhouse gas emissions. And this figure increases by 5 to 7% each year! This year-on-year growth is unsustainable, no matter how small the base. At 7% growth, the greenhouse emissions will double every 10 years. We're really bad at wrapping our heads around exponential growth. The argument that we will find more energy efficient ways to do a certain activity misses the point because for a growing economy, even that efficiency gains will get outstripped by scale. And there's Jevon's paradox too whereby efficiency actually increases resource consumption. So as Internet bandwidth expands, it's not like per-capita Internet usage remained the same. We simply increased our hunger to consume the available bandwidth.
  - ThrustVectoring 7y ago
    I'm well aware of exponential growth, and I'm not talking about energy efficiency. I'm talking about how economic growth is not fundamentally coupled with the material resources we consume. Like, for a long time, food production was pretty well coupled with population - if you figured out how to grow more food in your country, you'd increase its population but not its living standards. That got disconnected in the industrial revolution, and the link between your standard of living and energy consumption is increasingly getting disconnected today in modern economies.

cinquemb 7y ago

> Fundamental argument is then about energy. Can we keep harnessing it infinitely? No. Even if we make energy efficient processes, Jevon’s paradox suggests we will simply start using more energy. The thing about infinity is that while it is a limit, it can always be approached based on ones understanding. And I would not state that our knowledge and application of energy collection/generation (and even energy itself) is fairly limited. >The only way physical limits can be respected is by limiting the growth of economy and population. (Otherwise if we keep printing money without increase in production, it isn’t really economic growth) I disagree (and debt monetization != printing money), naturally markets and systems will correct. They always have, even when people try to distort it and keep them from correcting.

paraschopra 7y ago
>naturally markets and systems will correct. Markets and systems obviously correct, but the key question is at what cost and to whom. Imagine for a moment that we find ourselves in a situation where energy is limited. Markets will correct themselves by making it expensive, but who'll suffer the most is the poor (while markets might have been reacting to overconsumption by the rich). Saying markets will correct themselves is like saying things sort out themselves. They do, but usually who takes a hit isn't fair and ethical (as was evident by 2008 crisis).

Kalium 7y ago

> If it’s production or goods, there’s obviously an upper limit. Is there? I have a difficult time imagining any meaningful inherent upper limit to the value of creative works. Perhaps you intend a narrower point?

paraschopra 7y ago
Creative works are ultimately embedded in physical world. If our exploitable physical world is limited, there is indeed an upper limit to the value of creative works. Just like we're facing the prospect of peak oil, is it really hard to imagine that we could face the prospect of physical limitations imposing themselves upon creation and distribution of creative works?
- Kalium 7y ago
  You're absolutely right. The limits of the physical world certainly impose limits on the physical creation and distribution of creative works. With that said, is it perhaps possible that creation and distribution might not quite be the same as value in every scenario? A given mass of aluminum can be formed - and recycled - into a functionally infinite series of unique artistic works. I can see no reason why the hard limits of the physical world you so wisely point to would inherently force an upper limit on the value of the artwork. Have I misinterpreted you? Or perhaps I fail to understand your points correctly. Can you help me? I seem to have suffered a failure of imagination.

ThrustVectoring 7y ago

Yes, in current and recent economic regimes, the primary way of providing more value is simply by doing more of the similar valuable work. Instead of manual production of a shirt, a factory worker makes orders of magnitude more. Increasingly though, modern economies are shifting away from this sort of work. Instead of the energy-constrained primary and secondary sectors, more things are being done on the knowledge and attention-constrained tertiary sectors. Like, economic growth through giving people better advice is much less energy constrained than you're suggesting. There's still some limits, but overall it's not something that needs anything as drastic as economic growth limits for their own sake.

paraschopra 7y ago
Yes, it is true that providing a service or an information consumes less energy than materials. The real issue though is not about absolute amount of energy. The author is talking about exponential growth - the one where every year economy must grow as a percentage of existing base. At any base, even with a majority service based economy, exponential growth will hit a bottle neck. For example, take this (from https://www.energuide.be/en/questions-answers/do-i-emit-co2-when-i-surf-the-internet/69/ https://www.energuide.be/en/questions-answers/do-i-emit-co2-...) >In 2018, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) account for 6 to 10% of global electricity consumption, or 4% of our greenhouse gas emissions. And this figure increases by 5 to 7% each year! This year-on-year growth is unsustainable, no matter how small the base. At 7% growth, the greenhouse emissions will double every 10 years. We're really bad at wrapping our heads around exponential growth. The argument that we will find more energy efficient ways to do a certain activity misses the point because for a growing economy, even that efficiency gains will get outstripped by scale. And there's Jevon's paradox too whereby efficiency actually increases resource consumption. So as Internet bandwidth expands, it's not like per-capita Internet usage remained the same. We simply increased our hunger to consume the available bandwidth.
- ThrustVectoring 7y ago
  I'm well aware of exponential growth, and I'm not talking about energy efficiency. I'm talking about how economic growth is not fundamentally coupled with the material resources we consume. Like, for a long time, food production was pretty well coupled with population - if you figured out how to grow more food in your country, you'd increase its population but not its living standards. That got disconnected in the industrial revolution, and the link between your standard of living and energy consumption is increasingly getting disconnected today in modern economies.