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A lot of charts and napkin math to reach an obvious conclusion. Better discussion would be, "A) Why do we worship GDP, and B) how do we stop?" My own answers
by jstewartmobile 7y ago
A lot of charts and napkin math to reach an obvious conclusion. Better discussion would be, "A) Why do we worship GDP, and B) how do we stop?"
My own answers (shared as a starting point rather than a destination) would be:
A)
- old westerners are really attached to the pensions they promised themselves
- marginally-skilled people prefer the illusion of agency offered by employment over being total dependents of the state
- people who have never experienced certain products and services attach much more value to them than those who already have--new toy vs old hat.
- plutocrats are very interested in keeping the machine well-oiled so that they may enjoy their lives in peace and keep the guillotine at bay.
and B)
- short of civilizational collapse, I'm not sure that we can.
- paganel 7y agoThe elephant in the room is the continual neglect or the downright (intellectual) hate shown to anyone who had dared mention Malthus in the last 25-30 years (his thoughts had a bit of intellectual resurgence in the 1970s, but that was pretty much it). It seems like in the last 2 or 3 years we have tried and tried to reach his same conclusions in very convoluted ways, ignoring his very existence. The good thing at least is that some of us have at last reached the conclusion that some sort of planet-wide environmental growth limits have been reached, even that wasn't the case until not that long ago, when any mention of a possible limit was met with "we'll technologically surpass that, we always have".
- jstewartmobile 7y agoMalthus is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many "forbidden charts" that people can lose their jobs over these days! Outside of global warming--all we plebes get are Pinker-nuggets on how everything is just fine.
- enugu 7y agoCurious. Care to give some examples?