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Do you also mean AI, space flight, genome research, evolution of computing, etc? Also - I agree that growth in the first world came at the expense of the middl

Do you also mean AI, space flight, genome research, evolution of computing, etc? Also - I agree that growth in the first world came at the expense of the middle class - but in much of the rest of the world, it didn't. I was _massively_ poorer 20 years ago (and not just me, most of my country, really). And it's not a singular thing - AFAIK a lot of people came out of poverty in those last 20 years. In east asia & pacific this seems to have been dramatic: https://ourworldindata.org/exports/share-of-population-living-in-extreme-poverty-by-world-region_v4_850x600.svg https://ourworldindata.org/exports/share-of-population-livin...

rbrtl 7y ago
I think you know OP didn't mean those: > Except medical advances and science, I'd be all willing to trade ALL the economic "growth" I don't understand if you're making a larger point or not, but the "first world" is the focus of the discussion of whether or not growth economics is harmful. It worked fantastically well for the first world for many years, possibly even the 200 year scale that the commenter above challenged. The issues have arisen in the last 50 years (opinion incoming) and particularly since the US, and UK embraced the Trickle Down model that Reagan pulled over the American people's eyes. Western Civilisation spent some 600 years taking their freedoms from those who held them down -- the politically, and economically, elite. In 8 years President Reagan convinced the American people that these overlords no longer needed to be held account for taking the bulk of the wealth of the masses for themselves, on a promise that it would come back to them, and that this was a required measure to encourage growth of the economy as a whole. This was a bald-faced lie, wealth-capture and the chasm of wealth inequality was at an all time low in the developed world circa 1970, the last 50 years have served only to restore the land- and robber-barons to their political city on a hill. They used the oldest tools in the despots handbook to achieve this: propaganda and agents provocateurs. Today it is easier than ever for the political class to deploy these weapons against their citizens (whom, by the way, should be their peers in a democracy), and to obfuscate the use of these tools from those worst affected.
- thu2111 7y ago
  Problem is that view is contradictory. In the absence of discovering a natural resource bounty, GDP (economic) growth comes from two sources: 1. More people working harder. 2. Better technology. If you exclude "medical advances and science" you're basically excluding (2) which means the only source of growth is (1). More people working harder. Saying the world can only get better by increasing the number of hours we work is dystopian and doesn't make sense to wish for. Ultimately, all progress comes through technology.
  - zemvpferreira 7y ago
    That's a big claim you're making. Can't economic growth (AKA inflation) come about from rising asset prices such as houses? It seems to me that conflating humanity's progress and economic growth is exactly where our problems start.
    - raducu 7y ago
      How is a rise in house prices helping the nobler parts of the economy? People spend considerable more of their income on mortgages or rents, leaving a lot less for other less fixed and shorter lived assets. I'd be 1000% satisfied with a 50' house and valuation, leaving me to spend my money on travel, charity, high-tech or just work less, do stuff that really interests me; or spend a lot more on education. How is the education bubble helping the progress of humanity? I'd be extremely happy with the education + costs of 50 years ago, or just online education -- I'm not talking about content, but delivery and costs. It boggles my mind that people don't see it for what it is -- the feudal lords are back and they take a lot more of your production just so you stay alive. They are not helping humanity(except for some benevolent ones) progress, they 99% help themselves.
      - zemvpferreira 7y ago
        Sorry if the language wasn’t clear but that is the point I was trying to make: when we use economic growth as a measure of improving quality of life for people, it ceases to be a good measure.
scottlocklin 7y ago
Has there been some enormous breakthrough in any of these things "AI, space flight, genome research, evolution of computing" in the last 20 years? Pretty sure there hasn't been! I mean, Pentiums are faster I guess! Not as different as people seem to think though. Otherwise; nothingburgers for anybody's real world experience. Space flight has arguably gotten worse in the West over the last 20. Environment has gotten obviously shittier since then; looks like a good trade to me!
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  AI: has become actually useful over the last 20 years. Of course if you only use it for adtech and arbitrage the world doesn't see much benefit. genome research: CRISPR etc. space flight: reusability is a massive game changer. The Falcon 9 once they start reliably catching the fairings is about 90% reusable. The Falcon 9 makes things like constellations of 12,000 satellites feasible. The Starship is planning on 100% reusability which will reduce costs a futher couple of orders of magnitude. Elon is talking about sending 1000 Starships to Mars every 2 years in about a decade, and people are starting to learn that Elon might not be as crazy as people originally thought... Environment: not so obviously shittier. For example, tree coverage has increased by 7% in the last 35 years. In general local environments in developed countries have gotten a lot cleaner. The global environment on the other hand suffers a massive tragedy of the commons type problem so it overshadows massively local improvements. So yes, you can say the environment has gotten worse, but it isn't "obviously" so.
  - scottlocklin 7y ago
    I work in machine learning: your statement is questionable -it worked fine 20 years ago. DL is nowhere near the "breakthrough" people act like it is; the actual real world applications of it that non mentats might use appear to be the null set. And yeah, I don't count the corporate propaganda material about "autonomous cars" or whatever to be evidence to the contrary. Genome research: so far a big nothing burger. Zero impacts on average people's daily lives. The entirety of genome research results on the real world seems to be enabling people to eat more sugar without dying. Space flight reusability: dude, where's my space shuttle? Falcoln 9 isn't reusable when using its actual cargo capacity, and isn't cost effective when it is reusable; no game changer there. Neat trick though and it certainly looked cool. Environment getting better: citations needed. Doom porn abounds at the very least. Maybe they're all lying about melting polar caps, plastic in the oceans and insane levels of chemicals in the eco system.

rbrtl 7y ago

I think you know OP didn't mean those: > Except medical advances and science, I'd be all willing to trade ALL the economic "growth" I don't understand if you're making a larger point or not, but the "first world" is the focus of the discussion of whether or not growth economics is harmful. It worked fantastically well for the first world for many years, possibly even the 200 year scale that the commenter above challenged. The issues have arisen in the last 50 years (opinion incoming) and particularly since the US, and UK embraced the Trickle Down model that Reagan pulled over the American people's eyes. Western Civilisation spent some 600 years taking their freedoms from those who held them down -- the politically, and economically, elite. In 8 years President Reagan convinced the American people that these overlords no longer needed to be held account for taking the bulk of the wealth of the masses for themselves, on a promise that it would come back to them, and that this was a required measure to encourage growth of the economy as a whole. This was a bald-faced lie, wealth-capture and the chasm of wealth inequality was at an all time low in the developed world circa 1970, the last 50 years have served only to restore the land- and robber-barons to their political city on a hill. They used the oldest tools in the despots handbook to achieve this: propaganda and agents provocateurs. Today it is easier than ever for the political class to deploy these weapons against their citizens (whom, by the way, should be their peers in a democracy), and to obfuscate the use of these tools from those worst affected.

thu2111 7y ago
Problem is that view is contradictory. In the absence of discovering a natural resource bounty, GDP (economic) growth comes from two sources: 1. More people working harder. 2. Better technology. If you exclude "medical advances and science" you're basically excluding (2) which means the only source of growth is (1). More people working harder. Saying the world can only get better by increasing the number of hours we work is dystopian and doesn't make sense to wish for. Ultimately, all progress comes through technology.
- zemvpferreira 7y ago
  That's a big claim you're making. Can't economic growth (AKA inflation) come about from rising asset prices such as houses? It seems to me that conflating humanity's progress and economic growth is exactly where our problems start.
  - raducu 7y ago
    How is a rise in house prices helping the nobler parts of the economy? People spend considerable more of their income on mortgages or rents, leaving a lot less for other less fixed and shorter lived assets. I'd be 1000% satisfied with a 50' house and valuation, leaving me to spend my money on travel, charity, high-tech or just work less, do stuff that really interests me; or spend a lot more on education. How is the education bubble helping the progress of humanity? I'd be extremely happy with the education + costs of 50 years ago, or just online education -- I'm not talking about content, but delivery and costs. It boggles my mind that people don't see it for what it is -- the feudal lords are back and they take a lot more of your production just so you stay alive. They are not helping humanity(except for some benevolent ones) progress, they 99% help themselves.
    - zemvpferreira 7y ago
      Sorry if the language wasn’t clear but that is the point I was trying to make: when we use economic growth as a measure of improving quality of life for people, it ceases to be a good measure.

scottlocklin 7y ago

Has there been some enormous breakthrough in any of these things "AI, space flight, genome research, evolution of computing" in the last 20 years? Pretty sure there hasn't been! I mean, Pentiums are faster I guess! Not as different as people seem to think though. Otherwise; nothingburgers for anybody's real world experience. Space flight has arguably gotten worse in the West over the last 20. Environment has gotten obviously shittier since then; looks like a good trade to me!

bryanlarsen 7y ago
AI: has become actually useful over the last 20 years. Of course if you only use it for adtech and arbitrage the world doesn't see much benefit. genome research: CRISPR etc. space flight: reusability is a massive game changer. The Falcon 9 once they start reliably catching the fairings is about 90% reusable. The Falcon 9 makes things like constellations of 12,000 satellites feasible. The Starship is planning on 100% reusability which will reduce costs a futher couple of orders of magnitude. Elon is talking about sending 1000 Starships to Mars every 2 years in about a decade, and people are starting to learn that Elon might not be as crazy as people originally thought... Environment: not so obviously shittier. For example, tree coverage has increased by 7% in the last 35 years. In general local environments in developed countries have gotten a lot cleaner. The global environment on the other hand suffers a massive tragedy of the commons type problem so it overshadows massively local improvements. So yes, you can say the environment has gotten worse, but it isn't "obviously" so.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  I work in machine learning: your statement is questionable -it worked fine 20 years ago. DL is nowhere near the "breakthrough" people act like it is; the actual real world applications of it that non mentats might use appear to be the null set. And yeah, I don't count the corporate propaganda material about "autonomous cars" or whatever to be evidence to the contrary. Genome research: so far a big nothing burger. Zero impacts on average people's daily lives. The entirety of genome research results on the real world seems to be enabling people to eat more sugar without dying. Space flight reusability: dude, where's my space shuttle? Falcoln 9 isn't reusable when using its actual cargo capacity, and isn't cost effective when it is reusable; no game changer there. Neat trick though and it certainly looked cool. Environment getting better: citations needed. Doom porn abounds at the very least. Maybe they're all lying about melting polar caps, plastic in the oceans and insane levels of chemicals in the eco system.