5 ms·

"Growth" is now one of my most hated overused business lingo, after "innovation". Is it too naive to hope that this pandemic will make us collectively question

"Growth" is now one of my most hated overused business lingo, after "innovation". Is it too naive to hope that this pandemic will make us collectively question the value of creeds like growth for growth's sake?

qubex 7y ago
How can your hatred for any corporate lingo term outrank that reserved for the bulwarks ‘leverage’ and ‘synergy’? ‘Granularity’ is a big up-and-comer too.
- lvs 7y ago
  Let me circle back and touch base with you by EOD.
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    Do we show agreement with these horrors by upvoting or downvoting? These coded replies kill me and saying nothing would be more helpful.
    - qubex 7y ago
      “Thoughts and prayers”
      - iso1210 7y ago
        F
  - qubex 7y ago
    I’ve tried to reach out to you.
mjburgess 7y ago
To make it precise: growth is the next generation having a greater abundance than the current. If you care about global poverty, disease, famine etc. then you care about growth. Since we do not have levels of abundance which reach everyone even in rich societies, growth is everywhere a concern. To "question its value" is to say: since I have sufficient wealth, that'll do for the planet.
- Joeri 7y ago
  Well, let’s optimize for those things then. Right now growth mostly means making the rich richer. Trickle down economics have been discredited for a while. I wish governments would set quality of life targets instead of gdp targets. If you need to grow gdp to get to a better quality of life, fine, but please, let’s all stop spreading the lie that gdp growth inevitably leads to increased quality of life, because often it causes the reverse.
  - mjburgess 7y ago
    lol. What has happened to poor countries in the last 40 years, and why? Answer: unprecedented levels of poverty dropping. Unprecedented, in all history, improvements in quality of life. Why ? Because people buy things they make. it's that simple and it hasn't been "discredited ". Growth is that continuing. What has been discredited is that idea that whatever spare crumbs the west has is sufficient to divide up for the poor. Redistribution as a mechanism of substantial long term improvement is a (genocidal) sham. Discredited by the whole 20th century
    - Razengan 7y ago
      > Growth is that continuing. For how long? Until when? What is the endgame?
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        Until everyone on Earth is satisfied with their quality of life. Growth doesn't necessarily mean doing more, sometimes you can achieve growth by doing less. This will become a bigger focus in future.
        Razengan 7y ago
        > Until everyone on Earth is satisfied with their quality of life. And then what? How will you maintain that? And how much of other species' habitats would we ruin to achieve that in the first place? People may never be satisfied with their lives as long as they perceive inequality (real or imagined).
jasode 7y ago
>"Growth" is now one of my most hated overused business lingo, after "innovation". Is it too naive to hope that this pandemic will make us collectively question the value of creeds like growth for growth's sake? The "growth for growth's sake" is a thought-stopping meme. Let's unpack why that's an inaccurate reason for why companies do what they do and also why people who don't even work at those companies also care about growth. The commenter you responded mentioned Netflix and "growth". Remember that Netflix went public in 2002 with an IPO. When any company sells shares of ownership to investors, they're making a deal with society that if you buy their stock, your money will "grow". For investors' shares to become more valuable, Netflix has to grow new revenue, grow new profits, grow new markets, grow new products, etc. Why do so many public investors (and the so-called "investors" includes your grandparents' pensions, teachers/firemen retirements, etc) care about their money "growing"?!? Because they want to protect their future purchasing power. (My previous comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15728480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15728480) On other hand, if a family restaurant wants to just open one location with 20 tables and a payroll of 10 workers and just be a stable business that never grows, they wouldn't be able to sell public stock because nobody would buy it. There's nothing wrong with being a company that never grows -- but that's not the deal Netflix made with society. So to rewrite your question a different way which gets at the root of where the motivation of "growth" comes from... Are we questioning the value of companies "going public"? Or are we questioning the ideology of fiat-money "inflation"? How do we make your grandparents pensions not care about "growth"?!? That's very difficult to solve! There are also non-public entities that also want "growth". Countries like growth because it raises the standard-of-living for their citizens. Some small private businesses like some limited-scale growth because the owners like the challenges of running bigger business (e.g. expand to 5 restaurant locations instead of just 1.) Even though the pandemic has shown the benefits of less smog in Los Angeles because of less economic activity, it still has not removed the root of human reasons for desiring "growth".
- jason0597 7y ago
  Shouldn't dividends make up for any slowdown in growth? If I buy a share in Netflix and instead of the share price rising I get instead a dividend payment, I'd be fine with that, right?
Nextgrid 7y ago
“Engagement” is another one.

qubex 7y ago

How can your hatred for any corporate lingo term outrank that reserved for the bulwarks ‘leverage’ and ‘synergy’? ‘Granularity’ is a big up-and-comer too.

lvs 7y ago
Let me circle back and touch base with you by EOD.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  Do we show agreement with these horrors by upvoting or downvoting? These coded replies kill me and saying nothing would be more helpful.
  - qubex 7y ago
    “Thoughts and prayers”
    - iso1210 7y ago
      F
- qubex 7y ago
  I’ve tried to reach out to you.

mjburgess 7y ago

To make it precise: growth is the next generation having a greater abundance than the current. If you care about global poverty, disease, famine etc. then you care about growth. Since we do not have levels of abundance which reach everyone even in rich societies, growth is everywhere a concern. To "question its value" is to say: since I have sufficient wealth, that'll do for the planet.

Joeri 7y ago
Well, let’s optimize for those things then. Right now growth mostly means making the rich richer. Trickle down economics have been discredited for a while. I wish governments would set quality of life targets instead of gdp targets. If you need to grow gdp to get to a better quality of life, fine, but please, let’s all stop spreading the lie that gdp growth inevitably leads to increased quality of life, because often it causes the reverse.
- mjburgess 7y ago
  lol. What has happened to poor countries in the last 40 years, and why? Answer: unprecedented levels of poverty dropping. Unprecedented, in all history, improvements in quality of life. Why ? Because people buy things they make. it's that simple and it hasn't been "discredited ". Growth is that continuing. What has been discredited is that idea that whatever spare crumbs the west has is sufficient to divide up for the poor. Redistribution as a mechanism of substantial long term improvement is a (genocidal) sham. Discredited by the whole 20th century
  - Razengan 7y ago
    > Growth is that continuing. For how long? Until when? What is the endgame?
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Until everyone on Earth is satisfied with their quality of life. Growth doesn't necessarily mean doing more, sometimes you can achieve growth by doing less. This will become a bigger focus in future.
      - Razengan 7y ago
        > Until everyone on Earth is satisfied with their quality of life. And then what? How will you maintain that? And how much of other species' habitats would we ruin to achieve that in the first place? People may never be satisfied with their lives as long as they perceive inequality (real or imagined).

jasode 7y ago

>"Growth" is now one of my most hated overused business lingo, after "innovation". Is it too naive to hope that this pandemic will make us collectively question the value of creeds like growth for growth's sake? The "growth for growth's sake" is a thought-stopping meme. Let's unpack why that's an inaccurate reason for why companies do what they do and also why people who don't even work at those companies also care about growth. The commenter you responded mentioned Netflix and "growth". Remember that Netflix went public in 2002 with an IPO. When any company sells shares of ownership to investors, they're making a deal with society that if you buy their stock, your money will "grow". For investors' shares to become more valuable, Netflix has to grow new revenue, grow new profits, grow new markets, grow new products, etc. Why do so many public investors (and the so-called "investors" includes your grandparents' pensions, teachers/firemen retirements, etc) care about their money "growing"?!? Because they want to protect their future purchasing power. (My previous comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15728480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15728480) On other hand, if a family restaurant wants to just open one location with 20 tables and a payroll of 10 workers and just be a stable business that never grows, they wouldn't be able to sell public stock because nobody would buy it. There's nothing wrong with being a company that never grows -- but that's not the deal Netflix made with society. So to rewrite your question a different way which gets at the root of where the motivation of "growth" comes from... Are we questioning the value of companies "going public"? Or are we questioning the ideology of fiat-money "inflation"? How do we make your grandparents pensions not care about "growth"?!? That's very difficult to solve! There are also non-public entities that also want "growth". Countries like growth because it raises the standard-of-living for their citizens. Some small private businesses like some limited-scale growth because the owners like the challenges of running bigger business (e.g. expand to 5 restaurant locations instead of just 1.) Even though the pandemic has shown the benefits of less smog in Los Angeles because of less economic activity, it still has not removed the root of human reasons for desiring "growth".

jason0597 7y ago
Shouldn't dividends make up for any slowdown in growth? If I buy a share in Netflix and instead of the share price rising I get instead a dividend payment, I'd be fine with that, right?

Nextgrid 7y ago

“Engagement” is another one.