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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 w
by 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 agolol. 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 agoUntil 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).
- cameronbrown 7y agoPut it this way, if economic growth no longer happens, then we aren't growing as a species either. Are any of us prepared for the ramifications of humanity's peak?
- jason0597 7y agoI think the reason you are being downvoted is due to your aggressive tone and due to you not including many sources in your claims (or at least, minimal reasoning behind them).
- mjburgess 7y agohttps://ourworldindata.org/ https://ourworldindata.org/ The reason I phrased it as a search term, rather than via reference, is to encourage people just to search for it. I'm sufficiently confident in the empirical evidence that any reputable-looking resource measuring these things over the last 40year will report what I describe.