4 ms·

> Anyone trading on a time scale of less than a few years is basically always optimistic. Buy and hold is generally the safest strategy. I find it mind bogglin

> Anyone trading on a time scale of less than a few years is basically always optimistic. Buy and hold is generally the safest strategy. I find it mind boggling that people can still believe so deeply that infinite growth is possible on a finite planet. Just looking at climate change as one example, in 20 years or so we're looking a serious portion of the planet being uninhabitable. We'll be having trouble producing enough food to feed people. And climate change is just one of the many systemic problems that we're facing.

1996 6y ago
> I find it mind boggling that people can still believe so deeply that infinite growth is possible on a finite planet. I find it mind boggling that people still can't believe infinite growth is possible when all it takes is combinatorial explosion from the outputs becoming inputs in new products (CPU -> computers -> AWS -> SAAS -> some app, etc) > We'll be having trouble producing enough food to feed people. The 1970s called and they want the Club of Rome limit to growth/Malthusianism back
- edoceo 6y ago
  This cat is catching downvotes but that Club of Rome thing and (Limits of Growth, which is a paper this group published) is interesting economic stuff I learned just a few seconds ago - interesting click-hole starts (as always) on Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome It's worth two minutes of reading
  - 1996 6y ago
    > This cat is catching downvotes but that Club of Rome thing and (Limits of Growth, which is a paper this group published) is interesting economic stuff I'm used to downvotes here since facts are not popular (bitcoin ...) The "infinite growth in a finite world" is a traditional line from the school of thought this Club of Rome started. However, as you correctly found out in the wikipedia article, it's dubious at best "the forecasts of the world's future are very sensitive to a few unduly pessimistic key assumptions. The Sussex scientists also claim that the Meadows et al. methods, data, and predictions are faulty, that their world models (and their Malthusian bias) do not accurately reflect reality" I gave a very simple example (combinatorial explosion) that shows how the whole thing is wrong, and why (here, attacking a key assumption) - but there are many many more holes. It's not really redeemable, after having been proved wrong more than wrong - just like Malthusianism actually. > It's worth two minutes of reading Indeed, in just 2 minutes you can notice even more holes - I just pointed to the most glaring one for people used to algorithm. Hopefully you will not fall prey to ideological arguments based on a castle of cards with such a flimsy base
- nathanasmith 6y ago
  Every time I read the Hacker News comments for any article to do with economics or trading I'm painfully reminded of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect[0]. The latest javascript front end framework sure but fates help anybody who takes investing advice from this place. Reminds me of the infamous r/buttcoin subreddit. On the front page there you can see when the sub was created. From then until now while they were busy being permabears bitcoin's price has exploded over 1000x. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Sure you can. It's pretty simple. Growth in resource consumption and energy usage in the past 80 years tracked extremely closely to economic growth. Combinatorial explosion in production possibilities does not mean anything close to combinatorial expansion in possibilities for growth. It's an increase, but nowhere near factorial. Here's an example. Imagine that you are a barber shop. What advantage does 10 years of computing advances give you? You might be able to save 15 hours in accounting time and lower appointment friction by 20% over phone calls. The expansion in the productive possibilities linked to tech was combinatorial, but even in a period of ten years it barely improved your business. The truth is that every frontier has a point of diminishing returns. Your point is that you believe that we can iterate on the value - resources front indefinitely. Well, empirical data just disagrees with you. We're at 2% annual growth on average and slowing down, despite increases in consumption, and even less than that when correcting for population growth. Yes, Malthiusianism is wrong. You can't equate Malthiusianism with the belief that infinite growth is impossible, that's just a total non-sequitur. We might still see a lot of economic growth left in the future, but it's clear there will be plateaus and it's clear that we are nearing one.
  - 1996 6y ago
    > Growth in resource consumption and energy usage in the past 80 years tracked extremely closely to economic growth Growth in power consumption of laptops, is falling. Growth in total material consumption for say cars will fall too, as less maintenance is required for electrical engine vs internal combustion. Many people believe we've reached peak oil, as demand will decrease. So it's not so clear. > The expansion in the productive possibilities linked to tech was combinatorial, but even in a period of ten years it barely improved your business. If you are focusing on one business, there's little change between barbering now and not just 10 years ago, but even 200 years ago. But small changes are enough - even taking appointments online frees the barber time. So there's some growth. > The expansion in the productive possibilities linked to tech was combinatorial, but even in a period of ten years it barely improved your business. However, you are missing the 99% of businesses that are impossible with 1800 technology. This cause growth, and much more than the little growth seen in barbering. > The truth is that every frontier has a point of diminishing returns Diminishing returns are perfectly compatible with asymptotic behavior. > We might still see a lot of economic growth left in the future, but it's clear there will be plateaus and it's clear that we are nearing one You don't understand (or you do, but don't want to see it): as long as f(yu) >= f(yt) for yu>yt, there's infinite growth. It may be less and less, if it's asymptotically going to 0, but it will never reach g=0. Plateaus are fine - just like recessions. Yes, the economy is not strictly increasing with a time granularity that too small. But group years by pack of 20, do a moving average and you'll see a strictly increasing function. g>0 which means infinite growth is possible, even if g may not be to your liking. Perfect? No. Good enough? Yes!
JakeTheAndroid 6y ago
Infinite growth isn't necessarily the concept. While it's somewhat related, there is a bit of a divergence here. As I said in another comment, stocks will naturally rise at the very least due to inflation. Prices will go up because the value of the dollar goes up, and the companies perceived value is still roughly the same and grew with inflation. If inflation is on average around 2%, then stocks ideally increase 2% year over year. This can happen to infinity. That's not the same as infinite growth, but it does hit a lot of the same concepts. Add this to efficiencies over time, expansion of service offerings which might include capturing new verticals, companies have plenty of room for growth. This is also why people invest into specific stocks depending on their objectives and risk tolerance. Investing in Apple isn't likely to make you a crap load of money today. But, it's fairly stable. It should outpace inflation so it's a good way to save money with a higher possible yield than say a high interest savings account. You can also apply this to dividend stocks. Some people make their gains off constantly returning dividends even if the stock itself doesn't increase drastically year over year. And then you factor in that a lot of companies don't have physical products today. So you can squeeze out even more gains because you can have a relatively fixed cost pricing model that scales well. This is more and more common today than 30 years ago. As for bringing in an externality like climate change, in an ideal capitalistic situation you'd have companies that would pop up that address these issues thus creating value. But, if we look at these types of existential threats (which I totally believe are real and matter, don't want to twist that at all) they essentially collapse our current economic system. Therefore, literally nothing matters in terms of buying or selling stocks. We will be facing a massive global crisis that overshadows economic gains to the point that the stock market doesn't matter, and fiat currency is largely diminished.
- localhost3000 6y ago
  >Prices will go up because the value of the dollar goes up sorry to nitpick but inflation is the value of the dollar going _down_. if the value of a dollar were to increase, the price of a thing denominated in dollars (i.e. stocks) would decrease (you can buy more with fewer now-more-valuable dollars), ceteris paribus.
  - 6y ago
floydnoel 6y ago
Haven’t you heard of space?
renewiltord 6y ago
See, that's the thing. Big doesn't mean infinite. Big only needs to be really big.

1996 6y ago

> I find it mind boggling that people can still believe so deeply that infinite growth is possible on a finite planet. I find it mind boggling that people still can't believe infinite growth is possible when all it takes is combinatorial explosion from the outputs becoming inputs in new products (CPU -> computers -> AWS -> SAAS -> some app, etc) > We'll be having trouble producing enough food to feed people. The 1970s called and they want the Club of Rome limit to growth/Malthusianism back

edoceo 6y ago
This cat is catching downvotes but that Club of Rome thing and (Limits of Growth, which is a paper this group published) is interesting economic stuff I learned just a few seconds ago - interesting click-hole starts (as always) on Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome It's worth two minutes of reading
- 1996 6y ago
  > This cat is catching downvotes but that Club of Rome thing and (Limits of Growth, which is a paper this group published) is interesting economic stuff I'm used to downvotes here since facts are not popular (bitcoin ...) The "infinite growth in a finite world" is a traditional line from the school of thought this Club of Rome started. However, as you correctly found out in the wikipedia article, it's dubious at best "the forecasts of the world's future are very sensitive to a few unduly pessimistic key assumptions. The Sussex scientists also claim that the Meadows et al. methods, data, and predictions are faulty, that their world models (and their Malthusian bias) do not accurately reflect reality" I gave a very simple example (combinatorial explosion) that shows how the whole thing is wrong, and why (here, attacking a key assumption) - but there are many many more holes. It's not really redeemable, after having been proved wrong more than wrong - just like Malthusianism actually. > It's worth two minutes of reading Indeed, in just 2 minutes you can notice even more holes - I just pointed to the most glaring one for people used to algorithm. Hopefully you will not fall prey to ideological arguments based on a castle of cards with such a flimsy base
nathanasmith 6y ago
Every time I read the Hacker News comments for any article to do with economics or trading I'm painfully reminded of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect[0]. The latest javascript front end framework sure but fates help anybody who takes investing advice from this place. Reminds me of the infamous r/buttcoin subreddit. On the front page there you can see when the sub was created. From then until now while they were busy being permabears bitcoin's price has exploded over 1000x. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
sudosysgen 6y ago
Sure you can. It's pretty simple. Growth in resource consumption and energy usage in the past 80 years tracked extremely closely to economic growth. Combinatorial explosion in production possibilities does not mean anything close to combinatorial expansion in possibilities for growth. It's an increase, but nowhere near factorial. Here's an example. Imagine that you are a barber shop. What advantage does 10 years of computing advances give you? You might be able to save 15 hours in accounting time and lower appointment friction by 20% over phone calls. The expansion in the productive possibilities linked to tech was combinatorial, but even in a period of ten years it barely improved your business. The truth is that every frontier has a point of diminishing returns. Your point is that you believe that we can iterate on the value - resources front indefinitely. Well, empirical data just disagrees with you. We're at 2% annual growth on average and slowing down, despite increases in consumption, and even less than that when correcting for population growth. Yes, Malthiusianism is wrong. You can't equate Malthiusianism with the belief that infinite growth is impossible, that's just a total non-sequitur. We might still see a lot of economic growth left in the future, but it's clear there will be plateaus and it's clear that we are nearing one.
- 1996 6y ago
  > Growth in resource consumption and energy usage in the past 80 years tracked extremely closely to economic growth Growth in power consumption of laptops, is falling. Growth in total material consumption for say cars will fall too, as less maintenance is required for electrical engine vs internal combustion. Many people believe we've reached peak oil, as demand will decrease. So it's not so clear. > The expansion in the productive possibilities linked to tech was combinatorial, but even in a period of ten years it barely improved your business. If you are focusing on one business, there's little change between barbering now and not just 10 years ago, but even 200 years ago. But small changes are enough - even taking appointments online frees the barber time. So there's some growth. > The expansion in the productive possibilities linked to tech was combinatorial, but even in a period of ten years it barely improved your business. However, you are missing the 99% of businesses that are impossible with 1800 technology. This cause growth, and much more than the little growth seen in barbering. > The truth is that every frontier has a point of diminishing returns Diminishing returns are perfectly compatible with asymptotic behavior. > We might still see a lot of economic growth left in the future, but it's clear there will be plateaus and it's clear that we are nearing one You don't understand (or you do, but don't want to see it): as long as f(yu) >= f(yt) for yu>yt, there's infinite growth. It may be less and less, if it's asymptotically going to 0, but it will never reach g=0. Plateaus are fine - just like recessions. Yes, the economy is not strictly increasing with a time granularity that too small. But group years by pack of 20, do a moving average and you'll see a strictly increasing function. g>0 which means infinite growth is possible, even if g may not be to your liking. Perfect? No. Good enough? Yes!

JakeTheAndroid 6y ago

Infinite growth isn't necessarily the concept. While it's somewhat related, there is a bit of a divergence here. As I said in another comment, stocks will naturally rise at the very least due to inflation. Prices will go up because the value of the dollar goes up, and the companies perceived value is still roughly the same and grew with inflation. If inflation is on average around 2%, then stocks ideally increase 2% year over year. This can happen to infinity. That's not the same as infinite growth, but it does hit a lot of the same concepts. Add this to efficiencies over time, expansion of service offerings which might include capturing new verticals, companies have plenty of room for growth. This is also why people invest into specific stocks depending on their objectives and risk tolerance. Investing in Apple isn't likely to make you a crap load of money today. But, it's fairly stable. It should outpace inflation so it's a good way to save money with a higher possible yield than say a high interest savings account. You can also apply this to dividend stocks. Some people make their gains off constantly returning dividends even if the stock itself doesn't increase drastically year over year. And then you factor in that a lot of companies don't have physical products today. So you can squeeze out even more gains because you can have a relatively fixed cost pricing model that scales well. This is more and more common today than 30 years ago. As for bringing in an externality like climate change, in an ideal capitalistic situation you'd have companies that would pop up that address these issues thus creating value. But, if we look at these types of existential threats (which I totally believe are real and matter, don't want to twist that at all) they essentially collapse our current economic system. Therefore, literally nothing matters in terms of buying or selling stocks. We will be facing a massive global crisis that overshadows economic gains to the point that the stock market doesn't matter, and fiat currency is largely diminished.

localhost3000 6y ago
>Prices will go up because the value of the dollar goes up sorry to nitpick but inflation is the value of the dollar going _down_. if the value of a dollar were to increase, the price of a thing denominated in dollars (i.e. stocks) would decrease (you can buy more with fewer now-more-valuable dollars), ceteris paribus.
- 6y ago

floydnoel 6y ago

Haven’t you heard of space?

renewiltord 6y ago

See, that's the thing. Big doesn't mean infinite. Big only needs to be really big.