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That makes no sense. Every time an economic activity happens that helps people growth happens. The simple fact that when someone gets a bicycle, car, washing m

by pas 5y ago

That makes no sense. Every time an economic activity happens that helps people growth happens. The simple fact that when someone gets a bicycle, car, washing machine, electricity, plumbing, a phone, or whatever they value and if it helps them take better care of their family (or even themselves), that counts as growth. The problem is unsustainable growth, ecological destruction, etc. Of course effective measures (carbon tax, emissions regulations, consumer protection/advocacy, right to repair, open patents) are needed to ward off mindless "VC funded" enterprising/consumerism/gadgetism and waste.

tremon 5y ago
"When a measure becomes a goal, it seizes to be a good measure." But as you say, the problem isn't economic growth in itself, but the fact that our entire (debt-based) economy is predicated on eternal growth. Eventually, every population reaches a steady-state equilibrium with its environment (even an artificial environment such as "the economy"). The hyper-focus on economic growth and our dependence on it causes all kinds of sustainability problems, whether it's ecosystem diversity, climate change, or any similar long-term problems. As long as we don't have a sustainable economic system, the other problems can't be solved.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Again, this is not what economic growth is. Any efficiency improvement, any self-improvement, anything, is economic growth. If you don't have economic growth, then tomorrow cannot be better then today. But that is a very different question to "should we cut down more rainforest?" You've got the cause and effect backwards, and it's exactly what lobbyists for the problem areas want: arguing against economic growth is pretty trivially a bad idea, but they want you speaking in the abstract because it does useful things like not have you saying "the burning of fossil fuels is unsustainable" and "we need to tarrif unsustainably sourced palm oil" because then you're dangerously (to them) close to actually lobbying for an effective solution.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    But people wouldn't be cutting down the rainforest if they weren't rewarded for it. If we patch each problem as it comes along, we're spending a lot of political will on the problem.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      The human race, consisting of 6+ billion people, can do more then one thing at a time. The idea of "we need to end economic growth" implies an extremely broad ranging, aggressive, authoritarian imposition on people's freedoms - requiring so much logistics, infrastructure and coordination as to be practically impossible. Or you know, we could just fund the EPA and BLM, and employ auditors for sustainable sourcing requirements for overseas importers...
      - xg15 5y ago
        If economic growth is something so natural that it needs to be actively suppressed for it not to happen, why do we need aggressive, harmful growth drivers like planned obsolescence or the ever-growing pervasiveness of ads that this thread was originally about?
        pas 5y ago
        That's the whole point! We don't! We have to actively fight planned obsolescence and other useless ways of inefficient growth. But due to the short term optimization of states, society, people, and businesses, it's what happens nowadays. It's a meta-optimization problem. Like the problem of figuring out how to spend our "remaining" carbon budget best to minimize suffering both short and long term.
  - fny 5y ago
    You're conflating economic growth with efficiency. Economic growth is measured in gross domestic product. The total of goods and services produced in a given year. So as efficiency increases, you actually need to consume more to achieve the same growth since your production costs decrease.
- tarmon 5y ago
  Nothing to add to the discussion but fyi I think you want ceases instead of seizes.
- pas 5y ago
  There's no real hyper focus on growth. There are plenty of important/powerful/influential people who loudly and clearly say that it's just an artificial measure, we must look at the real problems. Health, education, poverty, etc. Growth mostly comes into contemporary discourse when people talk about investment or when people use it as a swearword. There's no real dependence on it. Yes central banks target 2% inflation (US Fed uses the PCE deflator), because it is comparatively the easiest/simplest. Targeting "full employment" is just as important. If there would be nothing to improve, build, no one would have any unmet need, nor anyone would trade anything, then sure, we would not see growth nor debt, but for the foreseeable future growth is a useful indicator for how much debt is okay.

by pas 5y ago

tremon 5y ago

"When a measure becomes a goal, it seizes to be a good measure." But as you say, the problem isn't economic growth in itself, but the fact that our entire (debt-based) economy is predicated on eternal growth. Eventually, every population reaches a steady-state equilibrium with its environment (even an artificial environment such as "the economy"). The hyper-focus on economic growth and our dependence on it causes all kinds of sustainability problems, whether it's ecosystem diversity, climate change, or any similar long-term problems. As long as we don't have a sustainable economic system, the other problems can't be solved.

XorNot 5y ago
Again, this is not what economic growth is. Any efficiency improvement, any self-improvement, anything, is economic growth. If you don't have economic growth, then tomorrow cannot be better then today. But that is a very different question to "should we cut down more rainforest?" You've got the cause and effect backwards, and it's exactly what lobbyists for the problem areas want: arguing against economic growth is pretty trivially a bad idea, but they want you speaking in the abstract because it does useful things like not have you saying "the burning of fossil fuels is unsustainable" and "we need to tarrif unsustainably sourced palm oil" because then you're dangerously (to them) close to actually lobbying for an effective solution.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  But people wouldn't be cutting down the rainforest if they weren't rewarded for it. If we patch each problem as it comes along, we're spending a lot of political will on the problem.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    The human race, consisting of 6+ billion people, can do more then one thing at a time. The idea of "we need to end economic growth" implies an extremely broad ranging, aggressive, authoritarian imposition on people's freedoms - requiring so much logistics, infrastructure and coordination as to be practically impossible. Or you know, we could just fund the EPA and BLM, and employ auditors for sustainable sourcing requirements for overseas importers...
    - xg15 5y ago
      If economic growth is something so natural that it needs to be actively suppressed for it not to happen, why do we need aggressive, harmful growth drivers like planned obsolescence or the ever-growing pervasiveness of ads that this thread was originally about?
      - pas 5y ago
        That's the whole point! We don't! We have to actively fight planned obsolescence and other useless ways of inefficient growth. But due to the short term optimization of states, society, people, and businesses, it's what happens nowadays. It's a meta-optimization problem. Like the problem of figuring out how to spend our "remaining" carbon budget best to minimize suffering both short and long term.
- fny 5y ago
  You're conflating economic growth with efficiency. Economic growth is measured in gross domestic product. The total of goods and services produced in a given year. So as efficiency increases, you actually need to consume more to achieve the same growth since your production costs decrease.
tarmon 5y ago
Nothing to add to the discussion but fyi I think you want ceases instead of seizes.
pas 5y ago
There's no real hyper focus on growth. There are plenty of important/powerful/influential people who loudly and clearly say that it's just an artificial measure, we must look at the real problems. Health, education, poverty, etc. Growth mostly comes into contemporary discourse when people talk about investment or when people use it as a swearword. There's no real dependence on it. Yes central banks target 2% inflation (US Fed uses the PCE deflator), because it is comparatively the easiest/simplest. Targeting "full employment" is just as important. If there would be nothing to improve, build, no one would have any unmet need, nor anyone would trade anything, then sure, we would not see growth nor debt, but for the foreseeable future growth is a useful indicator for how much debt is okay.