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Yeah, I think we mostly agree, but we do have this one small disagreement. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that human nature naturally leads to a
by jshen 5y ago
Yeah, I think we mostly agree, but we do have this one small disagreement. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that human nature naturally leads to a system that demands superexponential growth. Let me know if I'm misunderstanding.
I don't think this is the case, but I could be wrong. The case I'll make is that many societies were going along just fine without a system like this, many for longer than this current system has existed before colonial powers invaded them (or missionaires "converted them) and imposed this system. I just got back from Hawaii, so I have the pacific islands on my mind. Their societies before european powers reached them were very very different, and human nature hadn't led to the same system with the same incentives. Our current system may be more akin to cancer, it starts in one small place then grows uncontrolled until it ultimately takes over everything and kills itself.
Edit: having said that, I don't think we have to end up in this dire place, but it will require us to end the incentive of superexponential growth which I don't believe is some kind of law of physics that we can't change. To steal of Geoffrey West, we need a unified theory of sustainability.
- Jeff_Brown 5y agoI'm not sure I believe in any particular fixed human nature. There do exist some radically different conceptions of ownership out there, such as the demand sharing of certain tribes in Namibia. That is to me somewhat hopeful. The "system change" I would hope for is that a lot of people individually change what they choose to do. Top-down mandates could help. Making consumers pay the full costs of their actions rather than subsidizing damaging ones like fossil fuels or meat would be a reasonable start. The trouble with blaming colonization is it coincides (roughly) with the arrival of the ability to grow like we do now. People have been greedy for as far back as our written records illuminate. But before factory methods, mechanization, theories of management, institutions like the limited liability corporation, etc. there was only so much scale that any society's production could achieve. To stop increasing the scale of human production while so much of the world is still so poor seems cruel to me. It wouldn't if I thought redistribution was politically feasible, but I don't. I don't know, it's a hard problem. > will require us to end the incentive of superexponential growth which I don't believe is some kind of law of physics that we can't change If it were a law of physics at least we could pinpoint it. There's no single incentive for exponential growth, any more than one process could be blamed for Moore's Law while it held. There's just a lot of individuals facing a lot of distinct incentives, and they all want to do better than they did last year, and want their kids to do better than them, and they measure "better" in terms of things like how many calories they consume, how many miles they're able to travel, etc ...
- jshen 5y agoThanks for the great convo, it’s so rare on the internet!
- Jeff_Brown 5y agoLikewise. If you'd like to connect you can find some contact information for me on my profile. I see you're into graph DBs too :) This message will self-destruct.
- jshen 5y agoSent you a LinkedIn request. Wouldn’t let me put a message with it.