5 ms·

> Optimists deal with the intended, manifest, short-term, and readily grasped. Pessimists deal with the unintended, latent, long-term, and that grasped only wit

> Optimists deal with the intended, manifest, short-term, and readily grasped. Pessimists deal with the unintended, latent, long-term, and that grasped only with difficulty. Man, this is DEEPLY untrue if taken as a rule. Some of the most naive, shallow, and short-term thinking I’ve seen has been by pessimists and technology skeptics. Malthusian predictions are the most glaring and there’s a 200 year long history of its wrongness, spanning over the most explosive expansion of both population AND wealth/wellbeing in human history. And I know many of us on HN are sick and tired of tech bulls**ters and are understandably jaded about many aspects of tech progress, but Malthusian ideas have, when some have really taken them to heart, led to some pretty rotten results, such as the British letting the Irish starve. But we still have plenty of similar zero/negative-sum thinking today on both the left and the right (although it seems the vanguard Left today is Degrowthist, there was a time when it was the Left that was most optimistic for the glorious future and accused “Limits to Growth” types as using Malthusian ideas to reinforce the status quo). The reality is that humanity has massive potential, but also massive agency for good AND ill. To surrender to zero sum, degrowth/Malthusian/neoLuddite thinking has huge consequences because it leaves us without the tools we’ll need to address the problems of today and the future. Malthusians can’t only see the short term use of resources by people, not how people working together can actually create greater abundance long term. They look at the amount of land, the number of mouths and number of births to extrapolate poverty and starvation but they don’t look deeper, to the Industrial Revolution that was happening under Malthus’ own nose, how those people working together increase yields and develop better medical technology to resolve the problems that in the short term seemed insurmountable. Progress has negative consequences, but the status quo is absolutely murderous long-term.

dredmorbius 5y ago
I'd suggest that the apparent shallowness of technology skeptics comes from two principle factors: - The most readily-dismissed skeptics are those whose critiques are readily grasped ... and wrong. Effectively this is a strawman dismissal, as the strong criticisms are not addressed substantively. (Your own criticism fails to detail what specific elements of Malthusian though, either original or current, you disagree with.) - Those who are prone to dismiss skeptics are themselves frequently falling victim to the biases I've mentioned. The principle omission from Malthus's calculus was that humans would spend the next 200+ years consuming the great prize of stored fossil fuels in the Earth, a nonrenewable resource which would eventually overwhelm its environmental sinks as well, at rates of up to 5 million times those of formation.[1] Increases in net human productivity track very closely to per-capita energy usage.[2] Note that in Adam Smith's own arguments over how nations grew their wealth, he also missed the role the Industrial Revolution and fossil-fuel powered machinery would play. That's a significant omission, because Smith was a Scott, living and working in Glasgow at the same time as James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, and more than that, arranged for Watt's appointment to the University of Glasgow and had intimate discussions with Watt about his work. The net result of this is one brief mention within Wealth of Nations, concerning the event by which an improvement was made to the engine (a boy wanting to play with his friends). Even Smith's contemporaneous biographer, Dugald Stewart, fails to mention Watt at all.[4] The significance of the Industrial Revolution was not evident even to those smack in the middle of it. Nor was it especially beneficial to the bulk of the population until the rise of the labour movement in Britain. The Irish Potato Famine (1845--1852, 1 million deaths, a 20--25% fall in Ireland's population from which it has not yet recovered)[5], for what it's worth, happened directly in the middle of the first Industrial Revolution. The core of the "limits to growth" view is just that: that growth has limits. That unconstrained, those limits will out. Just where those limits lie, or what mechanisms might further delay their realisation for another few decades, isn't always clear. But pointing out the moral reprehensibility of one means of imposing them doesn't mean others won't eventually manifest. War, disease, and famine are the usual suspects. It's interesting to note that ideological rejection of Limits to Growth was led by both the left and the right.[6] Singing "la-la-la" and closing ones eyes is merely wishful thinking and the fallacy of argument from consequence.[7] The underlying motivation I find most compelling in the Limits discussion is of coming up with better understanding of what growth is, what causes it, what the specific mechanisms of technology are, and were limits might be found. My realisation in studying the question for well over a decade is that these questions aren't well-answered by the proponents of unlimited growth, that their reasoning often appears motivated (whether consciously or not), and that there's a widespread agreement among economists that growth --- the topic of Smith's foundational book --- is NOT well-understood.[8] ________________________________ Notes: 1. See Jeffrey S. Dukes, "Burning Buried Sunshine" (2003) https://www-legacy.dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf https://www-legacy.dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_C... (PDF) 2. Vaclav Smil's Energy and Civilization (2018) and Energy in World History (1994) both illustrate this in depth. https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-and-civilization-a-history/oclc/1134666593 https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-and-civilization-a-his... https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-in-world-history/oclc/802710572 https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-in-world-history/oclc/... Robert J. Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth" (2017) does not* take this view, but nonetheless notes that industrial output per worker rose in lockstep with direct energy supplied per worker, measured in either kilowatts or horsepower. https://www.worldcat.org/title/rise-and-fall-of-american-growth-the-us-standard-of-living-since-the-civil-war/oclc/958351321 https://www.worldcat.org/title/rise-and-fall-of-american-gro... Steve Keen argues that the Cobb-Douglas production function, in which output is a function of capital and labour, is vastly more powerful as an explanation (with a far smaller residual) when an energy term is added. See "A Note on the Role of Energy in Production" (2019) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800917311746 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218... "Incorporating Energy Into Production Functions" https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2016/08/19/incorporating-energy-into-production-functions/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2016/08/19/incorporat... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt 4. Life of Adam Smith https://delong.typepad.com/files/stewart.pdf https://delong.typepad.com/files/stewart.pdf 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) 6. See Mauricio Schoijet, "Limits to Growth and the Rise of Catastrophism" (1999) for a catalogue of responses. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3985399 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3985399 7. https://yandoo.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/argument-from-consequences/ https://yandoo.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/argument-from-conseq... 8. See for example Paul Krugman and Tony Atkinson in conversation, beginning at 38m53s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l6E3mUNW70&t=38m53s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l6E3mUNW70&t=38m53s and discussed here: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wf57z/econ_paul_krugman_and_tony_atkinson_we_dont/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wf57z/econ_pa...
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  NB, for other books looking at history through the lens of history: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/ee8c190017d501391a81002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/ee8c190017d501391a81002590d8e...
adrian_b 5y ago
I do not see any proof that the Malthusian predictions were wrong, on the contrary. There has been indeed as you say "an explosive expansion of wealth". While so much wealth would have been enough so that a much smaller population could have lived much better, the increase of wealth has been used so that a larger population lives about as well as before. While modern technology provides a number of devices that allow me to spend much less time with chores than my ancestors, e.g. microwave oven, refrigerator, automatic washing machine, computer, mobile phone, there are a lot of things that I cannot hope to ever be able to buy, even if I am supposed to be a well paid professional, which my grandparents were able to buy from their salaries, e.g. large houses and land. Moreover I am not even able to buy food of a quality comparable to that of my grandparents. While food is very cheap now, food of a quality similar to what they had can no longer be found anywhere that I am aware of. I have never seen any evidence supporting this dream of "people working together who can actually create greater abundance long term". People working together or single will continue to discover more efficient ways to make everything that we need, but no matter what they do, they cannot create an extra piece of land for me to have a house, or an extra forest like those in which I was happy to wander as a child, but which now do not exist any more, having been replaced by cultures or buildings or just wasteland.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  In A Farewell to Alms, UC Davis professor of economics Gregory Clark makes the cogent point that both the richest and poorest people who have ever lived, are alive today. Modern technology makes possible great wealth. It also makes absolutely crushing poverty ... survivable. Though not especially enjoyable. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691141282/a-farewell-to-alms https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691141282/a-...

dredmorbius 5y ago

I'd suggest that the apparent shallowness of technology skeptics comes from two principle factors: - The most readily-dismissed skeptics are those whose critiques are readily grasped ... and wrong. Effectively this is a strawman dismissal, as the strong criticisms are not addressed substantively. (Your own criticism fails to detail what specific elements of Malthusian though, either original or current, you disagree with.) - Those who are prone to dismiss skeptics are themselves frequently falling victim to the biases I've mentioned. The principle omission from Malthus's calculus was that humans would spend the next 200+ years consuming the great prize of stored fossil fuels in the Earth, a nonrenewable resource which would eventually overwhelm its environmental sinks as well, at rates of up to 5 million times those of formation.[1] Increases in net human productivity track very closely to per-capita energy usage.[2] Note that in Adam Smith's own arguments over how nations grew their wealth, he also missed the role the Industrial Revolution and fossil-fuel powered machinery would play. That's a significant omission, because Smith was a Scott, living and working in Glasgow at the same time as James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, and more than that, arranged for Watt's appointment to the University of Glasgow and had intimate discussions with Watt about his work. The net result of this is one brief mention within Wealth of Nations, concerning the event by which an improvement was made to the engine (a boy wanting to play with his friends). Even Smith's contemporaneous biographer, Dugald Stewart, fails to mention Watt at all.[4] The significance of the Industrial Revolution was not evident even to those smack in the middle of it. Nor was it especially beneficial to the bulk of the population until the rise of the labour movement in Britain. The Irish Potato Famine (1845--1852, 1 million deaths, a 20--25% fall in Ireland's population from which it has not yet recovered)[5], for what it's worth, happened directly in the middle of the first Industrial Revolution. The core of the "limits to growth" view is just that: that growth has limits. That unconstrained, those limits will out. Just where those limits lie, or what mechanisms might further delay their realisation for another few decades, isn't always clear. But pointing out the moral reprehensibility of one means of imposing them doesn't mean others won't eventually manifest. War, disease, and famine are the usual suspects. It's interesting to note that ideological rejection of Limits to Growth was led by both the left and the right.[6] Singing "la-la-la" and closing ones eyes is merely wishful thinking and the fallacy of argument from consequence.[7] The underlying motivation I find most compelling in the Limits discussion is of coming up with better understanding of what growth is, what causes it, what the specific mechanisms of technology are, and were limits might be found. My realisation in studying the question for well over a decade is that these questions aren't well-answered by the proponents of unlimited growth, that their reasoning often appears motivated (whether consciously or not), and that there's a widespread agreement among economists that growth --- the topic of Smith's foundational book --- is NOT well-understood.[8] ________________________________ Notes: 1. See Jeffrey S. Dukes, "Burning Buried Sunshine" (2003) https://www-legacy.dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf https://www-legacy.dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_C... (PDF) 2. Vaclav Smil's Energy and Civilization (2018) and Energy in World History (1994) both illustrate this in depth. https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-and-civilization-a-history/oclc/1134666593 https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-and-civilization-a-his... https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-in-world-history/oclc/802710572 https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-in-world-history/oclc/... Robert J. Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth" (2017) does not* take this view, but nonetheless notes that industrial output per worker rose in lockstep with direct energy supplied per worker, measured in either kilowatts or horsepower. https://www.worldcat.org/title/rise-and-fall-of-american-growth-the-us-standard-of-living-since-the-civil-war/oclc/958351321 https://www.worldcat.org/title/rise-and-fall-of-american-gro... Steve Keen argues that the Cobb-Douglas production function, in which output is a function of capital and labour, is vastly more powerful as an explanation (with a far smaller residual) when an energy term is added. See "A Note on the Role of Energy in Production" (2019) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800917311746 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218... "Incorporating Energy Into Production Functions" https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2016/08/19/incorporating-energy-into-production-functions/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2016/08/19/incorporat... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt 4. Life of Adam Smith https://delong.typepad.com/files/stewart.pdf https://delong.typepad.com/files/stewart.pdf 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) 6. See Mauricio Schoijet, "Limits to Growth and the Rise of Catastrophism" (1999) for a catalogue of responses. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3985399 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3985399 7. https://yandoo.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/argument-from-consequences/ https://yandoo.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/argument-from-conseq... 8. See for example Paul Krugman and Tony Atkinson in conversation, beginning at 38m53s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l6E3mUNW70&t=38m53s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l6E3mUNW70&t=38m53s and discussed here: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wf57z/econ_paul_krugman_and_tony_atkinson_we_dont/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wf57z/econ_pa...

dredmorbius 5y ago
NB, for other books looking at history through the lens of history: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/ee8c190017d501391a81002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/ee8c190017d501391a81002590d8e...

adrian_b 5y ago

I do not see any proof that the Malthusian predictions were wrong, on the contrary. There has been indeed as you say "an explosive expansion of wealth". While so much wealth would have been enough so that a much smaller population could have lived much better, the increase of wealth has been used so that a larger population lives about as well as before. While modern technology provides a number of devices that allow me to spend much less time with chores than my ancestors, e.g. microwave oven, refrigerator, automatic washing machine, computer, mobile phone, there are a lot of things that I cannot hope to ever be able to buy, even if I am supposed to be a well paid professional, which my grandparents were able to buy from their salaries, e.g. large houses and land. Moreover I am not even able to buy food of a quality comparable to that of my grandparents. While food is very cheap now, food of a quality similar to what they had can no longer be found anywhere that I am aware of. I have never seen any evidence supporting this dream of "people working together who can actually create greater abundance long term". People working together or single will continue to discover more efficient ways to make everything that we need, but no matter what they do, they cannot create an extra piece of land for me to have a house, or an extra forest like those in which I was happy to wander as a child, but which now do not exist any more, having been replaced by cultures or buildings or just wasteland.

dredmorbius 5y ago
In A Farewell to Alms, UC Davis professor of economics Gregory Clark makes the cogent point that both the richest and poorest people who have ever lived, are alive today. Modern technology makes possible great wealth. It also makes absolutely crushing poverty ... survivable. Though not especially enjoyable. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691141282/a-farewell-to-alms https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691141282/a-...