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The free market is pretty phenomenal at ensuring that technological growth will continue until we hit theoretical limits. Shortages cause price increases. Pric
by solatic 4y ago
The free market is pretty phenomenal at ensuring that technological growth will continue until we hit theoretical limits.
Shortages cause price increases. Price increases make it more economical to pay up-front costs to develop technology whose per-unit costs permit extracting a profit compared to competitors who are not as technologically advanced, who die out and are replaced by new competitors who buy the technology off-the-shelf and reduce the price further in second-mover advantage, back down to the now-lower per-unit cost. Eventually demand develops to the point where there is a persistent shortage again and the cycle repeats.
The question is, what are the theoretical limits?
Will we run out of oxygen? Unlikely, the CO2 we breathe out can be recycled back into oxygen. Water? Also unlikely, for similar reasons. Food? With hydroponics, we're no longer limited by the amount of land we have, and it's renewable. Energy? The Sahara is a vast, untapped source of solar electricity which we haven't tapped because a) transmission lines are too expensive and b) security is too expensive. When energy costs rise enough to make those costs economical, the free market will get the underlying infrastructure built, and then we're good to go.
So yeah, growth will continue.
- honkler 4y agowhy didn't the great god progress save many of the past fallen civilizations? were they running out of Oxygen?
- SuoDuanDao 4y agoProgress requires failure, and learning from it.
- vkou 4y agoBecause this time it's different, and we can safely expect that yet-to-be-invented technologies will save us.
- honkler 4y agojust one more app!
- astine 4y agoMost past civilizations didn't fail due to a single resource collapse. Also, most of them didn't have free-markets oriented around innovation.
- RobertoG 4y agoMarkets are not oriented around innovation but around profit. Innovation can eventually be produced, but it's an accidental sub-product. Innovation it's not the metric that markets are optimizing.
- mordae 4y agoThis. Go read Walkaway from Cory Doctorow for a nice perspective on "growth".
- geysersam 4y agoYeah and how innovative are markets really? The internet wasn't invented by the market. Neither was Wikipedia or Linux, two of the arguably most valuable programs ever written. In my view the market is mainly good for non innovative products. The safe but important stuff. Food etc. Look at the movie "market". How much innovation is really going on in the big studios? Another super hero sequel? Sure, markets pick up innovations when they are profitable. But not otherwise, and I'm doubtful if the market economy is actually a net positive for innovation. What is innovation if it means finding another way to sell you stuff you don't need anyway.
- slothtrop 4y agoRelevant question: why did they fall?
- solatic 4y agoGrowth doesn't mean that nothing dies. Individual people die, individual businesses go out of business, and yes, civilizations are conquered. That doesn't mean that growth isn't happening on a higher/macro level. If you want to pick a civilization whose gifts weren't subsumed into a larger, still growing civilization, you'd have to pick, what, Atlantis? A myth? OK then.