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The only real alternative to growth is decline and eventually death. This is true for companies, individuals, and even countries. I say our obsession with _no

The only real alternative to growth is decline and eventually death. This is true for companies, individuals, and even countries. I say our obsession with _not_ growing must end!

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
philosopher1234 4y ago
Where do you see an obsession with not growing in the world? Some rhetoric? Because there are a fuck ton of actions and power on the side of increasing gdp at all costs.
- nicodjimenez 4y ago
  > Because there are a fuck ton of actions and power on the side of increasing gdp at all costs. Like what? The most basic thing you can do to help GDP growth is try to promote families and childbirth, and keep energy prices low. Right now birth rates are plummeting and oil & gas industry has become politicized, and people see the result at the gas pump. If there's some big heroic effort to actually grow the economy in a real way I'm not seeing it. You see what happened to the last guy that tried to do that. It did not go well for him.
moffkalast 4y ago
Well there is another option: finding a balance and keeping it. There's nothing wrong with keeping a replacement level population and producing enough goods for everyone, instead of trying to achieve some kind of maximum output while destroying the landscape around as quickly as possible. Doesn't mean improvements can't be made to quality of life despite that.
- nicodjimenez 4y ago
  In nature, nothing is constant for very long.
  - porcoda 4y ago
    Many things reach equilibrium states that can persist for quite a while. Equilibrium states are not constant.
- abeppu 4y ago
  Or to be a little picky, I think in describing long-run behavior are 3 options: - diverge to infinity (limitless growth) - converge to a finite value (perhaps zero) - oscillate The accepted dogma today seems to be that we can aim at limitless growth, but that actors like central banks tug at stuff to keep the rate of growth mildly positive most of the time. If one believes we're smart enough to self-regulate to generally growing but dampening our boom/bust cycle, shouldn't we also be able to regulate total consumption to be within some healthy-ish bounds?
borroka 4y ago
The comparison between an artificial system (an economy) and a natural system (the growth of individuals) is as valid as that between the neurons in our brains and the "neurons" in the neural network, that is, it is wrong. Senescence and then death do not result from failure to grow, and this is empirically found in any organism. Most fish continue to grow after sexual maturity (indeterminate growth), but still die from natural causes, from the accumulation of damage in their biological systems. In the course of the organism's life, energy is allocated to different functions; after sexual maturity, in most species energy is spent in directions other than growth, because it is reproduction that determines species' persistence. It may be interesting to note that in aquaculture, salmon are selected for late sexual maturity so that they can spend more time growing and thus be more valuable to the aquaculturist, who can see their resources going to tissues that can be sold (e.g., meat) and not to tissues (e.g., gonads) that cannot be sold.

The only real alternative to growth is decline and eventually death. This is true for companies, individuals, and even countries. I say our obsession with _not_ growing must end!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

philosopher1234 4y ago

Where do you see an obsession with not growing in the world? Some rhetoric? Because there are a fuck ton of actions and power on the side of increasing gdp at all costs.

nicodjimenez 4y ago
> Because there are a fuck ton of actions and power on the side of increasing gdp at all costs. Like what? The most basic thing you can do to help GDP growth is try to promote families and childbirth, and keep energy prices low. Right now birth rates are plummeting and oil & gas industry has become politicized, and people see the result at the gas pump. If there's some big heroic effort to actually grow the economy in a real way I'm not seeing it. You see what happened to the last guy that tried to do that. It did not go well for him.

moffkalast 4y ago

Well there is another option: finding a balance and keeping it. There's nothing wrong with keeping a replacement level population and producing enough goods for everyone, instead of trying to achieve some kind of maximum output while destroying the landscape around as quickly as possible. Doesn't mean improvements can't be made to quality of life despite that.

nicodjimenez 4y ago
In nature, nothing is constant for very long.
- porcoda 4y ago
  Many things reach equilibrium states that can persist for quite a while. Equilibrium states are not constant.
abeppu 4y ago
Or to be a little picky, I think in describing long-run behavior are 3 options: - diverge to infinity (limitless growth) - converge to a finite value (perhaps zero) - oscillate The accepted dogma today seems to be that we can aim at limitless growth, but that actors like central banks tug at stuff to keep the rate of growth mildly positive most of the time. If one believes we're smart enough to self-regulate to generally growing but dampening our boom/bust cycle, shouldn't we also be able to regulate total consumption to be within some healthy-ish bounds?

borroka 4y ago

The comparison between an artificial system (an economy) and a natural system (the growth of individuals) is as valid as that between the neurons in our brains and the "neurons" in the neural network, that is, it is wrong. Senescence and then death do not result from failure to grow, and this is empirically found in any organism. Most fish continue to grow after sexual maturity (indeterminate growth), but still die from natural causes, from the accumulation of damage in their biological systems. In the course of the organism's life, energy is allocated to different functions; after sexual maturity, in most species energy is spent in directions other than growth, because it is reproduction that determines species' persistence. It may be interesting to note that in aquaculture, salmon are selected for late sexual maturity so that they can spend more time growing and thus be more valuable to the aquaculturist, who can see their resources going to tissues that can be sold (e.g., meat) and not to tissues (e.g., gonads) that cannot be sold.