6 ms·

This is all very abstract, so you can't really see the stupidity behind it. You can say "economic growth is out of control, we need to reduce GDP by 50% and get

by mjfl 4y ago

This is all very abstract, so you can't really see the stupidity behind it. You can say "economic growth is out of control, we need to reduce GDP by 50% and get comfortable with it" and many people will applaud. But if you say things like "We are growing too much food, we need to reduce the amount of food grown worldwide by 50%", people will realize the much more morbid consequences of your ignorant prescription - mass starvation by millions of people. Of course then you start talking about managed, equitable degrowth in just developed countries, but then you realize that a lot of the economic activity in developed countries plugs into farming in developing countries (natural gas for ammonia for fertilizer) and you realize you can't escape. And then maybe you realize you should have just sat on your couch and shut up, which is what most people with these sorts of opinions should do.

asabjorn 4y ago
There also doesn't seem to be wide awareness that the degrowth people are currently intentionally sabotaging farming output. Sri Lankas food crisis is due to a forced stop in artificial fertilizer use and growth of only organic crops, and there are likewise farmer protests in the Netherlands (5th largest food producer), Belgium, Germany etc due to the governments pushing this. Closer to home the "inflation reduction act" spends $20 billion to put farmland out of farm use, and also implement incentives to force farmers to significantly reduce production. This will cause food shortages like it already has in Sri Lanka. Expect huge spikes in food prices like we've seen for gas.
- api 4y ago
  Sometimes people just have to see the result of a policy to get it.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Indeed. The problem is that all of us who already know "degrowth" is bad are going to have to suffer through the result along with them.
    - juve1996 4y ago
      De-growth policies have absolutely no chance in our day and age. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
      - asabjorn 4y ago
        You’ve already lived through artificial gas shortages since February 2021 after fracking and gas pipelines were shut down, so that’s demonstrably incorrect. Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion to put farmland out of use and put regulation in place to make the remainder farmers farming harder like in Sri Lanka.
        juve1996 4y ago
        The february 2021 had causes that are well researched. It's not indicative of anything. > Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. The US has barely built refineries over the last 3 decades. This is not a new phenomenon. > Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion to put farmland out of use and put regulation in place to make the remainder farmers farming harder like in Sri Lanka. Can you point this out in the bill so I can read it?
        asabjorn 4y ago
        Let me look for a good source for the inflation reduction bill. In the meantime here you can see the catastrophic effect of Sri Lankan style ESG policies in the Netherlands, as projected by their finance ministry. Netherlands is the 5th largest food exporter in the world. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-suggest-29000-farms-could-be-hit-by-nitrogen-plans/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-sugge...
      - api 4y ago
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Sri Lanka's various crises are not a result of degrowth policies, but because the country simply has no money to pay for imports. Including of fertilisers. The arrow of causality is fiscal collapse -> agricultural collapse. It's possible to look at historical crop yields worldwide, including in advanced / wealthy nations, and see where economic recession or high energy (especially natural gas, the primary feedstock in nitrogen fertiliser) results in lower applications of fertiliser as well as of reduced cultivation, and consequent reduced crop yields. Again, that's a simple market mechanisms and response to costs, not an ideologically-driven policy of degrowth, deindustrialised ag, or natural / sustainable / organic ag. Though it is a portent of what might face us would such choices be forced upon the world more generally. This is the notion of a technology trap (also "innovation trap" or "progress trap"). See James Burke's Connections, particularly episode 1, Ronald Wright's Massey Lecture series and books, Joseph Tainter, and many others.
  - LewisVerstappen 4y ago
    Sri Lanka banned the use and importation of chemical fertilizers before though.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      A year ago, not in some distant past. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-decimates-sri-lankan-crops-government-popularity-ebbs-2022-03-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-lanka-organic-fertilizer-pesticide-agriculture-farming https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-la... As the economic crisis was already in process --- it's been developing since 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lankan_economic_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lanka...
      - LewisVerstappen 4y ago
        After the fertilizer ban was implemented, then "Production of tea — Sri Lanka’s main cash crop — fell by 18% in a year. Production of rice — the main food crop — fell by even more" [1] So you're saying this did not contribute to the food shortage (a drop in domestic production of rice)? Or you're saying this drop in production would've happened irrespective of the fertilizer ban? 1 https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an-economic https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an...
- seltzered_ 4y ago
  That narrative (affiliating the collapse of Sri Lanka with ESG, Degrowth) has been getting pushed primarily by people on the other side of the planet with their own political biases (libertarians, preppers, bitcoin maximalists, etc.). Yes it was a terrible policy to issue an immediate ban on fertilizers, and don't think organizations/ngos associated with the policy should be absolved, but there also has to be a look into where we are in terms of 'planetary boundaries' (Google it) and what it means.
  - asabjorn 4y ago
    I agree that there are other issues such as huge loans from China ( belt&road is a economic catastrophe where deployed), tourism drop due to covid and a 2019 bombing etc That said the ESG actions is clearly correlated in the data with 1/3 of farmland laying dormant in 2021, crop losses and yield issues. Many of us won’t forget Sri Lanka was touted by WEF as a ESG poster child before it went south. This article links to supporting data https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-dogma-behind-fall-of-sri-lanka https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-dogma-behi...
    - seltzered_ 4y ago
      Fair point, I'm not trying to defend ESG (there's all sorts of issues with it), but authors from abroad (like Michael Shellenberger who you link to) are seemingly caricaturizing the Sri Lanka situation (a mix of economic loan entanglement and bad policy) to argue for their narrative. Shellenberger who you link to is "A self-described ecomodernist, Shellenberger believes that economic growth can continue without negative environmental impacts through technological research and development, usually through a combination of nuclear power and urbanization. A controversial figure, Shellenberger disagrees with most environmentalists over the impacts of environmental threats and policies for addressing them.[2][3] Shellenberger's positions and writings on climate change and environmentalism have received criticism from environmental scientists and academics, calling them "bad science" and "inaccurate"." (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger )
      - 4y ago
Yoric 4y ago
Well, we do need food. But do we need it so highly processed? Do we really need video game consoles or Netflix? Do we need to change phone or car quite so often? I'm sure we all can find a number of things that we own and shouldn't really have bought. I'm not sure what it takes to degrow, but I'm pretty convinced that there's lots of fat in our consumerist lives that could be trimmed away even without changing our daily lives meaningfully.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Arguing for greater efficiency or arguing against luxury is so, so different from arguing for degrowth. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems that degrowth is fundamentally misanthropic. And the core of the misanthropic philosophy is the belief that mankind and nature are two different things. We will likely die for the lack of philosophy.
  - wmf 4y ago
    Yep, I call it "plants are better than people" thinking.
  - anvandare 4y ago
    Mankind is to Nature as a cancer cell is to the rest of the organism. Very much part of it, also very much going to kill it because it can't stop growing and consuming resources. But there is no intent, it's just buggy code. Mankind is not malicious, just malignant.
    - akimball 4y ago
      ...said every supervillain in scifi. You might want to build an evil AI to swallow the fly.
  - smallerfish 4y ago
    > Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems that degrowth is fundamentally misanthropic. And the core of the misanthropic philosophy is the belief that mankind and nature are two different things. I don't believe that one follows from the other. Humanity is part of nature. Humans are sentient, and groups of humans can decide that society and/or group systems should ideally behave in one way or another, e.g. that an economy can be organized in one way or another. Humans can also make models about the future, and make statistical predictions based upon current (sophisticated) understanding of how systems work. This sets humans apart from other organisms in nature which also operate un(or less)consciously in groups, such as ants, viruses, etc, and which have growth that is unchecked to the extent that resources permit. Therefore, it doesn't follow that humans being part of nature implies that unchecked growth is inevitable; humanity recognizing that there are in fact finite resources on this planet which we're currently bound to, and attempting to tailor the systems which affect rate of growth to ensure sufficient runway with those resources, is a very pro-humanity thing to do. That is, some control of population and resource-usage with the goal of preventing resource and environmental exhaustion and subsequent mass calamity is a tradeoff that attempts to promote the longevity of reasonable living standards with the possible expense of some liberties and the possible reining in of some unthinking consumption patterns. That doesn't equate to misanthropy, any more than preventing a 3 year old from eating a fourth bowl of ice cream does.
dredmorbius 4y ago
Framing degrowth as a choice (against continued economic growth / business as usual (BAU)), rather than as a planned de-escallation as an alternative to an unplanned catastrophic collapse and/or descent into some post-prosperity feudalistic gilded era in which a vanishingly small fraction of global haves might enjoy something approximating present high-consumption lifestyles but the overwhelming majority do not and never will ... is ignoring the fundamental reality of the degrowth / steady state argument which is that planetary boundaries exist. There are limits to resource availability, as we've known for a long time, as well as to sink capacities --- the ability of the environment to absorb the effluvia of our activities without undergoing a catastrophic shift. There are also quite probably systemic responses, including (though I'd suggest not limited to) the emergence of global epidemics and pandemics of disease and dysfunction. Kyle Harper's recent book, The Fate of Rome, advances the case that diseases co-evolve with civilisation. This itself becomes an interesting counterpoint to the well-worn argument that science, technology, and progress have relieved humans of the evils of infectious disease. It was progress, population growth, commerce, and urbanisation which created those plagues in the first place. As Jarred Diamond noted in Guns, Germs, and Steel, it was the Old World with its crowded cities and vast commercial networks which introduced plagues to the New (with a very few possible exceptions, and those largely very slow-moving insults). Though of course, diseases of the tropics were well-known. Those however are overwhelmingly zoonotic and parasite-based rather than trasmitting directly between humans, and reflect the same dynamics (huge populations and intense intercourse) though of other species, typically insects. Diseases of sanitation and hygiene, notably cholera, would be the other principle exception, though that was introduced to Europe largely from the Indian subcontinent. Again, the point isn't that degrowth is an option to BAU, it's an option to a far worse collapse or oppressive wealth concentration with massive disenfranchisement. The fact that discussing the issue in these terms an on this basis is so readily derailed is itself among the profound challenges in achieving a non-worst-case outcome. I've pointed before to the work of William Ophuls (Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity, Plato's Revenge) and Thomas Homer-Dixon (various) before, I'll recommend them without reservation here again.

by mjfl 4y ago

asabjorn 4y ago

There also doesn't seem to be wide awareness that the degrowth people are currently intentionally sabotaging farming output. Sri Lankas food crisis is due to a forced stop in artificial fertilizer use and growth of only organic crops, and there are likewise farmer protests in the Netherlands (5th largest food producer), Belgium, Germany etc due to the governments pushing this. Closer to home the "inflation reduction act" spends $20 billion to put farmland out of farm use, and also implement incentives to force farmers to significantly reduce production. This will cause food shortages like it already has in Sri Lanka. Expect huge spikes in food prices like we've seen for gas.

api 4y ago
Sometimes people just have to see the result of a policy to get it.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Indeed. The problem is that all of us who already know "degrowth" is bad are going to have to suffer through the result along with them.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    De-growth policies have absolutely no chance in our day and age. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
    - asabjorn 4y ago
      You’ve already lived through artificial gas shortages since February 2021 after fracking and gas pipelines were shut down, so that’s demonstrably incorrect. Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion to put farmland out of use and put regulation in place to make the remainder farmers farming harder like in Sri Lanka.
      - juve1996 4y ago
        The february 2021 had causes that are well researched. It's not indicative of anything. > Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. The US has barely built refineries over the last 3 decades. This is not a new phenomenon. > Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion to put farmland out of use and put regulation in place to make the remainder farmers farming harder like in Sri Lanka. Can you point this out in the bill so I can read it?
        asabjorn 4y ago
        Let me look for a good source for the inflation reduction bill. In the meantime here you can see the catastrophic effect of Sri Lankan style ESG policies in the Netherlands, as projected by their finance ministry. Netherlands is the 5th largest food exporter in the world. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-suggest-29000-farms-could-be-hit-by-nitrogen-plans/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-sugge...
    - api 4y ago
dredmorbius 4y ago
Sri Lanka's various crises are not a result of degrowth policies, but because the country simply has no money to pay for imports. Including of fertilisers. The arrow of causality is fiscal collapse -> agricultural collapse. It's possible to look at historical crop yields worldwide, including in advanced / wealthy nations, and see where economic recession or high energy (especially natural gas, the primary feedstock in nitrogen fertiliser) results in lower applications of fertiliser as well as of reduced cultivation, and consequent reduced crop yields. Again, that's a simple market mechanisms and response to costs, not an ideologically-driven policy of degrowth, deindustrialised ag, or natural / sustainable / organic ag. Though it is a portent of what might face us would such choices be forced upon the world more generally. This is the notion of a technology trap (also "innovation trap" or "progress trap"). See James Burke's Connections, particularly episode 1, Ronald Wright's Massey Lecture series and books, Joseph Tainter, and many others.
- LewisVerstappen 4y ago
  Sri Lanka banned the use and importation of chemical fertilizers before though.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    A year ago, not in some distant past. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-decimates-sri-lankan-crops-government-popularity-ebbs-2022-03-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-lanka-organic-fertilizer-pesticide-agriculture-farming https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-la... As the economic crisis was already in process --- it's been developing since 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lankan_economic_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lanka...
    - LewisVerstappen 4y ago
      After the fertilizer ban was implemented, then "Production of tea — Sri Lanka’s main cash crop — fell by 18% in a year. Production of rice — the main food crop — fell by even more" [1] So you're saying this did not contribute to the food shortage (a drop in domestic production of rice)? Or you're saying this drop in production would've happened irrespective of the fertilizer ban? 1 https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an-economic https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an...
seltzered_ 4y ago
That narrative (affiliating the collapse of Sri Lanka with ESG, Degrowth) has been getting pushed primarily by people on the other side of the planet with their own political biases (libertarians, preppers, bitcoin maximalists, etc.). Yes it was a terrible policy to issue an immediate ban on fertilizers, and don't think organizations/ngos associated with the policy should be absolved, but there also has to be a look into where we are in terms of 'planetary boundaries' (Google it) and what it means.
- asabjorn 4y ago
  I agree that there are other issues such as huge loans from China ( belt&road is a economic catastrophe where deployed), tourism drop due to covid and a 2019 bombing etc That said the ESG actions is clearly correlated in the data with 1/3 of farmland laying dormant in 2021, crop losses and yield issues. Many of us won’t forget Sri Lanka was touted by WEF as a ESG poster child before it went south. This article links to supporting data https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-dogma-behind-fall-of-sri-lanka https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-dogma-behi...
  - seltzered_ 4y ago
    Fair point, I'm not trying to defend ESG (there's all sorts of issues with it), but authors from abroad (like Michael Shellenberger who you link to) are seemingly caricaturizing the Sri Lanka situation (a mix of economic loan entanglement and bad policy) to argue for their narrative. Shellenberger who you link to is "A self-described ecomodernist, Shellenberger believes that economic growth can continue without negative environmental impacts through technological research and development, usually through a combination of nuclear power and urbanization. A controversial figure, Shellenberger disagrees with most environmentalists over the impacts of environmental threats and policies for addressing them.[2][3] Shellenberger's positions and writings on climate change and environmentalism have received criticism from environmental scientists and academics, calling them "bad science" and "inaccurate"." (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger )
    - 4y ago

Yoric 4y ago

Well, we do need food. But do we need it so highly processed? Do we really need video game consoles or Netflix? Do we need to change phone or car quite so often? I'm sure we all can find a number of things that we own and shouldn't really have bought. I'm not sure what it takes to degrow, but I'm pretty convinced that there's lots of fat in our consumerist lives that could be trimmed away even without changing our daily lives meaningfully.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dr_dshiv 4y ago
Arguing for greater efficiency or arguing against luxury is so, so different from arguing for degrowth. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems that degrowth is fundamentally misanthropic. And the core of the misanthropic philosophy is the belief that mankind and nature are two different things. We will likely die for the lack of philosophy.
- wmf 4y ago
  Yep, I call it "plants are better than people" thinking.
- anvandare 4y ago
  Mankind is to Nature as a cancer cell is to the rest of the organism. Very much part of it, also very much going to kill it because it can't stop growing and consuming resources. But there is no intent, it's just buggy code. Mankind is not malicious, just malignant.
  - akimball 4y ago
    ...said every supervillain in scifi. You might want to build an evil AI to swallow the fly.
- smallerfish 4y ago
  > Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems that degrowth is fundamentally misanthropic. And the core of the misanthropic philosophy is the belief that mankind and nature are two different things. I don't believe that one follows from the other. Humanity is part of nature. Humans are sentient, and groups of humans can decide that society and/or group systems should ideally behave in one way or another, e.g. that an economy can be organized in one way or another. Humans can also make models about the future, and make statistical predictions based upon current (sophisticated) understanding of how systems work. This sets humans apart from other organisms in nature which also operate un(or less)consciously in groups, such as ants, viruses, etc, and which have growth that is unchecked to the extent that resources permit. Therefore, it doesn't follow that humans being part of nature implies that unchecked growth is inevitable; humanity recognizing that there are in fact finite resources on this planet which we're currently bound to, and attempting to tailor the systems which affect rate of growth to ensure sufficient runway with those resources, is a very pro-humanity thing to do. That is, some control of population and resource-usage with the goal of preventing resource and environmental exhaustion and subsequent mass calamity is a tradeoff that attempts to promote the longevity of reasonable living standards with the possible expense of some liberties and the possible reining in of some unthinking consumption patterns. That doesn't equate to misanthropy, any more than preventing a 3 year old from eating a fourth bowl of ice cream does.

dredmorbius 4y ago

Framing degrowth as a choice (against continued economic growth / business as usual (BAU)), rather than as a planned de-escallation as an alternative to an unplanned catastrophic collapse and/or descent into some post-prosperity feudalistic gilded era in which a vanishingly small fraction of global haves might enjoy something approximating present high-consumption lifestyles but the overwhelming majority do not and never will ... is ignoring the fundamental reality of the degrowth / steady state argument which is that planetary boundaries exist. There are limits to resource availability, as we've known for a long time, as well as to sink capacities --- the ability of the environment to absorb the effluvia of our activities without undergoing a catastrophic shift. There are also quite probably systemic responses, including (though I'd suggest not limited to) the emergence of global epidemics and pandemics of disease and dysfunction. Kyle Harper's recent book, The Fate of Rome, advances the case that diseases co-evolve with civilisation. This itself becomes an interesting counterpoint to the well-worn argument that science, technology, and progress have relieved humans of the evils of infectious disease. It was progress, population growth, commerce, and urbanisation which created those plagues in the first place. As Jarred Diamond noted in Guns, Germs, and Steel, it was the Old World with its crowded cities and vast commercial networks which introduced plagues to the New (with a very few possible exceptions, and those largely very slow-moving insults). Though of course, diseases of the tropics were well-known. Those however are overwhelmingly zoonotic and parasite-based rather than trasmitting directly between humans, and reflect the same dynamics (huge populations and intense intercourse) though of other species, typically insects. Diseases of sanitation and hygiene, notably cholera, would be the other principle exception, though that was introduced to Europe largely from the Indian subcontinent. Again, the point isn't that degrowth is an option to BAU, it's an option to a far worse collapse or oppressive wealth concentration with massive disenfranchisement. The fact that discussing the issue in these terms an on this basis is so readily derailed is itself among the profound challenges in achieving a non-worst-case outcome. I've pointed before to the work of William Ophuls (Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity, Plato's Revenge) and Thomas Homer-Dixon (various) before, I'll recommend them without reservation here again.