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It is not difficult to fake (e.g. China for the last 20 years). But I agree with you, we should add new metrics (and targets) but keep a GDP as one of them, als

It is not difficult to fake (e.g. China for the last 20 years). But I agree with you, we should add new metrics (and targets) but keep a GDP as one of them, also for the other indicators to mature (how they are measure, methodologies, transparency, etc...). Maybe one day GDP would be able to be left behind...

hnews_account_1 4y ago
GDP is not what people randomly think it is. It is a measure of the economic output of a country. It isn’t about equality or productivity or did the money build a ghost town etc. If we had the magical mathematics to encode that much in a single number, we’d be traveling the stars.
- 1dry 4y ago
  I disagree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that "traveling the stars" is a worthy goal, even more worthy than stewardship of the paradise we already have. We are living in heaven. We have a wonderful planet that nurtures us yet we continue to sabotage our favorable situation for the sake of growing worthless numbers like GDP, all while some people starve or are forced into lives of misery. And yes, I have read Parable of the {Sower|Talents}, who's primary lesson I take to be, we should prevent that terrible situation in the first place.
  - nverno 4y ago
    People can track GDP without optimizing for it at the expense of the environment. Although, metrics do seem to hack the human brain in such a way that we can't help but try to optimize them, no matter how useless they are.
    - 1dry 4y ago
      Right, yet we do track all kinds of well-being related metrics, there are happiness indices and the like, yet it seems no one optimizes for them.
  - aeternum 4y ago
    The earth is at best a temporary paradise, doomed to be burned up by a rogue asteroid or if it's exceedingly lucky its very own sun. Also incomprehensibly limited in the population and diversity of life it can support when compared with the universe. How incredibly selfish of us to decide we shall be the select few that get to live on a single planet when the universe has the potential to support so many more lives. Every second we delay, countless earth-like planets are being consumed by black holes, never to be seen again.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      >Every second we delay, countless earth-like planets are being consumed by black holes, never to be seen again. You don't know that. We don't know what happens to objects that fall into black holes. In fact, it's quite possible we're already inside a black hole.
    - 1dry 4y ago
      I think what's selfish is romanticizing "so many more [hypothetical] lives" while real lives now are smothered for the sake of malignant capitalism. Perhaps the fact the the former takes no self sacrifice makes it an appealing viewpoint.
    - SamPatt 4y ago
      Given that humanity has only existed for ~200,000 years, and the threats you've mentioned are unknown but likely millions or billions of years in the future, is it fair to say it's a "temporary paradise?" If we could live another ten, one hundred, or a thousand of humanity's lifetimes, that's not temporary in any meaningful sense. To put it differently: making plans today for the earth's demise due to the sun's expansion is a rather extreme case of premature optimization.
      - hnews_account_1 4y ago
        It’s the next frontier and an area for expanding our technological prowess, even if we disregard the doomer psychology aspect of it. We have so much shit to do to even mine the asteroid belt that the next 100 years will look as different from now as we do from the Middle Ages. Not to mention when even further in the future we decide that interstellar travel must be attempted.
- dgb23 4y ago
  GDP as it’s measured originally? Yes. It was a measurement of actual industrial strength. But since then it also includes made up stats such as investment risks and other ideological and fantastical things? No.
  - hnews_account_1 4y ago
    This is incorrect. It is gross economic output which includes investments. Investments is real net change in money. It’s not “made up”.
strangeattractr 4y ago
What do you mean when you say China fakes its GDP?
- ram4jesus 4y ago
  Not that I fully believe this, but the claims about Ghost Cities, for example. Infrastructure projects built to increase GDP and industrial activity without clear goals.
  - eru 4y ago
    The Ghost Cities crop up every once in a while, but they aren't actually a problem. They usually turn into actual cities. (There are some other problems with Chinese GDP figures, but Ghost Cities aren't among them.)
- LeapingLennie 4y ago
  The Economist recently reported on a study that used the brightness of countries' lights at night as proxy for GDP[1][2]. The study suggests China and other autocracies have significantly exaggerated their GDP growth over the last twenty years. [1]: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-of-lights-at-night-suggests-dictators-lie-about-economic-growth https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-... [2]: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/how-much-should-we-trust-the-dictators-gdp-growth-estimates/ https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/how-much-should-we-tr...
  - MikePlacid 4y ago
    One of the things that struck me as weird after landing in the US - is how wasteful the lightning here is. If I was an autocratic ruler, I would definitely scaled it back a couple of times.
    - papreclip 4y ago
      I would scale it back as an autocratic ruler even if hurt GDP. It would be nice to see more of the night sky
Aunche 4y ago
If you control the media like China does, you can fake every metric if you want. In any place with a free press, economists could easily approximate GDP and report it if it were fake.
lmm 4y ago
> It is not difficult to fake (e.g. China for the last 20 years). Being valid in China is a very high bar, there is very little that a totalitarian government can't fake if it tries hard enough.

hnews_account_1 4y ago

GDP is not what people randomly think it is. It is a measure of the economic output of a country. It isn’t about equality or productivity or did the money build a ghost town etc. If we had the magical mathematics to encode that much in a single number, we’d be traveling the stars.

1dry 4y ago
I disagree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that "traveling the stars" is a worthy goal, even more worthy than stewardship of the paradise we already have. We are living in heaven. We have a wonderful planet that nurtures us yet we continue to sabotage our favorable situation for the sake of growing worthless numbers like GDP, all while some people starve or are forced into lives of misery. And yes, I have read Parable of the {Sower|Talents}, who's primary lesson I take to be, we should prevent that terrible situation in the first place.
- nverno 4y ago
  People can track GDP without optimizing for it at the expense of the environment. Although, metrics do seem to hack the human brain in such a way that we can't help but try to optimize them, no matter how useless they are.
  - 1dry 4y ago
    Right, yet we do track all kinds of well-being related metrics, there are happiness indices and the like, yet it seems no one optimizes for them.
- aeternum 4y ago
  The earth is at best a temporary paradise, doomed to be burned up by a rogue asteroid or if it's exceedingly lucky its very own sun. Also incomprehensibly limited in the population and diversity of life it can support when compared with the universe. How incredibly selfish of us to decide we shall be the select few that get to live on a single planet when the universe has the potential to support so many more lives. Every second we delay, countless earth-like planets are being consumed by black holes, never to be seen again.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    >Every second we delay, countless earth-like planets are being consumed by black holes, never to be seen again. You don't know that. We don't know what happens to objects that fall into black holes. In fact, it's quite possible we're already inside a black hole.
  - 1dry 4y ago
    I think what's selfish is romanticizing "so many more [hypothetical] lives" while real lives now are smothered for the sake of malignant capitalism. Perhaps the fact the the former takes no self sacrifice makes it an appealing viewpoint.
  - SamPatt 4y ago
    Given that humanity has only existed for ~200,000 years, and the threats you've mentioned are unknown but likely millions or billions of years in the future, is it fair to say it's a "temporary paradise?" If we could live another ten, one hundred, or a thousand of humanity's lifetimes, that's not temporary in any meaningful sense. To put it differently: making plans today for the earth's demise due to the sun's expansion is a rather extreme case of premature optimization.
    - hnews_account_1 4y ago
      It’s the next frontier and an area for expanding our technological prowess, even if we disregard the doomer psychology aspect of it. We have so much shit to do to even mine the asteroid belt that the next 100 years will look as different from now as we do from the Middle Ages. Not to mention when even further in the future we decide that interstellar travel must be attempted.
dgb23 4y ago
GDP as it’s measured originally? Yes. It was a measurement of actual industrial strength. But since then it also includes made up stats such as investment risks and other ideological and fantastical things? No.
- hnews_account_1 4y ago
  This is incorrect. It is gross economic output which includes investments. Investments is real net change in money. It’s not “made up”.

strangeattractr 4y ago

What do you mean when you say China fakes its GDP?

ram4jesus 4y ago
Not that I fully believe this, but the claims about Ghost Cities, for example. Infrastructure projects built to increase GDP and industrial activity without clear goals.
- eru 4y ago
  The Ghost Cities crop up every once in a while, but they aren't actually a problem. They usually turn into actual cities. (There are some other problems with Chinese GDP figures, but Ghost Cities aren't among them.)
LeapingLennie 4y ago
The Economist recently reported on a study that used the brightness of countries' lights at night as proxy for GDP[1][2]. The study suggests China and other autocracies have significantly exaggerated their GDP growth over the last twenty years. [1]: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-of-lights-at-night-suggests-dictators-lie-about-economic-growth https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-... [2]: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/how-much-should-we-trust-the-dictators-gdp-growth-estimates/ https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/how-much-should-we-tr...
- MikePlacid 4y ago
  One of the things that struck me as weird after landing in the US - is how wasteful the lightning here is. If I was an autocratic ruler, I would definitely scaled it back a couple of times.
  - papreclip 4y ago
    I would scale it back as an autocratic ruler even if hurt GDP. It would be nice to see more of the night sky

Aunche 4y ago

If you control the media like China does, you can fake every metric if you want. In any place with a free press, economists could easily approximate GDP and report it if it were fake.

lmm 4y ago

> It is not difficult to fake (e.g. China for the last 20 years). Being valid in China is a very high bar, there is very little that a totalitarian government can't fake if it tries hard enough.