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> How do you achieve infinite growth on a planet with a finite population and resources? Efficiency gains. How many "resources" are consumed by a piece of soft

> How do you achieve infinite growth on a planet with a finite population and resources? Efficiency gains. How many "resources" are consumed by a piece of software relative to the "growth" that resulted from it? I can now have a machine generate 100 mediocre pieces of art for $20, two years ago each one would have cost $100 and taken a week for an actual artist to produce.

lib-dev 3y ago
Don't you reach a point of diminishing returns even with that?
stkdump 3y ago
If efficiency gains were the secret go (infinite) growth, then companies would be able to grow their business without growing their workforce, building more factories, warehouses, etc.
- brigadier132 3y ago
  I don't follow your logic. Just because companies could grow their businesses without increasing their workforce it doesn't mean that they couldn't achieve a higher rate of growth by increasing their workforce.
  - stkdump 3y ago
    My point is if it were possible we should see at least some examples of it happening. So far it is an often recited conjecture without any practical proof, so I remain sceptical.
    - dukeyukey 3y ago
      > My point is if it were possible we should see at least some examples of it happening. We see it all the time? Google's revenue is up last quarter despite redundancies meaning they have a lower headcount. Adding robotics to a car production line can massively increase the productivity of a single factory despite needing less headcount, often allowing other factories to shut. Something like Intellij or Copilot can make the entire tech workforce more efficient _far_ in excess of what it cost to make.
- Nasrudith 3y ago
  That is an overabstracted viewpoint that assumes they just crank up a variable. How do the efficiency gains take place in the first place? By creating something new that is more efficent. Even if we ignore economies of scale as a source of efficency there is a replacement curve in action which would create growth! A situation where they would immediately scrap the old equipment for the same payload and switch to a new more efficient one is extremely rare.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  They are the "secret". But efficiency gains (from methods, skills, technology) are usually harder to get and implement than scaling gains. Building a new factory is a known factor; investing in a new ecosystem of manufacturing machines, less so, especially if you have to retrain your workforce. But companies absolutely grow their business without using more resources. Ininite growth isn't possible, but I genuinely believe near-infinite growth is.
nicoburns 3y ago
You can some gains this way, but they're limited in a couple of ways: 1. Yes, the resources consumed to make software are smaller, but they're still non-zero and will never be zero. So ultimately you're still limited by finite resources. 2. Many things just can't be implemented in software. I would point to A. Housing and B. Food production as things that are pretty hard to optimise. That isn't to say that we can't optimise them at all. We can build smaller houses or taller buildings. And we can transform energy from fossil fuels into fertiliser that increases yields. But growth in these areas is still very much constrained. And these things are key human needs.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  "Infinite" growth is funny, cos infinity is funny. Eventually there's gonna be some hard cap, but for all we know that's thousands of years away, so it's not really worth talking about. But we're still getting way more efficient at growing food and building infrastructure. Like, about 150 years ago an American farm could get about 26 bushels of corn per acre. The last few years, we've gotten 174, about 6x more. And that's in a very favourable agricultural zone, chances are it's even greater in more marginal areas! Source: https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2022/07/perspectives-on-national-u-s-corn-yields-for-productivity-and-down-side-yield-risk.html https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2022/07/perspectives-on-na...
tjpnz 3y ago
What if the metric driving your stock is engagement and you've managed to somehow maximise it? How do you continue to grow when there's a finite number of people in the world and a finite number of hours in the day? There's also a finite number of ads you can show before you've enshitified your product and start shedding users, and a finite number of ways you can make efficiency gains when it comes to serving them (including layoffs).

lib-dev 3y ago

Don't you reach a point of diminishing returns even with that?

stkdump 3y ago

If efficiency gains were the secret go (infinite) growth, then companies would be able to grow their business without growing their workforce, building more factories, warehouses, etc.

brigadier132 3y ago
I don't follow your logic. Just because companies could grow their businesses without increasing their workforce it doesn't mean that they couldn't achieve a higher rate of growth by increasing their workforce.
- stkdump 3y ago
  My point is if it were possible we should see at least some examples of it happening. So far it is an often recited conjecture without any practical proof, so I remain sceptical.
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    > My point is if it were possible we should see at least some examples of it happening. We see it all the time? Google's revenue is up last quarter despite redundancies meaning they have a lower headcount. Adding robotics to a car production line can massively increase the productivity of a single factory despite needing less headcount, often allowing other factories to shut. Something like Intellij or Copilot can make the entire tech workforce more efficient _far_ in excess of what it cost to make.
Nasrudith 3y ago
That is an overabstracted viewpoint that assumes they just crank up a variable. How do the efficiency gains take place in the first place? By creating something new that is more efficent. Even if we ignore economies of scale as a source of efficency there is a replacement curve in action which would create growth! A situation where they would immediately scrap the old equipment for the same payload and switch to a new more efficient one is extremely rare.
dukeyukey 3y ago
They are the "secret". But efficiency gains (from methods, skills, technology) are usually harder to get and implement than scaling gains. Building a new factory is a known factor; investing in a new ecosystem of manufacturing machines, less so, especially if you have to retrain your workforce. But companies absolutely grow their business without using more resources. Ininite growth isn't possible, but I genuinely believe near-infinite growth is.

nicoburns 3y ago

You can some gains this way, but they're limited in a couple of ways: 1. Yes, the resources consumed to make software are smaller, but they're still non-zero and will never be zero. So ultimately you're still limited by finite resources. 2. Many things just can't be implemented in software. I would point to A. Housing and B. Food production as things that are pretty hard to optimise. That isn't to say that we can't optimise them at all. We can build smaller houses or taller buildings. And we can transform energy from fossil fuels into fertiliser that increases yields. But growth in these areas is still very much constrained. And these things are key human needs.

dukeyukey 3y ago
"Infinite" growth is funny, cos infinity is funny. Eventually there's gonna be some hard cap, but for all we know that's thousands of years away, so it's not really worth talking about. But we're still getting way more efficient at growing food and building infrastructure. Like, about 150 years ago an American farm could get about 26 bushels of corn per acre. The last few years, we've gotten 174, about 6x more. And that's in a very favourable agricultural zone, chances are it's even greater in more marginal areas! Source: https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2022/07/perspectives-on-national-u-s-corn-yields-for-productivity-and-down-side-yield-risk.html https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2022/07/perspectives-on-na...

tjpnz 3y ago

What if the metric driving your stock is engagement and you've managed to somehow maximise it? How do you continue to grow when there's a finite number of people in the world and a finite number of hours in the day? There's also a finite number of ads you can show before you've enshitified your product and start shedding users, and a finite number of ways you can make efficiency gains when it comes to serving them (including layoffs).