3 ms·

If that's "wealth", then "wealth" is worthless. When you have a capped number of humans, and every last one of them is jacked into the Matrix and has everythin

by dTal 3y ago

If that's "wealth", then "wealth" is worthless. When you have a capped number of humans, and every last one of them is jacked into the Matrix and has everything they could possibly want - what is there left to grow? If the growth in "wealth" doesn't actually reflect an improvement in human experience, then it's a pointless term. Sure you can have two computers trade virtual tokens at an ever-increasing rate until you saturate the network cable, but calling it "wealth" is an exercise in semantic subterfuge. It's like saying economic growth is unbounded because you can always print more money. Eventually it has to bottom out in something real.

nvm0n2 3y ago
I think you're arguing at cross-purposes with me. Nobody has argued that bouncing virtual tokens around creates wealth. That's the "wealth is money" fallacy that I just criticized. Wealth as used by economists just means all the goods and services that we provide to one another, sometimes with the addition of "services" like a clean environment. It's very broad and includes things like cultural wealth, and doesn't even have to involve selling something. That's why printing money doesn't create economic growth and nobody claims otherwise. In fact in the debate they specifically agree to discount inflation to avoid it getting in the way.
- dTal 3y ago
  The point is that there's no such thing as a (meaningful) good or service that doesn't require some amount of a tangible and finite physical resource - human time, if nothing else. The economist's position - and yours, apparently - is that "growth", whatever it is, can be sustained literally infinitely, on a finite rock amongst a finite group of hairless apes where nothing about the actual situation is infinite. So you can either have a highly abstract definition of "growth" that allows this to be true, or a definition that most people would recognize as meaningful or positive, but not both.
  - nvm0n2 3y ago
    Be careful here - the economist's position about a finite world was something the physicist picked. The economist agreed to it early on, probably to try and seem agreeable, but it's not a reasonable concession to make. Space exists, we put things there today, presumably will put more things there in future. So there is no finite world. But let's make the same assumption for a moment. For economic growth [of wealth] to stop requires two things to stop: population growth and productivity growth. As GDP is roughly population * productivity. Clearly, populations can stop growing or shrink. We can also assume a finite population limit. So this is an argument that productivity growth is also finite. But, why should that be the case? Take the example of computers. Modern computers are much more productivity enhancing than older computers, but they are also smaller (i.e. less physical resources needed) and more energy efficient. Even if the Earth had reached carrying capacity, smarter chips would continue to be designed and the productivity boost of computers would keep increasing. That's just one example, there are many others. But again, the finite world assumption doesn't hold. So the whole debate is a bit of ivory tower silliness anyway.
    - dTal 3y ago
      1) Space doesn't help you, it only postpones the inevitable. Eventually the ravenous maw of your exponentially growing civilization will run out of stars to harvest, trapped as it is inside a light bubble growing at 1c, its volume expanding with mere cubic growth. 2) You've just relabeled the discussion from "wealth" to "productivity". In any case, scoring some efficiency wins here and there is once again a game with physics-imposed limits. I repeat my question: when all humans are fully fed, housed, maximally entertained and satiated, every dopamine receptor firing on all cylinders - and you can't make more humans - what exactly is there left to grow? At all, let alone exponentially? I confess I find the notion of infinite exponential growth of anything, let alone things humans value, so patently and obviously physically unsustainable that I am deeply perturbed by these earnest efforts to defend it. I engage in the spirit one might engage Flat Eartherism, as an intellectual exercise in probing the manifestly absurd - except that this dogma apparently pervades mainstream economic thought, an observation that should terrify anyone who wants civilization to survive.
      - 3y ago

by dTal 3y ago

nvm0n2 3y ago

I think you're arguing at cross-purposes with me. Nobody has argued that bouncing virtual tokens around creates wealth. That's the "wealth is money" fallacy that I just criticized. Wealth as used by economists just means all the goods and services that we provide to one another, sometimes with the addition of "services" like a clean environment. It's very broad and includes things like cultural wealth, and doesn't even have to involve selling something. That's why printing money doesn't create economic growth and nobody claims otherwise. In fact in the debate they specifically agree to discount inflation to avoid it getting in the way.

dTal 3y ago
The point is that there's no such thing as a (meaningful) good or service that doesn't require some amount of a tangible and finite physical resource - human time, if nothing else. The economist's position - and yours, apparently - is that "growth", whatever it is, can be sustained literally infinitely, on a finite rock amongst a finite group of hairless apes where nothing about the actual situation is infinite. So you can either have a highly abstract definition of "growth" that allows this to be true, or a definition that most people would recognize as meaningful or positive, but not both.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  Be careful here - the economist's position about a finite world was something the physicist picked. The economist agreed to it early on, probably to try and seem agreeable, but it's not a reasonable concession to make. Space exists, we put things there today, presumably will put more things there in future. So there is no finite world. But let's make the same assumption for a moment. For economic growth [of wealth] to stop requires two things to stop: population growth and productivity growth. As GDP is roughly population * productivity. Clearly, populations can stop growing or shrink. We can also assume a finite population limit. So this is an argument that productivity growth is also finite. But, why should that be the case? Take the example of computers. Modern computers are much more productivity enhancing than older computers, but they are also smaller (i.e. less physical resources needed) and more energy efficient. Even if the Earth had reached carrying capacity, smarter chips would continue to be designed and the productivity boost of computers would keep increasing. That's just one example, there are many others. But again, the finite world assumption doesn't hold. So the whole debate is a bit of ivory tower silliness anyway.
  - dTal 3y ago
    1) Space doesn't help you, it only postpones the inevitable. Eventually the ravenous maw of your exponentially growing civilization will run out of stars to harvest, trapped as it is inside a light bubble growing at 1c, its volume expanding with mere cubic growth. 2) You've just relabeled the discussion from "wealth" to "productivity". In any case, scoring some efficiency wins here and there is once again a game with physics-imposed limits. I repeat my question: when all humans are fully fed, housed, maximally entertained and satiated, every dopamine receptor firing on all cylinders - and you can't make more humans - what exactly is there left to grow? At all, let alone exponentially? I confess I find the notion of infinite exponential growth of anything, let alone things humans value, so patently and obviously physically unsustainable that I am deeply perturbed by these earnest efforts to defend it. I engage in the spirit one might engage Flat Eartherism, as an intellectual exercise in probing the manifestly absurd - except that this dogma apparently pervades mainstream economic thought, an observation that should terrify anyone who wants civilization to survive.
    - 3y ago