7 ms·

Shrink the Economy, Save the World?

30 points by crummy 2y ago

ingen0s 2y ago
posting paywall articles should be banned
- duggan 2y ago
  It would at least make more sense to post the “gift”[1] version of the link, though that would require the submitter be an NYT subscriber. Be great if there were a way for NYT subscribers to edit these links, turn them into gift links. 1: https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360060848652-Gift-Articles-for-New-York-Times-Subscribers https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360060848652-Gift...
- defrost 2y ago
  There's https://archive.md/dK2PJ https://archive.md/dK2PJ if you're not using Cloudflare DNS.
- nsoonhui 2y ago
  Paywall articles with workarounds _are_ allowed (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
defrost 2y ago
Interesting to compare this essay to those in Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973) by German-born British economist E. F. Schumacher. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful
guerby 2y ago
https://archive.is/dK2PJ https://archive.is/dK2PJ
123yawaworht456 2y ago
I can't help feeling that our collective brain is being gently massaged into accepting a lower standard of living as the new normal in the future. every single year, young global leaders fly their private jets to their cool kids clubhouse and decide how should we, unwashed masses, live our lives. they tell us to stop eating meat, to stop driving cars, to stop owning things, to stop having children. and the political leanings of the useful idiots who take their side are beyond ironic to me.
- Foreignborn 2y ago
  Hypocrisy sucks, yes. Corps and states are more to blame than individuals, yes. However, your conclusions are strange to me. Some of these seem out of left field (eg “stop having children?” IMO people are lamenting not being able to afford children and the state wants more kids) Others are misguided. For things like “stop driving”, the arguments are usually positing that everyone needs to pay for the externalities that have long been subsidized. For example, car centric urban planning. We need to factor in all the other negative aspects driving cars brings. Additionally, car centric urban planning limits other lifestyles. I’m gonna ignore the idiot comment and assume the best. Good luck to you.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    No corps and states here. The article is all about individuals, almost all are academics: - Tim Jackson is a professor who seems to have spent his life in NGOs, think tanks and getting degrees of various kinds. - "Kate Soper teaches philosophy and cultural theory at the University of North London" - "Giorgos Kallis is a citizen of Greece, professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, publisher of over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, and an active member of the group Research & Degrowth" - Anitra Nelson is "an activist-scholar affiliated with the Informal Urbanism Research Hub (InfUr-) at the University of Melbourne, Australia." - "Jason Edward Hickel (born 1982) is an anthropologist and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona" - "Kohei Saito, a 37-year-old Japanese Marxist philosopher has emerged as the movement’s public face." [Saito is an associate professor at the University of Tokyo] The only one that isn't an academic is Liegey. The quickest way to give these people a less hypocritical understanding of economics would be to give them exactly what they ask for, and apply some degrowth to their grant funding.
konschubert 2y ago
Solar is cheap. We are looking at an age of energy abundance. EDIT: Since this year, batteries are also cheap.
- DrBazza 2y ago
  > Solar is cheap. We are looking at an age of energy abundance. (*) for less than half a day, in areas that are sunny, "close" to the tropics. And arguably this is fine for the majority of the Earth's population because they do indeed live close to the tropics with 12 hrs of sunshine. On the other hand, the bulk of the first world economies that require vast amounts of energy are pretty far north where it's rainy, cloudy, and daylight can be as little as a couple of hours in the winter.
- the_third_wave 2y ago
  Almost, we're looking at an age of intermittent energy abundance. Right now electricity prices are negative where I live while the solar array produces anything between 0 and 15 kW due to a mixture of network overload (hence 0 W), cloud cover (~1.5 kW) and clear skies (15 kW). This changes from second to second. Solar needs local storage but storage is expensive and limited, I'm waiting for prices to drop and capacity to increase before I invest in it.
  - konschubert 2y ago
    You have batteries for the short term and power to gas for the long term.
    - the_third_wave 2y ago
      Battery storage is still too expensive and limited, 'power to gas' is a pipe dream (no pun intended) for now and unlikely to be available for local storage. This is not a solved problem and it is the major factor in keeping back solar and (to a lesser extent) wind.
      - LUmBULtERA 2y ago
ttonkytonk 2y ago
I've recently read 19th century theologian and scholar Benjamin Jowett's introduction to Plato's Laws, where (I believe) he observes that humankind is merely in the "dawn of politics". He also points out that the state Plato conceives in Laws is in Plato's estimation the "second best" (which limits the richest to having four times as much wealth), with the one described in Republic being his ideal, which Jowett describes as "communistic" (while Jowett was a contemporary of Marx, I am unaware of any mutual regards). It's not necessary to be a materialist Marxist to embrace Hickel's "mission statement" that “Degrowth is about reducing the material and energy throughput of the economy to bring it back into balance with the living world, while distributing income and resources more fairly, liberating people from needless work, and investing in the public goods that people need to thrive.” (edited)
- DEADMINCE 2y ago
  We just need to stop wealth and money hording, by both individuals and companies. We also have to do more to break the myth that many of these wealthy people earned their wealth, when if any truly did it was a very exception and very small minority.
  - mistermann 2y ago
    > We just need to stop wealth and money hording, by both individuals and companies. To do that, you "just" have to implement a genuine and functional democracy. But to do that, you'd first have to realize that the one you have is not that. This part is not possible.
    - DEADMINCE 2y ago
      A democracy is not the answer. Democracy is tyranny of the masses and nothing more. Democracy gave us Jim Crow laws. The answer is tighter regulation and laws, and less kowtowing to corporations and 'evil' countries.
      - mistermann 2y ago

30 points by crummy 2y ago

ingen0s 2y ago

posting paywall articles should be banned

duggan 2y ago
It would at least make more sense to post the “gift”[1] version of the link, though that would require the submitter be an NYT subscriber. Be great if there were a way for NYT subscribers to edit these links, turn them into gift links. 1: https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360060848652-Gift-Articles-for-New-York-Times-Subscribers https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360060848652-Gift...
defrost 2y ago
There's https://archive.md/dK2PJ https://archive.md/dK2PJ if you're not using Cloudflare DNS.
nsoonhui 2y ago
Paywall articles with workarounds _are_ allowed (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

defrost 2y ago

Interesting to compare this essay to those in Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973) by German-born British economist E. F. Schumacher. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful

guerby 2y ago

https://archive.is/dK2PJ https://archive.is/dK2PJ

123yawaworht456 2y ago

I can't help feeling that our collective brain is being gently massaged into accepting a lower standard of living as the new normal in the future. every single year, young global leaders fly their private jets to their cool kids clubhouse and decide how should we, unwashed masses, live our lives. they tell us to stop eating meat, to stop driving cars, to stop owning things, to stop having children. and the political leanings of the useful idiots who take their side are beyond ironic to me.

Foreignborn 2y ago
Hypocrisy sucks, yes. Corps and states are more to blame than individuals, yes. However, your conclusions are strange to me. Some of these seem out of left field (eg “stop having children?” IMO people are lamenting not being able to afford children and the state wants more kids) Others are misguided. For things like “stop driving”, the arguments are usually positing that everyone needs to pay for the externalities that have long been subsidized. For example, car centric urban planning. We need to factor in all the other negative aspects driving cars brings. Additionally, car centric urban planning limits other lifestyles. I’m gonna ignore the idiot comment and assume the best. Good luck to you.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  No corps and states here. The article is all about individuals, almost all are academics: - Tim Jackson is a professor who seems to have spent his life in NGOs, think tanks and getting degrees of various kinds. - "Kate Soper teaches philosophy and cultural theory at the University of North London" - "Giorgos Kallis is a citizen of Greece, professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, publisher of over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, and an active member of the group Research & Degrowth" - Anitra Nelson is "an activist-scholar affiliated with the Informal Urbanism Research Hub (InfUr-) at the University of Melbourne, Australia." - "Jason Edward Hickel (born 1982) is an anthropologist and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona" - "Kohei Saito, a 37-year-old Japanese Marxist philosopher has emerged as the movement’s public face." [Saito is an associate professor at the University of Tokyo] The only one that isn't an academic is Liegey. The quickest way to give these people a less hypocritical understanding of economics would be to give them exactly what they ask for, and apply some degrowth to their grant funding.

konschubert 2y ago

Solar is cheap. We are looking at an age of energy abundance. EDIT: Since this year, batteries are also cheap.

DrBazza 2y ago
> Solar is cheap. We are looking at an age of energy abundance. (*) for less than half a day, in areas that are sunny, "close" to the tropics. And arguably this is fine for the majority of the Earth's population because they do indeed live close to the tropics with 12 hrs of sunshine. On the other hand, the bulk of the first world economies that require vast amounts of energy are pretty far north where it's rainy, cloudy, and daylight can be as little as a couple of hours in the winter.
the_third_wave 2y ago
Almost, we're looking at an age of intermittent energy abundance. Right now electricity prices are negative where I live while the solar array produces anything between 0 and 15 kW due to a mixture of network overload (hence 0 W), cloud cover (~1.5 kW) and clear skies (15 kW). This changes from second to second. Solar needs local storage but storage is expensive and limited, I'm waiting for prices to drop and capacity to increase before I invest in it.
- konschubert 2y ago
  You have batteries for the short term and power to gas for the long term.
  - the_third_wave 2y ago
    Battery storage is still too expensive and limited, 'power to gas' is a pipe dream (no pun intended) for now and unlikely to be available for local storage. This is not a solved problem and it is the major factor in keeping back solar and (to a lesser extent) wind.
    - LUmBULtERA 2y ago

ttonkytonk 2y ago

I've recently read 19th century theologian and scholar Benjamin Jowett's introduction to Plato's Laws, where (I believe) he observes that humankind is merely in the "dawn of politics". He also points out that the state Plato conceives in Laws is in Plato's estimation the "second best" (which limits the richest to having four times as much wealth), with the one described in Republic being his ideal, which Jowett describes as "communistic" (while Jowett was a contemporary of Marx, I am unaware of any mutual regards). It's not necessary to be a materialist Marxist to embrace Hickel's "mission statement" that “Degrowth is about reducing the material and energy throughput of the economy to bring it back into balance with the living world, while distributing income and resources more fairly, liberating people from needless work, and investing in the public goods that people need to thrive.” (edited)

DEADMINCE 2y ago
We just need to stop wealth and money hording, by both individuals and companies. We also have to do more to break the myth that many of these wealthy people earned their wealth, when if any truly did it was a very exception and very small minority.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > We just need to stop wealth and money hording, by both individuals and companies. To do that, you "just" have to implement a genuine and functional democracy. But to do that, you'd first have to realize that the one you have is not that. This part is not possible.
  - DEADMINCE 2y ago
    A democracy is not the answer. Democracy is tyranny of the masses and nothing more. Democracy gave us Jim Crow laws. The answer is tighter regulation and laws, and less kowtowing to corporations and 'evil' countries.
    - mistermann 2y ago