5 ms·

There's an unspoken fallacy here. The case for degrowth is imperfect, but it's better than the case for infinite growth, which is effectively the current paradi

There's an unspoken fallacy here. The case for degrowth is imperfect, but it's better than the case for infinite growth, which is effectively the current paradigm.

coreyh14444 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Billion_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Billion_Americans
- supportengineer 2y ago
  I haven't read this book but I hope they came to the conclusion that this cannot be done without a huge expansion of the rail network.
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
What about a third option, where we neither grow nor shrink? False dichotomies, anyone?
- randomdata 2y ago
  A system without at least some noise is effectively impossible. A system of this complexity is bound to have quite a lot of noise to contend with.
  - tempfile 2y ago
    Neither grow nor shrink on average - it's quite possible for a noisy system to be stable.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      By that token, as far as we know the system has always been stable, only that not enough datapoints to overcome the noise have been observed yet. What we are observing being anything other than noise is highly unlikely.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  It's a false dichotomy. But also, we need to gain efficiency, and quickly. That constitutes as growth. The degrowth ideas don't differentiate what kind of growth they are fighting, neither does targeting neutral growth. You can't target a single number that accurately, we need a details-based intervention.
dijit 2y ago
With the risk of wading into very controversial political territory. I think it's incredible that people have been told for 2 decades that the number of humans that exist is too many, that people should not have kids (it's so hard!, and expensive, treat yourself!), and so forth. But on the other hand, our society is designed in a way that: if it's not growing; it's disasterous. Which meant that our societies, thinking short-term as they do: turned to migration. Which can be quite unpopular and lead to civil unrest. IF having children is bad for the environment, why don't we just plan to shrink our economies? I know I sound naive but it's absurd to me that we don't make plans to have a shrinking population if obstensibly that's what we have to do as humanity to survive. Importing people is the worst kind of band-aid, it's totally unsustainable! And we still tell people not to have kids.
- danbruc 2y ago
  But on the other hand, our society is designed in a way that: if it's not growing; it's disasterous. Why? We could all just forever keep doing what we are doing today, nothing bad would happen. With a few caveats. We are depleting non-renewable resources and the population size is changing, that would eventually cause problems if not addressed. Also living standards are very unequal, in reality you could not convince the poorer people to not try to become richer.
randomdata 2y ago
Infinite growth is the best way to save the planet, enabling its fever to continue to rise unabated until the infection is killed off. Degrowth is apt to hinder the planet's defence mechanisms, prolonging the infection. But perhaps the planet isn't actually what we want to save, contrary to the headline?
danbruc 2y ago
Could we solve climate change if we just accepted being dramatically poorer, forever? As I’ve written before, the answer is 1) no, not really [...] You can almost certainly solve climate change with degrowth, the plantet can probably handle ten billion people living stone age lifestyles, it is just a question of how much we have to give up. But the not really part is the important one, you are not going to convince people to reduce their living standards significantly. If the required amount of degrowth means going back to the living standard from a couple of decades ago or more, that is not going to happen before the surface of the Earth is a deserted wasteland and people really feel the need. I guess the best you can do is maintaining the current living standard and put future growth into making that living standard less environmental impactful instead of further raising the living standard.
- agentultra 2y ago
  I’ve heard one claim that we could bring all 8.5 billion of us to the living standard of a middle class American in the 1960’s and still reduce the size of our economic footprint to fit within sustainable boundaries for a healthy planet. Not sure if that’s true. The claim is that wealth inequality and standards of living are not distributed evenly. A very small percentage of people on Earth emit much more carbon than the rest. Enough of a difference, perhaps, that the argument that we’d all be living in stone huts is a bit ridiculous if we were to focus on degrowth. What I find hard to digest about all of this is that the foundations of economics is based on a lot of shady hand-waving and pontificating. How we base our society and planning for our future on such a weak discipline is tiring.
  - danbruc 2y ago
    You are not going to convince people to go back to the 1960s. But I think that is also the wrong way of looking at it, just going back in time would be stupid. We have made advancements, for example houses and cars consuming less energy, it would make no sense to go back to the old technology. So you could probably have a larger house than you had in the 1960s while still having the same environmental footprint. Or did they already factor that in, you need 1950s energy consumption and with current technology that buys you 1960s stuff? One would really have to carefully analyze what you can fit into the available footprint with current technology. Maybe you only get two plane trips during your lifetime, that is one of the first things that comes to mind that people did a lot less in the past, travelling. But the would of course cause ripple effects and it could be really hard to predict the effects.
dukeyukey 2y ago
What do you mean by "infinite"? Can we keep growing by a few percentage points a year for the next few centuries? Yeah, probably. Can we do that until the heat death of the universe and beyond? Probably not. Stuff gets weird when you include "infinity".
- tzs 2y ago
  > Can we keep growing by a few percentage points a year for the next few centuries? Yeah, probably 2 percent a year for 200 years (the minimum rate and years that could count as a few) is a multiplier or around 52. For population that would give about 400 billion. > Can we do that until the heat death of the universe and beyond? Probably not. For population and energy we hit severe physical limits long before that. At 1% annual growth in population in 12000 years we run out room. What I mean by "run out of room" is that assuming no FTL travel then since every human right now is on Earth or in low Earth orbit no human 12000 years from now can be more than 12000 light years from Earth. The volume of a sphere 12000 light years in radius, divided by the population after 12000 years of 1% growth, is less than the volume of a human. How about energy? 9300 years of 1% annual energy growth starting now reaches a level where our annual consumption equals the energy of the entire Milky Way galaxy. By "energy of the entire Milky Way" mean everything...electromagnetic radiation, gravitational potential energy, the E=mc^2 energy of everything that has mass. If we can somehow actually do that, 2700 more years of 1% annual energy growth and we are annually consuming the entire energy of the observable universe. Its similar when you look at the mass to make human bodies. Here's what 1% annual population growth looks like in terms of mass needed: 3400 years to where the mass of human bodies equals the total mass of Earth and Moon. 600 more years and we also need Jupiter's mass. 700 more and we need the mass of the whole solar system. Then it is another 2000 before we need the mass of the entire Milky way. 100 more years and we need the Andromeda galaxy's mass too. That's 6800 years from now. Then it is 5500 years until all mass in the observable universe is needed for human bodies. Unless we get FTL travel it seems pretty clear than sometime in the next 12000 years either growth must slow or we have to change humans to require a lot less space, mass, and energy.
marcosdumay 2y ago
As far as "doesn't solve any of the problems, stops any of the solutions people are implanting right now from working, and makes sure nobody will try to solve the problem on the foreseeable future" qualifies as an "imperfect" solution. But yeah, "this thing is wrong, so we must do that other wrong thing instead" is a great talking point.

There's an unspoken fallacy here. The case for degrowth is imperfect, but it's better than the case for infinite growth, which is effectively the current paradigm.

coreyh14444 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Billion_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Billion_Americans

supportengineer 2y ago
I haven't read this book but I hope they came to the conclusion that this cannot be done without a huge expansion of the rail network.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

What about a third option, where we neither grow nor shrink? False dichotomies, anyone?

randomdata 2y ago
A system without at least some noise is effectively impossible. A system of this complexity is bound to have quite a lot of noise to contend with.
- tempfile 2y ago
  Neither grow nor shrink on average - it's quite possible for a noisy system to be stable.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    By that token, as far as we know the system has always been stable, only that not enough datapoints to overcome the noise have been observed yet. What we are observing being anything other than noise is highly unlikely.
marcosdumay 2y ago
It's a false dichotomy. But also, we need to gain efficiency, and quickly. That constitutes as growth. The degrowth ideas don't differentiate what kind of growth they are fighting, neither does targeting neutral growth. You can't target a single number that accurately, we need a details-based intervention.

dijit 2y ago

With the risk of wading into very controversial political territory. I think it's incredible that people have been told for 2 decades that the number of humans that exist is too many, that people should not have kids (it's so hard!, and expensive, treat yourself!), and so forth. But on the other hand, our society is designed in a way that: if it's not growing; it's disasterous. Which meant that our societies, thinking short-term as they do: turned to migration. Which can be quite unpopular and lead to civil unrest. IF having children is bad for the environment, why don't we just plan to shrink our economies? I know I sound naive but it's absurd to me that we don't make plans to have a shrinking population if obstensibly that's what we have to do as humanity to survive. Importing people is the worst kind of band-aid, it's totally unsustainable! And we still tell people not to have kids.

danbruc 2y ago
But on the other hand, our society is designed in a way that: if it's not growing; it's disasterous. Why? We could all just forever keep doing what we are doing today, nothing bad would happen. With a few caveats. We are depleting non-renewable resources and the population size is changing, that would eventually cause problems if not addressed. Also living standards are very unequal, in reality you could not convince the poorer people to not try to become richer.

randomdata 2y ago

Infinite growth is the best way to save the planet, enabling its fever to continue to rise unabated until the infection is killed off. Degrowth is apt to hinder the planet's defence mechanisms, prolonging the infection. But perhaps the planet isn't actually what we want to save, contrary to the headline?

danbruc 2y ago

Could we solve climate change if we just accepted being dramatically poorer, forever? As I’ve written before, the answer is 1) no, not really [...] You can almost certainly solve climate change with degrowth, the plantet can probably handle ten billion people living stone age lifestyles, it is just a question of how much we have to give up. But the not really part is the important one, you are not going to convince people to reduce their living standards significantly. If the required amount of degrowth means going back to the living standard from a couple of decades ago or more, that is not going to happen before the surface of the Earth is a deserted wasteland and people really feel the need. I guess the best you can do is maintaining the current living standard and put future growth into making that living standard less environmental impactful instead of further raising the living standard.

agentultra 2y ago
I’ve heard one claim that we could bring all 8.5 billion of us to the living standard of a middle class American in the 1960’s and still reduce the size of our economic footprint to fit within sustainable boundaries for a healthy planet. Not sure if that’s true. The claim is that wealth inequality and standards of living are not distributed evenly. A very small percentage of people on Earth emit much more carbon than the rest. Enough of a difference, perhaps, that the argument that we’d all be living in stone huts is a bit ridiculous if we were to focus on degrowth. What I find hard to digest about all of this is that the foundations of economics is based on a lot of shady hand-waving and pontificating. How we base our society and planning for our future on such a weak discipline is tiring.
- danbruc 2y ago
  You are not going to convince people to go back to the 1960s. But I think that is also the wrong way of looking at it, just going back in time would be stupid. We have made advancements, for example houses and cars consuming less energy, it would make no sense to go back to the old technology. So you could probably have a larger house than you had in the 1960s while still having the same environmental footprint. Or did they already factor that in, you need 1950s energy consumption and with current technology that buys you 1960s stuff? One would really have to carefully analyze what you can fit into the available footprint with current technology. Maybe you only get two plane trips during your lifetime, that is one of the first things that comes to mind that people did a lot less in the past, travelling. But the would of course cause ripple effects and it could be really hard to predict the effects.

dukeyukey 2y ago

What do you mean by "infinite"? Can we keep growing by a few percentage points a year for the next few centuries? Yeah, probably. Can we do that until the heat death of the universe and beyond? Probably not. Stuff gets weird when you include "infinity".

tzs 2y ago
> Can we keep growing by a few percentage points a year for the next few centuries? Yeah, probably 2 percent a year for 200 years (the minimum rate and years that could count as a few) is a multiplier or around 52. For population that would give about 400 billion. > Can we do that until the heat death of the universe and beyond? Probably not. For population and energy we hit severe physical limits long before that. At 1% annual growth in population in 12000 years we run out room. What I mean by "run out of room" is that assuming no FTL travel then since every human right now is on Earth or in low Earth orbit no human 12000 years from now can be more than 12000 light years from Earth. The volume of a sphere 12000 light years in radius, divided by the population after 12000 years of 1% growth, is less than the volume of a human. How about energy? 9300 years of 1% annual energy growth starting now reaches a level where our annual consumption equals the energy of the entire Milky Way galaxy. By "energy of the entire Milky Way" mean everything...electromagnetic radiation, gravitational potential energy, the E=mc^2 energy of everything that has mass. If we can somehow actually do that, 2700 more years of 1% annual energy growth and we are annually consuming the entire energy of the observable universe. Its similar when you look at the mass to make human bodies. Here's what 1% annual population growth looks like in terms of mass needed: 3400 years to where the mass of human bodies equals the total mass of Earth and Moon. 600 more years and we also need Jupiter's mass. 700 more and we need the mass of the whole solar system. Then it is another 2000 before we need the mass of the entire Milky way. 100 more years and we need the Andromeda galaxy's mass too. That's 6800 years from now. Then it is 5500 years until all mass in the observable universe is needed for human bodies. Unless we get FTL travel it seems pretty clear than sometime in the next 12000 years either growth must slow or we have to change humans to require a lot less space, mass, and energy.

marcosdumay 2y ago

As far as "doesn't solve any of the problems, stops any of the solutions people are implanting right now from working, and makes sure nobody will try to solve the problem on the foreseeable future" qualifies as an "imperfect" solution. But yeah, "this thing is wrong, so we must do that other wrong thing instead" is a great talking point.