5 ms·

It is sustainable.

by kaliqt 1y ago

It is sustainable.

go_elmo 1y ago
Your word, plausible
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
It is. Just not at the rate we consume it.
- bluescrn 1y ago
  Everything comes down to world population, which has quadrupled in a century, making the previously-sustainable now unsustainable. But even many of the climate catastrophists can't get away from the mentality of 'we still need growth at any cost'. And 'growth' is most easily obtained by creating more consumers and more workers.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > Everything comes down to world population This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied greatly across time and countries. > even many of the climate catastrophists can't get away from the mentality of 'we still need growth at any cost' Degrowth is an extremist dead end. If an environmental movement falls for it, it should be ignored.
    - tsimionescu 1y ago
      Degrowth is inevitable. Whether it will happen "naturally" because of climate catastrophes and war, or whether we will somehow understand this and do something before it's too late, I can 100% assure you that the world economy in 2100 will be smaller than today.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        > I can 100% assure you that the world economy in 2100 will be smaller than today. I can't assure you that the moon or the planet Mercury will exist in 2100, because 75 years is much too far ahead to forecast if we do or don't get e.g. von Neumann replicators by 2040 years and spend the next 60 using them to disassemble either or both into a Dyson swarm.
    - evrimoztamur 1y ago
      HN Bio: FinTech + Space + B2C angel & seed investor. Jackson Hole local; frequently in New York and the Bay Area. Yeah, I can see why degrowth looks extreme to you. It must be rather frightening to lose your sense of control, comfort, and purpose in an unsustainable path.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > why degrowth looks extreme to you To me personally? It’s fine. I work fewer hours than I did a decade ago, and generally travel and consume less than I did then too. The wealthy can do with degrowth fine since degrowth implies deflation. The wealthy were doing fine before the agricultural revolution, too, for example.
    - 9dev 1y ago
      Is it? Even the most simple person should understand that a closed system with finite resources won’t sustain infinite growth. Even if it isn’t us, there will be a last generation that enjoys growth as the motor of wealth. At some point, resources will deplete and the standard of living will decrease as a consequence. This is logically inevitable. Everyone just pretends this can go on and on without stopping, but that’s wrong.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > Even the most simple person should understand that a closed system with finite resources won’t sustain infinite growth As you say, this is simple. Growth doesn’t require increasing use of finite resources. A more-productive widget can (and generally is) less material intensive than its predecessor. The material and even energy intensity of GDP has been falling in the developed world for decades. Value is subjective; its substrate isn’t finite. A world of artists producing digital works could be incredibly materially unintensice, but still feature growth, as an absurd example.
        ben_w 1y ago
        Even that doesn't work as "infinite": eventually you reach atoms and bits and thermodynamic limits, the maximum complexity of our world is still finite. And sure, there's room for now, but 3%-year-on-year growth halves the remaining gap to whichever limit is critical every 24 years. I'm not at all clear how close e.g. current computer tech is to the Landauer limit, but it is definitely still developing much faster than 3%-y.o.y. For truly infinite growth, we'd have to find a way to make mass and dark energy in balanced quantities — that would allow us to have not only arbitrarily more actual stuff, but also make sure it doesn't then collapse into a black hole.
    - asdff 1y ago
      When we look at the places that have experienced degrowth in this country such as the midwestern cities, it is hard to argue today that the effects were truly all that bad. They still have all the services, institutions, and plenty of the entertainment options you'd expect. Major hospitals and universities. They aren't full of derelict homes either, those have been all more or less razed by now. The biggest benefit is far more people can actually afford a life of property ownership in these cities. Look at what 250k buys you in these places vs the places that didn't experience a degrowth period. We are talking a complete 4 bedroom home outright vs a 10% down payment on a comparable home. This might seem perverse why it could be beneficial to experience degrowth. But the answer to that is simple: no where actually accommodates growth sufficiently to keep costs from going out of control. So a degrowth period really means prices are no longer being significantly influenced by an ever incoming class of high income earners, but are more in line with the actual median incomes found in the area.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > When we look at the places that have experienced degrowth in this country such as the midwestern cities Do they work without subsidies from the growing parts of the country?
        asdff 1y ago
        Look at the map in this linked article (1). Seems like southern states are the ones getting most subsidy. Midwest for the most part relatively lower on the spectrum. And what is even the subsidy? Interstate road works? Hardly matters to your daily life. The other subsidies are probably things like welfare benefits or medicaid, which might be a significant thing in your daily life if you qualify but if you don't are also irrelevant. Lower property prices on the other hand lift all boats. Renters benefit. Homeowners benefit. Corporations benefit. At every income level in the market. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-federal-aid-reliance-2020/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-federal-aid-r... I really don't think subsidy is a factor in keeping things cheap in terms of cost of living. I think it is pretty solely due to the relationship between the size and rate of growth of the local high income demographic and housing inventory. For example it is even cheaper to live in Mexico due to this relationship, and there is probably a lot less subsidy going on there.
    - antisthenes 1y ago
      > This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied greatly across time and countries. It's not nonsense. In overwhelming majority of cases GDP is tied to energy consumption. We have not yet learned how to decouple it. With renewables, there is faint hope, but the transition is slower than we would ideally like. It also remains to be seen what % can be decoupled by pure solar and wind (hydro is already tapped out, mostly). > Degrowth is an extremist dead end. If an environmental movement falls for it, it should be ignored. So is growth at any cost.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > So is growth at any cost Yes. It is. We deeply regulate growth in every economy.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        > It also remains to be seen what % can be decoupled by pure solar and wind That's entirely dependent what % of the planet we feel like tiling in PV; wind is ultimately solar powered, and there's more places we can usefully put PV than wind anyway. Environmentalists will be Very Unhappy if we tile the Sahara with something as close to black as PV is; but that location alone (we have more deserts), using middling quality PV (20%, we have stuff more than twice that good), and the current global average capacity factor (13%, but it's a good latitude and could plausibly get 23%), would still be 11.8 times current global primary energy demand, which itself is 6-7 times current global electricity demand. > hydro is already tapped out As a source, yes; as storage, no. I only mention this because it's very easy to mix them up.

It is sustainable.

by kaliqt 1y ago

It is sustainable.

go_elmo 1y ago

Your word, plausible

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

It is. Just not at the rate we consume it.

bluescrn 1y ago
Everything comes down to world population, which has quadrupled in a century, making the previously-sustainable now unsustainable. But even many of the climate catastrophists can't get away from the mentality of 'we still need growth at any cost'. And 'growth' is most easily obtained by creating more consumers and more workers.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Everything comes down to world population This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied greatly across time and countries. > even many of the climate catastrophists can't get away from the mentality of 'we still need growth at any cost' Degrowth is an extremist dead end. If an environmental movement falls for it, it should be ignored.
  - tsimionescu 1y ago
    Degrowth is inevitable. Whether it will happen "naturally" because of climate catastrophes and war, or whether we will somehow understand this and do something before it's too late, I can 100% assure you that the world economy in 2100 will be smaller than today.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      > I can 100% assure you that the world economy in 2100 will be smaller than today. I can't assure you that the moon or the planet Mercury will exist in 2100, because 75 years is much too far ahead to forecast if we do or don't get e.g. von Neumann replicators by 2040 years and spend the next 60 using them to disassemble either or both into a Dyson swarm.
  - evrimoztamur 1y ago
    HN Bio: FinTech + Space + B2C angel & seed investor. Jackson Hole local; frequently in New York and the Bay Area. Yeah, I can see why degrowth looks extreme to you. It must be rather frightening to lose your sense of control, comfort, and purpose in an unsustainable path.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > why degrowth looks extreme to you To me personally? It’s fine. I work fewer hours than I did a decade ago, and generally travel and consume less than I did then too. The wealthy can do with degrowth fine since degrowth implies deflation. The wealthy were doing fine before the agricultural revolution, too, for example.
  - 9dev 1y ago
    Is it? Even the most simple person should understand that a closed system with finite resources won’t sustain infinite growth. Even if it isn’t us, there will be a last generation that enjoys growth as the motor of wealth. At some point, resources will deplete and the standard of living will decrease as a consequence. This is logically inevitable. Everyone just pretends this can go on and on without stopping, but that’s wrong.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > Even the most simple person should understand that a closed system with finite resources won’t sustain infinite growth As you say, this is simple. Growth doesn’t require increasing use of finite resources. A more-productive widget can (and generally is) less material intensive than its predecessor. The material and even energy intensity of GDP has been falling in the developed world for decades. Value is subjective; its substrate isn’t finite. A world of artists producing digital works could be incredibly materially unintensice, but still feature growth, as an absurd example.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        Even that doesn't work as "infinite": eventually you reach atoms and bits and thermodynamic limits, the maximum complexity of our world is still finite. And sure, there's room for now, but 3%-year-on-year growth halves the remaining gap to whichever limit is critical every 24 years. I'm not at all clear how close e.g. current computer tech is to the Landauer limit, but it is definitely still developing much faster than 3%-y.o.y. For truly infinite growth, we'd have to find a way to make mass and dark energy in balanced quantities — that would allow us to have not only arbitrarily more actual stuff, but also make sure it doesn't then collapse into a black hole.
  - asdff 1y ago
    When we look at the places that have experienced degrowth in this country such as the midwestern cities, it is hard to argue today that the effects were truly all that bad. They still have all the services, institutions, and plenty of the entertainment options you'd expect. Major hospitals and universities. They aren't full of derelict homes either, those have been all more or less razed by now. The biggest benefit is far more people can actually afford a life of property ownership in these cities. Look at what 250k buys you in these places vs the places that didn't experience a degrowth period. We are talking a complete 4 bedroom home outright vs a 10% down payment on a comparable home. This might seem perverse why it could be beneficial to experience degrowth. But the answer to that is simple: no where actually accommodates growth sufficiently to keep costs from going out of control. So a degrowth period really means prices are no longer being significantly influenced by an ever incoming class of high income earners, but are more in line with the actual median incomes found in the area.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > When we look at the places that have experienced degrowth in this country such as the midwestern cities Do they work without subsidies from the growing parts of the country?
      - asdff 1y ago
        Look at the map in this linked article (1). Seems like southern states are the ones getting most subsidy. Midwest for the most part relatively lower on the spectrum. And what is even the subsidy? Interstate road works? Hardly matters to your daily life. The other subsidies are probably things like welfare benefits or medicaid, which might be a significant thing in your daily life if you qualify but if you don't are also irrelevant. Lower property prices on the other hand lift all boats. Renters benefit. Homeowners benefit. Corporations benefit. At every income level in the market. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-federal-aid-reliance-2020/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-federal-aid-r... I really don't think subsidy is a factor in keeping things cheap in terms of cost of living. I think it is pretty solely due to the relationship between the size and rate of growth of the local high income demographic and housing inventory. For example it is even cheaper to live in Mexico due to this relationship, and there is probably a lot less subsidy going on there.
  - antisthenes 1y ago
    > This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied greatly across time and countries. It's not nonsense. In overwhelming majority of cases GDP is tied to energy consumption. We have not yet learned how to decouple it. With renewables, there is faint hope, but the transition is slower than we would ideally like. It also remains to be seen what % can be decoupled by pure solar and wind (hydro is already tapped out, mostly). > Degrowth is an extremist dead end. If an environmental movement falls for it, it should be ignored. So is growth at any cost.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > So is growth at any cost Yes. It is. We deeply regulate growth in every economy.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      > It also remains to be seen what % can be decoupled by pure solar and wind That's entirely dependent what % of the planet we feel like tiling in PV; wind is ultimately solar powered, and there's more places we can usefully put PV than wind anyway. Environmentalists will be Very Unhappy if we tile the Sahara with something as close to black as PV is; but that location alone (we have more deserts), using middling quality PV (20%, we have stuff more than twice that good), and the current global average capacity factor (13%, but it's a good latitude and could plausibly get 23%), would still be 11.8 times current global primary energy demand, which itself is 6-7 times current global electricity demand. > hydro is already tapped out As a source, yes; as storage, no. I only mention this because it's very easy to mix them up.