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I couldn't agree with you more. We have a fundamental culture of constant growth. It is by definition unsustainable. My hope is that if we did manage to ward o

I couldn't agree with you more. We have a fundamental culture of constant growth. It is by definition unsustainable. My hope is that if we did manage to ward off death for a bit longer, we might transcend some of our flawed notions. Who knows? Maybe young humans are fools, and that's the problem.

femto 12y ago
Alternatively, mortality might make us selfless and less prone to flawed notions, as death forces us to eventually pass the baton to the next generation. Does wisdom come from age, or from impending death?
marcus_holmes 12y ago
I kinda take issue with the "infinite growth is unsustainable" notion. If 1 dollar = 1 natural resource then clearly, yes, growth is constrained. But it isn't. My example for this is clerical work. Banks (for example) used to employ vast rooms of clerks, who spent entire days performing simple, repetitive maths in double-entry ledgers to make sure the bank knew where all the money was. Now all of that is done by computers, and so cheaply that banks now offer massively increased services. More value, for less cost. That's growth. Given that this is HN and frequented by legions of hackers trying to find problems to solve that create real value (by reducing costs or improving services), then this is the last place I'd expect the "growth is limited" mantra to be trotted out.
- furyofantares 12y ago
  Ultimately, growth is limited by physical constraints, given our current understanding of physics. But it seems extremely premature to be worrying about this much unless you believe a singularity is right around the corner. And even then the idea of the singularity implies to me that we have no ability to predict what will happen - perhaps there are still enormous leaps to be made in physics that make our assumptions unfounded, or perhaps a greatly increased understanding of ourselves will eliminate our desire to continue to pursue growth indefinitely.
- collyw 12y ago
  Derivatives and complex financial products now mean that no one knows where the money is, and seems to be a big part of the financial crisis. Here in Europe the banks are offering almost no interest on savings as a result. Looks like the US is the same. >"Given that this is HN and frequented by legions of hackers trying to find problems to solve that create real value" Looking at the list of YCombinator funded startups on the front page (Reddit, Airbnb, Scribd), none of them seem to be tackling the big issues of climate change, pollution, seas being over-fished, deforestation, lack of physical resources for a growing population. Sure they increase efficiency in some small area, but I don't see any that even address environmental issues. You need to remember that the majority of the worlds population live on very little money, and don't have the comfy lifestyles that many of us in the west have.
ekianjo 12y ago
>It is by definition unsustainable. Why ? What stops mankind to go in space in go grow further in other planets and systems in the future ? There's AMPLE space for growth everywhere, if anything.
- sanxiyn 12y ago
  This is not true. No amount of space suffices for exponential growth. Hubble length is less than 10^24 km. Earth radius is more than 10^3 km. Therefore there's at most room for 10^21 growth in one dimension, 10^63 growth in three dimensions. 10^63 growth is less than 210 doublings. Doubling is less than 70 years of 1% growth per year. 210 * 70 is less than 20,000. Therefore, we can't grow more than 20,000 years, 1% growth per year.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    who talks about exponential growth ? Ongoing growth can be linear and has no need to be exponential. Nice strawman.
    - collyw 12y ago
      The way politicians describe growth, it is implicit that it is exponential. More people, producing more offspring, living longer, and using more resources, as more of them become middle class.
- collyw 12y ago
  Well the tech isn't there for starters. Not in the foreseeable future either. Meanwhile the population continues to grow, the seas are over-fished and getting fill of plastic, the earth gets hotter, the rainforests are being destroyed. Energy from oil isn't going to last forever. Yes all is fine and dandy, once we set up colonies on the moon.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    > Meanwhile the population continues to grow Population is very much expected and planned to grow up until 10 billions and then stagnate and decrease progressively. Not everyone on earth has tons of kids anymore, it's very much linked to the level of life. See Rosling's speech on the matter for a more detailed explanation. The Earth does not get hotter by the way, we have like virtually no long term data on the temperature of the Earth and we should actually be VERY humble as to our ability to predict long term climate trends.
jotm 12y ago
Well, solar energy is also by definition unsustainable - the Sun will die in a few billion years, right? Our growth is sustainable for the foreseeable future, so I'd say let's first make ourselves immortal and then tackle on the issue of stagnating growth.

femto 12y ago

Alternatively, mortality might make us selfless and less prone to flawed notions, as death forces us to eventually pass the baton to the next generation. Does wisdom come from age, or from impending death?

marcus_holmes 12y ago

I kinda take issue with the "infinite growth is unsustainable" notion. If 1 dollar = 1 natural resource then clearly, yes, growth is constrained. But it isn't. My example for this is clerical work. Banks (for example) used to employ vast rooms of clerks, who spent entire days performing simple, repetitive maths in double-entry ledgers to make sure the bank knew where all the money was. Now all of that is done by computers, and so cheaply that banks now offer massively increased services. More value, for less cost. That's growth. Given that this is HN and frequented by legions of hackers trying to find problems to solve that create real value (by reducing costs or improving services), then this is the last place I'd expect the "growth is limited" mantra to be trotted out.

furyofantares 12y ago
Ultimately, growth is limited by physical constraints, given our current understanding of physics. But it seems extremely premature to be worrying about this much unless you believe a singularity is right around the corner. And even then the idea of the singularity implies to me that we have no ability to predict what will happen - perhaps there are still enormous leaps to be made in physics that make our assumptions unfounded, or perhaps a greatly increased understanding of ourselves will eliminate our desire to continue to pursue growth indefinitely.
collyw 12y ago
Derivatives and complex financial products now mean that no one knows where the money is, and seems to be a big part of the financial crisis. Here in Europe the banks are offering almost no interest on savings as a result. Looks like the US is the same. >"Given that this is HN and frequented by legions of hackers trying to find problems to solve that create real value" Looking at the list of YCombinator funded startups on the front page (Reddit, Airbnb, Scribd), none of them seem to be tackling the big issues of climate change, pollution, seas being over-fished, deforestation, lack of physical resources for a growing population. Sure they increase efficiency in some small area, but I don't see any that even address environmental issues. You need to remember that the majority of the worlds population live on very little money, and don't have the comfy lifestyles that many of us in the west have.

ekianjo 12y ago

>It is by definition unsustainable. Why ? What stops mankind to go in space in go grow further in other planets and systems in the future ? There's AMPLE space for growth everywhere, if anything.

sanxiyn 12y ago
This is not true. No amount of space suffices for exponential growth. Hubble length is less than 10^24 km. Earth radius is more than 10^3 km. Therefore there's at most room for 10^21 growth in one dimension, 10^63 growth in three dimensions. 10^63 growth is less than 210 doublings. Doubling is less than 70 years of 1% growth per year. 210 * 70 is less than 20,000. Therefore, we can't grow more than 20,000 years, 1% growth per year.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  who talks about exponential growth ? Ongoing growth can be linear and has no need to be exponential. Nice strawman.
  - collyw 12y ago
    The way politicians describe growth, it is implicit that it is exponential. More people, producing more offspring, living longer, and using more resources, as more of them become middle class.
collyw 12y ago
Well the tech isn't there for starters. Not in the foreseeable future either. Meanwhile the population continues to grow, the seas are over-fished and getting fill of plastic, the earth gets hotter, the rainforests are being destroyed. Energy from oil isn't going to last forever. Yes all is fine and dandy, once we set up colonies on the moon.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > Meanwhile the population continues to grow Population is very much expected and planned to grow up until 10 billions and then stagnate and decrease progressively. Not everyone on earth has tons of kids anymore, it's very much linked to the level of life. See Rosling's speech on the matter for a more detailed explanation. The Earth does not get hotter by the way, we have like virtually no long term data on the temperature of the Earth and we should actually be VERY humble as to our ability to predict long term climate trends.

jotm 12y ago

Well, solar energy is also by definition unsustainable - the Sun will die in a few billion years, right? Our growth is sustainable for the foreseeable future, so I'd say let's first make ourselves immortal and then tackle on the issue of stagnating growth.