Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

This is the most depressing chart in the world

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 92 posts

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#71

Post by xlm1717 »

coldtea wrote: post #12

Why should we expect or even want constant growth? Is current level of growth even sustainable? (regarding environment, lifestyle issues --stress, depression, etc.--, quality of production, time for people to adapt to new paradigms, etc)? How about less "growth" and better distribution, more quality, less rat racing?

If you stop the growth, there will be more rat racing. Our current level of growth isn't sustainable because at best it's flat, at worst it's trending downward. This will lead to even more stress, depression, etc., even worse quality of production. Sure, people will have more time, but they will be too desperate to take the time to adapt to new paradigms. And try getting someone to worry about the environment when they are already worrying about making rent.

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#72

Post by dozzie »

Aeolos wrote: post #69
dozzie wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we're on the same page. First, we seem to call different things an experiment . The guy didn't made any experiment, he just charted some data. He didn't change CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, keeping everything else equal, to check if it would affect the resulting temperature. Next, he only charted temperatures. This doesn't prove anything related to carbon concentration by itself, and we don't hav…

> First, we seem to call different things an experiment. The guy didn't made any experiment, he just charted some data. He didn't change CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, keeping everything else equal, to check if it would affect the resulting temperature. Right, and the LIGO didn't create two colliding black holes to measure gravity waves, but measure gravity waves it did. "To be termed scientific, a method of in…

>> First, we seem to call different things an experiment. The guy didn't made any experiment, he just charted some data. He didn't change CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, keeping everything else equal, to check if it would affect the resulting temperature.

> Right, and the LIGO didn't create two colliding black holes to measure gravity waves, but measure gravity waves it did.

You think that some guy that merely charted some data is equivalent to some guy that developed a model, predicted what should be seen when some event Q happens, patiently waited for Q to happen, and then observed if his predictions matched what was measured while Q was happening?

> So your disagreement is based on superstitious beliefs, not the scientific method. Exactly as predicted in my previous post.

No, it's not based on superstitions. It's based on climatology's inability to deliver any explaination that actually make sense when one starts estimating how big values are in play (those that don't make sense ignore one of the basic principles, like only accounting the signal that exceeds measurement errors, or laws of thermodynamics).

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#73

Post by baldfat »

dmm wrote: post #27
coldtea wrote: post #12

Why should we expect or even want constant growth? Is current level of growth even sustainable? (regarding environment, lifestyle issues --stress, depression, etc.--, quality of production, time for people to adapt to new paradigms, etc)? How about less "growth" and better distribution, more quality, less rat racing?

In the absence of growth the only way for an individual to get more resources is to take it from someone else. Life becomes a zero-sum game. This is a qualitative change. The game stops being who can make the most pie to who can take the most.

> The game stops being who can make the most pie to who can take the most

Explains the top 1% and the actual drop in slices of pie. The issue we have is we don't even realize in the States that our pie slice is smaller but the amount is slightly larger. So our pie is a few percentage points down but we have $3,000 more so no one notices.

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#74

Post by collyw »

haimez wrote: post #54
collyw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain people seem to have more than enough to share around. Instead they seem to concentrate on accumulating more of it by (often by taking it from other people).

Sounds like you're proposing the zero sum outcome.

No. I see two ways of getting rich in this world.

1:Creating something that lots of people want and increasing the wealth for everyone.

2: Cornering the market and hoarding something that people have a need for.

The first benefits everyone. The second makes someone rich at the expense of other.

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#75

Post by ryandrake »

pjc50 wrote: post #34
coldtea wrote: post #12

Why should we expect or even want constant growth? Is current level of growth even sustainable? (regarding environment, lifestyle issues --stress, depression, etc.--, quality of production, time for people to adapt to new paradigms, etc)? How about less "growth" and better distribution, more quality, less rat racing?

That would be great, but zero growth also implies zero return on investment, and lots of current capitalist economic structures don't really work in that environment. (Yes, growth is ultimately unsustainable, but I think there's a long way to go in bringing up e.g. large areas of Africa to Chinese growth levels)

Maybe society should start coming up with economic structures that do work in an environment of zero or negative return on investment, instead of just closing our eyes and pretending "forever growth" is a realistic plan.

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#76

Post by ryandrake »

coldtea wrote: post #12

Why should we expect or even want constant growth? Is current level of growth even sustainable? (regarding environment, lifestyle issues --stress, depression, etc.--, quality of production, time for people to adapt to new paradigms, etc)? How about less "growth" and better distribution, more quality, less rat racing?

There's already a word for "growth for the sake of growth": Cancer

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#77

Post by Aeolos »

dozzie wrote: post #72
Aeolos wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, we seem to call different things an experiment. The guy didn't made any experiment, he just charted some data. He didn't change CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, keeping everything else equal, to check if it would affect the resulting temperature. Right, and the LIGO didn't create two colliding black holes to measure gravity waves, but measure gravity waves it did. "To be termed scientific, a method of in…

>> First, we seem to call different things an experiment. The guy didn't made any experiment, he just charted some data. He didn't change CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, keeping everything else equal, to check if it would affect the resulting temperature. > Right, and the LIGO didn't create two colliding black holes to measure gravity waves, but measure gravity waves it did. You think that some guy that merely c…

> No, it's not based on superstitions. It's based on climatology's inability to deliver any explaination [...]

You have already established that you don't believe humans are (or even could be) causing global warming. You are not seeking any scientific proof for that - it is merely a superstitious belief that you are holding. A personal bias, if you will.

The rest of your posts are merely rationalizations for this bias. The problem is not that the science is not explaining climate change enough. The problem is that no possible explanation will penetrate your mind's defenses against the terrifying notion that you might be wrong.

Think of this: if thousands upon thousands of scientists, using hundreds of different methodologies and dozens of different datasets to arrive at the same conclusion, can't convince you; if the fact that, since the industrial revolution, humanity released into the environment energy equivalent to 50% the Triasic-Jurassic extinction event can't convince you; then nothing ever will.

At this point, there's only one thing left: grab one of those datasets and run any sort of analysis you wish. See for yourself what kind of results you come up with. Unless you are willing to walk the walk, there is no point in continuing this discussion.

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#78

Post by pjc50 »

ryandrake wrote: post #75
pjc50 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be great, but zero growth also implies zero return on investment, and lots of current capitalist economic structures don't really work in that environment. (Yes, growth is ultimately unsustainable, but I think there's a long way to go in bringing up e.g. large areas of Africa to Chinese growth levels)

Maybe society should start coming up with economic structures that do work in an environment of zero or negative return on investment, instead of just closing our eyes and pretending "forever growth" is a realistic plan.

Some effort is being put into preparing the ground for negative interest rates, but human loss aversion psychology is a difficult thing to overcome.

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#79

Post by mindslight »

dmm wrote: post #27
coldtea wrote: post #12

Why should we expect or even want constant growth? Is current level of growth even sustainable? (regarding environment, lifestyle issues --stress, depression, etc.--, quality of production, time for people to adapt to new paradigms, etc)? How about less "growth" and better distribution, more quality, less rat racing?

In the absence of growth the only way for an individual to get more resources is to take it from someone else. Life becomes a zero-sum game. This is a qualitative change. The game stops being who can make the most pie to who can take the most.

Growth usually refers to a second derivative, whereas "getting more resources" is a first derivative.

If someone produces the same 5 widgets/month for 10 years, their business has not grown yet they've been creating resources the whole time.

The two are only equivalent when we assume that income matches expenses (no savings), which is a fundamental problem with the modern economy.

Re: This is the most depressing chart in the world

#80

Post by toomuchtodo »

dmm wrote: post #68
coldtea wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the absence of growth the only way for an individual to get more resources is to take it from someone else. Part of my point is that there are more than enough resources, what's needed is better distribution. Plus some scaling down the over-consumption of crap. Besides this "taking it from someone else" is already the case with the growth model, were not only a tiny fraction of the population has a huge percenta…

In Egypt 75% of the population is under the age of 25. These people want opportunities, jobs, apartments, cars, consumer goods, and escape from the daily struggle of poverty. Per capita GDP in Egypt is about $1575. For comparison in the US it's about $54 000. Blame inequality all you want but even with perfect equality the pie in Egypt is not big enough to provide all of its people with the western standard of life t…

> Blame inequality all you want but even with perfect equality the pie in Egypt is not big enough to provide all of its people with the western standard of life that the people want.

Egypt has enough sunlight to provide all the clean energy needed to provide its citizens with first world quality of life. It just needs the funds to build/install the panels to collect that sunlight.

Post reply on HN