Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#111

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

slumdev wrote: post #108

novalis78 wrote: post #33

It’s fascinating how the reality of Earth being embedded in a vast ocean of resource is completely lost on so many. Human ingenuity is key. With every step we unlock another level of resource utilization driving prosperity. If anything social organization and financial frameworks need to support the unfolding of our technology tree. As humanity we just woke up. Enlightenment now.

> Earth being embedded in a vast ocean of resource This reads like prosperity gospel and law of attraction nonsense rolled together and repackaged for a technical audience. A kilogram of anything from space is orders of magnitude more expensive to acquire than a kilogram on Earth. No technology will change that within my lifetime. If there are no physics-redefining advances in nuclear fusion and/or nuclear fission, m…

>A kilogram of anything from space is orders of magnitude more expensive to acquire than a kilogram on Earth.

Eh, that's because you, like most of humanity, like to hide 99% of the cost. What is the cost of pollution? What is the cost of environmental destruction? Once you destroy a habitat on earth, there is no more cost associated with it, it's just gone and no amount of money can ever bring it back.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#112

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

novalis78 wrote: post #33

It’s fascinating how the reality of Earth being embedded in a vast ocean of resource is completely lost on so many. Human ingenuity is key. With every step we unlock another level of resource utilization driving prosperity. If anything social organization and financial frameworks need to support the unfolding of our technology tree. As humanity we just woke up. Enlightenment now.

>With every step we unlock another level of resource utilization driving prosperity.

I'll let you play this for a bit.

https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#113

Post by dTal » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

slumdev wrote: post #108

novalis78 wrote: post #33

It’s fascinating how the reality of Earth being embedded in a vast ocean of resource is completely lost on so many. Human ingenuity is key. With every step we unlock another level of resource utilization driving prosperity. If anything social organization and financial frameworks need to support the unfolding of our technology tree. As humanity we just woke up. Enlightenment now.

> Earth being embedded in a vast ocean of resource This reads like prosperity gospel and law of attraction nonsense rolled together and repackaged for a technical audience. A kilogram of anything from space is orders of magnitude more expensive to acquire than a kilogram on Earth. No technology will change that within my lifetime. If there are no physics-redefining advances in nuclear fusion and/or nuclear fission, m…

>A kilogram of anything from space is orders of magnitude more expensive to acquire than a kilogram on Earth.

This is true, if you are on Earth and wish to remain there.

If you are in space already, and don't have deal with pesky things like gravity and friction, it could conceivably be way easier to chip a lump of metal off an asteroid and hurl it in the general direction of where it needs to be, than to dig it up and put it on a boat. It's a bit chicken and egg, but it's easy to imagine a scenario where off-world becomes the new Shenzen.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#114

Post by quotemstr » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

paulintrognon wrote: post #80

novalis78 wrote: post #33

It’s fascinating how the reality of Earth being embedded in a vast ocean of resource is completely lost on so many. Human ingenuity is key. With every step we unlock another level of resource utilization driving prosperity. If anything social organization and financial frameworks need to support the unfolding of our technology tree. As humanity we just woke up. Enlightenment now.

> Human ingenuity is key That's a bet that many of us are not willing to take. Sure, you can imagine that a future technology we haven't thought of yet will save growth, but I think it's very important to think about scenarios when that won't happen. Are we really wanting to bet humanity's future on just "technology"? If you read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed[1], you'll realize that socities that…

> That's a bet that many of us are not willing to take.

So don't take it. But don't complain when you end up losing out to people, institutions, and countries that haven't adopted this defeatist attitude.

As for Collapse: Diamond is wrong on many of his specifics (e.g. Easter Islander depopulation) but even in his own framework, collapse comes from a lack of ingenuity, a sclerotic loss of the ability for a society to solve problems.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#115

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

b0rsuk wrote: post #44

pacala wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of interplanetary transportation costs, due to physically unavoidable planetary gravity wells, the existence of other inhabited planets has essentially zero effect on the prosperity of the average Earth inhabitant. There is physically no way to build the space equivalent of cheap maritime shipping.

Even if we successfully build a space elevator and putting stuff on orbit becomes relatively free, we would still need to build a 100% sustainable spaceship. Or a completely game-changing technology like teleportation, and there's no proof such thing is practically possible.

>we would still need to build a 100% sustainable spaceship

Yet for the purpose of this article, or at least discussion, people are acting like the Earth is.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#116

Post by gumby » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

b0rsuk wrote: post #28

Growth is an international arms race. I think the biggest problem is that economic growth gives countries a (military) advantage. If you opt out of growth-based economic system, your neighbors will have more army or resources or manpower. They will eventually invade you or dominate you economically. This is similar to the situation Africans were during Industrial Revolution. Europeans needed a lot of workers for fact…

That seems cynical and zero sum to me.

By and large the wealthier countries aren’t fighting wars (especially among themselves); in any case they have too much to lose by doing so. The larger economics are reversing to the mean, and smaller economies are patchily catching up.

Just as wealthier people (in aggregate) have fewer kids, wealthier countries these days have less reason to right wars.

Costa Rica abolished its milirptary years ago and is more prosperous than its neighbors.

The US is an outlier but like China its military serves several purposes like a jobs program, not just defense. And its economy many not have really grown in any but a statistical sense over he past 40 years. Instead it’s just become more “lumpy” in response to optimization for imperfect measures.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#117

Post by dwiel » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #87

b0rsuk wrote: post #28

Growth is an international arms race. I think the biggest problem is that economic growth gives countries a (military) advantage. If you opt out of growth-based economic system, your neighbors will have more army or resources or manpower. They will eventually invade you or dominate you economically. This is similar to the situation Africans were during Industrial Revolution. Europeans needed a lot of workers for fact…

>you would need to continuously improve efficiency and that's hard. You can't improve efficiency without creating growth. If you find a way to create widget X twice as efficiently using less resources, that will show up in GDP growth (or at least idealised GDP; obviously the actual number is subject to approximation error).

You mean because with cheaper widgets, demand would increase and so monetary value of finished goods and would rise and so GDP as well?

Wouldn't GDP actually decrease if the same number of widgets are made, but now for cheaper and so through competition have less "value"?

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#118

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #98

aww_dang wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fish farms, new more efficient methods of transport and agroforestry. Consider all of the time saved with today's technological advancements and specialization. Years ago peasants would lay idle on near starvation diets for most of the winter. During the growing season they would work from dawn until dusk, just to enjoy a sustenance lifestyle. So while work may not be as meaningful as we would like, our leisure time…

Respectfully, I disagree with the spirit of all of this excluding how peasants lived. I think saying "tech will solve it and we'll have great lives where everything is cheap" is equivalent to saying Jesus will come save us all.

For every problem technology solves, 2 harder to solve problems are created.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#119

Post by adambyrtek » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #100

coldtea wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps a shorter way to put it is that without growth the allocation of resources is zero sum. That's not a problem when there are plentiful resources. It's also the only option when many resources are not renewable, and this zero-sum themselves.

I think that the problem is that many resources that people care about are limited: - desirable land - desirable mates - equipment for certain hobbies (e.g. sailboats, machine shops, etc.)

I understand the first two points, but I don't really get what this has to do with hobbies and sailboats in particular? As a sailor myself I guarantee that you could easily deliver many more boats if only there was demand for them. Sailing is considered by many as an elite hobby, but in reality you can buy a second-hand yacht cheaper than a decent car.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#120

Post by gumby » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #100

coldtea wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps a shorter way to put it is that without growth the allocation of resources is zero sum. That's not a problem when there are plentiful resources. It's also the only option when many resources are not renewable, and this zero-sum themselves.

I think that the problem is that many resources that people care about are limited: - desirable land - desirable mates - equipment for certain hobbies (e.g. sailboats, machine shops, etc.)

I haven’t heard of much shortage of any of those things in the OECD. If anything there’s a surplus of your third category. What’s desirable about land changes due to fashion even visibly within a human lifespan.