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Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

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Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#301

Post by raducu »

virgilp wrote: post #297
scottlocklin wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in machine learning: your statement is questionable -it worked fine 20 years ago. DL is nowhere near the "breakthrough" people act like it is; the actual real world applications of it that non mentats might use appear to be the null set. And yeah, I don't count the corporate propaganda material about "autonomous cars" or whatever to be evidence to the contrary. Genome research: so far a big nothing burger. Zer…

Where by "worked fine" you mean it couldn't tell a cat from a swan. Nowadays speech to text actually works, translation is actually usable, iPad unlocks with your face etc. Did you put in any effort to remember what it looked like 20 years ago, before saying "it worked fine"?

Why are you guys even arguing about this?

IF ML works great, yeah it could have a big positive impact, but not much for the average person so far, meanwhile it does work for the chinese dictatorship, hedge funds, the military, the scummy corrupt politicians to influence ellections; self driving cars will be a HUGE benefit, but guess who will take the lion's share of that benefit -- the 0.5% that will own the tech; maybe a little bit for you and I, but the milions of professional drivers will be crushed.

I'm not against tech, but the way it will be use to further re-feudalize the world and promote the accumulation of wealth to the 0.5% -- which will be terrible for the overall progress of humanity.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#302

Post by raducu »

_2d30 wrote: post #218
raducu wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are being disingenuousby saying 200 years. Except medical advances and science, I'd be all willing to trade ALL the economic "growth" in the first world of the last 20 years if we could also revert wars, climate change and destruction of habbitat for the last 20 years. Oh, and by "growth" I mean the insane asset price inflation and concentration wealth, strengthening of the military-industrial complex, mo…

> Oh, and by "growth" I mean the insane asset price inflation and concentration wealth, strengthening of the military-industrial complex, monopolisation by corporations, too big to fail banks and financial institutions. Well if we are just totally changing what growth means...

Listen -- if 0.5% of people see real economic growth of 10000% and the rest see negative growth after inflation, even if on paper, on average we have positive growth, the overall result is NEGATIVE if you ask me.

Just check real wage growth in the western world, after inflation it is stagnant or negative in the last decades; add in hugely inflated housing prices, education prices, and it is very clearly a big NEGATIVE outcome for the average person; this is only offset a bit by women entering the workforce, now you have 2 slaves instead of 1.

Yeah, the developing world might fare better -- for now -- as they are much cheaper then workers in the developed world, but the same trap awaits them, the same asset price inflation, education costs and so on is happening in the developing world, it's not fully our turn yet, but the writing is on the wall.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#303

Post by raducu »

andersonvieira wrote: post #165
raducu wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are being disingenuousby saying 200 years. Except medical advances and science, I'd be all willing to trade ALL the economic "growth" in the first world of the last 20 years if we could also revert wars, climate change and destruction of habbitat for the last 20 years. Oh, and by "growth" I mean the insane asset price inflation and concentration wealth, strengthening of the military-industrial complex, mo…

It is not disingenuous to think long term because of how growth compounds over time. Imagine average growth is 2% a year and we cap it to 1%. In 20 years the difference would be 48% vs 22% total growth, which may not sound bad. But in 200 years, it would be 5150% vs 632%, and it would only get larger.

Not so sure about the real growth after you add central bank induced asset price inflation or just the heavily skewed basic inflation central banks like to post every year.

I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the said growth is really just asset price inflation -- just let people overburden themselves with debt and a house costing 50000$ now costs 300000$ -- not just any house, EVERY house -- boom, you have huge "growth" and "wealth".

EDIT: I meant that it is disingenuous to look at 200 years because huge REAL advances have indeed taken place since then.

I'm totally against the financialization that has happened in the last 40-50 years, which is really 90% of the growth that has actually happened.

I mean, don't you think there's something deeply wrong and worrying with the fact that the financial industry is 80% of US GDP?

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#304

Post by thegabriele »

baq wrote: post #236
thegabriele wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should last until we get to strong AI or fusion energy, both i believe will have too much an impact to be again in the hands of the fews (perhaps a global war will be in order before). Then, the problem will be about literally physical space on earth.

don't forget about waste heat, we'll get cooked alive in a few hundred years of 3% yoy growth in energy produced

Yep, the constraint here is not to wipe out ourself in the meantime!

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#305

Post by thu2111 »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #177
thu2111 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is that view is contradictory. In the absence of discovering a natural resource bounty, GDP (economic) growth comes from two sources: 1. More people working harder. 2. Better technology. If you exclude "medical advances and science" you're basically excluding (2) which means the only source of growth is (1). More people working harder. Saying the world can only get better by increasing the number of hours we…

That's a big claim you're making. Can't economic growth (AKA inflation) come about from rising asset prices such as houses? It seems to me that conflating humanity's progress and economic growth is exactly where our problems start.

This is a pretty common confusion. Economic growth is a growth in what economists call "wealth" (the goods and services around us that add up to our modern lifestyle). The closest approximate metric for this is real-terms GDP, i.e. the value of all goods and services sold added up and then adjusted for inflation. It's not about raw prices, which are distorted by government money creation (these days normally called quantitative easing but it goes via many names).

Progress and wealth creation actually occur when prices fall, not when they rise, even though it may not feel like it if you happen to be the owner of a fixed asset whose price is falling i.e. a house. In a static system if money is printed via the issuance of loans, and that causes house prices to rise whilst the prices of everything else remain stable, then all that's doing is reallocating wealth from non-home owners to homeowners and banks. But it's not actually increasing wealth.

For wealth to increase everyone would need to find it easier to buy things, and the only way to do that is for things to become cheaper in real terms. For instance the smartphone industry has created enormous wealth in the past 20 years. Smartphones got massively cheaper so everyone can have one, and they got massively better. This is what economists mean by wealth creation.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#306

Post by aww_dang »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #243
aww_dang wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malthus was proven wrong by productivity gains. England did not starve due to a rising population, but went on to become an industrialized nation. Increased population allows for greater specialization. This only holds true as long as free markets are allowed to operate somewhat unimpeded. Typically the Malthusian position is one that advocates excessive government intervention. When taken to an extreme this can make…

How exactly was he proven wrong ? The rising productivity gains are built-in in his model. Where do you get the idea that he "advocated excessive government intervention" ? He was instead criticized for his anti-welfare stance ! Or do you think that "educating women" is "excessive government intervention" ?!?

There was not mass starvation as I clearly stated.

The Malthusian position is one of finite resources and productivity. Peak oil, population control and assorted doomsaying. It would not be unreasonable to characterize the one child policy as excessive.

Your comment attempts to misconstrue cherry picked historical facts against the broader definition of Malthusianism.

It becomes offensive when you attempt to inject identity politics into what had been previously a mostly polite discussion. I'm afraid there is nothing for us to discuss.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#307

Post by BlueTemplar »

aww_dang wrote: post #306
BlueTemplar wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly was he proven wrong ? The rising productivity gains are built-in in his model. Where do you get the idea that he "advocated excessive government intervention" ? He was instead criticized for his anti-welfare stance ! Or do you think that "educating women" is "excessive government intervention" ?!?

There was not mass starvation as I clearly stated. The Malthusian position is one of finite resources and productivity. Peak oil, population control and assorted doomsaying. It would not be unreasonable to characterize the one child policy as excessive. Your comment attempts to misconstrue cherry picked historical facts against the broader definition of Malthusianism. It becomes offensive when you attempt to inject i…

A "broader definition" that you haven't even bothered to give ? Equating Malthus and "malthusians"? Straw-manning much ? What about the Irish Great Famine (shortly after Malthus' death). And I see that it's often blamed on laissez-faire politics ?

Where did you get "identity politics" from ?

Do you realize that peak oil denial is a deeply anti-science position ? (Unless you're thinking of abiotic oil?)

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#308

Post by Kaiyou »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #187
Kaiyou wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evil needs agency, so no, I don't see evil in the absence of something.

A convenient abdication of responsibility, isnt it? We we not responsible for plane crash/ financial crysis / climate change, it just happened!

I was talking about evil, not responsibility.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#309

Post by Kaiyou »

jhrmnn wrote: post #241
Kaiyou wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evil needs agency, so no, I don't see evil in the absence of something.

What about the absence of resistance to evil? Perhaps not evil per se, but one could call it absence of good.

That depends on your definition of 'good', I guess. I wouldn't say that you have to fight evil to be good.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#310

Post by BlueTemplar »

nnq wrote: post #299
BlueTemplar wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur, you'll either have the power working to make your computer/VR/network run - or not. And it's the people that have the control over that power delivery that are going to have the real power (as they always did). Who is going to restructure / rewire / reeducate Vladimir Putin (or the like), hmm ?

> Who is going to restructure / rewire / reeducate Vladimir Putin (or the like), hmm ? "Control over physical resources" is just a means, not an end... If you want "more power for your nation" or whatever and the world stage has been restructured so you can better get that by playing a different game, you'll switch the game. And Russia seems to be good at both cyber-warfare and "mental games", they can get even bette…

> And the future of cheap-renewables plus mini-nuclear will mean power/energy will be available to everyone...

This is wishful thinking. You would need incredible improvements in technology to maybe hope to start reducing resource consumption. Because so far, resource consumption only got worse as efficiency got better.

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