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

Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 343 posts

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#311

Post by zemvpferreira »

raducu wrote: post #300
zemvpferreira wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is a rise in house prices helping the nobler parts of the economy? People spend considerable more of their income on mortgages or rents, leaving a lot less for other less fixed and shorter lived assets. I'd be 1000% satisfied with a 50' house and valuation, leaving me to spend my money on travel, charity, high-tech or just work less, do stuff that really interests me; or spend a lot more on education. How is the…

Sorry if the language wasn’t clear but that is the point I was trying to make: when we use economic growth as a measure of improving quality of life for people, it ceases to be a good measure.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#313

Post by Kaiyou »

pif wrote: post #206
weeksie wrote: post #136

The one fundamental reason why growth is so important is that without growth, the economy becomes a zero sum game. In order for you to get more money you must take it from someone else since there is only a fixed amount. A low growth world is one where we plunder each others' wealth, not one were the incentives are aligned with building new industry. That's why productivity increases are so important. Without them, i…

As bilekas was saying, the one fundamental reason why growth must not be so important is that it cannot continue ad infinitum, thus we will have to learn and cope with that. While you state an important point, the issue of growth having to stop (sooner or later) cannot be ignored.

The universe is for all intends and purposes infinite. Why shouldn't infinite growth be possible?

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#314

Post by harimau777 »

gumby wrote: post #158
harimau777 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US certainly has a shortage of desirable land (e.g. land in Manhattan and San Francisco). Even if the details of which land has more demand than supply changes over time, I don't think that changes the fact that at any given time there is a shortage.

There is lumpiness in the market, sure, but by and large house prices in the us aren’t that high.

There are definitely places in the US where housing prices are not high. However, I don't think that changes the fact that there are areas where the supply for housing cannot keep up with the demand. I don't think that your average person who wants to live in Manhattan would consider a house in Cleveland as an equivalent substitution.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#315

Post by nradov »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #205
fhood wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also isn't growth a natural result of human progress? As science and technology move forwards they allow for more productivity per person and thus drive growth right? Or is that an overly simplistic notion?

Yes, but the whole issue is how we are running out of mineral/natural/ecological resources. And at an exponential speed.

Environmental damage is a problem but we certainly aren't running out of most minerals. Mineral extraction volume worldwide is steady or increasing for most types.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#316

Post by BlueTemplar »

nradov wrote: post #315
BlueTemplar wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the whole issue is how we are running out of mineral/natural/ecological resources. And at an exponential speed.

Environmental damage is a problem but we certainly aren't running out of most minerals. Mineral extraction volume worldwide is steady or increasing for most types.

You're right, I should have been more careful using that term - but for how long ? Last time I checked, we only had a few decades left of potential resource extraction growth before we hit ~half of eventually extracted resources, and the production would start to decline.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#317

Post by scottlocklin »

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"?

Speech to text and machine translation worked about as well 20 years ago as it does now. Dunno where you were then. IPad unlocking with your face: what amazing progress. I feel so futuristic. Obviously this great boon to humanity is equivalent to say, those delivered in the decade between 1900 and 1910 (off the top of my head; safety razor, zeppelin, radio, air conditioning, powered heavier than air flight, electronic amplifiers, cellophane, mass produced automobiles, Haber process, talkie movies).

I think I'll take removing the last 20 years of environmental destruction and go back to using a 6 digit pin. Or a thumbprint reader.

FWIIW Dweeb Learning still has problems with image recognition, and people still don't understand how it works. Pretty sure that "progress" was mostly people writing frameworks for video cards.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#318

Post by scottlocklin »

raducu wrote: post #301
virgilp wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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; ma…

I guess we're arguing because I deny that there has been appreciable progress. Most of what passes for "progress" in tech and ML is simply adoption of old ideas, or improvements in lithography. Along with forgetting vastly more important ideas. IMO the most important real world idea in ML in current year, defined as "being used and changing how people solve problems" is not deep learning (God Bless Yann), it is Boosting; a 30 year old idea. For that matter, the most important stuff for future progress isn't deep learning either; it's a basket of ideas that hasn't congealed into a name yet (stuff like Volodya Vovk and pals, as well as Gunnar Carlson work on).

All that said; I 100% agree with you, the fruits of supervised learning will entirely accrue to oligarchs, governments and other such dirtbags who have the databases to fit against, do not have the well being of average people in mind. If we notice at all, it will be via blackmail, creepy ad tracking and late night knocks at the door.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#320

Post by virgilp »

scottlocklin wrote: post #317
virgilp wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

Speech to text and machine translation worked about as well 20 years ago as it does now. Dunno where you were then. IPad unlocking with your face: what amazing progress. I feel so futuristic. Obviously this great boon to humanity is equivalent to say, those delivered in the decade between 1900 and 1910 (off the top of my head; safety razor, zeppelin, radio, air conditioning, powered heavier than air flight, electroni…

> Pretty sure that "progress" was mostly people writing frameworks for video cards.

Pretty sure you either don't know as much as you claim, or are knowingly claiming things that are blatantly false

Post reply on HN