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The Case for Degrowth

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Re: The Case for Degrowth

#191

Post by Schroedingersat »

RandomLensman wrote: post #106

So why now? Would it have been better to stop growing in Roman or medial times, for example? Or stop only in a 100 years? Degrowth seems to me like a vision of the future that assumes that humans should remain slaves of their environment and not become masters of it. If humans are to become the dominant species in the universe, degrowth will not help.

Direct thermal forcing is at about 100mW/m^2. This gives us about a century to stop increasing energy usage and albedo.

This is precisely where we were when people first started raising alarm bells about greenhouse gases.

The thermal emissivity of the night side of earth is only one of many limits we are running head first into. Almost all scarce resources, many abundant ones, and even abstract concepts like the growth of classical computation are all hitting limits where they only scale linearly or worse with energy input.

Growing into the solar system is largely irrelevant because it's a constant increase vs an exponential and will not be meaningfully coupled to earth's economy without energy expendature on earth proportional to trade volume. And there's no compelling reason to hinge everything on the assumption that the second law of thermodynamics and speed of light are both false so nothing outside the solar system is relevant to those living inside it unless we overturn one or both first.

All of this to avoid reexamining the blind faith assumption that we have to give an exponentially growing share of the pie to those who have the biggest share. Growth is only necessary for survival of the 99.99% if every year they give 2% of their wealth to the 0.01%

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#192

Post by Mordisquitos »

WalterBright wrote: post #153
DubiousPusher wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure there's an advanced "free market" bealthcare system in the world we can use to even make that comparison.

The free market produces goods and services at less cost for everything else, why would health care be any different?

Because healthcare as a service does not come even close to satisfy the conditions required for perfect competition.

Without going too much in detail, the "customers" cannot have perfect information regarding the treatment or course of action that's most convenient for them at a given moment, and they cannot freely decide when (or often whether) to make use of the service or not—"It's probably best I get appendicitis now that I can afford it rather than wait until next year".

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#193

Post by RandomLensman »

RalfWausE wrote: post #177
RandomLensman wrote: post #106

So why now? Would it have been better to stop growing in Roman or medial times, for example? Or stop only in a 100 years? Degrowth seems to me like a vision of the future that assumes that humans should remain slaves of their environment and not become masters of it. If humans are to become the dominant species in the universe, degrowth will not help.

Why should we want to become the "dominant species in the universe" and not be statisfied with a good life within our means?

Why would you settle for less as species if you could get it?

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#194

Post by pegasus »

sokoloff wrote: post #181
coldtea wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is an obvious way out. Increase immigration. The US does this well. Why doesn't Japan? Because of racism and xenophobia. Because the US was created as a ragtag coalition of immigrants from all kinds of countries. Their whole shtick is based on being a melting pot. Japan is a much more ethnically homogenous nation. Besides, this coming of immigrants didn't work so well for the natives in the US (the native Ame…

In what sense does the US “have a huge majority of blacks in jail”? This initially seemed hyperbolic and when I looked quickly at the numbers, it still seems hyperbolic.

The numbers are not as bad as GP implies, but still quite bad:

In 2017, blacks represented 12% of the U.S. adult population but 33% of the sentenced prison population. Whites accounted for 64% of adults but 30% of prisoners. And while Hispanics represented 16% of the adult population, they accounted for 23% of inmates.

Another way of considering racial and ethnic differences in the nation’s prison population is by looking at the imprisonment rate, which tallies the number of prisoners per 100,000 people. In 2017, there were 1,549 black prisoners for every 100,000 black adults – nearly six times the imprisonment rate for whites (272 per 100,000) and nearly double the rate for Hispanics (823 per 100,000).

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-g...

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#195

Post by ido »

krageon wrote: post #182
coldtea wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this has translated into Is that a necessary result, or just a matter of how the economy was organized and money distributed? In other words, does politics and culture come into play in the result?

These are moderately interesting questions, but without some actual insight (preferably informed) it just sounds like you're being contrarian for no reason.

I think these are exceptionally interesting questions, and may suggest the solutions would include redistribution of the benefits of increased productivity from the capitalist class to society as a whole (a reversal of the trend we've seen since the 1970s in the "west").

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#196

Post by AstralStorm »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #51

Japan is a living case study of degrowth: GDP has been essentially flat for the past 20 years. The scale below exaggerates small shifts, but it was $4968B in 2000 and $4937B in 2020. https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp On the ground, this has translated into flat or deflating prices (until very recently) and an increasing bifurcation of society into salarymen, with low but stable incomes anchored on jobs-almost-fo…

Thing is, GDP is a lousy measure of growth. Japan is undergoing a contraction and fossilization of its social structure.

Interestingly enough, the same is happening slowly in USA and UK, and then after a big space everywhere else. Note the anti-immigration and austerity rhetoric, where what is needed is a major social change, considering of some attempts to level the playing field and prevent the current corporate and political aristocracies from emerging again.

Aa for rural drain, it's been happening everywhere, mostly because for some reason we do not pay farmers enough, nor the systems we made allow even groups of then to be self sufficient.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#197

Post by RandomLensman »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #191
RandomLensman wrote: post #106

So why now? Would it have been better to stop growing in Roman or medial times, for example? Or stop only in a 100 years? Degrowth seems to me like a vision of the future that assumes that humans should remain slaves of their environment and not become masters of it. If humans are to become the dominant species in the universe, degrowth will not help.

Direct thermal forcing is at about 100mW/m^2. This gives us about a century to stop increasing energy usage and albedo. This is precisely where we were when people first started raising alarm bells about greenhouse gases. The thermal emissivity of the night side of earth is only one of many limits we are running head first into. Almost all scarce resources, many abundant ones, and even abstract concepts like the grow…

Once we build and make stuff truly not on earth it will decouple. The trade never reaches earth then, so overall human economy expands but not earth's (or only a little, ie high value trade, maybe even take some high waste energy processes off earth if energy from dropping product back is less). The human economy could be much larger but not all parts of the human sphere would necessarily trade with each other materially.

Edit: "materially" in the sense of stuff. Some data from a nearby star could still be highly valuable, but exchanging stuff over lightyears might rarely be efficient.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#198

Post by actually_a_dog »

WalterBright wrote: post #120
TeeMassive wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brain drain is a real phenomenon and a real problem. Your personal feelings about it are irrelevant.

If countries don't want a brain drain, perhaps they should adopt more of the policies of countries their brains are escaping to.

Did you seriously just tell entire countries "have you tried not being poor?"

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#199

Post by sph »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #51

Japan is a living case study of degrowth: GDP has been essentially flat for the past 20 years. The scale below exaggerates small shifts, but it was $4968B in 2000 and $4937B in 2020. https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp On the ground, this has translated into flat or deflating prices (until very recently) and an increasing bifurcation of society into salarymen, with low but stable incomes anchored on jobs-almost-fo…

> an increasing bifurcation of society into salarymen, with low but stable incomes anchored on jobs-almost-for-life, and part-timers on temporary contracts, with groups like single mothers living in poverty

Sounds like the rest of the Western world. We're not living in such a capitalist utopia over here either, are we?

I think most of us on this forum are sheltered from how the rest of the developed world lives, with our 250k a year and private health insurance. Because from what I see here in Europe it's a temp worker world and single mothers living in almost poverty, with a welfare state close to bankruptcy.

We don't have the jobs for life, in that you might be fired out of the blue, so I don't know which is worse in this case.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#200

Post by AstralStorm »

jacquesm wrote: post #186
lokimedes wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, but I see the self-interest element in our democratic systems, showing its nasty face, now we have demographics that are bisecting on what is in the socity's future interest.

I don't see why/how disenfranchising a large chunk of people that have contributed to society would improve this. After all you'd be telling the people that are working hard to keep things afloat that if they succeed that they will lose the vote too unless they continue to work forever. The net effect will be that the social safety net and pension schemes will be ultimately cancelled because only those that work get…

Unlikely, unless you somehow convince people who work that they will be able to work forever. Common sense says that sooner or later health fails and not everyone can work the same amount. "It can't happen to me" might work on teenagers.
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