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The Case for Degrowth

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Re: The Case for Degrowth

#261

Post by coldtea »

icelancer wrote: post #183
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…

> Besides, this coming of immigrants didn't work so well for the natives in the US (the native Americans that is). It didn't for the natives of the islands they call Nippon, either. > They want to maintain their way of life, and that's up to them. So did the Ainu.

That would be a point in favor of the Japanese's attitude today, not against it.

(And Ainu had it better, despite the strong discrimination against them, than native americans and blacks in the US).

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#262

Post by coldtea »

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.

Contrarian to what?

This is about social welfare and policy as opposed to "let the market sort it out".

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#263

Post by jiriknesl »

pessimizer wrote: post #114
honkkong420 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly disagree, being able to accumulate enough money to cover the bumps of life can be the difference between stringing along a middle class existence and everything working out and going broke.

$25K is peanuts if anything even mildly serious happens.

If you are insured, $25k is plenty and cover 99% of situations.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#264

Post by seltzered_ »

asabjorn wrote: post #92
seltzered_ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That narrative (affiliating the collapse of Sri Lanka with ESG, Degrowth) has been getting pushed primarily by people on the other side of the planet with their own political biases (libertarians, preppers, bitcoin maximalists, etc.). Yes it was a terrible policy to issue an immediate ban on fertilizers, and don't think organizations/ngos associated with the policy should be absolved, but there also has to be a look…

I agree that there are other issues such as huge loans from China ( belt&road is a economic catastrophe where deployed), tourism drop due to covid and a 2019 bombing etc That said the ESG actions is clearly correlated in the data with 1/3 of farmland laying dormant in 2021, crop losses and yield issues. Many of us won’t forget Sri Lanka was touted by WEF as a ESG poster child before it went south. This article links…

Fair point, I'm not trying to defend ESG (there's all sorts of issues with it), but authors from abroad (like Michael Shellenberger who you link to) are seemingly caricaturizing the Sri Lanka situation (a mix of economic loan entanglement and bad policy) to argue for their narrative.

Shellenberger who you link to is "A self-described ecomodernist, Shellenberger believes that economic growth can continue without negative environmental impacts through technological research and development, usually through a combination of nuclear power and urbanization. A controversial figure, Shellenberger disagrees with most environmentalists over the impacts of environmental threats and policies for addressing them.[2][3] Shellenberger's positions and writings on climate change and environmentalism have received criticism from environmental scientists and academics, calling them "bad science" and "inaccurate"." (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger )

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#265

Post by jiriknesl »

sprucevoid wrote: post #143
zmgsabst wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You will have to explain how reducing growth dependence reduces agency. Your process of “reducing growth dependence” is fundamentally you stifling and regimenting growth. You don’t have a fundamental right to moderate my growth, against my wishes — but I do have a fundamental right to seek growth.

> You don’t have a fundamental right to moderate my growth, against my wishes — but I do have a fundamental right to seek growth. No, neither is a fundamental right. Because both growth and degrowth as a national policy (or global international policy) has immense consequences on the opportunities and outcomes in peoples lives. Both stifle and regiment the lives and actions of people in a myriad of ways (climate chan…

Growth or degrowth are not national policies but individual ones. You cannot prevent someone with growth mindset from doing actions leading to growth. And at the same time, nobody is preventing people with degrowth mindset to practice what they preach.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#266

Post by Schroedingersat »

RandomLensman wrote: post #232
Schroedingersat wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then earth still has to degrow even for the short duration before the carrying capacity of the solar system gets exhausted. The presence or absence of a growing economy elsewhere is irrelevant. You ask why now? The answer is because we've already overshot the ability to do everything we do sustainably with the resources available. We need to get off the treadmill now and hope like hell technology and the available…

Definitely not degrowth, maybe low growth if high energy stuff cannot be moved off planet and results transported back with low heat impact. (Or no other ways of cooling are found). Also, for example, innovation from growing economies elsewhere can reach back to earth. Expensive stuff that relies on growth can continue to happen and the results shared. Carrying capacity of the solar system is huge, so quite some grow…

Energy growth on earth must end this century.

This entails growth in most primary industries also ending, as well as a large reduction in many.

This is incompatible with a system where people starve and everything breaks whenever growth goes below 2%.

"Stop giving everything to the people who already have stuff so we need the pie to grow at an exponential rate just to keep the share that goes to 99.99% of the world constant" isn't a hard concept.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#267

Post by loco5niner »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #198
WalterBright wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

It's policy and corruption (not to mention war) that makes the people poor in the first place.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#268

Post by [deleted] »

roflyear wrote: post #259
ETH_start wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean Japan has a much lower crime rate than the US, and no massive opioid epidemic, huge homeless camps in the middle of major cities or elderly Asian people being randomly assaulted on the streets like the US does, so I don't know why it should follow in the footsteps of the US. The US should set an example that others want to follow.

I doubt Japan has a lower crime rate. You would have to look past just reported numbers. The US arrests a lot of people and Japan only pursues crimes they can solve 100% due to political reasons.

[deleted]

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#269

Post by ETH_start »

roflyear wrote: post #259
ETH_start wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean Japan has a much lower crime rate than the US, and no massive opioid epidemic, huge homeless camps in the middle of major cities or elderly Asian people being randomly assaulted on the streets like the US does, so I don't know why it should follow in the footsteps of the US. The US should set an example that others want to follow.

I doubt Japan has a lower crime rate. You would have to look past just reported numbers. The US arrests a lot of people and Japan only pursues crimes they can solve 100% due to political reasons.

Reported homicide rates will 100% correspond to real homicide rates, and they are much lower in Japan.

I've also spent a lot of time in Tokyo and it feels dramatically safer. It shows in the little things too, like how clean the streets are. I remember one time seeing someone reserve their table at McDonalds by placing their credit card on it, something which is unthinkable in any US city.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#270

Post by juve1996 »

asabjorn wrote: post #249
juve1996 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

De-growth policies have absolutely no chance in our day and age. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

You’ve already lived through artificial gas shortages since February 2021 after fracking and gas pipelines were shut down, so that’s demonstrably incorrect. Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion t…

The february 2021 had causes that are well researched. It's not indicative of anything.

> Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields.

The US has barely built refineries over the last 3 decades. This is not a new phenomenon.

> Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion to put farmland out of use and put regulation in place to make the remainder farmers farming harder like in Sri Lanka.

Can you point this out in the bill so I can read it?

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