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Continuous growth is cancer

christianheilmann.com

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Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#21

Post by gruez »

mxkopy wrote: post #19
gruez wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Growth is not inherently good, uncontrolled growth is certainly not. That's a nice soundbite, but what does that translate into in terms of actual policy? Do we cap growth at 2% or whatever and call it a day?

Most if not all of our social problems can be solved with enough education. If you're the type of person to read census data for fun you'll probably not want to have kids. If you're exposed to the liberal arts continuously throughout your life, you're less likely to take metrics at face value. The system is just like any other: you put garbage in it, and you'll get garbage out of it.

>Most if not all of our social problems can be solved with enough education.

So by "controlled growth", you actually mean "better education"? What type of education you think is needed? Do you think that making sure everyone has a bachelors is magically going to make growth "controlled" enough for your tastes?

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#23

Post by arcticbull »

roenxi wrote: post #7

I'd challenge the idea that this is unsustainable because of the specific system. Entropy and resource limits mean whatever we do is unsustainable under any system as far as we tell, both theoretically and in practical timespans. Nobody seems to have an argument for where the physical resources will come from, or how we deal with exponential population growth without just having regular famines (even worse than losin…

We don't have continuous exponential population growth. That's not to say that we won't exceed the limits of the biosphere at some point to meet our needs, but as a society becomes more developed the birth rate falls off massively. Just 60 years ago the US and Canada had a fertility rate of 4, meaning 4 children born to the average woman. In the US, it's now 1.64 and Canada is just 1.4 - well below the replacement rate of 2.1-ish.

The best way to be anti-growth is actually to just encourage a society to develop. The best way to lower fertility rate is to educate young women and girls and to raise incomes.

>In decreasing order of strength, fertility (TFR) correlates negatively with education, CPR, and GDP per capita, and positively with religiosity. [1]

The only reason the population of developed countries is stable or growing is immigration, but that will only last so long - development comes for us all.

[edit] The graphs of income and HDI vs. fertility rate are pretty clear. [2]

Rather than cancer, it seems more like population growth is favored in less-developed societies to encourage development - and once development happens, the population growth ends and the population even meaningfully contracts.

[1] https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#24

Post by arcticbull »

gruez wrote: post #21
mxkopy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most if not all of our social problems can be solved with enough education. If you're the type of person to read census data for fun you'll probably not want to have kids. If you're exposed to the liberal arts continuously throughout your life, you're less likely to take metrics at face value. The system is just like any other: you put garbage in it, and you'll get garbage out of it.

>Most if not all of our social problems can be solved with enough education. So by "controlled growth", you actually mean "better education"? What type of education you think is needed? Do you think that making sure everyone has a bachelors is magically going to make growth "controlled" enough for your tastes?

Raising education and income levels actually does bring population growth rate to below maintenance levels. A wealthy and educated society tends to shrink.

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#25

Post by arcticbull »

jmarbach wrote: post #22

The author is correct. Growth is typically just a debt-fueled spending binge. The cancer is actually the fiat, soft money that’s improperly aligning incentives in the economy.

> The cancer is actually the fiat, soft money that’s improperly aligning incentives in the economy.

What a conclusion. Debt and borrowing exist in hard money environments too. Debt is as old as time.

Low interest rates reduce the threshold for what could be considered a successful business from a macroeconomic perspective, though, and can lead to misallocation of capital. Nothing to do with fiat.

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#26

Post by ajb »

jmarbach wrote: post #22

The author is correct. Growth is typically just a debt-fueled spending binge. The cancer is actually the fiat, soft money that’s improperly aligning incentives in the economy.

Debt-fuelled spending binges were just as common before fiat. In fact, booms and crashes were more frequent and severe because there could be no central bank to turn the heat down under the cookpot.

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#28

Post by deafpolygon »

Says growth is bad, layoff sucks, then:

> If you agree and you’re looking for a technical lead in your company, “check me out on LinkedIn”

I mean, what company is gonna want to hire someone who thinks growth and expansion is bad.

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#29

Post by corbulo »

Continuous growth is necessary to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If there cannot be continuous growth, who becomes the arbiter of human potential? People who call growth cancer? You can't be serious.

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#30

Post by wunderland »

It seems like nobody in the US educated in the last 50 years has read Marx or even has a cursory understanding of his ideas.

You’ve seen tech bros reinvent public transportation 5 different ways. Now watch as they slowly gain the insights described by last century’s most influential philosopher after living through his observations firsthand.

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