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Continuous growth is cancer

christianheilmann.com

131–133 of 133 posts

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you are saying we are anywhere close to the maximal energy that humankind can harvest? Nope. But any exponential growth in consumption of energy will hit the existing limit very quickly. Even if that limit was magically increased by 10x we'd still hit it very very quickly. > higher efficiency even becomes an issue. By then, nuclear fusion will be paramount and/or our use of the energy that comes from the sun wi…

Again. 1. "Progress" does not need to imply "exponential growth in consumption of energy". 2. Even if it does, we may be many thousand generations away from hitting a ceiling.

>1. "Progress" does not need to imply "exponential growth in consumption of energy".

It doesn't need to imply it. But from historical evidence it DOES imply it.

>2. Even if it does, we may be many thousand generations away from hitting a ceiling.

Not necessarily true. We don't fully know that. We're hitting ceilings with oil already. In the US peak oil already happened and we shifted to shale. We have about 5 more years of that. We're not sure what's left of middle eastern sources.

Other sources aren't ready yet, they're up and coming but we can't fully be sure technology will play out the way we want it to play out.

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#132
post #63

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.

It's the other way round. Dept is discounted potential future growth. Potential growth and the ability to pay back dept is the foundation for receiving money. What the author ignores is that it is a race. There are many opportunities but not all will be successful. Failed investments transfer the money from those who made wrong predictions to those who made successful ones. This creates sustained progress because tho…

Once you have a lot of influence you can influence the future instead of predicting it. This is a handy way to profit without providing any value to the rest of the system.

Re: Continuous growth is cancer

#133
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the other way round. Dept is discounted potential future growth. Potential growth and the ability to pay back dept is the foundation for receiving money. What the author ignores is that it is a race. There are many opportunities but not all will be successful. Failed investments transfer the money from those who made wrong predictions to those who made successful ones. This creates sustained progress because tho…

Once you have a lot of influence you can influence the future instead of predicting it. This is a handy way to profit without providing any value to the rest of the system.

Like high frequency trading, it's also valuable because things that are important to those in power are protected.
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