Earlier quoted context omitted.
The world will become a north Korea if unchecked growth continues unchecked. When cancer is growing the tumor is healthy and happy. It's when the tumor consumes all available resources and begins dying that it becomes a problem. We are currently in the growth phase of a tumor. The dying phase is for your children or your children's children. Or your children's children's children. We are not sure when it will happen,…
One should not confuse growth as in producing more and more stuff with growth as in progress. Of course you can't produce more stuff ad infinitum. A balance to reach net-zero stuff is necessary to be sustainable. But nothing prevents you from advancing technology ad infinitum. It can be sustainable to keep progressing. You just can't exhaust the resources around you, but you don't have to to keep progressing.
At the more scientific level you can see this occurring by simply correlating energy expenditure per country per capita with the technological achievements of the respective country. Western countries are among the top energy users and technology developers.
The only good thing about technology is it's relatively low rate of decay... or in essence low rate of velocity in the descent back into a high entropy state. Knowledge once gained is kept with minimal additional energy input. But make no mistake, the crystallization of knowledge itself requires a high energy input.
Transfer and translations of these technologies also requires energy input which explains why technology doesn't easily cross certain physical boundaries like the borders between countries.