> I just don't get the seemingly recurring obsession with artificially limiting growth.
At a basic level, it's a cognitive bias regarding economics, the idea of ultimate scarcity: a pie that's forever limited in size and that we all must share (opposite of a view of "abundance"). It however contradicts most of our experience of economics; throughout history champions of "abundance" (who dare to create it) are known as great kings and merchants and soldiers and religious figures. Facts are much less favorable to proponents of scarcity — such mindsets usually lead to economic crisis, under-development, stagnation.
The scarcity view here would move that Earth is already saturated, no more room for anything / anyone, and thus we must all reduce our hopes and start sharing what little is there. Obviously, this is scientifically and economically absolutely wrong, the problem is more about distribution — the Earth is the kind of planet that can sustain 1,000 times more population, and that's low-balling it in terms of thermodynamics. It really is more a problem of energetic efficiency and now externalities (space industry to the rescue).
On a cultural level, technology and development seem to map on a spectrum of perceptions ranging from "technological utopists" to "luddites" (believers in a technological doom). Both extremes are unlikely so most people/cultures fall in-between, around the center usually.
It seems, again from history, from literature, that the best kind of development stems from a culture 'rather slightly positively biased towards technology' (with limits and caveats, what we could call a 'problem-solution driven society'). This was basically the bedrock of innovating Damascus around 1200, of innovating China (key moments throughout the last millennium), and of the scientific revolution in Europe, as well as 20th/21st century tech centers in America and Asia.
My problem with anti-growth beliefs and scarcity proponents is they usually stop short of describing the whole picture, what implementing it actually does to populations, what economic slowdown or depression mean in real-felt terms for real-people. In my mind it's just as dangerous as saying "oh let's build a fascist state because that will be better to solve our problems, that's a risk worth taking!" On paper, maaaaaaybe, you might think that, as a thought experiment; in real life it just never worked. Never. That cure has always been worse than the disease. True for fascism, true for economic shrinking (and there's no "minimizing" growth, the minute you stop aiming for growth which isn't easy nor granted by the way, you find yourself in a world of depressed indicators and it becomes uncontrollable).
Sometimes I feel like people don't realize that piloting a global economy is more like dog fighting or F1, it's not a walk in the park that we are free to take casually and amend to our liking — "oh, let's take this nice little path here!". No, it's hard, and when we fail too much, people die. It's not a toy to play with, it's a freaking hard tension between survival and progress. Idealism is very dangerous when met with complacency.