Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

Note that the "nuclear winter" will not be as initially imagined. It will be bad, very bad, but not extinction level bad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Criticism_and_d...

They don't because a virtual infinite economy is essentially a game like minecraft. It has nothing to do with reality other than being a toy simulation with no physically relevant constraints.

It seems to me that each generation reaches a stage where it dawns on them that they are living in a unique time, unparalleled in history, a truly momentous occasion. Now, I was in diapers when the first Earth Day occurred, so I have a bit of a longer perspective on this. During that time, a number of intelligent, well-thought-out projections were made by people with impeccable credentials -- all based on global consumption and growth patterns which were evident to all. This article [0] collected many of the predictions. Here is an example:

'Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years [from 1970] unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”' (ibid)

I love science and I do agree mankind (specifically commercial activity since the Industrial Revolution) has caused climate change. I'm happy that government regulations have (for instance) cleaned the toxic NO2 smog many of our cities suffered with 50 years ago. But my view is that it's "a bridge too far" to succumb to the temptation to imagine that we have "now" arrived at a critical inflection point which creates a moment of destiny for mankind.

In fact, people are taking action and pushing back. Only last year, a costly, multi-year project to construct a water desalination plant in California was rejected based on its potential impact to marine life. [1] So, my overall point is that the posted premise is flawed due to the fact that there is no such thing as "infinite expansion of the economy". Political regimes come and go and with them some progress toward smarter growth is made here, some protections get tossed out there. It's a tug-of-war, not a steam-roll by the pro-growthers. And importantly: over-stating the case that "now is the time!" when we must radically alter the order of things to prevent catastrophe has, in my opinion, only created a harmful sense of fatigue on the ears of many reasonable people who live long enough to notice that the predicted dire consequences were, to put it benevolently, prematurely announced.

[0] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/18-spectacularly-wrong-apocal...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/california-regulator-reject...

> Wouldn't it be easier to control people if they are happy and content, given that in human history revolutions were almost always a product of suffering and unhappiness?

It's easier to rule happy people. If you want to control them, you can lull them into inaction with vices, then control them with fear. We're all individuals; divide and conquer.

I don't think you have demonstrated "an infinite expansion of the economy is fundamentally not contradictory to finite planetary boundaries", you've just shown that SOME growth is possible without using resources.

In fact, you mention yourself the reason why growth is somehow in contradiction with the finite planetary boundaries: you say that if the carpenters do 1 boat instead of 100 chairs, they will create growth because the value of the boat is bigger than the value of the 100 chairs. So, you acknowledge that growth is led by "the more valuable thing to do, the more profitable". The problem is that, by construction, exploiting resources are way more profitable than not. For creating a boat, it's way easier to chop trees to get new 2x4s than to disassemble chairs (if it was the case, recycling would be the go-to process, and it is clearly not the case in reality. on top of that, some fabrication processes are not recyclable).

So, yeah, technically, we still can have some local growth after all resources are consumed (by just disassembling chairs to create boats), but in practice, this local growth is compensated by the negative growth of losing the big gain of consuming the resource.