71–80 of 98 posts
I am in a minority, but I would welcome the economic decline that would come with growth reduction if it were accompanied by using less manufactured goods (like cars), more locally grown food, more craft and art locally produced, more travel done in VR (with addition that local guides would be there to talk with you), etc., etc.
I am in a minority, but I would welcome the economic decline that would come with growth reduction if it were accompanied by using less manufactured goods (like cars), more locally grown food, more craft and art locally produced, more travel done in VR (with addition that local guides would be there to talk with you), etc., etc.
I am not an economy expert by any stretch. Just going to share my take. Growth cannot go forever due to these factors I observed: 1. More and more wealth seems to be captured and locked away somewhere while the rest of the populace is left to having to cope with globally dwindling redistributable capital. 2. Population isn't even declining everywhere but I've read several times here in HN that white people in first-w…
Sounds that way to me.
Fertility goes down when women enter the workforce and have access to contraceptives. This is also when countries become prosperous. There's no reason to have five children when childhood mortality is low, pregnancy isn't risky, and you can have sex without getting pregnant.
I don't believe the whole "cost of living is going up" stuff that millennials constantly whine about. It's perfectly affordable to live in most places in the US. Millenials are victims of the college loan scam, i.e. going into debt for a worthless degree because "that's what you're supposed to do". They, their parents, the government, and especially the colleges are complicit in this victimization.
> But it's what I am seeing periodically and it worries me. People just don't care that much for making kids or looking for jobs since it all just guarantees suffering and sacrifices and nothing much else.
This kind of nihilism is related to affluence. It infects most people who go through the college system and never experience any struggle.
> Many elderly people tell me that they regularly chat with their kids (now 30-45) and are convinced that having a fulfilling life was easier even as back as 20-30 years ago. They might be right.
Again, this has to do with affluence and not the "world being worse/more expensive/etc". Happiness is related to struggle. Wearing yourself out, renewing your energy (sleeping), and then doing it all over again is the source of all sustained happiness. Increasingly, many people can opt out of this cycle, and it's making them miserable.
Is the idea that technological improvements are tied to _increasing_ population somehow? What's the mechanism there? Being only slightly facetious, but if everyone had no more than one child, that leaves a lot more time in which to invent stuff. And true, over time there will be fewer people doing the inventing, but a world with ~a billion people in it still managed to invent flight, and one with billions fewer than…
If it was true India and China would've been much more successful ( i know China is now due to the miracle they had) a lot earlier
The important part of economic growth is GDP/capita, not total GDP. And if we are to keep growing GDP/capita without destroying the environment, a population decline is absolutely necessary. Increasing population is only economically beneficial in the most short term sense.
I'm assuming you mean "population decline due to death of old age and more empowerment not to have children". Even then, this would only work until the population has shrunk to a certain point. Then what? Maybe a more useful way forward would be to question if we need perpetual growth at all.
The important part of economic growth is GDP/capita, not total GDP. And if we are to keep growing GDP/capita without destroying the environment, a population decline is absolutely necessary. Increasing population is only economically beneficial in the most short term sense.
I am in a minority, but I would welcome the economic decline that would come with growth reduction if it were accompanied by using less manufactured goods (like cars), more locally grown food, more craft and art locally produced, more travel done in VR (with addition that local guides would be there to talk with you), etc., etc.
Would you still be okay if you only had an average level of wealth (by world wide standards) and most likely much lower than you have now? If you want to keep your current level of wealth/consumption then in a no growth scenario many others have to stay poor. Or are you talking only about national scale?
If anything I'd argue the steps towards prosperity in an ecologically sustainable way in this scenario are shorter for developing countries, it will protect their ecology (it is the third world who works in the strip mines for the batteries for affluent tesla drivers in California), accelerating digitization is cheaper than traditional infrastructure, it gives them the opportunity to leapfrog over traditional industries, it will drastically reduce the impact of climate change and so on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel the same way as you. It seems like "economic growth" is being used to justify ignoring other societal issues. For example, you can pretty regularly see people on this site saying that retired people should be forced to relocate out of SV because they aren't contributing to economic growth as much as a high density apartment building filled with recent STEM grads would. Having everything focused so much on grow…
The issues with retired people in the Bay Area that they have prevented any housing construction at all in the last 30 years, while living in gigantic houses for now one ortwo people: that’s why they get so much hate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm assuming you mean "population decline due to death of old age and more empowerment not to have children". Even then, this would only work until the population has shrunk to a certain point. Then what? Maybe a more useful way forward would be to question if we need perpetual growth at all.
That's the type the article is talking about. But it could also mean starvation, disease, war, or genocide. The mechanism doesn't change the math.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel the same way as you. It seems like "economic growth" is being used to justify ignoring other societal issues. For example, you can pretty regularly see people on this site saying that retired people should be forced to relocate out of SV because they aren't contributing to economic growth as much as a high density apartment building filled with recent STEM grads would. Having everything focused so much on grow…
The issues with retired people in the Bay Area that they have prevented any housing construction at all in the last 30 years, while living in gigantic houses for now one ortwo people: that’s why they get so much hate.
The Bay Area seems to have 18,000 km² which at 7.1 million people makes is quite dense already.