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Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

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Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#91

Post by badpun »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #58

The iPhone 12 is smaller than the iPhone 11. Does anybody think that it is worse for that reason? If you buy a Ford Lightning instead of a gasoline truck and fuel it with solar power, you might use 50 tons or so less gasoline. Is that worse? We're a community mostly built on software. A new game may provide massive entertainment on a very minimal footprint. Sure the population cannot grow indefinitely, but it is pred…

Isn't iPhone 12 like 3x the price of iPhone 4? That in itself is the signal of some sort of decline - the same (more or less) goods get gradually more expensive/less accessible.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#92

Post by smitty1e »

thorncorona wrote: post #33
smitty1e wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote the Instapundit: "I'll believe it's a crisis when the people telling me it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis." There seems a pile of circumstantial evidence that the rotating series of crises may merely be a device for controlling the masses through fear.

What is that bar for you? What issues led you to this opinion that they’re overblown?

> "What is that bar for you?"

See first sentence of my post. Those demanding sacrifices might start with themselves.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#93

Post by badpun »

friedman23 wrote: post #4

> an infinite expansion of the economy is fundamentally contradictory to finite planetary boundaries This is a stupid premise. People illiterate in both physics and economics seem to think that economic growth is bound by the laws of thermodynamics. This is easily proven false by contradiction: Let's say you have a few 2x4s and nails, by rearranging them into a chair you've created economic value. No extra raw materi…

You're technically correct, in the way that infinite growth is possible if we only limit ourselves to efficience gains, i.e. getting more value out of the same set of contrained resources. However, in practice, many things that people want cannot be obtained this way. Sure, a nicer chair or improved iPhone are good, but people also want summer houses and exotic vacations and a car for every family member and these things are massively resource-dependant.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#94

Post by scotty79 »

koyanisqatsi wrote: post #43
scotty79 wrote: post #23

I wonder how virtual economies fit into paradigm of infinite economical expansion.

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.

But the entire financial sector is sort of virtual economy where people gamble wealth with nearly zero connection to physical world.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#95

Post by Archelaos »

midoridensha wrote: post #64
Archelaos wrote: post #24

> there's no way of our GDP keeps growing indefinitely while reducing our ecological footprint. Not necessarily. For exmaple, if I recite a poem to you for a dollar and you sing to me a song for a dollar, GDP increases without changing the ecological footprint. And even if the ecological footprint per capita is growing, we might be able to reduce the overall ecological footprint in a few decades, when earth's populat…

>Not necessarily. For exmaple, if I recite a poem to you for a dollar and you sing to me a song for a dollar, GDP increases without changing the ecological footprint. And what if we raise our prices, so I recite a bad poem for $1M and you sing a terrible, off-key song to me for the same price? Isn't that effectively massively raising the GDP without doing any useful work at all?

Yep. But usefulness is besides the point. The question was whether GDP can rise without changing the ecological footprint.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#96

Post by z3c0 »

badpun wrote: post #89
aristofun wrote: post #65

This is a very dangerous narrative, for some reason popular nowadays — the scarcity mindset, the story of “limited resources”. If you go back 5000 years ago you’ll see there’s only so many people the planet can feed. The actual fact is that people _create_ resources when they cooperate (this is why now our planet can afford so many people that ancient would never imagine possible). It’s not about the technology but a…

> Please spread good constructive beliefs, not scary destructive ones. What is the objective truth is "scary"? Can I spread it then?

You found out the objective truth? Please share, the rest of us are eager to know.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#97

Post by badpun »

z3c0 wrote: post #96
badpun wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please spread good constructive beliefs, not scary destructive ones. What is the objective truth is "scary"? Can I spread it then?

You found out the objective truth? Please share, the rest of us are eager to know.

2 + 2 = 4

You're welcome.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#98

Post by mberning »

cableshaft wrote: post #69
mberning wrote: post #36

I think it will be organic. I’ve severely curtailed my discretionary spending. The restaurants suck now, bad service and low quality food for a high price. Bars are barely open during adult hours, many being closed at 8 or 9pm. Theaters, concerts, and sporting events seem to run on a skeleton crew of people that are clueless. It’s time to walk the walk. Plenty of people have a doomer mindset about the future. Prepare…

> It’s just like everybody upset about the climate, but none of them have installed solar and geothermal on their home. Average cost of a residential geothermal system: $15k to $38k[1] Average cost of solar panel roof: $11k to $14k after tax credits[2] Also your roof shingles should be 10 years old or less before installation[3] (my roof shingles are definitely that old), so for a lot of people they'd have to replace…

Which is exactly my point. It’s not cheap or easy to put your money where your mouth is. Talk is cheap. In the end, is $60k too much to ask to save the planet? People should stop being pretenders. If they really care about the climate, do something about it. If they think the world sucks and is going down the drain, do something about it.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#99

Post by mberning »

clay-dreidels wrote: post #78
jlokier wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To which I'll add that renters can't install those things even if they have the money, and people seem to be renting for more of their life than they used to. There's no shortage of articles about people being priced out of ever owning a home. If true, they also won't be able to install solar panels or other environmentally beneficial home improvement technologies, which is bad for everyone. I've never heard of a lan…

Right. Since renters usually pay the electric bill, what incentive is there for landlords to help tenants save on utilities?

Considering how rough renters are on property there is never an incentive to make things nicer than they have to be. High density housing is never going to be a good candidate for solar anyway. Not enough surface area.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#100

Post by hackeraccount »

hypefi wrote: post #75
JoeMayoBot wrote: post #74

The book, Enlightenment Now, by Steven Pinker makes the opposite argument that over time, life is getting better. It tracks various aspects of human life throughout history with research, statistics, and graphs that tell a different story.

Do you know about the "The Turkey Fallacy" ? "the story of a turkey who is fed by the farmer every morning for 1,000 days. Eventually the turkey comes to expect that every visit from the farmer means more good food. After all, that’s all that has ever happened so the turkey figures that’s all that can and will ever happen. But then Day 1,001 arrives. It’s two days before Thanksgiving and when the farmer shows up, he…

That doesn't really line up with Pinker's argument does it? He's not saying things have been fine and so will be in the future. He's saying that the further back you go the worse things were.

The line I always use about running a marathon is that you always feel worse each mile but it's not a continuous down hill slope - sometimes things stay the same for a bit and sometimes they even get better before getting worse gain.

Pinker is arguing for a reverse marathon view. Sure sometimes one year is worse then the one before it - or a decade or a century. The trend though is towards improvements in the human condition.

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