Well if it's not the consensus, then I believe the group that believes Agrarian workers were worse of, because their arguments seem better to me. Agrarian workers had to work long days, in ways their body was not really suited for, had a one-sided diet, and the larger groups that resulted from the revolution entailed more hierarchical structures and a ruling class living of the work of others etc...

Objective measures, like lifespan... don't tell a whole lot about quality of life. Quantity is not quality.

Anyway, you can obviously respond to this if you want, but i'm not really interested in going into this right now, because it's only an example to show that more prosperity overall doesn't necessarily entail more quality of life for the majority. If you want to make the case that this allways is necessarily so, then that seems to be a hard argument to make. The answer, it seems to me, is that we can't know for sure. — ChatteringMonkey

I'd rather not get into it, especially given I recently completed participation in a thread where I must have written around twenty thousand words on this subject.

Suffice it to say that hunter-gatherers had such high infant morality rates that they often don't consider babies to be "people" or give them names until they actually start displaying human features like smiling and laughter (because the risk of death early on is extremely high). about 50% of hunter-gatherers live past age 15. "Better off" indeed?

Really... and the times we came close doesn't give you pauze? All that is needed is things getting out of hand one time. — ChatteringMonkey

Nah...Niether America nor Russia is going to launch all of their nukes; they aren't that stupid. Worst case scenario a bunch of cities get nuked in the northern hemisphere, but life will go on...

As for AI, I'm not so much concerned that they will end up 'terminating' us, it's the effects on society that might not be so positive. If large parts of the population become useless for the economy because of automation and AI, that would create problems that needs new kinds of solutions. And I don't have that much faith in the whole economic and political system, if I look at how things are going now. — ChatteringMonkey

So you would destroy the AI so that less intelligent humans can do worse jobs but feel useful?

We can just find other shit to do I reckon...

Things are going pretty well right now, all things considered...

My point is this really, I'm certainly not against economic growth, innovation and new technology in principle... but I also don't think we should just have blind faith that it will necessarily make things better. And as it stand now, we just seem to be dragged into it without much deliberation, whether we like it or not, and for better or for worse. — ChatteringMonkey

But it's been for the better; we're reducing poverty, increasing literacy, longevity; tyranny is at a low; democracy is at a high; the air is thick with equality.

We still have a way to go, the world is not perfect, and there will always be something to object to, but just imagine actually going backward.

Rewinding the clock means more nukes (at least until the height of the cold war) because we've been deproliferating. It means less rights for women and minorities, more violence, higher crime rates, more wars, more deadly wars, shorter lifespans, more illiteracy, famine; disease; death; destruction; oppression; and a generous and thick layer of complete scientific ignorance.

You really think regressing to a world of toil and death, governed by spirits and superstition, where the weak die and the strong survive, wouldn't make things "worse"?

I don't mean to be offensive when I say this, but I think that we are so consistently well pampered by modernity that we basically take every benefit we have for granted while overreacting to every burden. Not dying young and keeping all your children alive are pretty damn beneficial. We don't yet have a four hour work week but we also have a hell of a lot more than what four hours in the jungle will net you...

But I didn't say anything about wanting to regress, we can't go back period.

I said I didn't want to rely on blind faith. I don't just assume lineair progression. Why do you assume it's going to be better just because it made things better in the past?

Why are governments putting billions of dollars into AI, Biotech and other technologies that will have a profound impact on societies and people... without it having been the subject of any major public debate?

You'd think there would be debate about something that impactfull, if democracy was at a high.

Why are governments putting billions of dollars into AI, Biotech and other technologies that will have a profound impact on societies and people... without it having been the subject of any major public debate?

You'd think there would be debate about something that impactfull, if democracy was on a high. — ChatteringMonkey

There is endless debate on these subjects, it's just too highfalutin for channel 6 public discourse. If and when reliable consensus emerges, or the preponderance of evidence comes in, we can then boil down new such technologies into "good" and "bad" camps. Wealth redistribution made necessary as the result of runaway AI efficiency and wealth production is a complex subject that is being rigorously explored, and biotech isn't a direct threat to the public until a government like China decides to somehow force genetic engineering upon its people.

There is more debate today than ever before and there is more to debate about. We're not all of a single mind about what should even be debated, but that's democracy for you...

There is endless debate on these subjects, it's just too highfalutin for channel 6 public discourse. If and when reliable consensus emerges, or the preponderance of evidence comes in, we can then boil down new such technologies into "good" and "bad" camps. Wealth redistribution made necessary as the result of runaway AI efficiency and wealth production is a complex subject that is being rigorously explored, and biotech isn't a direct threat to the public until a government like China decides to somehow force genetic engineering upon it's people.

There is more debate today than ever before and there is more to debate about. We're not all of a single mind about what should even be debated, but that's democracy for you... — Vagabondspectre

Yes debate among specialists and the in-crowd... not a word from say Hillary or Trump about it. Meanwhile we're already spending billions on it.

Wealth redistribution will never be solved in practice before the effects of AI will be there, because it's not only between people in one country, but also between countries with AI and without it.

And you know someone will try genetic manipulation sooner or later. And then others will feel to need to follow if it gives a competitive edge. If it can be done...

@VagabondSpectre @ChatteringMonkey

Hey excuse me, I'm kind of just passing by, posting randomly and being new here.

I think what you both are overlooking is what humans actually do with their existence, which is to reproduce, replicate old self-sustaining behaviors and display idiosyncratic behavior leading to both death with deep unhappiness(the risk) and newly discovered ways of perpetuating their being(the reward). The newly discovered ways of being over time become established and normal.

What allows us to think that happiness is continuously occurring is the observation whether human being is able to perpetuate itself(the culture he and she is embedded in continues to evolve and survive). This alone is a sufficient test of the goodness of being as per the Myth of Sisyphus (there is nothing a human being likes so much as perpetuating existence, therefore being able to do so makes a human population happy).

We are thus confronted only by two very practical questions: (1)Does the expansion of the ways of human being pose a threat to the perpetuation of culture as a whole? (2)If yes, how much risk is justified?

Conceptually it is easy to see that an expansive human culture may well consume itself. There is a link from this debate to religiosity. There is a link from here to political philosophy too. But the conceptual clarity we can impose now is, that economic development is a baseline that enables being. As such it is an absolute good. At least in so far as it does not saw off the tree branch we are sitting on. How good the actual existence we obtain is, is defined by our mastery of being(educational, political, religious etc).

A secondary/tertiary point I might claim is, that to the best of our knowledge, our universe is finite, the clock is ticking on us and all future us'es(Tony Stark, how do you spell that?), and as such some risk to the whole of culture is justified in attempts to expand it.

Hi Existoic, welcome, and thanks for chiming in.

VagabondSpectre ChatteringMonkey

Hey excuse me, I'm kind of just passing by, posting randomly and being new here.

I think what you both are overlooking is what humans actually do with their existence, which is to reproduce, replicate old self-sustaining behaviors and display idiosyncratic behavior leading to both death with deep unhappiness(the risk) and newly discovered ways of perpetuating their being(the reward). The newly discovered ways of being over time become established and normal.

What allows us to think that happiness is continuously occurring is the observation whether human being is able to perpetuate itself(the culture he and she is embedded in continues to evolve and survive). This alone is a sufficient test of the goodness of being as per the Myth of Sisyphus (there is nothing a human being likes so much as perpetuating existence, therefore being able to do so makes a human population happy).

We are thus confronted only by two very practical questions: (1)Does the expansion of the ways of human being pose a threat to the perpetuation of culture as a whole? (2)If yes, how much risk is justified?

Conceptually it is easy to see that an expansive human culture may well consume itself. There is a link from this debate to religiosity. There is a link from here to political philosophy too. But the conceptual clarity we can impose now is, that economic development is a baseline that enables being. As such it is an absolute good. At least in so far as it does not saw off the tree branch we are sitting on. How good the actual existence we obtain is, is defined by our mastery of being(educational, political, religious etc). — Existoic

Interesting view on the issue. Having read all of Nietzsche multiple times when I was a bit younger, I'm not altogheter unsympathetic to the view that life is justified through overcoming and mastery. Being is becoming... From that perspective a perpetual stagnation of human civilization and culture maybe is also an ending of it.

That said, it does seem to me that the risks are very high at this moment. A cocktail of a still growing population, an overheating earth, increasing political instability, an interdependent economy prone to crash and high tech mixed with some religious strife, is very explosive to say the least. Maybe it will not be the end for all of humanity, but at the very least I see big conflicts coming... possibly resulting in new unprecedented and semi-permanent inequalities.

But maybe that is the way it has to go...

A secondary/tertiary point I might claim is, that to the best of our knowledge, our universe is finite, the clock is ticking on us and all future us'es(Tony Stark, how do you spell that?), and as such some risk to the whole of culture is justified in attempts to expand it. — Existoic

Given the current tempo of innovation, and the fraction we only spend compared to the astronomical amounts of time left to the end of the universe, I don't see the need for haste.

What do you think? — ChatteringMonkey

The way the question is formulated assumes that perpetual growth is a possibility. Since economic growth is intimately linked with energy-usage, in theory and in the long term that is clearly false... if we believe there are no exceptions to the conservation-laws that is. Energy is limited, so is economic growth.

In practice it's even worse, since we were able to temporally prop up our economies with the earths fossil fuels, which are for all our intents and purposes a one-time deal. As stocks of fossil fuels are rapidly depleting (or we have to stop using them because things like climate change), available energy will decline, and so will economies.

This is not a matter of choice, but a consequence of the laws of physics.... economies will eventually stop growing because of a lack of energy.

If we take that as a given, the more interesting question is what should we be doing to anticipate that inevitability? There's uncertainty about a number of things, when, how much, etc... but one thing seems clear, keeping our economy running on an expectation of growth seems like a recipe for disaster.

Yes, I think this is the problem. Continuous-growth economics cannot work in a system with finite resources. Like our Earth, for example. For years I have been amazed that this is not a phrase on everyone's lips. It is the reason for nearly everything we humans have got wrong in our treatment of our world. IMO, of course. :wink: — Pattern-chaser

Exactly. Growth-economics seems to only really apply in this small period in a planets history wherein resources seem practically unlimited because populations are still small relative to the amount of resources.

There's uncertainty about a number of things, when, how much, etc... but one thing seems clear, keeping our economy running on an expectation of growth seems like a recipe for disaster. — ChatteringMonkey

One can expect growth all the time, but not in all industries or aspects of societies. I think some countries have done controlled growth -- where they intentionally allow to die certain economic activities in order to grow other activities.

Which countries would that be?

@ChatteringMonkey: I hope you haven't been waiting 3 years for this factoid; I just came across it again. After the dust settled from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and following for several hundred years, the economic growth rate was about 1/100th of a percent per year. Super stable. No growth. Once every century you could expect a 1% raise.

The so called "dark ages" during which the rate of growth was practically zero, wasn't 'dark'. The period saw some development, some innovations, improvements in agriculture, and so forth. But economic growth was very slow; the economy was a 'stable steady state'.

I can't think of a tolerable method of achieving stable zero-growth. Global warming might do it for us, by reducing the population, wiping out the technological knowledge base, and focussing our minds on the matter of bare survival. The survivors would experience one grand RE-SET. Quite possibly, after the dust settled, life would go on in a stable, no-growth fashion for a long time.

There's uncertainty about a number of things, when, how much, etc... but one thing seems clear, keeping our economy running on an expectation of growth seems like a recipe for disaster.
— ChatteringMonkey
One can expect growth all the time, but not in all industries or aspects of societies. — Caldwell

I was thinking about aggregate growth, GDP... but sure, presumably you could shift available energy from one sector to another.

I hope you haven't been waiting 3 years for this factoid; — Bitter Crank

No, that would be pretty weird :-).

Now and then I look back at some of my older posts, and I've been thinking a lot about this particular topic lately.... I changed my mind a lot since then.

I just came across it again. After the dust settled from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and following for several hundred years, the economic growth rate was about 1/100th of a percent per year. Super stable. No growth. Once every century you could expect a 1% raise.

The so called "dark ages" during which the rate of growth was practically zero, wasn't 'dark'. The period saw some development, some innovations, improvements in agriculture, and so forth. But economic growth was very slow; the economy was a 'stable steady state'. — Bitter Crank

Yes, Growth is increase in GDProduct,
Product is the result of rearranging earths materials,
and rearranging can only happen by using energy.

Growth and energy-usage track almost linearly, which is why you see very low growth before the industrial revolution. You had wind and hydro, and solar via plants/food that powered humans and domesticated animals. That equation didn't change all that much for millennia.

It's often thought that what was the driver or the key for the industrial revolution, was the scientific method, or innovation. And while there's some truth to that (we needed those innovations), what really made it take off, was the fact that it unlocked fossil fuels.

That enabled us to multiply our energy output by a factor of 200 or something ridicules like that, which in turn enabled us to power all those machines, which in turn enable us to produce all those products... the rest is history.

I can't think of a tolerable method of achieving stable zero-growth. Global warming might do it for us, by reducing the population, wiping out the technological knowledge base, and focussing our minds on the matter of bare survival. The survivors would experience one grand RE-SET. Quite possibly, after the dust settled, life would go on in a stable, no-growth fashion for a long time. — Bitter Crank

Global warming might do it, or less energy might do it also... which would mean that no-growth (or even decrease) is not only a possibility, but an inevitability, if the reasoning about energy is on point here.

But yes, the real question is in what way, how will we get from here to there? At what energy level will we have to plateau?

(ZPG) — Bitter Crank

It seems as though population is the root cause of our problems.

1. Economic growth $\rightarrow$ (leads to) Population growth.

2. Population growth $\rightarrow$ (requires) Economic growth.

It's actually not growth unless you want to qualify that with "uncontrolled" like with cancer. It's more of a death spiral, wouldn't you agree?

By the way, rich countries have low birth rates. I'm probably off by a mile as to what's actually happening and what's wrong with our system.

To the economists out there, isn't there a natural ceiling/limit to growth? If the global economy hits that upper bound before the earth dies on us, everything should be ok, no?

It seems as though population is the root cause of our problems. — TheMadFool

It seems indeed. Nothing les further from the truth. Global population has risen (multiplicated) only by facto 5 or so since 1900. Nature was fine. And just look now...

Once there lived 100 000 people. That they lived 12 years max is just propaganda.

It seems indeed. Nothing les further from the truth. Global population has risen (multiplicated) only by facto 5 or so since 1900. Nature was fine. And just look now... — Cartuna

Reminds me of how many people have told me to exercise more self-control. Humanity, it seems, is running amok on planet earth. No sense of restraint, temperance, or moderation. We're multiplying like Fibonacci's rabbits. We'll eventually have to, as they say, pay the piper. For better or worse I probably won't be around when the shooting starts.

Reminds me of how many people have told me to exercise more self-control. Humanity, it seems, is running amok on planet earth. No sense of restraint, temperance, or moderation. We're multiplying like Fibonacci's rabbits. We'll eventually have to, as they say, pay the piper. For better or worse I probably won't be around when the shooting starts. — TheMadFool

Almost :100:

It's not people though that are Fibonacci-struck. It's their need to materially dress up their pathetic empty lives. Making it seem full. Covering up emptiness, stimulated by a system based on artificial material knowledge only. While population is 5 times as big than 150 years ago (and growing slowly linearly), the stuff created has exploded and increases linearly in the exponential. Nature will shoot back indeed.

How does economic growth actually work? Earn more a given year than the year before, inflation-adjusted, seems to be the motto. Since economic growth boils down to per capita income, it makes complete sense for developing nations with large sections of the population below the poverty line to aim for economic growth. Rich, industrialized, first world countries, what's their excuse?

Inlation is always present. Prices go up generally, earnings follow. Minimum wages are kept low. Work scarse (unemployment). "We can always give the job to someone else". The people at the base are the modern slaves. Loan slaves. Keeping a system working designed to create material wealth for a few, less for the people with knowledge without whome the machine couldn't be constructed and without whome no global advertising could be invented and projected, and at the broad base the loan slaves, keeping the machine clean. Rich gets richer. Poor gets poorer. And nature suffers

No, it wasn't fine, but we were farther away from a tipping point. By 1900, a huge hunk of coal had already been dug up and burned. Oil was getting set to join coal as a major driver of rising CO2 levels. Some whale species' numbers had been devastated, and some species of animals and birds were going extinct.

Patterns emerge gradually, and observers generally need a reason to look and see.

Once there lived 100 000 people. That they lived 12 years max is just propaganda. — Cartuna

Oh, yes, very true. Ancient hunter-gatherers were robust and pretty healthy. So were Neanderthals and Denisovans. Besides, low longevity generally means that a lot of children died. Averaging out dead 1 - 5 year olds with mature adults, you get absurdly low life expectancies.

Averaging out dead 1 - 5 year olds with mature adults, you get absurdly low life expectancies. — Bitter Crank

Very true! Which goes to show that averaging is an artificial procedure. Wasn't that about a swimmer who drowned?
Who are Denisovans? Danish savants?

As a generalization, there have been periods of real growth. For instance, the post WWII boom brought real growth (increases in real income) for about 30 years. During the last 45 years, real wages have decreased by a minimum of 25% for most working class people. The cause has been stagnant wages and inflation.

Now, if you want a period of time when economic growth was a real drag, take the period between the collapse of the Roman Empire (say, 600 a.d. to around 1400 a.d. for a round figures) the annual growth rate was 1/100th of a percent. People could look forward to a 1% increase in income per century. As it happens, those 800 years were not terrible for everyone. Life was just very stable.

Who are Denisovans? Danish savants? — Cartuna

You must be thinking of Søren Kierkegaard's learned aunts and uncles. But no. A little finger bone found somewhere in eastern Russia supplied the DNA sample. The Denisovans were a non-Homo Sapiens species that mixed with humans in Asia, like Neaderthals mixed with H. sapiens in Europe.

You must be thinking of Søren Kierkegaard's family. — Bitter Crank

:smile:

Could humans mix with non-humans? Apparently. Like tigers can mix with lions, I guess. What if we mix humans with gorillas?

Seems like you know a lot! An American (?) savant!

As it happens, those 800 years were not terrible for everyone. Life was just very stable. — Bitter Crank

Why can't that hold nowadays?

Since we did interbreed and produce fertile offspring (which is why Europeans, for instance, are about 1%-3% Neanderthal. Same for Asians and Denisovans. The great apes, chimps, bonobos, or gorillas are closely related to us, but not quite close enough to produce fertile off-spring, MAYBE a great ape / human fertilization could take place (it hasn't, as far as we know) but if it did, who knows whaat the result would be like. Donald Trump, possibly, but with bigger muscles and a huge gut to digest rough feed.

Donald Trump, possibly, — Bitter Crank

That's exactly what I thought! :smile:

Oe oe, America first! Oo oo oo... knocking himself on the chest.

Seems like you know a lot! An American (?) savant! — Cartuna

Yes, I'm a certified idiot-savant. American.

Why can't that hold nowadays? — Cartuna

Given a culture / economic collapse from global warming, it might. But there were some factors: The withdrawal of the Empire meant that its organized military and administration disappeared. There was plenty of action during these 800 years -- trading, migrations, agricultural developments, conflicts, and in general cultural and social development. But there was not enough net surplus of production to fuel year-over-year growth. About the time that a surplus was possible, the Black Plague arrived and set things back a ways. Between 950 and c.  1100 Europe experienced a streak of very nice warm weather--good. That was followed by the Little Ice Age - not so good.

By the end of the 1400s, Europe had moved into higher gear and economic growth resumed, albeit not like a house-a-fire.

Between 950 and c.  1100 Europe experienced a streak of very nice warm weather--good — Bitter Crank

I know about the small ice-age. I always imagined myself living then. There are beautiful winter scenes painted. Very romantic. It was cold though... Untill now I was totally ignorant about the little tropic though. Must have been wonderful. How do they know? It were the "dark" middle ages (but very sunny, apparently!). Trees? No, of course not. HTF do they know?

We should and can stop economic growth! The male what she's called has spoken...