Over population derail from "Humans as non-animals"

[lostone]

The problem with a steady state economy is how to make it work in practical terms with real people.

The English economy between about 1200 and 1500CE was pretty close to a steady state, with occasional hiccups due to pandemics and famines.

In that society, opportunities for improving ones lot were few and far between. Every son expected to live the same life as his father, doing the same job, in the same way, and deferring to the same hierarchy. Unless he died young; Or ran away to join the army or the priesthood.

There is a reason why when people describe a modern country as 'medieval', this is not a complement.

Doing the same job as your parents is not even possible today, nor has it been for several generations. New jobs have arisen, and old jobs have disappeared, along with new and old corporations and functions. The Black Death put a sudden end to that, which many claim led to the Renaissance. It is questionable that a steady state economy even existed prior to that. Diocletian tried to stabilize the Roman economy long before then, and failed.

 

[DBT]

As perpetual growth is impossible, we may have a perpetual boom/bust economy. It grows, it crashes, and the growth cycle starts again.

 

[bilby]

The problem with a steady state economy is how to make it work in practical terms with real people.

The English economy between about 1200 and 1500CE was pretty close to a steady state, with occasional hiccups due to pandemics and famines.

In that society, opportunities for improving ones lot were few and far between. Every son expected to live the same life as his father, doing the same job, in the same way, and deferring to the same hierarchy. Unless he died young; Or ran away to join the army or the priesthood.

There is a reason why when people describe a modern country as 'medieval', this is not a complement.

Doing the same job as your parents is not even possible today, nor has it been for several generations.

Exactly. But that's one of the requirements for a steady state economy. We would need to return to that situation, with essentially no innovation of any kind.

New jobs have arisen, and old jobs have disappeared, along with new and old corporations and functions.

That would have to stop.

The Black Death put a sudden end to that, which many claim led to the Renaissance.

Well, not really. The plague pandemic of the late 1340s certainly interrupted the pattern, and started gradual change that would lead to not only the renaissance, but the enlightenment too - eventually. But I would hesitate to describe any of that as 'sudden' - it took another two centuries to really get going.

It is questionable that a steady state economy even existed prior to that. Diocletian tried to stabilize the Roman economy long before then, and failed.

That depends on how 'steady' a 'steady state' needs to be

The Medieval period was as close as we have ever got, at least in England, although to a large extent it was the devastation of the Blue Fever (as the contemporaries called it - Black Death is a more recent name) that kept growth in both economic and population terms in check - Prior to the 1340s, both grew fairly rapidly.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There isn't a lot of suffering yet.

“A lot” meaning “enough to get Joe Sixpack off the couch to do something about it”?
Joe Sixpack will die in front of his FOX tuned TV long before things get to that point. You’re talking about an end result of past and current actions that won’t be felt in full for decades. The suffering will not even be acknowledged until it’s way too late to mitigate it.
I bet you don’t miss the menhaden*, do you?
Which animal do you miss most, among the estimated 500 or so vertebrate species that have gone extinct since 1900? (This is up to 50x the”normal” background rate of extinction)
You probably don’t suffer a bit from those losses, right?

* menhaden are not extinct (and probably won’t be) but have been so decimated by humans that numerous other species that depended on them are in peril, if not gone.

Species extinction doesn't cause the sort of human suffering I'm talking about. People will act when it hurts them--and that very well might be too late.

 

[bilby]

As perpetual growth is impossible, we may have a perpetual boom/bust economy. It grows, it crashes, and the growth cycle starts again.

Again, you conflate different kinds of growth. Perpetual economic growth is NOT impossible. Perpetual growth in population is impossible, but not at risk of happening, and perpetual growth in resource use is impossible, but we have barely scratched the surface of the resources that exist, so that is a problem for a future so distant that we will probably be extinct as a species before we need to worry about it.

The limit to economic growth is the limit to growth in value. Please, if you think that there is a hard limit to the growth of value, could you explain what that limit is? Without conflating it with resource use and/or population limits?

 

[Elixir]

There isn't a lot of suffering yet.

“A lot” meaning “enough to get Joe Sixpack off the couch to do something about it”?
Joe Sixpack will die in front of his FOX tuned TV long before things get to that point. You’re talking about an end result of past and current actions that won’t be felt in full for decades. The suffering will not even be acknowledged until it’s way too late to mitigate it.
I bet you don’t miss the menhaden*, do you?
Which animal do you miss most, among the estimated 500 or so vertebrate species that have gone extinct since 1900? (This is up to 50x the”normal” background rate of extinction)
You probably don’t suffer a bit from those losses, right?

* menhaden are not extinct (and probably won’t be) but have been so decimated by humans that numerous other species that depended on them are in peril, if not gone.

Species extinction doesn't cause the sort of human suffering I'm talking about. People will act when it hurts them--and that very well might be too late.

You mean it hasn’t hurt HSS reproductive success. Some individuals are already hurt, though few are imperiled. I don’t value life much per se - its value is highly variable, and some is noxious. If species continue to disappear at the current rate, the main threat to human civilization is probably monoculture farming rather than lack of diverse fauna. But even that probably isn’t a threat to human survival, just the quality of life. But human lifespans are so short that the ecosystems seem quite stable to individuals …
I’m not one to try the experiment, but I have heard that if you slowly raise the temperature of water in a pan with a frog, it actually will jump out of the pan, contrary to popular belief.
Are humans as smart as frogs?

 

[DBT]

As perpetual growth is impossible, we may have a perpetual boom/bust economy. It grows, it crashes, and the growth cycle starts again.

Again, you conflate different kinds of growth. Perpetual economic growth is NOT impossible. Perpetual growth in population is impossible, but not at risk of happening, and perpetual growth in resource use is impossible, but we have barely scratched the surface of the resources that exist, so that is a problem for a future so distant that we will probably be extinct as a species before we need to worry about it.

The limit to economic growth is the limit to growth in value. Please, if you think that there is a hard limit to the growth of value, could you explain what that limit is? Without conflating it with resource use and/or population limits?

Population growth is related to consumption. As is developed nation consumerism, encouraged by corporate interests. the more people there are, greater the demand for goods and service, especially in wealthy countries, food housing, roads, vehicles, etc, and according to reports, we are currently consuming natural resources at an unsustainable rate.

Abstract
''Within the context of Earth’s limited natural resources and assimilation capacity, the current environmental footprint of humankind is not sustainable. Assessing land, water, energy, material, and other footprints along supply chains is paramount in understanding the sustainability, efficiency, and equity of resource use from the perspective of producers, consumers, and government.

We review current footprints and relate those to maximum sustainable levels, highlighting the need for future work on combining footprints, assessing trade-offs between them, improving computational techniques, estimating maximum sustainable footprint levels, and benchmarking efficiency of resource use. Ultimately, major transformative changes in the global economy are necessary to reduce humanity’s environmental footprint to sustainable levels.''

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1248365#:~:text=Since%20the%20latter%20part%20of%20the%2018th%20century%2C,increasing%20natural%20resource%20use%2C%20and%20rapidly%20generating%20waste.

 

[bilby]

As perpetual growth is impossible, we may have a perpetual boom/bust economy. It grows, it crashes, and the growth cycle starts again.

Again, you conflate different kinds of growth. Perpetual economic growth is NOT impossible. Perpetual growth in population is impossible, but not at risk of happening, and perpetual growth in resource use is impossible, but we have barely scratched the surface of the resources that exist, so that is a problem for a future so distant that we will probably be extinct as a species before we need to worry about it.

The limit to economic growth is the limit to growth in value. Please, if you think that there is a hard limit to the growth of value, could you explain what that limit is? Without conflating it with resource use and/or population limits?

Population growth is related to consumption. As is developed nation consumerism, encouraged by corporate interests.

I am aware.

However, neither is related to my questions, which explicitly were ONLY about growth in VALUE, ie 'economic growth'.

I specifically requested that you respond "Without conflating it [growth in value] with resource use and/or population limits", and I guess technically you didn't, because you talked only about those irrelevancies, and ignored purely economic growth altogether.

So, again: The limit to economic growth is the limit to growth in value. Please, if you think that there is a hard limit to the growth of value, could you explain what that limit is?

For example, the value of Van Gogh's famous painting 'Sunflowers' (the fourth version, currently housed at the National Gallery in London) has increased dramatically since it was first sold. This increase in value has used no additional resources - the paint and canvas are unchanged. If the increase is due to human population growth, then I struggle to see how that happened.

So, what is the hard upper limit of the possible future value of that painting, and why?

If you can demonstrate logically that further increases in value for 'Sunflowers' are dependant on the growth of the human population, then I shall be particularly impressed.

 

[Jokodo]

That's a very liberal definition of rich.

It's a whole population perspective.

Which is the only valid perspective, when the topic is population.

And my point is exactly that 2/3 of the whole population, including 90% in "3rd World" countries like Thailand or Morocco, use the Internet. So from a whole population perspective, saying "is you can access this forum, you're rich" is saying that 2/3 of the world's population including many transiently employed labourers in Thailand and Morocco are "rich".

 

[DBT]

As perpetual growth is impossible, we may have a perpetual boom/bust economy. It grows, it crashes, and the growth cycle starts again.

Again, you conflate different kinds of growth. Perpetual economic growth is NOT impossible. Perpetual growth in population is impossible, but not at risk of happening, and perpetual growth in resource use is impossible, but we have barely scratched the surface of the resources that exist, so that is a problem for a future so distant that we will probably be extinct as a species before we need to worry about it.

The limit to economic growth is the limit to growth in value. Please, if you think that there is a hard limit to the growth of value, could you explain what that limit is? Without conflating it with resource use and/or population limits?

Population growth is related to consumption. As is developed nation consumerism, encouraged by corporate interests.

I am aware.

However, neither is related to my questions, which explicitly were ONLY about growth in VALUE, ie 'economic growth'.

I specifically requested that you respond "Without conflating it [growth in value] with resource use and/or population limits", and I guess technically you didn't, because you talked only about those irrelevancies, and ignored purely economic growth altogether.

So, again: The limit to economic growth is the limit to growth in value. Please, if you think that there is a hard limit to the growth of value, could you explain what that limit is?

For example, the value of Van Gogh's famous painting 'Sunflowers' (the fourth version, currently housed at the National Gallery in London) has increased dramatically since it was first sold. This increase in value has used no additional resources - the paint and canvas are unchanged. If the increase is due to human population growth, then I struggle to see how that happened.

So, what is the hard upper limit of the possible future value of that painting, and why?

If you can demonstrate logically that further increases in value for 'Sunflowers' are dependant on the growth of the human population, then I shall be particularly impressed.

Value has limitations. The value of something is governed by what people are willing to pay, their economic circumstances., needs and wants. .

 

[bilby]

Could the transient labourers from Thailand or Morocco who are reading this post please identify themselves to settle the point?

Thanks in advance.

 

[bilby]

As perpetual growth is impossible, we may have a perpetual boom/bust economy. It grows, it crashes, and the growth cycle starts again.

Again, you conflate different kinds of growth. Perpetual economic growth is NOT impossible. Perpetual growth in population is impossible, but not at risk of happening, and perpetual growth in resource use is impossible, but we have barely scratched the surface of the resources that exist, so that is a problem for a future so distant that we will probably be extinct as a species before we need to worry about it.

The limit to economic growth is the limit to growth in value. Please, if you think that there is a hard limit to the growth of value, could you explain what that limit is? Without conflating it with resource use and/or population limits?

Population growth is related to consumption. As is developed nation consumerism, encouraged by corporate interests.

I am aware.

However, neither is related to my questions, which explicitly were ONLY about growth in VALUE, ie 'economic growth'.

I specifically requested that you respond "Without conflating it [growth in value] with resource use and/or population limits", and I guess technically you didn't, because you talked only about those irrelevancies, and ignored purely economic growth altogether.

So, again: The limit to economic growth is the limit to growth in value. Please, if you think that there is a hard limit to the growth of value, could you explain what that limit is?

For example, the value of Van Gogh's famous painting 'Sunflowers' (the fourth version, currently housed at the National Gallery in London) has increased dramatically since it was first sold. This increase in value has used no additional resources - the paint and canvas are unchanged. If the increase is due to human population growth, then I struggle to see how that happened.

So, what is the hard upper limit of the possible future value of that painting, and why?

If you can demonstrate logically that further increases in value for 'Sunflowers' are dependant on the growth of the human population, then I shall be particularly impressed.

Value has limitations. The value of something is governed by what people are willing to pay, their economic circumstances., needs and wants. .

Sure. But what is the constraint that sets an upper limit?

We cannot have more people than we can feed. We cannot extract more fossil fuels than are buried in the Earth's crust. What constrains how much we can value something? Might we run out of numbers?

 

[Jokodo]

Could the transient labourers from Thailand or Morocco who are reading this post please identify themselves to settle the point?

Thanks in advance.

Few of them speak English. That doesn't change the fact that having some kind of Internet access no longer identifies one as "rich" in a range of countries you wouldn't want to describe as "First World".

That it still does in the DRC and Afghanistan tells us more about the DRC and Afghanistan - not compared to Europe or Australia but to the world average - than it does about what it means to be rich in the world today.

 

[aupmanyav]

We cannot have more people than we can feed. We cannot extract more fossil fuels than are buried in the Earth's crust. What constrains how much we can value something? Might we run out of numbers?

How is India feeding and fueling its people? Our agriculture not at all as productive as many other countries. We import most of our fuel.
1,458 million people. Adding 67 - 70,000 babies each day. (Duck AI)

 

[Swammerdami]

However, neither is related to my questions, which explicitly were ONLY about growth in VALUE, ie 'economic growth'.

Humpty Dumpty made up his own words with their own meanings, but it's better to avoid that here. If Sometown, Alabama doubles its population and land area, with all per capita figures the same as before, it has undergone 100% economic growth. This is NOT a value judgment, it's simply a matter of definition.

The word you were looking for might be intensive growth.

As so often today, Google may NOT be your friend. While responses equivalent to "growth in GDP" outnumber "growth in GDP per capita", BOTH show up, as do many hits which conflate the two meanings. ChatGPT produces a paragraph based on "growth in GDP" but then contradicts itself in the second paragraph.

For example, the value of Van Gogh's famous painting 'Sunflowers' (the fourth version, currently housed at the National Gallery in London) has increased dramatically since it was first sold.

For someone who rants that metals have no "intrinsic" value, you sure are over-eager to conflate the PRICE paid for a painting with its "value."
And ...

This increase in value has used no additional resources - the paint and canvas are unchanged. If the increase is due to human population growth, then I struggle to see how that happened.

.. you're WRONG. The SUPPLY of 19th century paintings is sharply constrained. The DEMAND for such paintings is driven by the QUANTITY of rich people, which in turn is directly related -- for TWO different reasons -- to the quantity of people.

 

[bilby]

The SUPPLY of 19th century paintings is sharply constrained. The DEMAND for such paintings is driven by the QUANTITY of rich people, which in turn is directly related -- for TWO different reasons -- to the quantity of people.

No it's not. The quantity of rich people is a tiny fraction of the quantity of people, and since the industrial revolution the two quantities are decoupled.

The ratio of "rich people":"total people" has increased massively in the last two or three centuries, and if total
population were to begin to decline today, the number of rich people could continue to rise for a very long time before a shortage of poor people to enrich became a constraint, even if it were not possible to increase demand by further enriching the already rich.

And of course, it IS possible to increase demand by further enriching a constant (or even declining) number of rich people.

 

[Politesse]

Doing the same job as your parents is not even possible today, nor has it been for several generations.

Well, it depends on the job! Some trades are still more traditional in character, and require a depth of training that one's formal schooling cannot provide. As it happens, I work essentially the same job as my father, even at the same institution. My partner works a rather similar job to his father (as rather a lot middle class Michiganders do) and once worked for the "family company". But you know what that gets me and did get him? Frequent confusion, and occasional but constant accusations of nepotism... It's definitely not expected that a child will take up their parent's role as used to be done, and take it from me, it may not even be received well if one tries.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There isn't a lot of suffering yet.

“A lot” meaning “enough to get Joe Sixpack off the couch to do something about it”?
Joe Sixpack will die in front of his FOX tuned TV long before things get to that point. You’re talking about an end result of past and current actions that won’t be felt in full for decades. The suffering will not even be acknowledged until it’s way too late to mitigate it.
I bet you don’t miss the menhaden*, do you?
Which animal do you miss most, among the estimated 500 or so vertebrate species that have gone extinct since 1900? (This is up to 50x the”normal” background rate of extinction)
You probably don’t suffer a bit from those losses, right?

* menhaden are not extinct (and probably won’t be) but have been so decimated by humans that numerous other species that depended on them are in peril, if not gone.

Species extinction doesn't cause the sort of human suffering I'm talking about. People will act when it hurts them--and that very well might be too late.

You mean it hasn’t hurt HSS reproductive success. Some individuals are already hurt, though few are imperiled. I don’t value life much per se - its value is highly variable, and some is noxious. If species continue to disappear at the current rate, the main threat to human civilization is probably monoculture farming rather than lack of diverse fauna. But even that probably isn’t a threat to human survival, just the quality of life. But human lifespans are so short that the ecosystems seem quite stable to individuals …
I’m not one to try the experiment, but I have heard that if you slowly raise the temperature of water in a pan with a frog, it actually will jump out of the pan, contrary to popular belief.
Are humans as smart as frogs?

It could become a serious threat--what happens if we kill the bees?

But you're getting my point--so far only a few have actually been hurt. Thus can-kicking rather than serious action.

 

[bilby]

what happens if we kill the bees?

We are not going to kill the bees.

The whole "we're killing the bees!" trope is just an anti-scientific reaction against the development of safer, more effective, less environmentally damaging pesticides.

It was brought to you by the geniuses behind the "Nuclear power is too dangerous, just look at Fukushima" trope.

 

[Elixir]

But you're getting my point--so far only a few have actually been hurt. Thus can-kicking rather than serious action.

Colorado is the 2nd most fire-vulnerable State (NPR). I’ll get hurt, with insurance rates, because fucking Gavin Newscum left town with all the water and burned down California (FOX).