The Earth is Full - A Gibbsian Orgasm Piece

#1
volinbham

volinbham

VN GURU
Joined
Oct 21, 2004
Messages
70,093
Likes
63,476
#1
More Thomas Friedman blather and a new measure of how badly humans suck - the G.F.N "which calculates how many “planet Earths” we need to sustain our current growth rates." Currently we are at a G.F.N of 1.5 ruh-roh

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=1


Love this logic:

We’re currently caught in two loops: One is that more population growth and more global warming together are pushing up food prices; rising food prices cause political instability in the Middle East, which leads to higher oil prices, which leads to higher food prices, which leads to more instability. At the same time, improved productivity means fewer people are needed in every factory to produce more stuff. So if we want to have more jobs, we need more factories. More factories making more stuff make more global warming, and that is where the two loops meet.
Click to expand...

improved productivity = more factories. Brilliant.

And here's where the Gorilla blows it's wad all over the woodshed

We will realize, he predicts, that the consumer-driven growth model is broken and we have to move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less.
Click to expand...
 
#2
#2
I think he has a point about environmental capacity, but I know that means I'm just a dumb lib commie who wants to take away people's steaks.
 
#3
#3
IPorange said:
I think he has a point about environmental capacity, but I know that means I'm just a dumb lib commie who wants to take away people's steaks.
Click to expand...

Sure there's a point there but holy hell that article was full of unsubstantiated claims all pointing to the "happiness-driven" model as the solution. It reads like a religious pamphlet.

The feedback loops thing was loony as hell. Increased productivity = more factories = more GW.
 
#4
#4
Whenever people start trying to predict the economic response to things, it gets dicey imo. In fact, his optimism to me is unfounded. Easter Islanders never realized what was going on until it was too late. Same with the Mayans.
 
#5
#5
every time something like this comes up, it reminds me of what happens to the humans on the Axiom in "Wall-E".

working less and owning less may bring short term happiness, but it's a great way to destroy civilization in a few generations
 
#7
#7
IPorange said:
Our civilization is consumerism? I hope not.
Click to expand...

no, the humans on the Axiom had everything provided for them by the ship and were even told what to think.

utopians like gibbs think that people will be happiest when their wants and needs are provided by the government.

consumerism, capitalism, competition, whatever you want to call it, individuals need to be able achieve and have something to show for their success. They also need to know how to handle failure, which doesn't include becoming a victim and demanding the government help.
 
#8
#8
I don't know what government has to do with becoming sustainable. There is nothing sustainable about government, generally.
 
#11
#11
In bourgeois economics productivity = driving down wages to produce same amount of goods.

I think Friedman has grossly underestimated the footprint. It is a lot more than 1.5 Earths.
 
#12
#12
MG1968 said:
but, government is efficient. Just ask gibbs
Click to expand...

Neither government nor the private sector are inherently efficient. The government is certainly far more efficient than the private sector at many things (health being one, anywhere there is endemic market failures too - roads, fire protection, high technology research, etc).

Culture makes efficiency.
 
Last edited:
#13
#13
utgibbs said:
In bourgeois economics productivity = driving down wages to produce same amount of goods.

I think Friedman has grossly underestimated the footprint. It is a lot more than 1.5 Earths.
Click to expand...

I'm actually quite familiar with this work, and 1.5 is the low end estimate that they work off of, but it could be as many as "2.5 Earths" worth of footprint at the moment, and is expected to increase rapidly as the developing world continues to come onto the world economic grid and grow in population.
 
#14
#14
IPorange said:
I'm actually quite familiar with this work, and 1.5 is the low end estimate that they work off of, but it could be as many as "2.5 Earths" worth of footprint at the moment, and is expected to increase rapidly as the developing world continues to come onto the world economic grid and grow in population.
Click to expand...

I figured it was the low-end. I was working off of the median figure then - 2.0 Earths. Which, in the words of another bourgeois economist, Nicolas Stern, is "the greatest market failure in the history of the world."

And, judging from the recent BLS report on job creation and labor force growth, bourgeois economics aren't getting the job done any longer.

The counter-revolution, begun under Thatcher / Reagan has lost all legitimacy (I wonder if it ever had any). Time to start thinking outside the box. It is the job of every Revolutionary to make Revolution.
 
#16
#16
Okay, some basic observations which seem difficult to refute:

- Capitalist/western economic structure requires constant (or at least consistent) growth to survive.
- World population is increasing consistently, with no apparent slow-down in sight.
- Generally, those of us in capitalist economic systems seem to think the developing economies should adopt our model, and most of them seem to be doing so.
- The earth has limited resources. Technology has and can probably continue to stretch resources but, ultimately, there is a limit. There seems to be no good way to determine how close we are to the limit, but there definitely is one.

So obviously, there is a problem. Basically, limited resources cannot fuel unending growth. The obvious question is how to solve this problem. I, for one, don't think the government is capable of solving any problem, let alone one this difficult. So, what is the solution?


Oh, and I really like Pringles.
 
#17
#17
Actually the growth rate (population wise) of capitalistic/western societies is quite slow if not negative.

To me the bigger question is how do you calculate the capacity of the earth. We've seen predictions of "too many people" for a couple hundred years. I question the validity of the G.F.K. scale and would like to know how the measurement was derived and validated.

As for solving it, technological advancement is definitely a key. Besides that and population control I don't know what a solution would be but I certainly don't want the government in the population control business. We'd all be given 1/2 tube of Pringles per day as rations; that and a sixer of Brawndo
 
#19
#19
utgibbs said:
In bourgeois economics productivity = driving down wages to produce same amount of goods.

I think Friedman has grossly underestimated the footprint. It is a lot more than 1.5 Earths.
Click to expand...

Population: 6.7B

Geographic land mass of Texas: 170M acres

Hypothetically, every family in the world could live in Texas (with almost a quarter of an acre per family). Of course, this does not account for commerce and production facilities; however, it does demonstrate how large the world is and how relatively tiny the human population is.

The Earth can certainly supply for the needs of the human population; humans, however, have displayed a remarkable tendency for failure in being able to effectively distribute the needed goods.
 
#21
#21
volinbham said:
Actually the growth rate (population wise) of capitalistic/western societies is quite slow if not negative.

To me the bigger question is how do you calculate the capacity of the earth. We've seen predictions of "too many people" for a couple hundred years. I question the validity of the G.F.K. scale and would like to know how the measurement was derived and validated.

As for solving it, technological advancement is definitely a key. Besides that and population control I don't know what a solution would be but I certainly don't want the government in the population control business. We'd all be given 1/2 tube of Pringles per day as rations; that and a sixer of Brawndo
Click to expand...

It would appear that the big debate at the moment would be whether or not we are anywhere near the limit. I'm sure that could be debated vehemently on both sides. Regardless, nobody seems to argue with the underlying proposition that there is, in fact, a hard limit coming at some point down the road; and that capitalist/western economic ideas may be pushing us in that direction.

You also made the point that the population growth of developed western societies is close to zero. That raises a variety of questions:

- If economic growth in a specific country (say the USA) isn't fueled by internal population growth, then what fuels it? Population growth elsewhere (i.e., selling goods to growing populations in other countries)? Standard-of-living increases? Technological increases?

- If all countries eventually get to the point that population is basically static, how is it possible to then have sustained and consistent economic growth? At that point, doesn't the capitalist/western idea of constant economic expanision become a gigantic problem? Cost-of-living and techno-type increases can take you only so far economically, it would seem to me.

At the end of the day, it seems to me that there is an inherent conflict between limited resources and the western idea of constant economic growth. I just don't see a good way to solve the problem. We may not have to solve that problem today, but it seems very dangerous to our descendants for us to ignore the problem. Some day, someone will have to face it down.
 
Last edited:
#22
#22
Capitalist growth without a net population increase relies on increased mechanization of means of production, at least in a common theoretical understanding. Means of production being the foundation for any capitalist expansion here.

I heard a good analogy for this. In the 19th century, music would come from a guitar or violin. Took just one person to assemble this, maybe some more to gather the materials but in general production of one stringed instrument was fairly simple and comparatively small scale. Then you had the gramophone as one of the early results of industrialization. The purpose was the same, to listen to music, but the process for building one became much more involved. Factories were made to produce these for increasing population and thus increasing demand (although this could theoretically happen with static population as well). The process becomes more mechanized. Then you have even further mechanization with cassette tapes and international production and much more complicated machinery, even moreso with cd's, and even more with mp3 players.

So the very act of listening to music has undergone incredible expansion in every way over the course of the last 200 years or so.

The same theory of economic growth can be applied to calculators, paper, farming, entertainment, you name it.

What capitalist western countries have done isn't work themselves beyond these means; the man hours are still needed but they are occurring in other countries now where input capital is minimal.

Obviously since mechanization requires fewer man hours, there will be a tipping point where people are less and less needed for economic growth. Who knows when that will be.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#23
#23
Diminishing need for growth assumes innovation cessation.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#24
#24
global warming will save us.

imagine those millions, billions of hectares of unusable, frozen land in Siberia and Canada converted into arable land for the purpose of crop production and living space.

I think I'll go out and buy an SUV now.
 
#25
#25
I don't think anyone has taken a purely Malthusian view on the population question. HOWEVER, it will be interesting to see how we feed the 10 billion (the estimated leveling off point) with few hydrocarbon inputs AND 550ppm CO2. Cuba, again, has provided the only real world example I know of that has come close.

BUT, it's not us I'm worried about - it's everybody else. Biodiversity is obviously adversely affected by population increase. The true impoverishment of the world is already happening, at a rate that makes the Chixulub meteor appear to moving at a snail's pace.

As for economic growth - population is a primary driver. However, the 20th century saw technology "expand the bubble" so to speak and generate the majority of that century's wealth. However, even here we are at a point of diminishing returns for technology. Hence, the mad rush of the Capitalists to get into biotech, the only potential growth tech industry. We have also seen the rather ludicrous and somewhat sinister practice of patenting genetic material. There is no amount of :crazy: the Capitalsts will go to in order to secure profits.

"Innovation will save us!" is an understandable, but ultimately naive fantasy. It has been clear for a long time we are on the down slope of diminishing returns on technology.

What can truly save us is a change in culture, and I believe it starts with two absolutely amazing revelations whose truths were revealed only in our own historic time:

1. That we are the genetic kin of every living thing on the planet
2. That we are only fully human when acknowledging our limitations.

Break out your Faust. We are intimately connected to this planet, and this planet as it has existed for the last two million years. We cannot create something from nothing like good Doctor Faustus, and we are in the process of creating an alien world.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top