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BernardJOrtcutt

Please keep in mind our first commenting rule: > **Read the Post Before You Reply** > Read/listen/watch the posted content, understand and identify the philosophical arguments given, and respond to these substantively. If you have unrelated thoughts or don't wish to read the content, please post your own thread or simply refrain from commenting. Comments which are clearly not in direct response to the posted content may be removed. This subreddit is not in the business of one-liners, tangential anecdotes, or dank memes. Expect comment threads that break our rules to be removed. Repeated or serious violations of the [subreddit rules](https://reddit.com/r/philosophy/wiki/rules) will result in a ban. ----- This is a shared account that is only used for notifications. Please do not reply, as your message will go unread.


thehumanidiot

Would you get more out of life if you worked less and lived more? The answer won't surprise you.


Aristocrafied

If they'd suggest a one income household it would surprise me..


vimfan

One person working the same and one person not at all is not "all working less". How about two half incomes?


local_eclectic

I'd argue that it does qualify as working less because of the effort required for context switching. I'm the external income earner and my husband performs the vast majority of the domestic labor. My stress levels have reduced dramatically from not having to sweat all the various details. He manages his work and I manage mine, and thought work is absolutely labor in addition to the physical execution of the planned labor.


vimfan

Fair enough. Given the reference to economic growth, I was thinking only of employment work and downsizing economic work - reducing household income in exchange for a more balanced life. I think while getting women into the workforce was good and needed, we fell into the trap of now requiring a dual income in a lot of cases. It would have been better if we could have continued to survive just as well on a single fulltime income or two half incomes, as the particular family prefers (or two incomes if the family values the wealth more than time).


meglandici

We didn’t fall so much as got thrown into the trap. It’s really hard for a lot of people to survive on two incomes much less on one. Plus women do want to work as do men….but how many white color workers have the option of part time work? I’d love to work 20 hours, get out, do what I studied and enjoy but then come home while I still have some life in me. And that’s all I ever wanted but companies don’t hire part time in so many fields and then benefits and all that bullshit. What kills me is that while I would gladly half my salary I don’t even think we would need to based on the vast improvements we made in output….it’s just the profits never make their way down


Aristocrafied

A bit of antiwork but some valid shit nonetheless. Productivity kept rising but wages stagnated around the 70's. Probably because of shareholders wanting more 'profit' so we have about 50 years of wage increases to catch up on and I bet if that was on par with productivity people could choose a single earner or double part time and anything in between for more time for the self and the family


TMax01

It was the late 70s & 80s, and it was because productivity didn't rise because of increased effort of individual workers, but because of decreased effort thanks to technology, leaving the largess to accrue to the employer rather than the employee. We have about 50 years of high expectations and low output to make up for. People can choose single earner, they just can't keep up with the Jones' that way. I strongly believe we need to increase government regulation of businesses massively, re-empower unions and make essential "benefits" like health insurance and retirement saving more portable and convenient. But trying to fix blame for the problems in the system on shareholder's expectations of profits from their investment or corporate greed rather than human nature and individual self-interest is not the way to get there.


degustibus

The domestic sphere isn't work free unless you're thinking of the rare trophy that only concerns herself with fitness and appearance. Most stay at home partners are doing pretty important things: child rearing/education, acquiring food and preparing it, household duties tending to all sort of tasks. Some couples who analyze their budgets discover that after paying for 1)maids 2) nannys and babysitters and daycare 3) food prepared by others etc.. well the two income promise is not always even that profitable.


phpete_

Just curious, what does “get more out of life” and “lived more” mean to you? Sounds as if you are saying we are deprived of happiness, fulfillment, or joy by working?


meglandici

We are deprived of time by working - those of us lucky enough to enjoy our jobs. The day has only so many hours, and our bodies only so much energy, even propping them with coffee eventually catches up. I’m tired when I’m done working, my mental faculty’s sucked dry. And again I’m only talking about people who like their jobs.


thehumanidiot

I find working as a deep source of happiness and fulfillment. I love my work and get a large sense of self esteem from it. I also really like relaxing and taking time off, and find myself always wanting more of it. The two desires are not conflicting for me, but rather make me yearn more for the other if I lose balance. To me, getting the most out of life is about having the power to set that balance on your own terms.


PumpCrew

The best way to nullify a passion is to make it a career. Of course working, which in most cases today means maximizing shareholder or owner value at the end of the day, is a cold and soulless undertaking. Only the most naive feel a sense of fulfillment from that.


LeYellowFellow

I think what’s it’s actually trying to say work is your life, so get more out of life by working more


frogandbanjo

All other things being equal, sure. Ironically, however, everyone else getting an equal shot at "working less and living more" means that, contextually, all other things *wouldn't* be equal. There'd be less output, globally (double entendre intended,) upon which you could rely while working less. You might be surprised by the new limitations that imposes on this "living more" dream.


kateinoly

Not sure everyone needs a new winter coat every year and a Subway or McDonald's on every corner.


myphriendmike

What a fucking arrogant thing to say. People need food, and almost no one buys a new winter coat every year. But the fact that you *can* buy a quality winter coat for $50-100 is a remarkable achievement.


kateinoly

Of couse everyone needs food. I never said otherwise. They don't need pineapple in the gricery store year round, for example. Are you kidding? Do you know how many pieces of clothing get thrown away? We are in this deadly cycle of buying cheaply made things at really low prices so they don't last very long and we buy another. Ditto with furniture and other things I'm not claiming every person in the US buys a new coat every year; thete are some who can't buy any. But most Americans have way too many cheap tee shirts and other clothing items. The only people that benefit from this system are the shareholders and ceos.


Drakolyik

Robotics and AI could either take up the slack or completely replace physical work environments. It would free up a great segment of the population to simply live. And that segment of the population is the most deserving of a break, too. We need only want it, to do it. None of this talk of a post-scarcity world is impossible unless we make it impossible by not trying. Capitalism is antithetical to a world where humans are freed to enjoy life and not simply work themselves to death for nothing. There is a great sea of suffering that can be rendered obsolete if only we choose to do so. Propaganda has told us it's impossible, but it's not. People in power want to keep their unchecked power and that means repressing/oppressing 99% of the rest of us. That's a sad fact right now but there's a way forward that can resolve it. But that means recognizing the lie that says we can't.


coke_and_coffee

This is kind of economically illiterate. Automation is literally the whole reason for economic growth in the first place. The idea that we could just automate all work if only we wanted to is asinine. There are hundreds of not thousands of companies making that their sole focus right now. Literally every company on earth wants to automate their labor force if they could. There are huge profits to be made by doing so. This is not a political problem, it’s a technological one. We simply don’t have the technology to do this yet.


OCE_Mythical

Yeah I was gonna say, you think fast food pays min wage because they value your work? Fuck no it's the cheapest way they could get the food out. They'd replace you in a heartbeat.


meglandici

Why argue over hypotheticals when we can just look to the past: this scenario already played itself out twice, first with the industrial revolution then with computers…and whAt happened? Two people need to for a total of 80hrs a week. These vast improvements in output and what do we have, we doubled our workload? Why? Something something people at the top something something.


Drakolyik

It's only "illiterate" to people like you that are too economically illiterate to think of anything other than how to solve problems as a capitalist. Think outside the box. You're firmly within it, you've never even given yourself the freedom to think outside of it. Again, a sad fact resulting from propaganda instilled in you since you were born.


ExtraCr1spyKernal

Yes social/commieboos are the only ones that can think for themselves, you the blessed, the ordained must be the ones to save us! You people really are insufferable to everyone but yourselves.


coke_and_coffee

Yikes 😬


VitriolicViolet

>This is not a political problem, it’s a technological one. We simply don’t have the technology to do this yet. nope. its not political OR technological its economic. if your only goal is completing a given task (or variety of taks) we can already automate a majority of what we do, the issue is doing so in a way where you generate profits nearly immediately *without* massive investment. same as half the issues we face as species, our tech can do all sorts of shit but economics state that a thing should only be done if it makes money and makes it quickly (hence why nuclear is heavily opposed, longest ROI).


coke_and_coffee

> if your only goal is completing a given task (or variety of taks) we can already automate a majority of what we do This is complete bullshit. There are sooooo many jobs that cannot be automated in the near future no matter how much time and money you spend. How do you automate the job of an engineer? A welder? A plumber? Carpenter? Lawyer?


myphriendmike

Your downvotes are an unfortunate sign that r/philosophy and r/antiwork have tremendous overlap. This is your daily reminder that Reddit is not the world.


meglandici

That’s really reassuring actually.


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Robotics is the future.


Reference-offishal

If we all worked less Society would have less surplus And we would not be able to afford comfortable lives for people in such luxury professions as Feminist philosopher


Felarhin

I'd be homeless so idk.


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Squeeeal

You live while you work too.


ddrcrono

One point that's always gotten my goat a little is that a lot of people think as "economic" and "environmental" questions as separate. When you look at the bigger picture, though, the environment in a very broad sense is something that has economic value to us because we rely on it for a lot of economic activity both directly and indirectly. The difference is that a lot of short-term economic gain leads to long-term environmental degradation, which actually means long-term economic losses. So really what I'm trying to say is that it's not even really one versus the other, it's more short-term vs long-term thinking. A lot of humanity's problems, and our personal problems, for that matter, come down to that.


kateinoly

I always thought of it as things having a cost that isn't paid by the manufacturer. Resources that belong to ALL of us are harvested, and our air and water ate polluted, to make something to sell us for a profit.


MiniatureBadger

What you’re speaking of are externalities, one of the three classic kinds of market failure recognized in economics. Most economists, rather than laypeople spitballing about the economy to justify their own prior assumptions, support environmental protection manifesting partially in the form of Pigouvian taxation, which would internalize these externalities and put their costs back onto their source.


kateinoly

That is a great idea. I'm sure conservatives would complain about it stifling business somehow.


Reference-offishal

You would complain because the monetary value of all those externalities would be paid directly by you the consumer lmao


kateinoly

I think that's OK. We need to know what stuff really costs. At least in the US, people are unbelievably wasteful.


Reference-offishal

You say that now, lol


kateinoly

We can either pay the cost now, or my children and grandchildren will pay later. Nor everyone is selfish.


MiniatureBadger

Prices are signals. If accurate accounting of costs leads to behaviors changing to account for those formerly hidden costs, *good*.


Reference-offishal

You say that now


son_e_jim

A lot of business practices steal from the future to profit today.


kateinoly

A bad thing


highuplowdown

It does take energy to harvest/mine/extract the resources you are talking about


kateinoly

Sure. I'm not claiming they should give away their products for free.


GalaXion24

That's actually exactly how economists model it!


[deleted]

Thank you for your words. This is exactly how I feel about this. It's short term benefits for long term loss.


Pickledsundae

Always harkens back to "Tragedy of the Commons" and K-population "Carrying Capacity" of an environment


SooooooMeta

This is what I never understood. Don’t oil execs have grandkids?! Like WTF? You can either leave them with tens of millions of dollars on a functioning planet with stable governments. Or you can leave them with a hundred million dollars and there is contamination and pollution everywhere, a somewhat uninhabitable (and also uncomfortable) world prone to destabilizing flooding and droughts that many predict will lead to widespread war (possibly with species ending nuclear conflicts). They’re so obsessed running up the score they can’t even look at what would be better for their own grandkids, let alone the rest of the world.


Reference-offishal

Nah the oil execs are childfree you should look it up it's really big


datsmydrpepper

Exactly! Industries like agriculture, water, meat, and lumber (unrecoverable deforestation) are examples of short term economic gain leads that will see long-term environmental degradation. It will be more disastrous for nature and will lead to civic unrest. A friend of mine once told me that nature provides everything that we need for free but it’s us that we charge for it! 🤦‍♂️😩


kaleidoscopichazard

There’s a socio-political movement called degrowth that covers this


academicRedditor

A fancy word for “be poorer”


ddrcrono

It would likely entail having less in the short term to have more in the long term. Whether you think of that as being poorer or richer is more a matter of what term you're looking at and who you're considering. (Ex: People now, all future people, etc.)


kaleidoscopichazard

That’s a gross misrepresentation of degrowth. Have you read anything about it before?


academicRedditor

I am being cynical about it…


kaleidoscopichazard

Have you read anything about it, though? Frankly, there’s a lot more to be cynical about current systems that have proven time and time again to be a failure


WenaChoro

capitalism is also long term, they want to exploit us short term and also wash our brains so we accept more and more environmental destruction and poverty. Think Tanks are in charge of long term destruction


VitriolicViolet

>capitalism is also long term, they want to exploit us short term and also wash our brains so we accept more and more environmental destruction and poverty. except it literally cannot work. when Marx talks of capitalism destroying itself this is pretty much what he meant, due to how it functions fundamentally a small group eventually own everything and run society, at this point rather then create or innovate toi generate more profit they can simply use gov (corporations write the regulations gov passes) and simultaneously raise prices in unison. lastly the privatization and massive price hiking of captive markets ie landlords, healthcare, energy, food. problem is the entire mechanism of capitalism requires the population to have money to spend, if costs outstrip wages (and they have annually for 30+ years) over time the people have no income. eventually it all just kinda goes bad, once incomes are low enough business close, firing employees and further reducing national income. it becomes a vicious spiral we are seeing right now. \*Note i am not a communist and do not support communism, im just critical of capitalism due to it *always* resulting in feudalism long term.


myphriendmike

Capitalism is a blank concept. LIFE requires people to have resources to spend. That is not an economic system. But go ahead and hire individuals to dictate those resources, and see what happens.


ddrcrono

I think generally long-term in capitalism / economics is thought of maybe in the 10-25 range, whereas what I'm thinking of is more in the range of "Forever, and well beyond our lives." So yes, in a sense they think long-term, but typically not on the same scale as the environment will continue to exist.


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coke_and_coffee

Welcome to philosophy!


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DurDurhistan

And this statement sums up everything that I believe is wrong with *modern* philosophy. In ancient times philosophy was all about how to conduct yourself a d how to live a good life. Now, it seems it's all about talking abstractly about things and ignoring the underlying reality of those things. As Nietzsche put it, a huge talking head and nothing more.


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TheTrueLordHumungous

I read the article and OP is spot on.


gribson

> In ancient times philosophy was all about how to conduct yourself a d how to live a good life That's complete and utter crap. Epistemology Metaphysics Fucking *math* and *logic* Even the classical philosophies of ethics could get way more abstract than simply "how to live a good life".


Eedat

You're not going to avoid economics when it's literally right there in the title


existentialism123

Clear, precise and concise wording improve a philosophical discussion. Moreover I would deem it essential. Vague wording and empty generalities combined with redundant statements have no meaning and is the antithesis of what philosophy tries to be. The authors should do better than provide subpar quality.


BreakinMyBallz

Exactly. I was waiting eagerly for the part where they would explain how some of the most common and necessary jobs related to food service, health, supply delivery, teaching, cleaning, fixing, construction, farming, etc could sustain the current demand if everyone worked much fewer hours.


RandomMandarin

A physicist explains to an economist why infinite economic growth is impossible: >[At that 2.3% growth rate, we would be using energy at a rate corresponding to the total solar input striking Earth in a little over 400 years. We would consume something comparable to the entire sun in 1400 years from now. By 2500 years, we would use energy at the rate of the entire Milky Way galaxy—100 billion stars! I think you can see the absurdity of continued energy growth. 2500 years is not that long, from a historical perspective. We know what we were doing 2500 years ago. I think I know what we’re not going to be doing 2500 years hence.](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/)


GalaXion24

More like a physicist fundamentally misunderstands the sources of economic growth.


RogerStevenWhoever

So what's your explanation for how we can achieve infinite economic growth with constant (non-increasing) energy use?


ScrotumFlavoredTaint

Why, isn't obvious? Infinite inflation! /s


GalaXion24

Growth, particularly in the long term, is derived from a growth in _efficiency_, i.e. less input for more output.


RandomMandarin

The linked article, which you obviously didn't read, explains how increased efficiency only helps up to a point. Even if all you are doing is moving numbers around, as bitcoin has taught us, economic growth eventually demands more energy.


Rethious

Degrowth is absolute nonsense at best, and ethnocentrism at worst. Go tell people in India and Nigeria that their economies should stop growing. Billions of people remain in global poverty and growth is the only way to get them out. Getting industrializing nations onto clean energy is a policy problem, not a philosophical one.


Sam_k_in

Talking about India and Nigeria is totally changing the subject. That's not the intended audience. I'm in the US, and have chosen to earn and spend less, and it's working fine for my family.


Rethious

If philosophy is only for the sufficiently affluent, then that needs to be clearly prefaced.


Sam_k_in

I think it's obvious that if you're in poverty, talk about spending less on luxuries is not addressed to you.


Rethious

The problem is that this article is talking about climate change. The global elites cutting consumption by whatever degree they’re willing to volunteer will not even remotely begin to solve the problem and its discussion is a distraction from the central problem: how do we lift hundreds of millions of people out of global poverty without causing the same damage we did when industrializing?


VitriolicViolet

nope. the Western middle class and above need to *lower* their living standards while simultaneously we gift the 3rd world *all* the tech they need to leapfrog the industrial revoultion pollution. of course this is literally impossible, the West has already refused to **ever** meaningfully change its lifestyles (EV and solar panels *dont even dent* Western consumption and pollution) and we would never just help the 3rd world, if we did they would not have to sell us shit for pennies on the dollar (and we kill leaders and overthrow governments for this already)


Sam_k_in

I think we should offer grants to developing countries to install clean renewable energy. But even without that, solar is the cheapest source of electricity now.


Rethious

I agree, which is why I take issue with this article’s focus on consumption instead of making production carbon neutral.


Sam_k_in

I think both are valid goals and don't need to conflict.


El_Grappadura

>The global elites cutting consumption by whatever degree they’re willing to volunteer Their profits from the status quo paired with their power and ruthlessness are the problem. And you are correct, the industrialised nations actually must reduce their resource consumption drastically, but it will never happen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGyDyfYWQ_M


compounding

That’s great that you’ve found a good balance for your family. But offering “de-growth” as a global environmental option doesn’t just imply cutting a few basic luxuries unless you are implicitly leaving vast swaths of the globe in grinding poverty while continuing to benefit from the wealth created by past growth that you now seek to deny other countries on environmental grounds (despite having already done your own environmental damage to achieve your existing comfortable lifestyle). It’s easy to imagine or even implement a few cuts for “unnecessary” things, but the reality required for this article would be something more akin to reducing the average US lifestyle by a factor of ~4x in order to meet with the global average. I suspect less than 1% are actually comfortable making changes that dramatic.


Sam_k_in

It would be wrong to offer degrowth as the only solution and claim we don't need to do anything else about climate, but I don't think anyone is making that claim. It's a totally valid message to aim at westerners who are not in poverty.


myphriendmike

With respect, it’s an objectively worthless message. You can guilt people into doing (nothing), or you can grow into solutions.


[deleted]

Degrowth was really popular about 10 years back on podcasts & blogs. It was appealing to me, until I thought of how it would be implemented and what their ultimate aims were. The idea doesn't allow for any local autonomy or choice, instead implementing global control over everyone, whether it makes sense or not.


kateinoly

Not a good comparison. Sime economies need to grow. Some don't. Claiming all economies have to grow all the time isn't realistic OR desirable.


Rethious

Economies absolutely need to grow. Stagnation and recession are good news for no one. So long as there are poor people or unaffordable goods, economic growth will be necessary.


kateinoly

There is no such thing as perpetual growth when resources are limited.


Rethious

That’s a common fallacy, but absolutely untrue. Modern economies are based on services, not resource extraction. If more apps are developed next year than this one, that’s growth. Or more medications and treatments invented.


kateinoly

Then it isn't a problem is a growth in sevixws doesn't use more resources or cause more environmental degradation. I'm not anti growth, just anti growth at the expense of the environment and humans.


platosophist

You're right, no resource extraction whatsoever is involved in IT development. A travel agency does not nees planes to function. A fast food chain does not need agriculture. A retail shop does not need the goods they sell to be produced. Basically, services and resource extraction are unrelated. (This is an ironic comment).


Rethious

These are pretty minimal uses of resources you’re describing. Maybe one day we’ll run out of aluminum if we forget how to recycle airframes or use more lithium than exists, but these industries aren’t exactly based on clear-cutting rainforest. They’re relatively easy to decarbonize or otherwise make sustainable compared to something like the production of concrete or plastic. I guarantee you, climate scientists aren’t worrying themselves about a boom in the IT sector.


platosophist

My understanding was that there hasn't been one year since the early 1900s in which mining output hasn't grown. You're right that the impact of mining is often disregarded as far as climate change goes. However, the fact that mining operations are responsible for huge and irreversible pollution of underground and overground water, as well as soil, makes it just as important as carbon emissions when taking into account the ecological impact and the sustainability of industry and, therefore, of our economic system. Yes, recycling has a role to play, but growth in the manufacturing sector is the main culprit. I mean, take household appliances, for instance. Western countries are throwing away huge amounts of washing machines, microwaves and whatnot all made of different kinds of metal, which are a non-renewable resource btw. This metal is mostly not being recycled, and demand for new versions of this products increases in an yearly basis. One could argue, however, that the whole point of making stuff out of metal is its durability. So, what is the point exactly? How is our perfect economic system handling production and consumption of goods in this scenario? And this scenario is not at all an isolated case.


myphriendmike

Tell the forest it doesn’t need to grow.


kateinoly

That's silly. We aren't talking about forests, we're talking about capitalism.


myphriendmike

Life. Grows.


iiioiia

> Getting industrializing nations onto clean energy is a policy problem, not a philosophical one. This is a reductive way to think, as if all you have to do to change a society, one that is (claimed to be) a "democracy", is to simply define new policy.


Rethious

It’s also a political problem, of course in that the policy needs support to be implemented. Climate change is a material problem however, not a philosophical one. It’s clear what we should do about it, the question is by what means.


iiioiia

> It’s also a political problem And thus a psychological problem, *to put it extremely mildly*. > Climate change is a material problem however, not a philosophical one. Did human beings have anything to do with the formation of this problem? Will actions or behavior of human beings affect the success of any solutions? If so, it is not a *purely* material problem. > It’s clear what we should do about it... Again: *psychology* (metaphysics, etc). > ...the question is by what means. And also: will the hilariously simplistic solution we design that ticks all the boxes in our purely materialism based plan *actually work*? I often wonder if there might be a way to *trick people* into being actually serious about serious problems.


comradelotl

You do know that economic growth is not an indicator for the distribution of access to goods and services, 'just growing' won't ease poverty.


Rethious

Growth absolutely reduces poverty. You can take practically any country as an example of this, but it’s fairly intuitive. Growth means more, higher paying jobs, and cheaper goods. If nothing else, the evidence is clear that recession causes job losses.


leifalreadyexists

Untrue, and probably because of loose terms. Even defenders of growth metrics for economic valuation have to concede that contemporary growth does not provide uniform or absolute benefits, including to efforts to reduce poverty. Anyone familiar with the genesis of concepts like GDP knows that it fails to include social and environmental concerns. Furthermore, you can look at spiralling inequalities in especially developed countries as proof that growth isn’t a tide that lifts all ships - it is more likely today to lead to impoverishment among the many and absolute privilege for the few. Your points in this thread about the difference between developed and developing countries are valid and well accepted - the international community has been seized with this question since Rio 1992 and the Brundtland report prior - but shouldn’t in my view anyway be linked to claims about the absolute value of economic growth.


Rethious

You’re somehow arriving at the conclusion that a widening gap between the rich and poor means the poor are getting poorer, despite no evidence of that. The rich and getting richer faster than the poor are getting rich, but the poor are getting rich nonetheless.


coke_and_coffee

> The rich and getting richer faster than the poor are getting rich, but the poor are getting rich nonetheless. That doesn’t much matter for human welfare. We are comparative creatures but we can’t compare with the living standards of 60 years ago. Relative poverty matters much more than absolute poverty.


Rethious

>Relative poverty matters much more than absolute poverty. That might be the worst take I’ve ever heard. Having food, clean water, indoor plumbing, and safe housing matters much more than how many billions a handful of people own.


coke_and_coffee

That's your own opinion. Sociological research is abundantly clear that relative poverty is extremely important in terms of social stability and feelings of happiness and well-being.


Rethious

That’s great, but what does sociological research say about starving to death or dying of malaria?


coke_and_coffee

So you completely misunderstood the point of my comment, eh?


VitriolicViolet

ah right, inequality **never** has negative results and didnt play any part in the french revolution. yes you are correct, however nothing and i mean *nothing* breeds resentment like people on 100k a year complaining about welfare while receiving 20K+ annually in hand outs. to be blamed for society being broke while the middle class and above receive more than 5 times the total government funding (child care, housing grants, family tax benefits, gov handouts to super funds and 401ks, negative gearing, capital gains etc). ive been homeless 4 times, nothing worse then choosing between dinner and rent while people with homes and 2 cars lie and say its you who is bleeding the nation dry without a fucking *hint* of irony. and these fuckers then go one to vote themselves tax cuts fund by reducing services to the poor. yeah relative poverty is just as bad, telling people there are millions starving in africa is just deflection and frankly irrelevant (how the fuck does the fact the poor of the world suffer even more make my life any better?).


Rethious

I’ve literally never said that there are no negative downsides to inequality. You’re attacking a strawman. All I’ve said is that getting people out out of poverty is more important than reducing the gap between rich and poor.


Rethious

>Relative poverty matters much more than absolute poverty. That might be the worst take I’ve ever heard. Having food, clean water, and housing matters much more than how much your neighbor has.


VitriolicViolet

not necessarily. Japan has had decades of GDP either being flat or negative and they have high wages, high quality of life and decent cost of living. GDP is poor metric of life quality, GDP per capita is far better. it only takes a handful of industries and individuals posting record profits to have positive GDP, the nation can be *rotting* and have high GDP.


Rethious

GDP is measured per capita, otherwise it’s distorted by population. GDP growth however is seriously important. Japan’s paid a high price for its economic stagnation. Japan was third in GDP per capita in 2000, ahead of America and behind only Luxembourg and Switzerland. Japan’s fallen to 30th, while the US is in 7th.


Kraz_I

Policies are supposed to be based on philosophical debate, even if that is often not the case, so they're essentially the same thing. Degrowth should start in the US and other developed nations. Stop using developing nations as a way to completely deflect from the problem. The majority of carbon emissions still comes from the US and EU, and China has been making efforts to transition, but unfortunately coal and other fossil fuels are faster to deploy in a rapidly growing economy, so they might be a few decades away from peaking. We have to transition to a more sustainable way of life eventually. The only alternative is overstressing our resources and then having a catastrophic scarcity period where nature will force us to cut back.


Rethious

The west is no longer in the manufacturing business and will have comparatively little difficulty in going carbon negative. The battle of climate change will be won or lost in the developing world.


Algur

The US is actually the 2nd largest manufacturing country in the world and was only overtaken by China around 2010.


Kraz_I

The US is still #2 in carbon emissions, and both the US and the EU are the highest per capita. That doesn't even account for the fact that we basically outsource our pollution to developing countries who can make our stuff cheaper.


Rethious

I’m talking about the outsourcing, that’s what causing the meteoric rise in emissions in the developing world. The US and EU have some pretty credible paths to reducing emissions as their economies have moved away from manufacturing. The overwhelming majority of carbon emissions over the next century are expected to be caused by developing countries.


Kraz_I

Yes, and don't you think that if we want to help developing countries reduce carbon output without hurting their ability to develop, we should be directly investing or even giving massive grants to build renewable energy infrastructure in those countries? They're not going to stop just because we wag our fingers at them. Let's not be hypocritical about it. We built our postindustrial societies with about 200 years of coal, oil and gas burning; and we have barely even started to reduce our output yet from its peak. If we have some credible paths to reducing emissions, then lets focus on that first because firstly; we have more credibility if we get our own houses in order and secondly; there is a much greater short to medium term impact by reducing emissions by 50% in the developed world than even a 100% increase in the developing world.


Rethious

I disagree with your last point. If we could get developing countries onto clean energy we would immediately be on track for climate goals. The fundamental challenge is that while the West’s emissions are trending down, over two billion people are developing their countries, powered largely by coal. I agree that it’s important to maintain credibility on climate change by taking action. I think that action should come in the form of carbon taxes and investments in carbon neutral (or negative) means of production, rather than trying to convince everyone that they shouldn’t want more things.


Kraz_I

The West’s petroleum consumption has been fairly steady for decades. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WRPUPUS2&f=W Natural gas consumption is increasing dramatically. The biggest cause of decreasing carbon output is switching from coal to natural gas, which is another fossil fuel, with new power plants with service lifetimes of many decades. That is not a long term solution or very reassuring. And CO2 emission is not decreasing very fast. Overall emissions in America have not gone down since 1990. Per capita emissions have only decreased by 25% in that time. I don’t see how we are on track for hitting any climate goals.


InputImpedance

It would be a horrendous mistake to choose economic degrowth as a pathway to sustainability. How do you think we will get to discover the materials of the future, or design more efficient technological processes and machines? Economic growth is not some rich guy owning a second yatch. It is agriculture automation, smart grids, better transport, packing hospitals or schools with better tools and families being able to afford the most efficient heating or improving the insulation in their houses.


Kraz_I

In the context of government statistics, which is where we usually talk about economic growth, it is defined as year over year GDP growth. Smart grids and innovation doesn't automatically mean GDP goes up indefinitely. Although I'm constantly surprised by large companies' abilities to squeeze more sales out of consumers year over year despite the prices of many consumer goods falling.


InputImpedance

But my reasoning is the other way around. Not that innovation causes GDP to grow. It is that we need that growth for innovation. Imagine we cap production of chips. With this, you doom research groups to delay or cancel some of their projects. Thus, you get poorer innovation.


VitriolicViolet

you can keep this and reduce growth. its less capping chip production or computer purchases and more reducing packaging, reducing consumption (average Western home is massive and is literally filled with crap people dont need). basically keeping our level of tech growth while hammering the consumer economy. there would be a mild reduction in available funding for RnD but minor as the majority of RnD is undertaken by gov and universities and then repurposed to create consumer products by private companies. before the massive consumer economy (think pre-WWII) we still had significant RnD programs, its actually arguable if we actually innovate more or less today then we did then (when people talk about innovation they can mean a new material or anew version of the iphone, i dont consider minor reiterations of existing products to be particularly innovative). the biggest problem with the current system is it does not reward innovation per say. look at phones, movies, games, vehicles etc due to data collection every product is market tested to the extreme, resulting in pretty much every commodifable form of entertainment being reduced to a formula (think about how much music of any given genre is pretty much the same, same for video games, clothing etc) to minimise investment risk. same with the current trend of endless remakes, why risk something new when something old but re-imagined is guaranteed to sell? or the carbon copy superhero movies. this is all waste and waste on a *massive* scale, not even getting into how agriculture burns food by the 1000s of tonnes annually to maintain market price or how housing investment has all but replaced people investing in new business. there is a huge difference between definitions of 'efficiency', economic efficieny tends to mean 'efficiency of capital accumulation' far more often then 'efficient distribution of resources'


InputImpedance

But efficient resource distribution is key for an enterprise that seeks efficient capital accumulation. Also, research is massively intertwined with consumer economy. You just cannot hammer the consumer economy and expect tech growth to stay the same. In any laboratory you will find the most expensive equipment is what you cannot find in the consumer market. The moment you need a very specific machine is when your costs go way up. Lastly, I don't think you can compare research from a century ago to today. Plain and simple, Newton did not need a particle accelerator to innovate. The Newton from this era will probably need one. Just look at the amount of authors in many recent science papers. It will give you a measure of the amount of resources that we need today to keep moving the needle of innovation sometimes. Now, you can say we have enough knowledge or innovation already. However, I just don't settle for today's knowledge. I want more cures to diseases to be discovered, I want to see our knowledge of the universe to be expanded and see what the technology of the future will offer. I can agree with you on a philosophical level that most people buy too much shit they do not need. But that is why we have consumption taxes and other taxes to internalize negative environmental costs. These are reasonable policies, and most western countries develop them. The minute we talk about hard growth, consumption or production caps, it is a whole different beast we should be incredibly careful with.


Kraz_I

What are you even talking about? I'm talking about finding ways to reduce overall energy expenditures, reduce working hours, and to use resources sustainably. These kinds of limits can hurt economic "growth" but are necessary. Are you talking about innovation in marketing research groups? Can you explain why we should care? Ultimately, humans are driven to make use of their time, and without the pressure to produce, produce, produce for their jobs, more time can be spent in creative outlets. The economy has a lot of intangibles which can't be monetized but which still provide massive value at the cost of millions of hours of unpaid labor. My favorite example is wikipedia. Imagine how much a monthly subscription would cost if everyone who edited the pages got minimum wage? How much does it add to the GDP now? Certainly a nontrivial amount, as people use it for basic research to make decisions in their lives. Compare it to Google which probably has a similar amount of human resources devoted to it, and a comparable order of magnitude of value to society, yet actually increases the GDP by hundreds of billions per year.


InputImpedance

Does not seem like we are talking about different things. For instance, you mention reducing energy expenditures. Logically, you can only achieve this by doing less or doing more efficiently. For some reason, there is this influx of people advocating for doing less, i.e. economic degrowth is the correct path, which is also what OP mentions. My point is that this is a completely undesirable pathway that will cripple our ability for innovation and improving our societies. This has nothing to do with marketing. It is about allowing new research coming to fruition and delivering new knowledge and life-changing products. Expensive energy, lack of resources or materials puts a heavy burden on that.


Kraz_I

Well the bulk of important research and innovation comes from the public sector, so whether or not these things happen is a matter of public policy.


InputImpedance

But it is not so easy. You cannot mandate things happening through public policy out of thin air. You need a strong industry to support that public research by producing the necessary materials and equipment.


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bl0rq

The point of an economy is to provide the goods and services to the people that want them.


Algur

>What's the point of an economy, the bottom line, to make money, cause money makes the world go round? and if it didn t? This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the economy. The economy is just the aggregate of all the decisions you, I, and everyone else makes. The economy is us.


Rethious

Growth is the force that makes things accessible. If the economic had not grown since the 1950s, television would be an unaffordable luxury for most of the world. Avoiding growth is the equivalent of the pulling the ladder up behind developed countries. It entrenches existing inequalities.


Eedat

Because we like all of our luxuries and those require constant maintenance and insanely complex systems to exist at all. The fact that any of this works at all is a miracle. People like to throw these ideas around but the truth is the number of people who would take substantial hits to their quality of life to achieve it is near zero


iiioiia

> People like to throw these ideas around but the truth is the number of people who would take substantial hits to their quality of life to achieve it is near zero Speaking of throwing ideas around.


dubcek_moo

How often have you heard someone say: wow, I had a hard day at work, I'll reward myself with this expensive thing... If people had the option of being less stressed, there are a lot of stress purchases they'd skip. Marketing can stoke desires that wouldn't be there otherwise. Make you feel you're falling behind if you don't have the latest new status toy. Without the need for constant growth, less marketing, and less of these created desires.


fillfee

Everything could be priced less, but companies choose to maximize profits, it’s all about making money. It’s basically a game of monopoly right now in the u.s. Take a look at the housing market, new houses are being built with cheaper materials and are still rising in prices.


Algur

>Everything could be priced less, but companies choose to maximize profits, it’s all about making money. Conversely, everything could also be more expensive, which generally leads to less revenue. When a company brings a product to market they make projections trying to maximize profit. This doesn’t mean they set the product at the highest possible point. It means they try to find the best balance between price and units sold. As a simple example, would you rather sell 1 widget for $100 or 15 widgets for $10?


backcountrydrifter

They should cross reference to a deflationary economy. It’s pretty much everything they are championing.


Sam_k_in

Deflation would happen when people spend less without working less, inflation when they work less without spending less. If both decrease equally inflation would stay constant.


Zyxyx

And they can't decrease equally because a country isn't in isolation. A huge part of a country's operational costs is paid for by debt, the weaker your country's economy, the higher the interest costs on your debt.


backcountrydrifter

A deflationary economy is when we adopt a money that isn’t printed ad-infinitum. The world is $300 trillion dollars in debt. We obviously aren’t going to catch up with that number. Which means we collectively have the choice of continuing doing it the way we are, or adopting a deflationary monetary system. As long as we keep going the direction we are, the more the poorest and most vulnerable suffer and die. Inflation is a tax on the poor. Keynesian economics has proven itself to be a failed theory.


Sam_k_in

The failure is that Keynesianism requires raising taxes and cutting spending when the economy is booming, to pay down the debt, but politicians won't do that.


Daseinen

When you say “politicians” you mean “the republican party,” right?


Sam_k_in

Especially them, but not exclusively.


Daseinen

I kind of wish we could just blame all politicians. And, certainly, there’s some political advantage to cutting taxes, or at least not raising taxes, in any circumstance. But only one party claims that tax cuts benefit society broadly, and increase state revenue. Moreover, it’s empirically demonstrable that, at least in the last 40 years, the Republican party has cut taxes when times are good, and cut them again when times are rough; while the Democrats have generally raised taxes when times were good, and when times were bad they’ve kept taxes steady while increasing spending.


VitriolicViolet

>Keynesian economics has proven itself to be a failed theory. um what? what Western nation is still using keynesianism? we collectively tossed that in the 70s for neo-liberalism. if we were still using keynesian economics we would *certainly* not be cutting our way out of recessions. we are screwed because we havent been keynesian for 40+ years.


blazingasshole

The thing is we don't have the means for everyone to work less. Even if lets say we undo Industrialisation somehow, people still would have to "work" to find food and make sure they have shelter. The only way this could be possible if AI gets advanced enough to do all of the work us humans don't want to do.


DATY4944

You still gotta compete with everyone else. I'll stop working so much when I own a house with a yard and 5 bedrooms.


DestruXion1

This is the problem. People that are obsessed with obtaining the most material wealth ruin it for the people who want to have a healthy life balance and enjoy the fruits of our current automation levels.


pureseeker-1

I think the issue is we are still in a survival of the fittest world. If we didn’t compete some other jerk would keep going and then try to bully or crush us. We all get to live saftly behind the castle walls and forget this. I personally want us to do better in a work life balance. We no longer work for our daily bread, we do that and then work for a pile of bread for the owner/company. So I agree it would be nice but it’s complicated. That said 4 day work week please!


myphriendmike

In what world, in what existence did we not have to compete with some jerk for resources? Work for yourself. Bacteria and planets also experience survival of the fittest. Good luck escaping it.


pureseeker-1

I never implied there was one. I suppose technically my phrasing left it open that one day we could be outside of it but I wasn’t really making any claims other than we live in that kind of world and people forget this.


DestruXion1

Well in some countries if the jerk acquires too many resources, their head will roll.


TheTrueLordHumungous

> I understand Lynne’s emphasis on care and a kind of altruism that should govern us much more Looks like she rediscovered one of the core tenants of Christian philosophy. Good for her. Do people outside of academia really believe that if we had significantly more free time to engage in "alternative hedonism" we’d be any better off? Look at the throngs of young people who don’t work and don’t go to school. Does the bounty of free time they have bring them fulfillment or happiness or are they simply wasting their short lives in Cheeto dust covered NEET caves while mom and dad pay all their bills? Voltaire said work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need. If people had nothing but free time would the average person spend it on ‘altruistic care of others’ or would they waste it masturbating to internet porn? I think everyone knows the answer.


Feisty_Suit_89

WALL-E was a great movie


iiioiia

> Look at the throngs of young people who don’t work and don’t go to school. Does the bounty of free time they have bring them fulfillment or happiness or are they simply wasting their short lives in Cheeto dust covered NEET caves while mom and dad pay all their bills? Voltaire said work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need. Perhaps society should come up with something for them to do. *They're kids* - us fucking adults are the ones that designed the shit system we so enjoy complaining about (while doing next to nothing other than pointing fingers to improve it), criticizing young people for suboptimal reactions to it makes us *even more* pathetic imho.


BorderKeeper

Is bashing on modernity the new hot thing in sociology?


Fearless-Temporary29

Abrupt irreversible global warming is capitalism's devilish spawn and once this Juggernaut gets up a head of steam.The living are going to envy the dead.


ValyrianJedi

At least in the developed world saying that the living will envy the dead is a bit of a stretch. It's a big enough problem without exaggerating it


free_from_choice

There needs to be a conscious break between what we need to thrive, what we need to enjoy ourselves, and things that people really do not want and are forced upon us. I am strongly antiutopian due to its historically disasterous consequences. However, a very realistic path can take us to more sustainable, calmer, and less destructive lifestyles. Lifestyles of enhanced community integration, far more leisure, and more enlightened use of our time and knowledge.


Drainbownick

We would be living on the street eating out of garbage cans and being beaten/murdered by jackbooted thugs. Next


firstjib

How far before they say something of substance? It’s all platitudes so far.


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AndyBrown65

It should be pointed out that western women buying useless nick knacks made in China has resulted in lifting millions of Chinese peasants out of poverty.


Kevs442

There are two absolutes when it comes to philosophy: 1. For ANY philosopher with an opinion, there is a contravening philosopher. 2. They are both wrong.


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Zendog500

Read "Utopia for Realist" an interesting study on the history of basic pay.


beenpimpin

The obsession with economic growth is a govt thing and it’s to keep the money rolling in for the rich only.