Zero-sum thinking will fuel resentment and scarcity

https://www.ft.com/content/492134e9-49eb-4f13-b70a-b2b595ed0e2a

2•bookofjoe•1h ago

Comments

toomuchtodo•55m ago

Economic growth (“growing the pie” vs zero sum thinking) was a function of population growth. Global population growth is rapidly ending, with 71% of global population living in countries below replacement rate. As the world ages and the population peaks, there will be few areas of potential economic growth. Older cohorts will increase in size, the working age population cohort will contact, and there will be less children born every year for the rest of our lifetimes.

maxerickson•46m ago

There's still ~billions of people that would like to increase their consumption a fair bit.

And then most people reading this will probably be dead when the population actually starts shrinking.

toomuchtodo•45m ago

Lots of people want lots of things. Can they within the light cone of their existence? That’s the math to be done. Many humans over time have been born, lived, and died within 50 miles of the same spot in or close to poverty. Show us purchasing power.

It gets harder to predict the future the further out you attempt to predict, but in many cases, we can estimate the maximum economic potential by country and population with economic and demographic trajectories.

Fertility rates will keep declining, the world will continue to electrify with exports from China, everything else is somewhat fuzzy imho.

maxerickson•43m ago

Lots of people want lots of things. Can they within the light cone of their existence?

That's pretty deep. I guess I think that they will work hard for more and thus expect economic growth. Especially with decreasing energy costs. If you want to bet that people will mostly choose to immiserate themselves, go ahead.

toomuchtodo•38m ago

Lots of people work hard without material change to their economic situation. I deeply respect hard work, but also know most economic success is luck. Most people aren’t lucky, and that’s unfortunate, as life is inherently unfair. There are tens of millions of college educated unemployed youths across Europe, China (“lie flat” and “let it rot” movements), and India (“cockroach party”) that may never have opportunities and their life trajectory is permanently impaired, for example. ~2 million out of ~4 million total US college graduates every year are in jobs that don’t require a degree credential. Is this their fault? No, they had no choice in being born into this system and existence, and are now stuck here until some point in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49378834 (citations)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49378010 (citations)

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/arti...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/indias-youth-led-cockroach...

We model based off of trajectories, facts, data, evidence, outcomes, and reality, not hope and effort. Happiness is reality minus expectations. I am a realist and rationalist. TLDR Path dependency at scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence

Ambolia•54m ago

If energy availability is going down, we are in a negative-sum game, which is even worse, the pie gets smaller and everybody loses.

toomuchtodo•49m ago

The world is deploying ~1TW/year of solar PV. There is no energy shortage, only a shortfall in deployment rate. Global solar PV capacity is at 3TW, as of this comment. Extrapolate current state and trajectories to estimate when solar PV consumes total global energy demand. Enough sunlight falls on Earth in 30 minutes to power humanity for a year.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...

The World Crossed a Major Solar Milestone [3TW] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151977 - August 2026

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49110774 (citations)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47617541 (citations)

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