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On November 24 2014 11:45 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2014 11:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 24 2014 11:36 Nyxisto wrote: Discussing numbers really is a little futile. 20 or 30 years ago a single earner could pay for a complete household often without an academic background. Today your average college graduates can barely pay for a family if both work while Bill Gates personal wealth equals the economic size of small countries. "wow, big TV's have gotten really cheap!" isn't really an argument given these developments. Fiction. A 'complete household' in the 70's is not a 'complete household' in 2014. Care to elaborate? I'd bet most people would trade their smartphone for their 50k college debt, a house and two cars. no smartphones, smaller houses (2-3 kids per bed room), no computer, no air conditioner, one shitty car. The complete household of the 70's had a lot less than a complete household of 2014.
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And apparently even though wages haven't gone up we have "more healthcare" however that is defined by jonny, but certainly not in a way that actually reflects better health outcomes.
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On November 24 2014 12:46 IgnE wrote: And apparently even though wages haven't gone up we have "more healthcare" however that is defined by jonny, but certainly not in a way that actually reflects better health outcomes. Heath outcomes have improved over the past 30 years. Get a clue.
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Oh is that what spending more on healthcare means? Your life expectancy goes up?
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On November 24 2014 12:46 IgnE wrote: And apparently even though wages haven't gone up we have "more healthcare" however that is defined by jonny, but certainly not in a way that actually reflects better health outcomes. People live both longer and healthier lives than in the seventies. Healthcare technology has improved a lot as well. HoBo is right when he says that people were happy with a lot less fourty years ago, just because there was less.
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Eh, 30 years ago one shitty car was worth more than one 'good' car now is, likewise you didn't have computers or smartphones but something like a new oven model or whatever was much more valuable. Of course people were happy with less in the past, but it's not because families have 'more' now that people have to work more to afford a family budget.
Work is supposed to be much more productive with modern technologies, but the productivity doesn't go towards paying those who actually do the working.
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On November 22 2014 06:42 tadL wrote: soothsayer...still don't get why we allowed them to give each other academic titles...
as long the usa creates war zones on the world and keeps one part under permanent thread germany should be fine thx to weapon selling. still don't get why Canada buying tanks like crazy from Germany but well, just one example.
Historical seen, a country is poor, gets rich, people demand more, people get higher salary, industry finds other place to produce. China is now rising. soon the salary will be so high that our lovely industry will search for other places to produce cheap.
And to topic Germany...Schäuble pulled a lot of tricks to balance the state income. In fact 40% of Germany will be poor when they stop working. Thats already confirmed by the government, just Merkel did not hear it thats why I had to hear "Germany is doing fine..."
Source? Also:
In your statement does 40% of Germans being poor after working mean:
A) Will recieve less then minimum living wage in pension. or B) Will live in poverty?
Just to clarify the distincion: My inlaws have been selfemployed (owning a specialist store) their whole live. Due to the fact how pension benefits work in Germany they do not recieve a pension that would be a living wage for an employee. On the other hand they have private Assets in excess of what a an employee could amass in a working live, which they excplicitly saved up for their retirement.
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Trying to convince jonny that this is not the best of all possible worlds is a sisyphean task, give up now while youre still sane
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Another useless one-liner without any real point actually made or any substance to it. bookwyrm, this is meant to be an informative thread and simply pretending you're successfully shutting down anything you disagree with by pronouncing one meaningless attacking sentence here and there only works against that. Give some better examples then. Multiple of them. ...or will you use the insanity you're now plagued by, thanks to JonnyBNoHo, as an excuse for your inability to do so?
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bookwyrm is giving sincere, hard-earned, and solid advice.
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I have no idea about economics, so, help me out with understanding the problem, okay?
You say, a society can only function, if it creates more wealth every year, right? And wealth is measured by how much money the economy makes. So, how can the economy produce more money every year? The resources on this planet are finite, so, shouldn't we work towards a society that does not grow infinitely?
Or will we reach the point when there are no resources left and all those clever economists will say, whoops, nobody saw that coming? Just like they said, nobody could have seen the housing bubble burst coming. But before they all said, making debt is good, buy houses now.
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Zurich15239 Posts
On November 26 2014 00:28 Broetchenholer wrote: I have no idea about economics, so, help me out with understanding the problem, okay?
You say, a society can only function, if it creates more wealth every year, right? And wealth is measured by how much money the economy makes. So, how can the economy produce more money every year? The resources on this planet are finite, so, shouldn't we work towards a society that does not grow infinitely?
Or will we reach the point when there are no resources left and all those clever economists will say, whoops, nobody saw that coming? Just like they said, nobody could have seen the housing bubble burst coming. But before they all said, making debt is good, buy houses now. + Show Spoiler +First, wealth is usually measured in terms of Dollars and Cents, but it does not equal money. You can have wealth without money and you can have money but no wealth. I don't think anyone pretends that resources are infinite. However it is possible to create wealth without using up (more) finite resources.
Whether we should have eventually a society without growth is really a more philosophical than practical consideration. Right now and for the foreseeable future our society does need growth.
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On November 26 2014 00:28 Broetchenholer wrote: I have no idea about economics, so, help me out with understanding the problem, okay?
You say, a society can only function, if it creates more wealth every year, right? And wealth is measured by how much money the economy makes. So, how can the economy produce more money every year? The resources on this planet are finite, so, shouldn't we work towards a society that does not grow infinitely?
Or will we reach the point when there are no resources left and all those clever economists will say, whoops, nobody saw that coming? Just like they said, nobody could have seen the housing bubble burst coming. But before they all said, making debt is good, buy houses now. This is a common misconception and certainly one perpetuated by our obsession with things like consumer demand (i.e. how much shit people buy) and ranking countries by GDP with the huge assumption that money = happiness.
That said, the economy can produce more money every year by producing things that people want. And it doesn't have to be physical - a big part of growth over the last few decades in OECD countries is the expansion of information and the consumption of media. Accordingly, miniaturization has helped people do more with less in terms of natural resources (although we are still consuming more resources than ever, which is a problem).
I would also point out that continued growth is almost definitely a reason why the most advanced economies are plateauing, especially as people try to focus in on improving quality of life with things like marrying later and having fewer children.
That said, you should be wary of predictions of the future. We're only slightly better at it than our tea-reading, bone-throwing ancestors, and you're in the wrong house if you're making life decisions based on what economists are saying. Even with things that are fairly obvious, we have a tendency to exaggerate, get lazy, and overshoot.
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On December 02 2014 08:41 coverpunch wrote: We're only slightly better at it than our tea-reading, bone-throwing ancestors
I'd say we're worse, because we're under the silly delusion think that our bone-throwing actually works - I'm pretty sure that the ancients, on the other hand, understood perfectly well that divination is merely a way to make decisions arbitrarily; that is, they related to it in the same way that we would relate to a magic 8-ball
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On November 19 2014 01:54 Redox wrote: I am glad that Germany has low fertility. I just wish it was the same in other countries. THIS!
With advances in robotics (meaning getting gainful employment will be much harder in the future) and depleting global natural resources (we really don't have any reasonable substitutes for most of what we are using up), shouldn't all countries strive to decrease fertility?
Sure it'll lead to economic problems in short-to-medium run, but what about the long run? The less people we have on this planet, the larger share of renewable and non-renewable resources every person can potentially earn.
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On December 02 2014 09:52 Alex1Sun wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2014 01:54 Redox wrote: I am glad that Germany has low fertility. I just wish it was the same in other countries. THIS!With advances in robotics (meaning getting gainful employment will be much harder in the future) and depleting global natural resources (we really don't have any reasonable substitutes for most of what we are using up), shouldn't all countries strive to decrease fertility? Sure it'll lead to economic problems in short-to-medium run, but what about the long run? The less people we have on this planet, the larger share of renewable and non-renewable resources every person can potentially earn. because it is a deeply misanthropic and pessimistic way of thinking. I also have the feeling that people from the environmental-sensitive side seem to underestimate the resources we have available. Coal, Oil, Gas and Uranium all will last for at least 100 years. which doesn't even account for the technological advances we will make in the future. With everyone so obsessed about their iPhone and the (cheap) consumer criticism it yields, people tend to overlook the technological advances in mining and drilling. the famous Club of Rome report was wrong not because they calculated wrong, they simply couldn't account for technological advancement. Peak Oil never came.
your focus on robotics also is steering away from the fields we need people for: research and education. There are so much more things we don't understand starting from genetics to gravity. Yet we are here trying to build a fusion core.
"preserving natural resources" also is a moot point for two reasons. The first is that humanity started to evolve away from an agricultural society to a technological advanced one when we started to used coal as energy source. The sun simply doesn't deliver enough energy to sustain our technological standard. which includes vaccines and cancer treatment and robotics. the second is that the sun will burn out eventually. so you could maybe expand humanities existence, but in the end "preserving" humanity will be in vain.
We need technological advancements to "save" humanity and we need a highly specialized work force for people to develop cutting edge technologies. this is only possible with enough people. in the end it's a simply number games: the more well educated people you have the more likely someone makes a big discovery.
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On December 02 2014 10:28 Hryul wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2014 09:52 Alex1Sun wrote:On November 19 2014 01:54 Redox wrote: I am glad that Germany has low fertility. I just wish it was the same in other countries. THIS!With advances in robotics (meaning getting gainful employment will be much harder in the future) and depleting global natural resources (we really don't have any reasonable substitutes for most of what we are using up), shouldn't all countries strive to decrease fertility? Sure it'll lead to economic problems in short-to-medium run, but what about the long run? The less people we have on this planet, the larger share of renewable and non-renewable resources every person can potentially earn. because it is a deeply misanthropic and pessimistic way of thinking. I also have the feeling that people from the environmental-sensitive side seem to underestimate the resources we have available. Coal, Oil, Gas and Uranium all will last for at least 100 years. which doesn't even account for the technological advances we will make in the future. With everyone so obsessed about their iPhone and the (cheap) consumer criticism it yields, people tend to overlook the technological advances in mining and drilling. the famous Club of Rome report was wrong not because they calculated wrong, they simply couldn't account for technological advancement. Peak Oil never came. your focus on robotics also is steering away from the fields we need people for: research and education. There are so much more things we don't understand starting from genetics to gravity. Yet we are here trying to build a fusion core. "preserving natural resources" also is a moot point for two reasons. The first is that humanity started to evolve away from an agricultural society to a technological advanced one when we started to used coal as energy source. The sun simply doesn't deliver enough energy to sustain our technological standard. which includes vaccines and cancer treatment and robotics. the second is that the sun will burn out eventually. so you could maybe expand humanities existence, but in the end "preserving" humanity will be in vain. We need technological advancements to "save" humanity and we need a highly specialized work force for people to develop cutting edge technologies. this is only possible with enough people. in the end it's a simply number games: the more well educated people you have the more likely someone makes a big discovery. Thanks for your post. I am myself working on future tech (advanced research in physics and engineering). I know that resource extraction is rapidly improving. I know that technology can solve a lot of challenges if used right.
However wouldn't we be even better off with more advanced technology AND less people, at least until the point when we can massively colonise other worlds (and keep in mind that this point is very far away)?
As for research and education, most developed economies are decreasing funding for these endeavours both in public sector and in private sector. Building a career in research or education is no longer possible in most developed countries, barring school teaching. In UK only 1 out of 220 successful STEM PhDs can become a professor (i.e. a career in research and/or education). In other developed countries the situation is similar. And it's getting much worse. Another tiny fraction of PhDs may build R&D careers outside academia, but not many. A lot of companies worldwide are currently disbanding their entire R&D departments or at least massively downsizing them (Google is one of the very few notable exceptions to this trend). If research and education is the answer, than we are rapidly moving in the opposite direction.
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On December 02 2014 15:25 Alex1Sun wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2014 10:28 Hryul wrote:On December 02 2014 09:52 Alex1Sun wrote:On November 19 2014 01:54 Redox wrote: I am glad that Germany has low fertility. I just wish it was the same in other countries. THIS!With advances in robotics (meaning getting gainful employment will be much harder in the future) and depleting global natural resources (we really don't have any reasonable substitutes for most of what we are using up), shouldn't all countries strive to decrease fertility? Sure it'll lead to economic problems in short-to-medium run, but what about the long run? The less people we have on this planet, the larger share of renewable and non-renewable resources every person can potentially earn. because it is a deeply misanthropic and pessimistic way of thinking. I also have the feeling that people from the environmental-sensitive side seem to underestimate the resources we have available. Coal, Oil, Gas and Uranium all will last for at least 100 years. which doesn't even account for the technological advances we will make in the future. With everyone so obsessed about their iPhone and the (cheap) consumer criticism it yields, people tend to overlook the technological advances in mining and drilling. the famous Club of Rome report was wrong not because they calculated wrong, they simply couldn't account for technological advancement. Peak Oil never came. your focus on robotics also is steering away from the fields we need people for: research and education. There are so much more things we don't understand starting from genetics to gravity. Yet we are here trying to build a fusion core. "preserving natural resources" also is a moot point for two reasons. The first is that humanity started to evolve away from an agricultural society to a technological advanced one when we started to used coal as energy source. The sun simply doesn't deliver enough energy to sustain our technological standard. which includes vaccines and cancer treatment and robotics. the second is that the sun will burn out eventually. so you could maybe expand humanities existence, but in the end "preserving" humanity will be in vain. We need technological advancements to "save" humanity and we need a highly specialized work force for people to develop cutting edge technologies. this is only possible with enough people. in the end it's a simply number games: the more well educated people you have the more likely someone makes a big discovery. Thanks for your post. I am myself working on future tech (advanced research in physics and engineering). I know that resource extraction is rapidly improving. I know that technology can solve a lot of challenges if used right. However wouldn't we be even better off with more advanced technology AND less people, at least until the point when we can massively colonise other worlds (and keep in mind that this point is very far away)? As for research and education, most developed economies are decreasing funding for these endeavours both in public sector and in private sector. Building a career in research or education is no longer possible in most developed countries, barring school teaching. In UK only 1 out of 220 successful STEM PhDs can become a professor (i.e. a career in research and/or education). In other developed countries the situation is similar. And it's getting much worse. Another tiny fraction of PhDs may build R&D careers outside academia, but not many. A lot of companies worldwide are currently disbanding their entire R&D departments or at least massively downsizing them (Google is one of the very few notable exceptions to this trend). If research and education is the answer, than we are rapidly moving in the opposite direction. I'm sorry if I projected some of my views about the "ecological movement" onto you. One of my main problems with "them" is that most of the time there is a misanthropy or even "mankind-hating" lingering through their views together with an overly romantic view of nature ("mother nature", "natural balance").
I'm also well aware that I was describing more of an ideal world myself, maybe even putting a naive hope on technological advancement myself.
It's just that I want to believe that mankind can "dug itself out of the hole in which we put ourselves". Every generation before us could have held pretty much the same view of "resources are running out" and restrain themselves. But they didn't and just carried on. And here we are, with more knowledge and possibilities than every generation before us. Taking the preserving-stance has a very defeatist stench for me. Falling into the trap that we might become caretakers instead of creators.
there's also a very practical problem (which also plagues global warming): you can't enforce this worldwide. not only would there be an uproar in the "western" world (or so I tend to believe), underdeveloped countries simply don't have the administrative measures to enforce such a policy. So you would simply reinforce an already existing problem: technologically advanced societies will be shrinking while other will grow. And they will simply start using the resources "we" won't. just take a look at China: They are well aware that coal plants pollute their air, but they build them anyway without air filters because having cheap, dirty electricity is better than not having electricity at all. And it simply won't happen that the chinese government says: hey, sorry, you can't go for western living standard because we have to protect "the planet".
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On December 03 2014 02:42 Hryul wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2014 15:25 Alex1Sun wrote:On December 02 2014 10:28 Hryul wrote:On December 02 2014 09:52 Alex1Sun wrote:On November 19 2014 01:54 Redox wrote: I am glad that Germany has low fertility. I just wish it was the same in other countries. THIS!With advances in robotics (meaning getting gainful employment will be much harder in the future) and depleting global natural resources (we really don't have any reasonable substitutes for most of what we are using up), shouldn't all countries strive to decrease fertility? Sure it'll lead to economic problems in short-to-medium run, but what about the long run? The less people we have on this planet, the larger share of renewable and non-renewable resources every person can potentially earn. because it is a deeply misanthropic and pessimistic way of thinking. I also have the feeling that people from the environmental-sensitive side seem to underestimate the resources we have available. Coal, Oil, Gas and Uranium all will last for at least 100 years. which doesn't even account for the technological advances we will make in the future. With everyone so obsessed about their iPhone and the (cheap) consumer criticism it yields, people tend to overlook the technological advances in mining and drilling. the famous Club of Rome report was wrong not because they calculated wrong, they simply couldn't account for technological advancement. Peak Oil never came. your focus on robotics also is steering away from the fields we need people for: research and education. There are so much more things we don't understand starting from genetics to gravity. Yet we are here trying to build a fusion core. "preserving natural resources" also is a moot point for two reasons. The first is that humanity started to evolve away from an agricultural society to a technological advanced one when we started to used coal as energy source. The sun simply doesn't deliver enough energy to sustain our technological standard. which includes vaccines and cancer treatment and robotics. the second is that the sun will burn out eventually. so you could maybe expand humanities existence, but in the end "preserving" humanity will be in vain. We need technological advancements to "save" humanity and we need a highly specialized work force for people to develop cutting edge technologies. this is only possible with enough people. in the end it's a simply number games: the more well educated people you have the more likely someone makes a big discovery. Thanks for your post. I am myself working on future tech (advanced research in physics and engineering). I know that resource extraction is rapidly improving. I know that technology can solve a lot of challenges if used right. However wouldn't we be even better off with more advanced technology AND less people, at least until the point when we can massively colonise other worlds (and keep in mind that this point is very far away)? As for research and education, most developed economies are decreasing funding for these endeavours both in public sector and in private sector. Building a career in research or education is no longer possible in most developed countries, barring school teaching. In UK only 1 out of 220 successful STEM PhDs can become a professor (i.e. a career in research and/or education). In other developed countries the situation is similar. And it's getting much worse. Another tiny fraction of PhDs may build R&D careers outside academia, but not many. A lot of companies worldwide are currently disbanding their entire R&D departments or at least massively downsizing them (Google is one of the very few notable exceptions to this trend). If research and education is the answer, than we are rapidly moving in the opposite direction. I'm sorry if I projected some of my views about the "ecological movement" onto you. One of my main problems with "them" is that most of the time there is a misanthropy or even "mankind-hating" lingering through their views together with an overly romantic view of nature ("mother nature", "natural balance"). I'm also well aware that I was describing more of an ideal world myself, maybe even putting a naive hope on technological advancement myself. It's just that I want to believe that mankind can "dug itself out of the hole in which we put ourselves". Every generation before us could have held pretty much the same view of "resources are running out" and restrain themselves. But they didn't and just carried on. And here we are, with more knowledge and possibilities than every generation before us. Taking the preserving-stance has a very defeatist stench for me. Falling into the trap that we might become caretakers instead of creators. there's also a very practical problem (which also plagues global warming): you can't enforce this worldwide. not only would there be an uproar in the "western" world (or so I tend to believe), underdeveloped countries simply don't have the administrative measures to enforce such a policy. So you would simply reinforce an already existing problem: technologically advanced societies will be shrinking while other will grow. And they will simply start using the resources "we" won't. just take a look at China: They are well aware that coal plants pollute their air, but they build them anyway without air filters because having cheap, dirty electricity is better than not having electricity at all. And it simply won't happen that the chinese government says: hey, sorry, you can't go for western living standard because we have to protect "the planet". Well, previous generation had the feeling that the industrial age would have irremediable effect on nature : it's at the core of Nietzsche and Heidegger's work believe it or not, it's in Marx's early writtings, it's in Jevons' early work on coal usage. That we achieved technical progress doesn't make our way of life sustainable. The main problem is that this unsustainability is not directly understandable for a generation, but kicks in after many generations. I prefer misanthropy over blind faith in progress : it's more rational.
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If we manage to switch to renewable energy by the end of this century I don't see why we couldn't sustain our current standard of living. This has nothing to do with blind faith. Industrialized England one or two-hundred years ago looked way worse environmentally than it does now. That developing countries like China are actually pretty heavily investing into renewable energy seems to be a good sign, too. If anything the environmental situation has improvement pretty considerable since the early industrial times, when Marx and others brought these issues of sustainability up.
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