These arguments all fell like they're warning that we'll all be drowning in horse manure and running out of guano in 5 years. Likening economic growth to the growth of organisms in a petri dish is the wrong model entirely. We are all the time finding new uses for things and moving on from old ways of powering society. It on;y looks static if you're quite myopic.
> We are all the time finding new uses for things and moving on from old ways of powering society.
Can you provide some examples? With the "all the time" phrasing, something recent would be preferred. All I see for a couple decades is new schemes to further enrich those with money at the expense of those without money.
Sure, we're rapidly expanding battery technology alongside solar and wind which changes the calculus with respect to the externalities of power generation. Many industrial processes have moved from coal to LNG which is safer/cleaner to produce and creates less air pollution and emits less CO2 when burned.
As I mentioned in another comment, agriculture has become incredibly efficient in the broader west and China. We grow far more on far less land and this has involved all sort of innovations. New biotech promises even more gains. We're on the cusp of cereal crops being engineered to fix nitrogen which would dramatically reduce fertilizer use.
Mass timber is another cool example.
Meanwhile we observe a 75% collapse of wildlife world wide since 1970, but yeah sure we are constantly finding new "things"! Amazing!
Most of this is in developing nations where people are expanding agriculture into wild areas rather than implementing innovations in more intensive agriculture. Developed nations are currently increasing forest cover and wild land. You're demonstrating the EXACT myopia I'm referring to.
Ah, we're holding it wrong I guess. It starts to sound a lot like the very strong "we never really actually tried real communism" argument.
Not at all. I'm arguing that the deployment of new processes and technology is uneven and takes time to permeate the global economy. You can see the progress in a lot of places, it's just not everywhere yet. Many countries are still operating the mid 20th century tech stack, or in many cases earlier iterations. There's a lot of work that could be done on clear land registries for example that would alleviate a lot of deforestation. Slash and burn agriculture doesn't happen in developed economies, and is a solvable problem.
I earn less than my grandparents adjusted for inflation (they quit school at 18, I have a master's degree in computer science), my peers can't afford housing anymore, people don't have kids because it's too expensive, I'm expected to retire 10+ years later than them too, and that's in western Europe where we got plenty of this "innovation" and "technology", weekly working hours are expected to go up, public services are decreasing in quality.
So what gives? Where is all the good stuff? Is it this new macbook I can buy for 599?
Yeah European welfare states fucked up by pinning retirement payouts to an assumption of a growing labor force, and doubly fucked up by shackling their energy needs to Russian gas. What you have in Europe are sclerotic states with declining capacity. Vote better.