[pygy_]

Provided resources are finite and the sun's output is constant, gradually limiting growth would indeed be wise unless we want to fall off a cliff at some point.

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Edit: in response to your edit:

Healthy ecosystems strive at equilibrium. If a species consumes more energy than its environment can supply or produces more entropy than its environment can dissipate, things go bad for the environment and for the species unless it can move to greener pastures.

What is true for species is also true for non-biological dissipative processes. Capitalism and the growth-fueled financial system are not perennial. In this context, humanity is part of the environment, and greener pastures is the automation epidemics, where capital is becoming self-sufficient.

This is dangerous for humans.

[adekok]

> Healthy ecosystems strive at equilibrium.

Nonsense.

The only reason systems are in equilibrium is because of negative feedback. Predators eat prey. Diseases kill plants / animals, etc.

Remove the negative feedback, and you get un-checked growth.

This is basic biology...

[pygy_]

Negative feedback is part of healthy ecosystems, because resources _are_ limited. These loops are necessary for long term survival.

What you describe is cancer.

[adekok]

Systems do NOT "strive for equilibrium". The only reason we see multiple systems at (roughly) equilibrium is that the ones not at equilibrium destroy themselves and their environment.

I'm not denying that negative feedback exists. I'm saying that without such feedback, systems always run out of control, because that's the biological imperative.

And no, growing systems are not cancer. That's just a ridiculous statement to make. Don't straw-man me FFS.

[pygy_]

> The only reason we see multiple systems at (roughly) equilibrium is that the ones not at equilibrium destroy themselves and their environment.

Survival of the fittest. The fittest ecosystems are those who strive at equilibrium. Unchecked growth leads to boom bust cycles that are very destructive.

It may be an early propagation strategy (especially for autotrophs), but it is, in the long run, overcome by checks and balances. AFAIK short of catastrophic changes, ecosystems tend to reach equilibrium, because boom/bust is not competitive.

This is also true of diseases. New, aggressive strains that kill their host quickly usually evolve into milder versions of themselves that get better chances to spread (because the host survives longer).

Most animals have builtin growth limits that matches what they can reasonably extract from their environment. Within the boundaries of an individual, uncheck growth is literally cancer. BTW, you should have that growth on your nose checked (yeah, lame pun sorry ;-).

Humanity and its economy has a cancerous behavior right now. Even if the population stabilizes, economic growth requires a proportional growth in the consumption of resources (energy/matter) and thereby a proportional increase in entropy (heat/pollution/destruction/death).

At some point the rest of the earth won't be hospitable to us as a species, and that point may be precipitated by autonomous capital.

Farming and mining are being automated away. Transport is being automated. Manufacture has been for a long while.

Why would an automated market feed billions of idle meat bags? I don't know either.

Why do I care? I have kids, and I feel responsible for the mess I put them in.