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by throwaway803453 1699 days ago
There is a good anti-growth counter argument/observation in Homo Deus. Population growth necessitates economic growth otherwise you end up with unemployment which destabilizes society and can lead to war.

If you don't have population growth you still need economic growth to provide upward mobility to people at the bottom. Without growth you have a zero-sum game which again can lead to war.

Ideally improvements in efficiency or a shift values/culture can create a world where we can have economic growth without increasing the burden on the planet.

1 comments

>If you don't have population growth you still need economic growth to provide upward mobility to people at the bottom. Without growth you have a zero-sum game which again can lead to war.

OR you reset wealth upon death. You don't necessarily need unlimited growth if you prevent wealth from pooling at the top.

What does that look like, in practice? You have a family of four, and the father dies suddenly. What happens to the house? The wife re-marries, dies, and the second husband re-marries. At what point is this 'reset' occurring? To whom does the wealth transfer when it is 'reset'?