[munksbeer]

World GDP and standard of living has never been higher.

[Ygg2]

If two trillionaires bounce a 4 trillion dollar IOU, the GDP could be the greatest in the universe, even though nothing would substantially change.

[munksbeer]

Living standards for the median person in the world improve every year, and have done for decades.

[valleyer]

That's not what GDP means.

[FrustratedMonky]

"(GDP) measures the total market value of final goods and services produced"

It can be circular.

MS invests 5 billion in OpenAI.

OpenAI invests 5 billion in MS.

Do we have 10 billion now?

[valleyer]

No goods or services were produced in your example, so GDP would not be affected. Purchases of securities are not goods or services.

[stevenlangbroek]

So? We produce enough food for 10 billion people every year, there's only 8 billion of us and a billion are hungry. Those seem like legible KPIs for shareholders (i.e. humanity) to pursue, no? And while World GDP is up, it's come at the expensive of the systems we depend on.

I want my son to live on a livable planet, and not under the constant threat of destitution. And I want that for all children, not just mine.

[munksbeer]

Everyone wants that. But people on this thread are arguing that technology is reducing our standard of living, which is just factually untrue.

[stevenlangbroek]

Depends on who & what you ask. Aggregates hide important nuance. For who? At what cost to who? Do the people who bare the cost have a say? Would they agree that it's worth it? What's their life worth?

[CRConrad]

Who was arguing that technology is reducing our material "standard of living"?

There's more to life than one's material standard of living. I think people were mostly talking about the other bits.

[esseph]

There is more to life than economics.

High trust societies, a feeling of place and well-being in a culture, connectedness, etc.

https://data.worldhappiness.report/map

Note: Look at the US continuing to move down the report year after year.