[blagie]

Honestly, the world could use more stagnation.

We've had a lot of change in the past hundred years, and we've reached a point where we can clothe, feed, and house everyone in the world. Once that's done, moving forward more thoughtfully makes a lot of sense.

Who cares if we reach Mars in 2100 or 2200?

On the other hand, I care a lot about avoiding the nuclear / bio / chemical / environmental / and now AI apocalypse.

[gorpy7]

“we”? i think it’s damn obvious that it’s not “we”. the world doesn’t get to move together until all differences are resolved, is that the progress you think we’ve made in the last 100 years? I don’t understand how talk like this goes unchallenged so often. it’s fine aspirationally but come on! I look at a growing economy like a bicycle, the slower it goes the less stable it is. in other words, you can’t just stop unless you want mass death or you want to transition to a stabilizing mechanism the world is yet unaware of. I would also suggest we don’t foolishly bully human nature with policy- there is a certain and deep injustice to that.

Life’s motto is to grow. asking it to not grow or to greatly hamper it? its outrageous really, especially without a genius respectable path to get there. i don’t mind aspiration because dreaming is good but this one is a bit tired and uncontested. and just so i’m not just complaining, i’ll suggest that people stop trying to be dubious global citizens in problem space that outstrips their capabilities and work to be better stewards of one’s self, family, friends. support /relatively/ steady growth.

[blagie]

Growing the economy is not "like a bicycle, the slower it goes the less stable it is."

See everything from ancient Egypt to Soviet-style Communism. Periods of time in Ancient Rome would fit in too. The problem with those -- except for a repressive political system -- was that we could not produce enough to satisfy everyone's basic needs.

Today, we can.

Much of the US-style growth is driven precisely by instability. The system feeds on debt. That forces stress. That forces growth. That also means one cannot be "better stewards of one’s self, family, friends."

And so far, no one has explained how "we don’t foolishly bully human nature with policy." Legal and economic frameworks guide what humans do; that's either something we think through and engineer, or it gets engineered for us by market forces, but it's there anyway.

The most freedom-preserving policy isn't a command system, but it's not a pure market system either. And for stability, we can contrast stable economies to boom-and-bust cycles and successful democracies to the very many failed market-economy democracies across e.g. Africa and South America.