This is the most depressing chart in the world
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Is current level of growth even sustainable? (regarding environment, lifestyle issues --stress, depression, etc.--, quality of production, time for people to adapt to new paradigms, etc)?
How about less "growth" and better distribution, more quality, less rat racing?
>that lowered forecast eventually prove too aggressive.
As you mention better distribution is key, I would add this could spark more spending and therefore growth.
1:Creating something that lots of people want and increasing the wealth for everyone.
2: Cornering the market and hoarding something that people have a need for.
The first benefits everyone. The second makes someone rich at the expense of other.
Zero-sum game would feel like a huge improvement for most.
FTFY
Part of my point is that there are more than enough resources, what's needed is better distribution. Plus some scaling down the over-consumption of crap.
Besides this "taking it from someone else" is already the case with the growth model, were not only a tiny fraction of the population has a huge percentage of the world's wealth (debt aside, I know those arguments too), but people can be making $1000 Armani suits for 12 hours a day in the third world just to have the same, or even worse, quality of life as they did before their country was forced into globalization.
For centuries the growth depended on plundering the third world, as colonialists, neo-colonialists, slave owners, democrary-bringers etc, plus heavy internal forcing of people (e.g. the rural population) to become factory workers.
Now we've come to the point technologically that we don't need all those people anyway -- not even the service industry which we invented as a stop gap to have people employed.
That's because you use "quality of life" as if it meant purchase power or access to gadgets.
And even that's wrong -- people in the 50s could support a family of four/five and get their kids to college with a single office job. Present day middle class, not so much.
In fact it has been shown time and again that wages have been stagnating (when corrected for inflation) since the seventies or so.
Second, it is absolutely nuts to suggest the average American citizen was better off in the 1950's. 1950's America still had a substantial amount of truly crippling poverty, it had millions of citizens who had almost no chance at that great office job due to their race or gender, and life expectancy at birth was lower by almost a decade.
And yes, that's before you figure the months of salary to buy, say, a refrigerator, that the median wage earner can now afford on a week's pay. A refrigerator, by the way, that will be larger, last longer, and use substantially less energy than the one from 1955.
Or the huge growth in sales of air travel, entertainment, dining... luxuries in the 1950's that are commonplace today.
Yes, access to cheap credit makes it easy to bid up the prices of scarce resources like slots at good colleges or houses in desirable areas, but the average American isn't paying out of pocket much more for those things as a % of their income than they were 70 years ago. And of course the colleges are much nicer places to live and study than they were, and the houses are bigger and better constructed.
> For centuries the growth depended on plundering the third world,
Really? You think colonialism is the main driver of economics growth?
Egypt has enough sunlight to provide all the clean energy needed to provide its citizens with first world quality of life. It just needs the funds to build/install the panels to collect that sunlight.
Yeah, really. It was the big enabler for all the growth that later turned into the "industrial revolution", and continued to provide a huge percentage of western GDP well into the 20th century, directly (as exploited and plundered places) and indirectly (as markets for example).
Cheap oil, for one, is always good to ensure for one's country.
At some point it became economically inefficient to enslave countries with close to 2-3 billions of inhabitants, and the cold war had changed the political climate anyway, but not so much that countries won't participate in post-colonial power games.
It's no accident that it's exactly the countries that did the plundering (the colonial powers) that rose up into prominence, and the ones that were plundered that got the short end of the stick.
Explains the top 1% and the actual drop in slices of pie. The issue we have is we don't even realize in the States that our pie slice is smaller but the amount is slightly larger. So our pie is a few percentage points down but we have $3,000 more so no one notices.
If someone produces the same 5 widgets/month for 10 years, their business has not grown yet they've been creating resources the whole time.
The two are only equivalent when we assume that income matches expenses (no savings), which is a fundamental problem with the modern economy.
(Yes, growth is ultimately unsustainable, but I think there's a long way to go in bringing up e.g. large areas of Africa to Chinese growth levels)
When with a bit of planning and foresight it could all be avoided.
Is a shame
I agree with the sentiment about distribution, quality, etc., but it's a completely separate domain, and I think it's crucial not to mix them.
We live in a hyper-financialized economy. That means everything relies on (cheap) debt. A lot of debt repayment plans relied on "everything is awesome" as economic prediction, as a justification for the initial investment. What happens to all those financial plans when growth predictions impact reality like a bug hitting a windshield? That might be a little problem.
Top to bottom, from the worlds largest alternative oil source projects down to housing bubble mortgages and high credit card balances. Oh no fears the predictions show high growth into perpetuity that'll take care of everything eventually. Until it doesn't. Whoops.
There is also the ongoing implication of lie to me once shame on you, lie to me twice (or five times in this example) shame on me. So you can make deals based on lies about the future one time, two times, three times. But its getting to the point that future predictions are now assumed to be lies, and that has major effects on current deal making. Whats the effect on your commission today for selling a loan balance based on now-2% vs a couple years ago selling a much higher loan balance based on now+3%? Can you even sell loans now? Can a hyperfinancialized economy survive a debt market freeze up? A lot of players won't. Get the printing presses fired up for the inevitable bailouts...
Growth gets you that.
Growth has made it possible to buy a fridge, an oven, a vaccum cleaner, a dishwasher and a washing machine, all for relatively trivial amounts of money. Together they made it possible for litterally millions of women to persue their dreams (whether that is to have a career, start a business or just spend more time with their children). I have no idea what kind of magic the future could hold, but I find it extremely destressing that anybody could even ask that question.
Oh and if you don't why a washing machine is necessary, http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...
https://stormglas.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/20131116-00180...
> Short of dimming the sun, I don’t see how you can keep “all this carbon in atmosphere” and still only get 2°C.
This one assumes the carbon is main or even major substance that keeps heat on Earth. You do realize that we have much more water in the atmosphere, and water keeps heat much better than carbon? It's not as simple as "more carbon, higher temperatures".
Decarbonising would remove many other pollutants and particulates from the atmosphere, and should lead to health benefits like reduced asthma in cities.
But it's not all benefit. In rushing to decarbonize, we use alternative energy sources. A lot of battery and solar technology uses heavy metals that break down and seep into the water supply when they are improperly discarded. There are no magic bullet answers, the only solution is a holistic one and so far, only the climate scientists have won the attention of the politicians. Validity arguments aside, it makes you wonder if there's an ulterior motive.
Those have all made several mistakes and continue to make them and the 15 scientists or so who are of a different opinion are probably right?
Is that what you are saying?
You know what makes modern physics true? Falsifiability and verifiability. You build a theory, make predictions, develop an experiment, and then conduct the experiment, multiple times. Climatology stops after the first two.
Granted, astronomy and cosmology operate in similar way to climatology, but we don't establish world-scale policies based on astronomy.
This is, obviously and demonstrably, wrong. The data is out there, the methodologies are out there, and there is tons of related open-source software. You can conduct your own experiments and come to your own conclusions.
This guy [1][2], for example, did, and imagine what: he independently verified what 99% of climate scientists have been saying.
Why don't you give it a go? Put your money where your mouth is and see for yourself what is true and what isn't.
Edit: to the poster below, the data is public, just a quick google search away. For example [3].
[1] http://forums.sandiegouniontribune.com/showpost.php?p=533737...
[2] http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thorough...
[3] ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/
First, we seem to call different things an experiment. The guy didn't made any experiment, he just charted some data. He didn't change CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, keeping everything else equal, to check if it would affect the resulting temperature.
Next, he only charted temperatures. This doesn't prove anything related to carbon concentration by itself, and we don't have proven models to have a causality implied one way or another. (Proven with analogous strictness and confidence as the theory of gravity.)
And finally, I don't claim there is no change to the climate whatsoever. Quite the contrary; humanity has seen the climate to change over its recent history (few hundred years). I just doubt highly that the change is caused by human carbon emissions.
And personally, I think it's really arrogant to assume that humanity is powerful enough to change the climate of the whole planet at this point.
Right, and the LIGO didn't create two colliding black holes to measure gravity waves, but measure gravity waves it did.
"To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning." [1]
> And personally, I think it's really arrogant to assume that humanity is powerful enough to change the climate of the whole planet at this point.
So your disagreement is based on superstitious beliefs, not the scientific method. Exactly as predicted in my previous post.
[1] "Rules for the study of natural philosophy", Newton transl 1999, pp. 794–6, after Book 3, The System of the World.
> Right, and the LIGO didn't create two colliding black holes to measure gravity waves, but measure gravity waves it did.
You think that some guy that merely charted some data is equivalent to some guy that developed a model, predicted what should be seen when some event Q happens, patiently waited for Q to happen, and then observed if his predictions matched what was measured while Q was happening?
> So your disagreement is based on superstitious beliefs, not the scientific method. Exactly as predicted in my previous post.
No, it's not based on superstitions. It's based on climatology's inability to deliver any explaination that actually make sense when one starts estimating how big values are in play (those that don't make sense ignore one of the basic principles, like only accounting the signal that exceeds measurement errors, or laws of thermodynamics).
You have already established that you don't believe humans are (or even could be) causing global warming. You are not seeking any scientific proof for that - it is merely a superstitious belief that you are holding. A personal bias, if you will.
The rest of your posts are merely rationalizations for this bias. The problem is not that the science is not explaining climate change enough. The problem is that no possible explanation will penetrate your mind's defenses against the terrifying notion that you might be wrong.
Think of this: if thousands upon thousands of scientists, using hundreds of different methodologies and dozens of different datasets to arrive at the same conclusion, can't convince you; if the fact that, since the industrial revolution, humanity released into the environment energy equivalent to 50% the Triasic-Jurassic extinction event can't convince you; then nothing ever will.
At this point, there's only one thing left: grab one of those datasets and run any sort of analysis you wish. See for yourself what kind of results you come up with. Unless you are willing to walk the walk, there is no point in continuing this discussion.
No, but a large chunk of the US population believes in this stuff even today.
And they vote.
That's why we're doomed.
What made their practices bogus was that it wasn't scientific.
So you're using an argument that undermines your very conclusion.
The analogy to proponents of astrology and magic would be people who doubt the scientific consensus.
Study after study has showed that superstition cannot be overcome with facts. The more facts you present, the more they get stuck to their incorrect beliefs. It's depressing.
The only solution is to do what Elon Musk is doing: ignore the idiots and pursue what you believe is right.
And, as you point out, these people can't be convinced with facts.
So, the real solution is to just ignore the idiots and start preparing for a future that resembles Mad Max. Or be like Musk and work really hard on establishing a colony on Mars before you're too old to make the journey there.
1. RTFM
2. Use high-school level math
3. Post your results to hackernews for discussion
Up to the challenge?
So we should trust something else over that?
It depends on what the focus of the data is. In this case the emphasis is on the difference between the series', not their relative distance from zero. So there's nothing wrong with truncating the axis, particularly on a line chart; why have a bunch of white-space at the bottom?
Context is everything.
Edit: And in this case it wouldn't have hurt readability at all. Their point still would've come across just fine.
edited one word
That sounds more like a solution.
Show some child abuse/slavery/deaths-by-US-bombs/born-with-cancer-or-hiv graphs, that's way more depressing than this pathetic... something
Dammit. Now I want to know what word that was and how many instances of it did you change. :(
EDIT was:
ecology -> economics
[1] http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/update/01/pdf/0...
This used to be the definition and justification of recessions. Liquidate recent bad investments so we can start over on a stronger more stable base. At least in the old days.
Now we do coverups and bailouts to delay and increase the inevitable. That's not going to end well.
Continuous growth is another idiotic concept with contradicts with fluctuating, co-evolutionary nature of vastly complex competitive ecosystems (multi-level host-parasite co-evolution).
The difficulty is the same as with forecasting weather in areas with unique microclimates - each tiny valley in Himalaya has its own. One has to monitor its unique conditions to find recurring patterns and constraints.
Global forecasts of wastly complex processes are bullshit and attempts to use avarages is bullshit too.
There are thousands niche microeconomies witchin every region in the wirld, each controlled by its own unique constraints and variables and influenced by some variables of neighborhooring and related niches, etc. There are also climate, sociological, political, cultural factors, etc.
All such complicated models are wrong. They, like myths and religions, have no connection to actual reality while being taken on faith by corresponding sectarians.
Or is it only IMF? I've tried to find other predictions, and for example, the World Bank seems to be counting with a less rosy 2.9%: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-bank-downgrades-global-eco...
There are fewer hungry people in the world today compared to 20 years ago, in spite adding 1 billion people to the planet.
> HEY KIDS! THIS TIME WE'RE REALLY GONNA BOUNCE RIGHT BACK! WHEEEE!
Something like https://alfinnextlevel.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/736px-pop...