Hacker News Reader

Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

> The world can't just keep growing at this rate indefinitely. We should be ready for other possibilities: stagnation (growth slows or ends), explosion (growth accelerates even more, before hitting its limits), and collapse (some disaster levels the economy).

Sure, you could prepare for imagined eventualities, or you could do the actual work of improving efficiency, reducing waste and unnecessary middle-men, and removing centuries old bureaucracies that are now absurdly pointless in the face of the internet.

There is an underlying _desire_ for apocalypse encoded in this type of thinking.

View on HN

"Sure, you could prepare for imagined eventualities, or you could do the actual work of improving efficiency, reducing waste and unnecessary middle-men, and removing centuries old bureaucracies that are now absurdly pointless in the face of the internet. There is an underlying _desire_ for apocalypse encoded in this type of thinking."

OP was written by the person who co-founded GiveWell[1] to make charitable giving more effective, and who while running Open Philanthropy oversaw lots of grants to things like innovation policy[2], scientific research[3], and land use reform[4].

Anyway, more broadly I think you present a false dilemma. You can both prepare for tail risks and also make important marginal and efficiency improvements.

[1] https://www.givewell.org/ [2] https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/innovation-policy/ [3] https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/ [4] https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/land-use-reform/

This comment is Bulverism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism) and makes no attempt to engage with whether the linked post is actually correct or not.

I disagree. I'm agreeing with the basic assertion that the future looks grim but that it is ultimately unknowable. As such, putting work in into improving those possible outcomes is better than hopefully preparing for their eventual outcome.

In any case, I'm at least suggesting _a_ course of action.

Good point. Improving efficiency alone can bring increased consumption, not less. I think if we think of the world as regions it is easy to think of regional collapses while the world as a whole keeps growing. We, or at least me, have been lucky so far.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com