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Re: economic growth from innovation vs capital + labor, a clear example is the Industrial Revolution. Innovations in the steam engine facilitated innovations in manufacturing processes. Prior innovations in agricultural techniques enabled labor to move into the city to operate these new machines.

The capital and labor followed the innovation. Without the innovation, there would not have been an extreme boost in growth, no matter how much capital and labor accumulation took place.

Hanson, a brilliant economics professor (among other things), shouldn't need to justify or provide citations for every basic statement about economics. It is often useful to lay out assumptions up front to provide context for the body of the essay.

bf, in one sense "growth comes from innovation" is [trivially] true inasmuch as you can't accumulate an Industrial Revolution's worth of capital without it being invented first, but yeah, no quantitative data for anything more substantial there

The bigger question is whether he's mixing cause and effect, and it's actually "innovating economies don't shrink [at least not in the medium term]"

> We're on a finite planet, we don't have a choice but to continue innovating while limiting population growth and production.

This hasn't been true though. We aren't limiting population growth, but the rate is declining as women gain reproductive freedom and people don't need to have as many kids to work the land. And we haven't done anything to limit production, as that goes against economic growth, which causes economic recessions. As for a finite planet, we do have energy from the sun, and potential materials from the rest of the solar system to make use of, starting with the Moon.

I know plenty people who say they’d like more kids but can’t afford it

And a lot of goats, that overgraze and don't let forests and vegetation to return, and that leads to desertification ;)

https://www.academia.edu/es/38627904/Blame_it_on_the_goats_D...

We even have more goats than wild mammals (and half of those are mice).

https://xkcd.com/1338/

> As for a finite planet, we do have energy from the sun, and potential materials from the rest of the solar system to make use of, starting with the Moon

Our planet's finiteness extends beyond just physical resources and space. The air we breathe, the oceans that regulate climate and support life, and the intricate web of biodiversity are all interconnected components of Earth's finite ecosystem.

While external sources like solar energy and space materials offer opportunities, they don't alter the fact that the planet's capacity to support life and maintain these critical systems remains limited.

> Most economic growth comes from innovation, not the accumulation of capital or labor.

Economic growth is subjective in ways, but over previous long horizons, this is obviously true.

If you took 10B pre-industrial humans and had them work 24 hours a day 365 days a year - their production would be pale in comparison to what we currently produce.

At some point, when you get close to physical limits, and you start having vastly diminished returns on technological improvement, or when most innovation is not going to the benefit of most people - it would be debatable.

Maybe you want to argue we're headed into that future.

>> Also, as usual, what's the definition of economy being used there? Money? Production?

Production. The first result on google for "Economic Growth" defines it.

Its 'dropping' fertility and population into the mix because his thesis is that declining population will lead to less innovation thus retarding economic growth. Innovation happening in a recession is not in any way a counterexample whatsoever.

It’s Robin Hanson. Hanson is Feynman ~smart. Top caliber

For the rest of your argument you seem stuck on definitions for words, which is helpful for your understanding but unhelpful for discussion of the ideas.

If we were discussing our business plan for next quarter and you began saying ‘what is business? what is a plan, on a deep level?’ I would not engage with you but ask you to leave because either a) you don’t belong in the meeting b) you’re acting in bad faith semantics

I'm not playing semantics there.

The word "economy" in the discussions around growth and de-growth is used to describe a multitude of things, notably (1) money (commonly looked at it in terms of GDP) or (2) production (commonly looked at in resource and goods produced, and services rendered). Because they are notoriously not well correlated (because of the capital market, inflation, ...) there are multitude of examples where (1) is growing while (2) is shrinking.

If you're saying "shrinking economies don't innovate", do you mean "Economies with shrinking GDP don't innovate", or "Economies whose production drop don't innovate". This is wildly different, and, contrarily to your comment, fundamental to discuss this idea.

When it comes to accepting someone's opinion in blind faith because they're smart, do whatever you want. Undocumented opinions coming from smart, educated people are valuable opinions ; but they're opinions nonetheless.

GDP is literally a measure of aggregate production. The entire point of GDP is to measure production in an economy. GDP does not measure money any more than mass measures kilograms. It measures the value of all goods and services produced in the economy.

> GDP is literally a measure of aggregate production

In $, not amount of goods and services.

> GDP does not measure money any more than mass measures kilograms.

Mass is a physical dimension. GDP is the product of the physical dimensions of the goods and services you product by the value attributed to these physical properties.

> It measures the value of all goods and services produced in the economy.

You're saying it yourself: it measures the value of the goods and services. Value is measured in money and is not directly linked to the volume of goods, resources and services they represent.

You can produce the exact same amount of potatoes, if the value of a kg of potatoes increases, the GDP rises. If you look at the value of oil to gauge its production, there's one day in 2020 when we sent oil back to earth[1].

1: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52350082

When economists talk about production in the context of an economy they always mean the value of that production. Economic growth never implies the raw quantity of economic production increased regardless of its value. That's a contradiction in terms. If an economy increases production of some finished good by 50% yet the value of that finished good declined that was not economic growth it was a contraction.

Economic growth literally means the value of goods and services produced by the economy rose. It does not mean "monetary value" in one place or "number of widgets" in another place. Robin Hanson is not confused here by what he means by economic growth and his argument does not rely on some ambiguity in terms.

>>You can produce the exact same amount of potatoes, if the value of a kg of potatoes increases, the GDP rises.

Yes, of course.

>>If you look at the value of oil to gauge its production, there's one day in 2020 when we sent oil back to earth[1].

I'm not sure what this is supposed to illustrate. If a finished good or service does not have value then it cannot contribute to economic growth. The entire point of an economy is to produce goods that have value.

Not exactly. The definition of GDP is:

  GDP=C+G+I+NX
  where:
  C=Consumption
  G=Government spending
  I=Investment
  NX=Net exports

The production implied by C, G, and NX, is merely a lower bound. Excess production isn't capture in the GDP equation.