Zero-sum thinking will fuel resentment and scarcity | Hacker News Reader

Zero-sum thinking will fuel resentment and scarcity

ft.com

4 pointsbookofjoe7 comments

Economic growth (“growing the pie” vs zero sum thinking) was a function of population growth. Global population growth is rapidly ending, with 71% of global population living in countries below replacement rate. As the world ages and the population peaks, there will be few areas of potential economic growth. Older cohorts will increase in size, the working age population cohort will contact, and there will be less children born every year for the rest of our lifetimes.

There's still ~billions of people that would like to increase their consumption a fair bit.

And then most people reading this will probably be dead when the population actually starts shrinking.

Lots of people want lots of things. Can they within the light cone of their existence? That’s the math to be done. Many humans over time have been born, lived, and died within 50 miles of the same spot in or close to poverty. Show us purchasing power.

It gets harder to predict the future the further out you attempt to predict, but in many cases, we can estimate the maximum economic potential by country and population with economic and demographic trajectories.

Fertility rates will keep declining, the world will continue to electrify with exports from China, everything else is somewhat fuzzy imho.

Lots of people want lots of things. Can they within the light cone of their existence?

That's pretty deep. I guess I think that they will work hard for more and thus expect economic growth. Especially with decreasing energy costs. If you want to bet that people will mostly choose to immiserate themselves, go ahead.

Lots of people work hard without material change to their economic situation. I deeply respect hard work, but also know most economic success is luck. Most people aren’t lucky, and that’s unfortunate, as life is inherently unfair. There are tens of millions of college educated unemployed youths across Europe, China (“lie flat” and “let it rot” movements), and India (“cockroach party”) that may never have opportunities and their life trajectory is permanently impaired, for example. ~2 million out of ~4 million total US college graduates every year are in jobs that don’t require a degree credential. Is this their fault? No, they had no choice in being born into this system and existence, and are now stuck here until some point in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49378010 (citations)

Nearly 1/4 dealing with long-term unemployment call it quits on biopharma job searches - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49493220 - August 2026

CBS News: What is "functional unemployment" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y2gKIGFTns - August 25th, 2026

Nearly 25% of U.S. workers are "functionally unemployed," economic analysis finds - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/functional-unemployment-us-labo... - August 24th, 2026

Record graduate influx lifts China’s youth jobless rate to 17.9% in July 2026 - https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3364538/r... - August 19th, 2026 ("China’s youth jobless rate climbed to 17.9 per cent in July, as a record wave of university graduates enters an already crowded labour market, prompting Beijing to step up employment support. The jobless rate for those aged 16 to 24, excluding students, rose 3 percentage points from 14.9 per cent in June – the last of three straight months of contraction – according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday. The rate last July was 17.8 per cent and it then climbed to 18.9 per cent the following month – the highest level since Beijing revised its methodology to exclude students in December 2023")

India's young are more educated than ever. So why are so many jobless? - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c17841zez8wo | https://archive.today/sitRv - March 19th, 2026 ("Start with the headline number: 367 million young people between the ages of 15 and 29 - the largest youth population in the world, and making up a third of India's working-age population. Of them, 263 million are not in education and constitute the potential workforce.")

State of Working India 2026 - https://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/media/resources/SWI/SWI-... ("Nearly 40% of graduates aged 15-25 - and 20% of those aged 25-29 - are jobless, far higher than among the less educated, the report finds. Only a small share secure stable, salaried jobs within a year.")

India's youth-led 'cockroach' protests expose cracks in Modi's government - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/indias-youth-led-cockroach... - July 27th, 2026

Where do graduates struggle the most to find a job [in Europe]? - https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/where-does-univer... - July 1st, 2026

Most Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44119317 - May 2025 (Report: https://www.lisep.org/mql)

‘Lying flat’ is no more: new evolution of disillusionment has frustrated Chinese youths ‘letting it rot’ - https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/arti... - October 4th, 2022

We model and predict based off of trajectories, facts, data, evidence, outcomes, and reality, not hope and effort. Happiness is reality minus expectations. I am a realist and rationalist. TLDR Path dependency at scale. Some will be lucky, most will not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence

If energy availability is going down, we are in a negative-sum game, which is even worse, the pie gets smaller and everybody loses.

The world is deploying ~1TW/year of solar PV. There is no energy shortage, only a shortfall in deployment rate. Global cumulative solar PV capacity is ~3TW, as of this comment. Extrapolate current state and trajectories to estimate when solar PV consumes total global energy demand. Enough sunlight falls on Earth in 30 minutes to power humanity for a year.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...

The World Crossed a Major Solar Milestone [3TW] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151977 - August 2026

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49110774 (citations)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47617541 (citations)

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