http://beyondgrowth.co.uk Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:10:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://beyondgrowth.co.uk/problems/limits/#comment-110 Jeremy Sun, 25 Jul 2010 09:58:26 +0000 http://beyondgrowth.wordpress.com/?page_id=135#comment-110 Yes, I think it is obvious, which suggests to me that the politicians and banks know how unsustainable it is and choose to ignore it. Yes, I think it is obvious, which suggests to me that the politicians and banks know how unsustainable it is and choose to ignore it.

]]> http://beyondgrowth.co.uk/problems/limits/#comment-109 Stefan Thiesen Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:35:09 +0000 http://beyondgrowth.wordpress.com/?page_id=135#comment-109 For me everything on this website is perfectly obvious. But I am a trained Astro Physicist and Geographer, so perhaps whatever is obvious to me doesn’t really count. However – whenever I get to talk alone to an economist for ten minutes and bring up the topic of the possibility of “perpetual exponential economic growth in a finite world”, they will, at one point, acknowledge the impossibility of this mystic – or rather mysterious – belief. The Swiss economics Professor (yes) H.C. Binswanger calls economists a “Glaubensgemeinschaft”, a religious community that is. Their’s is not a science, but an artificial belief system. It became artificial and virtual in the very moment that “soil” (natural resources) was dropped out of the economic equation. From then on it looked – in theory at least – as if limitless growth were possible, while to every normal thinking person, like a farmer, it should be obvious, that this is an entirely nonsensical notion, at odds with common sense, daily experience and scientific insight. But nonetheless: all of globalized mankind now follows this nonsensical, actually insane paradigm. Just like 1000 years ago it was common in Europe to burn innocent women for allegedly having had an affair with the Satan. To most of us (I hope) that nowadays is a pointless notion, but back then most people believed that. Now people believe in perpetual exponential economic growth. There is no difference. The Economy, business, money have become symbols of a world wide religion. Wars are fought in the name of it, people are arrested in the name of it, mass murders carried out and entire landscapes, reagions, oceans, in fact the surface of the entire planet, ultimately are annihilated in the name of it. IT. What is this IT? What drived the global money machine? Greed. Lust for power. Perhaps our medieval forebearers were right, and the Devil exists after all? The soulless thing the money machine is could well be described as a greed automaton. The economy at large, viewed as an apparatus, basically consists of a black box algorithm that absorbs on thing (not to say EVERYTHING) on one side, to generate the output of precisely one and only thing on the other: Profit. Money. Ever more of it. What we have created is a greet automaton, a giant “eating machine”, of which we merely are small components, and if a component does not fit, it is thrown out. C’est ca. For me everything on this website is perfectly obvious. But I am a trained Astro Physicist and Geographer, so perhaps whatever is obvious to me doesn’t really count. However – whenever I get to talk alone to an economist for ten minutes and bring up the topic of the possibility of “perpetual exponential economic growth in a finite world”, they will, at one point, acknowledge the impossibility of this mystic – or rather mysterious – belief. The Swiss economics Professor (yes) H.C. Binswanger calls economists a “Glaubensgemeinschaft”, a religious community that is. Their’s is not a science, but an artificial belief system. It became artificial and virtual in the very moment that “soil” (natural resources) was dropped out of the economic equation. From then on it looked – in theory at least – as if limitless growth were possible, while to every normal thinking person, like a farmer, it should be obvious, that this is an entirely nonsensical notion, at odds with common sense, daily experience and scientific insight. But nonetheless: all of globalized mankind now follows this nonsensical, actually insane paradigm. Just like 1000 years ago it was common in Europe to burn innocent women for allegedly having had an affair with the Satan. To most of us (I hope) that nowadays is a pointless notion, but back then most people believed that. Now people believe in perpetual exponential economic growth. There is no difference. The Economy, business, money have become symbols of a world wide religion. Wars are fought in the name of it, people are arrested in the name of it, mass murders carried out and entire landscapes, reagions, oceans, in fact the surface of the entire planet, ultimately are annihilated in the name of it. IT. What is this IT? What drived the global money machine? Greed. Lust for power. Perhaps our medieval forebearers were right, and the Devil exists after all? The soulless thing the money machine is could well be described as a greed automaton. The economy at large, viewed as an apparatus, basically consists of a black box algorithm that absorbs on thing (not to say EVERYTHING) on one side, to generate the output of precisely one and only thing on the other: Profit. Money. Ever more of it. What we have created is a greet automaton, a giant “eating machine”, of which we merely are small components, and if a component does not fit, it is thrown out. C’est ca.

]]> http://beyondgrowth.co.uk/problems/limits/#comment-108 Stefan Thiesen Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:31:04 +0000 http://beyondgrowth.wordpress.com/?page_id=135#comment-108 For me everything on this website is perfectly obvious. But I am a trained Astro Physicist and Geographer, so perhaps whatever is obvious to me doesn't really count. However - whenever I get to talk alone to an economist for ten minutes and bring up the topic of the possibility of "perpetual exponential economic growth in a finite world", they will, at one point, acknowledge the impossibility of this mystic - or rather mysterious - belief. The Swiss economics Professor (yes) H.C. Binswanger calls economists a "Glaubensgemeinschaft", a religious community that is. Their's is not a science, but an artificial belief system. It became artificial and virtual in the very moment that "soil" (natural resources) was dropped out of the economic equation. From then on it looked - in theory at least - as if limitless growth were possible, while to every normal thinking person, like a farmer, it should be obvious, that this is an entirely nonsensical notion, at odds with common sense, daily experience and scientific insight. But nonetheless: all of globalized mankind now follows this nonsensical, actually insane paradigm. Just like 1000 years ago it was common in Europe to burn innocent women for allegedly having had an affair with the Satan. To most of us (I hope) that nowadays is a pointless notion, but back then most people believed that. Now people believe in perpetual exponential economic growth. There is no difference. The Economy, business, money have become symbols of a world wide religion. Wars are fought in the name of it, people are arrested in the name of it, mass murders carried out and entire landscapes, reagions, oceans, in fact the surface of the entire planet, ultimately are annihilated in the name of it. IT. What is this IT? What drived the global money machine? Greed. Lust for power. Perhaps our medieval forebearers were right, and the Devil exists after all? The soulless thing the money machine is could well be described as a greed automaton. The economy at large, viewed as an apparatus, basically consists of a black box algorithm that absorbs on thing (not to say EVERYTHING) on one side, to generate the output of precisely one and only thing on the other: Profit. Money. Ever more of it. What we have created is a greet automaton, a giant "eating machine", of which we merely are small components, and if a component does not fit, it is thrown out. C'est ca. For me everything on this website is perfectly obvious. But I am a trained Astro Physicist and Geographer, so perhaps whatever is obvious to me doesn’t really count. However – whenever I get to talk alone to an economist for ten minutes and bring up the topic of the possibility of “perpetual exponential economic growth in a finite world”, they will, at one point, acknowledge the impossibility of this mystic – or rather mysterious – belief. The Swiss economics Professor (yes) H.C. Binswanger calls economists a “Glaubensgemeinschaft”, a religious community that is. Their’s is not a science, but an artificial belief system. It became artificial and virtual in the very moment that “soil” (natural resources) was dropped out of the economic equation. From then on it looked – in theory at least – as if limitless growth were possible, while to every normal thinking person, like a farmer, it should be obvious, that this is an entirely nonsensical notion, at odds with common sense, daily experience and scientific insight. But nonetheless: all of globalized mankind now follows this nonsensical, actually insane paradigm. Just like 1000 years ago it was common in Europe to burn innocent women for allegedly having had an affair with the Satan. To most of us (I hope) that nowadays is a pointless notion, but back then most people believed that. Now people believe in perpetual exponential economic growth. There is no difference. The Economy, business, money have become symbols of a world wide religion. Wars are fought in the name of it, people are arrested in the name of it, mass murders carried out and entire landscapes, reagions, oceans, in fact the surface of the entire planet, ultimately are annihilated in the name of it. IT. What is this IT? What drived the global money machine? Greed. Lust for power. Perhaps our medieval forebearers were right, and the Devil exists after all? The soulless thing the money machine is could well be described as a greed automaton. The economy at large, viewed as an apparatus, basically consists of a black box algorithm that absorbs on thing (not to say EVERYTHING) on one side, to generate the output of precisely one and only thing on the other: Profit. Money. Ever more of it. What we have created is a greet automaton, a giant “eating machine”, of which we merely are small components, and if a component does not fit, it is thrown out. C’est ca.

]]> http://beyondgrowth.co.uk/problems/limits/#comment-7 Obsolete Paradigms « NickBlack.com Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:58:35 +0000 http://beyondgrowth.wordpress.com/?page_id=135#comment-7 [...] it will support many times the historical world population. But now we are bumping up against hard limits in food supply, water, a host of critical metals and gasses, fish stocks, and of course fossil [...] [...] it will support many times the historical world population. But now we are bumping up against hard limits in food supply, water, a host of critical metals and gasses, fish stocks, and of course fossil [...]

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