Given "spending is irrelevant"/fiat money, why not give every poor person 30K?

[doodle]

The point is that exponential growth in material consumption
by definition not sustainable...barring some amazing technological innovation. If we assume that we stay with the present technology however and push the growth envelope we could have some serious environmental reprecussions. I wanted to evaluate a world based on the MMM philosophy of low consumption and how that would work within our present economic system which seems to need growth in aggregate demand or else thigs fall apart.

[Gumby]

The point is that exponential growth is by definition not sustainable...barring some amazing technological innovation. If we present with the present technology however and push the growth envelope we could have some serious environmental reprecussions.

Many people argue that we are nowhere near that point.

Be that as it may, I agree that one day the Earth will reach that point. Though, it may be many, many generations from now. And many, many generations from now, an asteroid will wipe life off of the planet and the sun will explode. It all has to end at some point.

I wanted to evaluate a world based on the MMM philosophy of low consumption and how that would work within our present economic system which seems to need growth in aggregate demand or else thigs fall apart.

So... why don't you keep thinking about it and come back to us when you think of a way to keep growth sustainable in a way that allows everyone to partake in some hedonistic consumption. My guess is that you won't find a way without regulating human behavior — which nobody will like.

[doodle]

To clarify what i mean by present technology lets take cars. If everyone owns a car, our cities and planet are going to be pretty polluted if they are all burning fossil fuel. Growth in cars means bad things for environment and is not compatible with human health. LA air for example is a nightmare at times. i dont see why people can oppose smokers and not oppose drivers who pollute the air in the same way. If we design a car that doesnt have any impact though on environment or minimal negative impact  i dont care at all if people want to work their entire lives to afford it, because it doesnt affect me.

[Gumby]

To clarify what i mean by present technology lets take cars. If everyone owns a car, our cities and planet are going to be pretty polluted if they are all burning fossil fuel. Growth in cars means bad things for environment and is not compatible with human health. LA air for example is a nightmare at times. i dont see why people can oppose smokers and not oppose drivers who pollute the air in the same way. If we design a car that doesnt have any impact though on environment or minimal negative impact  i dont care at all if people want to work their entire lives to afford it, because it doesnt affect me.

So, invent a cleaner car! There is a real demand for that sort of thing. Look at Elon Musk — at least he is trying to meet that demand by building a better car that stomps combustion engines. His cars are cleaner, have more torque and have fewer moving parts that could break down.

[doodle]

In the meantime and until that happens do i still have to choke on polluted urban air without recourse?

[Gumby]

In the meantime and until that happens do i still have to choke on polluted urban air without recourse?

Yes. Or you can move somewhere that you don't need to be near cars. Or you could get off your ass and do something about it, if you prefer. Either that or vote with your dollars and invest in his cars or his company. The choice is yours.

[doodle]

So you are picking winners then. You are chosing the driver over me. What gives you the right to give them the right to pollute my clean air?

[Gumby]

So you are picking winners then. You are chosing the driver over me. What gives you the right to give them the right to pollute my clean air?

Huh? What are you talking about? I'm not choosing anybody. Your neighborly drivers aren't under my control. And they aren't under your control either. I have no choice in the matter beyond what I do.

I have nothing to do with who wins or loses.

[doodle]

That is the same thing as telling the farmer that doesnt use GMO that it is his problem that his seed has been contaminated with monsantos GMO variety. You are siding againstthe rights of the individual in favor of society. That is very unlibertarian

[doodle]

My air was clean until their car polluted it....yet i have no real recourse.

If i destroy my neighbors car they have recourse. How is that fair?

[Gumby]

That is the same thing as telling the farmer that doesnt use GMO that it is his problem that his seed has been contaminated with monsantos GMO variety. You are siding againstthe rights of the individual in favor of society. That is very unlibertarian

Well, it is his problem isn't it? I feel terrible for that farmer, but what can I do beyond feel bad for him? I can't un-pollenate his crops now, can I? All I can do is divest myself of Monsanto products and support actions against Monsanto.

My air was clean until their car polluted it....yet i have no real recourse.

If i destroy my neighbors car they have recourse. How is that fair?

It's not fair. Life isn't fair. But, then again, I learned that in grade school.

[MediumTex]

doodle,

What would you like Gumby to do differently?

I understand everything about your preaching except why you don't see that we are the choir.

I understand your argument.  I have those same ruts in my brain.  I like the idea of living as simply as possible and not letting consumption of material items be the sole purpose of my existence.  I think that Gumby probably feels the same way. 

I think that a lot of us here are probably picky about the things we buy and like to travel as lightly as possible as we move through life.

I think that a lot of us do see that various forms of propaganda (both consumerist and political) have probably messed up the minds of many people and they probably don't get as much satisfaction from consumption as they think they will.

But so what?  I stopped being troubled by this stuff long ago because I realized that nothing I think about other people's preferences has any bearing at all on what they do or how they think.

It's true that there are all sorts of negative externalities out there emanating from greedy producers and greedy consumers.  What should I do about that?  Well, if something is REALLY important to me I might try to change the world in some small way to hold people accountable for things that in my judgement aren't right, but I would have to be VERY selective about which of these fights to get involved in, because I have other things I want to do in life as well, and if I did choose to get involved there is a very good chance that my efforts would translate into ZERO improvement in the thing that was bothering me. 

The problem with people who want to fix these broken things about our world and apply the fixes to everyone is that they often wind up breaking even more things in the process of creating the perfect world according to their own values.

I'm completely comfortable letting the world be broken in innumerable ways.  What's amazing is how much gets accomplished in such a screwed up world.

Why do you feel personally responsible for fixing everything that is wrong with consumer culture?  I don't feel responsible for fixing it at all, even though I share many of your beliefs about it.  Have you considered just giving up on changing others and focusing instead on perfecting yourself as much as you can?  I believe that if you took this approach you would probably wind up changing more about the world through your persuasive example than you would through your coercive rhetoric.  That JMHO, of course.

[RuralEngineer]

Can anyone provide an example where a society had the MEANS for higher consumption and chose not to utilize it?  Because as far as I can tell consumerism is human nature and those of us who prefer a modest life style are oddballs.  The closest example I can think of is the Amish and other related religious groups and their lifestyle is a religious mandate, which not all end up keeping.

We talk about the value of gold on these forums quite often, but until the electronic age gold had absolutely no useful properties other than its aesthetics.  The very source of its value is the fact that human beings want stuff, preferably more that what our neighbors or rivals have.

[MediumTex]

Can anyone provide an example where a society had the MEANS for higher consumption and chose not to utilize it?  Because as far as I can tell consumerism is human nature and those of us who prefer a modest life style are oddballs.  The closest example I can think of is the Amish and other related religious groups and their lifestyle is a religious mandate, which not all end up keeping.

We talk about the value of gold on these forums quite often, but until the electronic age gold had absolutely no useful properties other than its aesthetics.  The very source of its value is the fact that human beings want stuff, preferably more that what our neighbors or rivals have.

I think that societies with very corrupt governments often lead to individuals with a lot of hoarded wealth because there is so little trust that it won't be plundered if it is invested in more productive activities.

Also, societies with no social safety nets require people to forgo more consumption to save for a rainy day than a society does that provides these safety net service for everyone.

These are perhaps a couple of examples of types of societies that could consume more but don't.

[doodle]

This is so frustrating that I cant even believe Im wasting the time to type this reponse. 

I'm trying to talk about the mechanics of HOW a low/ concious consumption society would work under the hypothetical that people didn't always want to consume more and more. Unfortunately I keep getting pulled by Gumby and others into the "WHY" they wouldnt want to consume more and more. I think there are many reasons why they might not want to constantly consume more..which I have been forced to argue against the original intent of what I wanted to talk about. I guess this is reasonable being that if Im going to provide a hypothetical that is based on huuman behavior, I should at least have to justify why I think that type of behavior is possible. Thomas Hobbes built his entire philosophical justification for a society based on his rather pessimistic and fixed view of mans nature. I on the other hand think that mans nature is more flexible and that social structures and conditions to a large extent cause certain aspects of mans behavior to manifest themselves or go dormant.I think that presently people are socially conditioned to consume and to undervalue other things in life.

So now that I have justified why I think my hypothetical concious consuming human is at least possible....my primary question again is what would happen to our present economic system if Mr.Money Mustache suceeded in convicing everyone that consuming less and leading a more relaxed lifestyle was a great idea? In other words, if everyone became a virtuous saver and concious consumer? IF that happened, and aggregate demand fell to a lower level (not monastic asceticism for crying out loud...MMM is not advocating that) how could we deal with this lower aggregate demand, still maintain healthy happy lives and not have to convince people to go out and consume more (which according to this hypothetical they don't want to do.)

It seems to me that unemployment (a result of aggregate demand being too low....which is what would happen in an MMM world) is dealt with by present politicians and leaders  by trying to create more consumer demand. What happens if consumers are sated because they all are MMM subscribers? Then our economy can produce enough to sate everyone but we still have an unemployment problem because we are efficient enough to sate everyone's desires without having to employ everyone. This is where MMM needs to show people that we can solve the unemployment problem through a different means than increasing consumer demand....like shorter work hours, or earlier retirement.

In other words under the present system, unemployment is seen as evidence that we need to consume more. I'm saying, if people hypothetically became concious consumers, unemployment would be a market signal that we need to work less. With concious consumption (even at relatively high living standards) when aggregate supply gets too high compared to aggregate demand, we don't say to people...you need to work harder to make more money so you can consume more. Instead we pat them on the back and say "great job! Through your ingenuity and hard work you have created so much more than people can consume that you can relax and cut your works hours back. In an MMM concious consumption world then there is still a driving mechanism for improving and bettering things but it isnt so that we can consume more, it is so we can work less.

Think about inventions like the windmill for grinding bread flour. Is the only incentive to create this device the greedy desire to create more flour so you can make more money? Or could humans conceivably invent such an item so that they didn't have to hand grind the wheat into flour and through such a machine could enjoy the same standard of living with less work?

I'm trying to take a different perspective on this unemployment problem from an MMM perspective and ask "what if?"

[doodle]

Another way of framing this question is by saying: our society over the last 150 years has been on a growth trend that the world has never seen before in terms of population growth and economic growth. How do we transition to a more steady state system under the present system architecture without creating a lot of issues that might negatively affect how far we have come as a society?

[doodle]

Here is an interesting thought, maybe it is money itself that brings out blind consumptive desires in humans because it creates a disconnect between work and consumption. I don't have time to develop that one further right now....just a thought though.

[brick-house]

doodle wrote: 

Here is an interesting thought, maybe it is money itself that brings out blind consumptive desires in humans because it creates a disconnect between work and consumption. I don't have time to develop that one further right now....just a thought though.

Put down the sunglasses...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inZUDMGJsKo

[melveyr]

doodle wrote: 

Here is an interesting thought, maybe it is money itself that brings out blind consumptive desires in humans because it creates a disconnect between work and consumption. I don't have time to develop that one further right now....just a thought though.

Put down the sunglasses...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inZUDMGJsKo

Oh god. The fight scene in that movie is so hard to watch.

[Gumby]

Unfortunately I keep getting pulled by Gumby and others into the "WHY" they wouldnt want to consume more and more.

More and more??

If you've been reading a lot of doomer literature — and it sounds like you are — they will convince you that we are consuming exponentially. But, that's not true...

The reason exponential growth is a topic in doomer circles, is because exponential growth of almost any important quantity will lead to disaster before very long. For example, exponential growth of population, by 4% per year, would lead to 6.5 million times as many people in the world in 400 years, necessitating a massive die-off. And exponential growth of energy usage, by a few percent per year, would lead to the oceans boiling in only a few centuries. In most cases, sustained exponential growth leads to die-off or collapse before very long. Just look at colonies of bacteria or yeast, which (as doomers frequently point out) grow exponentially until they suffocate in their own waste or exhaust their food supply.

There is only one big problem, with all this talk of exponential growth and then collapse. The problem is: no important quantities are growing exponentially.

Take energy consumption as an example. Energy consumption is not growing exponentially. In fact, energy consumption per capita isn't growing at all, not even linearly, and hasn't grown much for decades. This point should be obvious to anyone over age 40, by just looking around and then remembering how things used to be. Do you use exponentially more electricity than in 1970? Do you set your thermostat 3% higher every year? Do you use exponentially more gasoline than in 1970? In fact, you probably use less gasoline, if your car in 1970 was anything like my parents' cars, which got about 10 mpg.

In fact, energy usage per capita has been essentially flat for the last 5 years or so, and was growing only very slowly in the 2 decades before that, and not at an exponential rate.

Well, even if energy usage per capita isn't growing exponentially, isn't the world population growing exponentially? Don't we face exponentially more people, and so exponentially more resource usage even if resource usage per capita remains the same?

No, the population of the world is not growing exponentially. In fact, the population is growing, but at a declining rate. Already, the rate of population growth has reached 0% in many industrialized countries, and is declining rapidly in developing countries. Furthermore, there is every reason to believe that the rate of population growth in developing countries will also reach 0%, since they're basically following the same pattern which industrialized countries have laid down. As a result, most professional demographers believe that world population will level off at between 10 and 12 billion people.

Well, isn't the economy growing exponentially? We see figures like "3% growth this year" which seems to imply it's growing exponentially, right? And, since we need energy for economic growth, doesn't that mean that the rate of energy usage is also growing at 3%?

First, economic growth isn't the same thing as growth in energy consumption. (This mistake is very common). The term "economic growth" refers to growth in production of things you can buy. If someone invents a new drug, he has caused the economy to grow, even if manufacturing that drug takes less energy than manufacturing the older equivalent.

Second, the economy is not growing exponentially. The rate of economic growth is delining everywhere. As economies mature, their rates of growth decline. This has already happened in all first-world countries, which do not enjoy anyhwere near the rates of growth of (say) China or India.

Thus, essentially no important physical quantity is growing exponentially. Population is not growing exponentially. Energy usage is not growing exponentially. Industrial output is not growing exponentially. The economy is not growing exponentially. Food production is not growing exponentially.

Since these quantities are not growing exponentially, it would be a basic mathematical error to use exponential functions to model them.

Both population and energy usage will grow and then level off before very long. There is ample historical precedent for this.

Source: http://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com/201 ... rowth.html

So, what exactly is the problem, doodle? This idea that people are consuming "more and more" is unfounded. If it were true, our houses would explode in a matter of weeks.

[doodle]

Gumby,

Here are your comments from GMO Monsanto thread. I think it is pretty hilarious because you are using the exact same line of reasoning in that thread that you are bashing me for over here. 

Stone, the quote from the Gates Foundation basically just said, 'GM really looks promising one day, and just look at what we've done with conventional breeding!'

It's almost laughable...

The wonderful story you posted about GMOs, helping farmers battle Cassava, was simply done through "conventional breeding"!!!

The rest of the statement is just a lot of hope for the future of the technology.

I'm still left wondering why GMOs are needed when even the Gates Foundation can't come up with a single example that "conventional breeding" hasn't been able to solve.

I think it's fine to research these crops in a lab funded by the Gates Foundation to solve the world's problems. But, it's quite another thing for a Fortune 500 company to push untested crops into the food supply so quickly that they can barely be deemed safe by third parties. In the US, the crops are only really tested by the companies that make them.

So, understand that GMOs are only about ONE thing right now... M-O-N-E-Y

That's the only reason farmers use GMO crops right now. They aren't doing it to save the world. They aren't doing it to make their food taste better or be more nutritious. They are using GMOs simply because of MONEY.

When your food supply is based on purely capitalistic motives, you don't get a better product. You just get a lot of marketing and packaging to convince people to consume a sub-par product — something you seem to prefer. That's how the world works. So, feel free to buy into the GMO marketing. In the meantime, I'll choose to support farmers who are more interested in producing high quality food with sustainable farming techniques that have a proven safety record of, oh, about 10,000 years.

Slotine,

Wow! I'm gonna have to read your post a couple times through before I comment. 

[Gumby]

Gumby,

Here are your comments from GMO Monsanto thread. I think it is pretty hilarious because you are using the exact same line of reasoning in that thread that you are bashing me for over here. 

Nope. Try again. I was supporting a specific proposition/solution (i.e. GMO labeling). I've been bashing you because all you've done is whine about exponential consumption — without offering any viable solutions — and I've just shown you that there is no exponential consumption. It's a myth.

[doodle]

So, understand that GMOs are only about ONE thing right now... M-O-N-E-Y

That's the only reason farmers use GMO crops right now. They aren't doing it to save the world. They aren't doing it to make their food taste better or be more nutritious. They are using GMOs simply because of MONEY.

When your food supply is based on purely capitalistic motives, you don't get a better product. You just get a lot of marketing and packaging to convince people to consume a sub-par product — something you seem to prefer. That's how the world works. So, feel free to buy into the GMO marketing. In the meantime, I'll choose to support farmers who are more interested in producing high quality food with sustainable farming techniques that have a proven safety record of, oh, about 10,000 years.

Gumby, read the bolded text. I couldn't have written that better myself.

I see us as the same....were just concerned about different manifestations of the same insanely fast process of development that the world is undertaking. It's okay brother. What is presently happening should scare the pants off anyone who is willing to stop and ponder for a moment. The world is rushing headlong at top speed into a dark tunnel. Maybe there is light on the other side, maybe there is another train coming our way.....if it turns out to be the latter, the collision will be spectacular!

[Gumby]

Nope. I was supporting Prop 37 — a specific solution to a specific problem (GMOs). You, on the other hand, are imagining a problem that doesn't even exist.  Let me show you.

You said...

The point is that exponential growth in material consumption by definition not sustainable...barring some amazing technological innovation.

Guess what doodle? THERE IS NO EXPONENTIAL GROWTH IN MATERIAL CONSUMPTION!!! You made it up!

I don't even know what you are arguing anymore since you can't even show any evidence of exponential growth in material consumption.

[doodle]

Gumby,

We are the same...whether you like it or not. Your denial of that doesn't change the facts. 

First off, growth doesn't have to be exponential to be problematic. 2 Billion consumers in China and India and another 2 Billion in Africa and South America all with aspirations to live like you and I do is plenty problematic for the Earth's ecosystem.

Just off the top of my head though, if human population growth has been exponential over the last century or so, and if per capita consumption were to stay the same over the same time period (which it hasn't). Wouldn't consumption also be exponential as well? I know that technology makes certain things more efficient and smaller, but a fork is a fork, a bed is a bed etc. etc.

By the way, I recognize that population growth is leveling off. But consumption in the rest of the world is ramping up at the same time.