Using prices from a constant reference year, i.e. the way GDP used to be calculated, achieves loop-invariance. We kicked around some other ideas after figuring this out, but didn’t figure out any which seemed practical, and also didn’t disprove the possibility.
Prices measure the extent to which there is need for substituting the resources into other places of production, but in order for that to make sense, you need to have places of production in the first place.
So you could measure the different types of production (e.g. food, children, …), both in terms of quantity and in terms of quality, and use that as your metrics of societal growth.
Using prices from a constant reference year, i.e. the way GDP used to be calculated, achieves loop-invariance. We kicked around some other ideas after figuring this out, but didn’t figure out any which seemed practical, and also didn’t disprove the possibility.
Prices measure the extent to which there is need for substituting the resources into other places of production, but in order for that to make sense, you need to have places of production in the first place.
So you could measure the different types of production (e.g. food, children, …), both in terms of quantity and in terms of quality, and use that as your metrics of societal growth.