It’s not clear that positive-sum innovation is linear (or even monotonically positive) with total population. There almost certainly exist levels at which marginal mouths to feed drive unpleasant and non-productive behaviors more than they do the growth-driving shared innovations.
Whether we’re in a downward-sloping portion of the curve, and whether it slopes up again in the next few generations, are both debatable. And they should be debated.
My sense is that on average, more population means more growth (see this study on the question). But certainly at some point probably you run out of ideas for how to make material more valuable and growth just becomes making more people with the same consumption per capita.
Whether we’re in a downward-sloping portion of the curve, and whether it slopes up again in the next few generations, are both debatable. And they should be debated.
I find this comment kind of irksome, because (a) neither I nor anybody else said that they weren’t proper subjects for debate and (b) you’ve exhorted debate on the topic but haven’t contributed anything other than the theoretical possibility that the effect could go the other way. So I see this as trying to advance some kind of point illegitimately. If you make another such comment that I find irksome in the same way, I’ll delete it, as per my commenting guidelines.
It’s not clear that positive-sum innovation is linear (or even monotonically positive) with total population. There almost certainly exist levels at which marginal mouths to feed drive unpleasant and non-productive behaviors more than they do the growth-driving shared innovations.
Whether we’re in a downward-sloping portion of the curve, and whether it slopes up again in the next few generations, are both debatable. And they should be debated.
My sense is that on average, more population means more growth (see this study on the question). But certainly at some point probably you run out of ideas for how to make material more valuable and growth just becomes making more people with the same consumption per capita.
I find this comment kind of irksome, because (a) neither I nor anybody else said that they weren’t proper subjects for debate and (b) you’ve exhorted debate on the topic but haven’t contributed anything other than the theoretical possibility that the effect could go the other way. So I see this as trying to advance some kind of point illegitimately. If you make another such comment that I find irksome in the same way, I’ll delete it, as per my commenting guidelines.