Hacker News Reader

Comment by philbarr | Hacker News Reader

When we decide that we don't want perpetual growth. So - not any time soon.

We'll see about that. There's a growing mass of quiet people who slowly started to keep their things longer, try to repair (either themselves or by someone) them again. There are movements around it - see Repair Café and Restart Party. But indeed, it could do with some push from the loud ones.

When worldwide we decide not to have more than 2 children per couple or replace our pets then we'll see the search for growth slow down.

Whilst the world population keeps growing and we keep moving forwards towards hire world average incomes we'll still be looking for growth.

Agent Smith's monologue from The Matrix comes to mind (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp2adrUaiyI)

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I'm afraid that shifts towards sustainability in developed parts of the world can only lead to less growth _in those parts of the world_. There will always be a buyer in a less developed country that will keep a less sustainable economy going. And the less-developed world is growing.

Efforts towards sustainability are neccessary for reasons too obvious to mention, but ongoing growth does seems inevitable.

Why so serious? These visions can be had with more fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHMDrhBREXU

We're doing our part here in Eastern Europe (the fewer children thing, I mean) and everyone speaks about it like the next apocalypse. This is such an article from yesterday's Financial Times [1]

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/c5d3e0ae-36eb-11ea-ac3c-f68c10993... (in here http://archive.ph/https://www.ft.com/content/c5d3e0ae-36eb-1... for those who don't have access)

Unfortunately in developing nations like India, a reverse trend has just begun growing exponentially[1] as the youth becomes victim to consumerism.

The older generation would use day to day items (pots, pans, glasses, radios, TV sets, vehicles, even clothes) for what would feel like an eternity, repair till they wanted a well deserved upgrade and even then would either sell or donate the same.

Now I hear young people boast about how they upgrade their iPhones every year (or their cars every 3 years) and don't even sell the previous one because there's no point in getting $300 for it :(

While not everyone can afford to do that, but it does make it aspirational (in the minds of those vulnerable to herd mentality) to be a wasteful consumer h*e, smh.

[1] This mass cultural and spending to saving ratio shift is in the best interest of the government, who wants our economy to grow—at any cost.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com