Really David? I go to all the trouble of reading and responding, and you don't address any of my response? :D
Hopefully you got something out of it at least.
OK, here goes. I hope these quoted levels work out, and yes, I certainly got much more than just something out of it
First he talks about monetary inflation:
Now, we worked a lot of examples. I said to the students, “Let’s talk about inflation, let’s talk about 7% per year.” It wasn't this high when we did this, it's been higher since then, fortunately it's lower now. And I said to the students, as I can say to you, you have roughly sixty years life expectancy ahead of you. Let’s see what some common things will cost if we have 60 years of 7% annual inflation.
The students found that a 55-cent gallon of gasoline will cost $35.20; $2.50 for a movie will be $160; the $15 sack of groceries my mother used to buy for a dollar and a quarter, that will be $960; a $100 suit of clothes, $6,400; a $4000 automobile will cost a quarter of a million dollars; and a $45,000 home will cost nearly 3 million dollars.
And my response is ....so? Wages will have to rise, or no one could afford a loaf of bread. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that this is completely 100% meaningless. If a home cost 3MM, and wages were the same in that 60 years as they are now, very few people could have one. If rents rose accordingly, no one would be able to afford that either. SO is everyone gonna live on the streets and we have empty 3MM homes? Of course not. They only have value because that's what people are willing to pay for them. They're willing to pay it because they can. If values are going up that much, it's because people are paying that much. So to say "OH NO! Prices will be so high!" is ridiculous, because people will be able to afford them. Them being priced 3MM then is the exact same as them being priced 45k now. In fact, many items are going DOWN in price in real terms.
I agree that this section is a so what reaction. I think we all understand inflation here. I think though if you consider the general audience that may be less inclined to think about inflation he is using this section to do two things, 1)to build on the idea of exponential growth and how absurd numbers and doubling times can happen quite quickly; and 2) while reminding the audience the way inflation works. I think it is a given that salaries will have to increase with inflation under the normal course of action.
So this example is given and sounds scary, but really.. it's meaningless.
Agreed
Okay, so let's jump to his next idea, about energy:
Well, let’s translate that into the energy crisis. Here’s an ad from the year 1975. It asks the question “Could America run out of electricity?” America depends on electricity. Our need for electricity actually doubles every 10 or 12 years. That's an accurate reflection of a very long history of steady growth of the electric industry in this country, growth at a rate of around 7% per year, which gives you doubling every 10 years.
Now, with all that history of growth, they just expected the growth would go on, forever. Fortunately it stopped, not because anyone understood arithmetic, it stopped for other reasons.
I'm gonna pause right here to point out that the author glosses over that last sentence and just goes on with his purely hypothetical example. Because in reality, it didn't happen! The growth stopped, for other reasons! Why does he not think other exponential growth will slow or stop? Naturally it will, it has to. And in practice it actually HAS, as he admits. But then ignores, and does his fun hypothetical to make things sound scary.
You make an interesting point here where he does not elaborate on the reasons the energy growth stopped and when you acknowledge this it weakens the arguments into a a hypothetical as you describe.
Let's look at (what I feel is) his strongest example:
Yes this one is a good one...
Bacteria grow by doubling. One bacterium divides to become two, the two divide to become 4, the 4 become 8, 16 and so on. Suppose we had bacteria that doubled in number this way every minute. Suppose we put one of these bacteria into an empty bottle at 11:00 in the morning, and then observe that the bottle is full at 12:00 noon. There's our case of just ordinary steady growth: it has a doubling time of one minute, it’s in the finite environment of one bottle.
I want to ask you three questions. Number one: at what time was the bottle half full? Well, would you believe 11:59, one minute before 12:00? Because they double in number every minute.
And the second question: if you were an average bacterium in that bottle, at what time would you first realise you were running of space? Well, let’s just look at the last minutes in the bottle. At 12:00 noon, it’s full; one minute before, it’s half full; 2 minutes before, it’s a quarter full; then an 1?8th; then a 1?16th. Let me ask you, at 5 minutes before 12:00, when the bottle is only 3% full and is 97% open space just yearning for development, how many of you would realise there’s a problem?
I do enjoy this thought experiment. The main problem is that the compressed timescale is intended to confuse. Let's say instead we have a constant 0.5% growth, which translates to doubling roughly every 140 years. That means that 5 minutes before midnight is really 700 years. Small beans on a geological scale, and even in a human timespan not that long. But do I think it's long enough to do something about it? Absolutely. Think of the changes from 1312 to 2012.
Or if we use his number of population growth, that's 1.3%, doubling roughly every 54 years. So when we're only "3 minutes from midnight" (or 1/8 "full" - however you define full), that's 150 years. Do I think that's enough time to deal with problems? Yes, absolutely.
Again I hear you here. I see when you consider the timescale more rationally worsens the outlook. However, in the example of a 54 year doubling time, is 150 years enough to deal with major problems like re-jigging how politics work and powering industry by new means? All the while, while energy demand is increasing, and increasing moreso because of the demand for new low energy infrastructure to be produced (I think this is the energy trap arguement)? In my opinion, I do not know the answer, I don't believe anyone here does, any my anti MMM natural pessimistic side says no, don't rely on people smarter than thyself to fix the world...
Does this mean we should ignore problems (current and future) now? No way. Should we try to reduce consumption? Absolutely. Is there a crisis though? Should we be that worried about exponential growth? No, sorry.
I think the big thing that should change is mindset. Growth isn't the be all end all (nor is it a terrible threat). The idea that a natural balance/equilibrium can be achieved should be promoted as a good thing. One of the first things that needs to happen there is population, however. And how do you do that without doing some terrible things (birthing laws, wars, famine, disease, etc.)?
Indeed, a taboo subject in the western world, and, I don't see current goverments interest in discussing it...or any other difficult subject.
I was also a little annoyed at the end when he used generic quotes from brilliant people, as if they proved his point. The Asimov and MLK ones were relevant, but the Churchill "Sometimes we must do what is required" and Huxley and Sevareid and Galileo.. none of those were relevant, they were just generic "don't ignore facts" and such. Stop it.
In any case, I agree, perpetual growth is impossible. Does it worry me? No. Do I think we're anywhere close to "midnight"? Not at all. Do I think we can solve problems when we do get close? Absolutely.
If I missed something, feel free to explain why you think that talk was so important or enlightening or life changing. Or, like the title of the video, "The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See" -- hardly. Have you seen Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? ;)
I can't disagree here...
Overall, my interpretation of the lecture has been tempered by the comments here. Being a scientist and concerned about my FIRE, quality of life, family, and politics, what this video does however continue to build in me is an identification that consensus on how to address and take action on taboo and difficult global problems will be very difficult to come by.
While I see that this video/lecture could be considered scare tactics, sometimes I wonder if this is exactly what parts of the population needs in order to kick our asses into thinking more about our neighbor than ourselves all the time...of course, I see how this type of video needs to be immediately followed up with something along the line of:
"Well, that is how things could unfold if all these variables went this way. But, as we know things changes, our world isn't such a massive collision course, but lets be aware and start to plan the futures of our great grand kids now by making different decisions with the knowledge of the power of exponential growth....