Most economic growth comes from innovation, not the accumulation of capital or labor. And innovation rates are mostly due to two competing factors. One the one hand, we pick the low hanging fruit of the easiest highest-payoff innovations to try first. On the other hand, we can more easily pursue innovation ideas when our world is richer, has better tech, and knows more.
If we continue on the current trajectory there’ll begin a long period of economic decline/stagnation within two generations. Am I understanding the implications correctly?
If within 200 years entire economies develop with producers/consumers that are 100% virtual maybe the slump can be avoided.
Robin, are you familiar with the work of Dr John Parmentola?
I found this talk he presented in 2019 at a MIT Physics Colloquium ("The Great Mystery of Economic Growth") to be quite fascinating and novel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx-55BhuFks
From what I understand, the viewpoints expressed therein are very much congruent with your thoughts in this post, especially the opening statement ("Most economic growth comes from innovation, not the accumulation of capital or labor.")
"The world’s population is expected to increase by nearly 2 billion persons in the next 30 years, from the current 8 billion to 9.7 billion in 2050 and could peak at nearly 10.4 billion in the mid-2080s."
*Under*population is not a problem coming soon, unless some major catastrophe happens (global thermonuclear war, maybe).
Also, even if the population does eventually shrink, that doesn't mean the *economy* is less than it is today. Productivity per capita is increasing because of technology.
Greed is unlimited, which bodes well for economies of scale. If the world economy had just 100 people, each of them a ruler of a techno-empire of robots, some of those 100 people would still want to do megalomaniacal things with the available resources (moonbases, Matryoshka brains, etc), which would still create demand for large-scale production.
I'm not sure I understood the model: are you assuming that twice as many people figure out twice as many innovations in same period of time?
My intuition is that it's more like a coupons collecting problem: most ideas are found multiple times by multiple people, but only the first inventor counts.
What is the right shape of InventionsPerYear(Population) curve?
Shrinking Economies Don’t Innovate
I've just added to the post.
If we continue on the current trajectory there’ll begin a long period of economic decline/stagnation within two generations. Am I understanding the implications correctly?
If within 200 years entire economies develop with producers/consumers that are 100% virtual maybe the slump can be avoided.
Robin, are you familiar with the work of Dr John Parmentola?
I found this talk he presented in 2019 at a MIT Physics Colloquium ("The Great Mystery of Economic Growth") to be quite fascinating and novel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx-55BhuFks
From what I understand, the viewpoints expressed therein are very much congruent with your thoughts in this post, especially the opening statement ("Most economic growth comes from innovation, not the accumulation of capital or labor.")
https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population
"The world’s population is expected to increase by nearly 2 billion persons in the next 30 years, from the current 8 billion to 9.7 billion in 2050 and could peak at nearly 10.4 billion in the mid-2080s."
*Under*population is not a problem coming soon, unless some major catastrophe happens (global thermonuclear war, maybe).
Also, even if the population does eventually shrink, that doesn't mean the *economy* is less than it is today. Productivity per capita is increasing because of technology.
Greed is unlimited, which bodes well for economies of scale. If the world economy had just 100 people, each of them a ruler of a techno-empire of robots, some of those 100 people would still want to do megalomaniacal things with the available resources (moonbases, Matryoshka brains, etc), which would still create demand for large-scale production.
I'm not sure I understood the model: are you assuming that twice as many people figure out twice as many innovations in same period of time?
My intuition is that it's more like a coupons collecting problem: most ideas are found multiple times by multiple people, but only the first inventor counts.
What is the right shape of InventionsPerYear(Population) curve?