Skepsis #47: Can we grow forever?
Is growth an imperative, should you not have kids because of climate change, and is rationality a myth? Also, why you should worry less about what other people think.
What does the economy look like in a million years?
In a recent episode of the EconTalk podcast, astrophysicist Sandra Faber joins host Russ Roberts in a wide-ranging discussion on the (potential) limits of economic growth in a finite world, and what the laws of physics can tell us about economics.
Not just an intellectually stimulating discussion but also a great example of people with quite different opinions having a thoughtful conversation, leading with curiosity and honesty while still challenging each other’s positions clearly.
What happens when we run out of key raw materials that we have built our modern world on (e.g. fossil fuels or copper)? Will we find new alternatives? Is there some alternate economic system that will lead us into a more sustainable society?
As I've recently discussed at length, I've come to believe that continued economic and technological growth is not just necessary, but probably the best way we have to deal with a lot of our biggest problems, including climate change. So the question of whether or not we can just keep on growing "forever" is as pertinent as it is perturbing.
No one cares
This is the sort of advice we all know and understand, but are almost never able to internalize.
"The ironic thing about feeling bad about ourselves because of what people might think of us is that others actually have much fewer opinions about us—positive or negative—than we imagine. Studies show that we consistently overestimate how much people think about us and our failings, leading us to undue inhibition and worse quality of life. Perhaps your followers or neighbors would have a lower opinion of you if they were thinking about you—but they probably aren’t. Next time you feel self-conscious, notice that you are thinking about yourself. You can safely assume that everyone around you is doing more or less the same."
Please don't give up on having kids because of climate change
As fundamental as the drive to procreate is, it's not uncommon for some people to proclaim (usually with a hint of smugness) that they don't want to have children because it is unethical. Either because this is a burden on the world or because there is so much suffering that it's cruel to introduce new people into our world - or both.
When it comes to the first case, the argument is basically that a growing population is a burden on the climate, so we shouldn't add more people to the world if we can. But as Scott Alexander argues in this post, the argument doesn't hold up in practice. The kinds of people who are seriously considered not having kids (because of the climate) are too few and largely live in developed nations where populations are already stagnating or declining.
"How many people are you expecting to not have children because of global warming? 1%? 2%? 1-2% of people changing their individual decisions will do basically nothing. What we actually need is concerted government action."
In addition, given these people's political proclivities, should they have no or fewer children, there will be less people in the future that can vote and work to effect governments' climate change policies. While the people that don't care about climate change are the ones having more children, and thus will end up having a larger effect on future policies, potentially making the climate crisis even worse.
Instead Scott urges us to have kids but compensate in other ways.
"A less destructive way of assuaging your guilt over having children would be to donate some money to climate charities or carbon offsets in your kid’s name. Nobody who really wants a kid should avoid having one because of climate-related concerns."
Perhaps paradoxically, I think we might want to push for continued yet sustainable population growth for as long as possible or risk societal collapse. Imagine all the yet-to-be-born Einsteins of the world who are quite literally one in a hundred million or fewer in between. We need all the human brainpower (and AI) we can get if we are to survive the next few centuries as a species.
The social theory of reasoning
Michael from VSauce (probably one of the best YouTube channels that exist!) explains the social theory for why humans have rationality.
The idea is that rationality does not exist in order for us to infer conclusions based on a set of facts in a "rational manner", but rather that we make conclusions and then make up reasons for why we've come to that conclusion. Reasoning, then, is a post-hoc rationalization for the most part, rather than logical deliberation based on a set of facts. The nice thing about this hypothesis is that our long list of biases and largely irrational behaviors start to make perfect sense. We have not evolved to be effective reasoners as individual beings, but to reason effectively as a group. As a group, we cancel out each other’s self-serving, confirmatory biases, our motivated reasoning, or selfish impulses. As a group, we can call out each other’s bullshit and we force ourselves to provide good reasons for our behaviors and our conclusions.
I've written previously about what true rationality means, and I don't think this theory undermines the idea of what it means to be truly rational. Striving to be rational and holding people (and groups) to a higher standard of reasoning is what we should do while understanding why people seem to behave or think irrationality, which is important in order to make us behave rationally as a society.
Per aspera, ad astra.
/Phil