(Replying to PARENT post)

The entirety of human history since prehistoric times to the present gives evidence contrary to your claim. Human societies have experienced exponential growth since forever, with only occasional brief temporary setbacks. Even the Black Death is a blip on the exponential curve of economic progress.
👤adastra22🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

> The entirety of human history since prehistoric times

Extrapolating from the past doesn't always work. There are real limits.

Take the rate of energy consumption of human civilization for example, which is currently about 17 terawatt[1]. Thermodynamics tells us that after doing useful work, practically all of that energy ends up as waste heat. (A small fraction is stored, e.g. aluminium stores some energy. I assume this is negligible.)

The power received by the Earth from the sun is about 170,000 terawatt[2], a factor 10,000 more. So plenty of room for growth, right?

But now take a modest 2% yearly growth. This is a factor 1.02 each year. So 500 years of 2% growth would be a factor 1.02^500 = about 20,000.

Maybe we could actually do that with fusion power. But then we'd have two suns(!) worth of extra waste heat to deal with. This cannot work. Current concerns about global warming pale in comparison. Even if we found a way to radiate all that heat into space as infrared, e.g. by concentrating the heat into country sized radiator panels, 35 years of 2% growth would double the waste heat again.

A similar calculation can be done for the growth of anything physical. And even if you continue growth off Earth, you'll soon hit the limits of the solar system. Even the volume of an expanding sphere at light speed cannot keep up with an exponential function.

[1] https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/current_world_energy_...

[2] https://news.mit.edu/2011/energy-scale-part3-1026

👤wcoenen🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

In terms of population? Yes In terms of economic productivity per capita? No, not if you look at periods prior to the industrial revolution[1]

[1] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

👤krigath🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

That's not correct. At a scale of a century, economic growth has been a zero sum game https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth. Only recent abundance in cheap energy sources has allowed a HUGE economic boost.
👤pl-94🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Past performance is not a predictor of future results. If we continue to grow GDP (~energy consumption) at about 1%/y, we’ll boil oceans in 400 years. That’s what exponential growth means.
👤baq🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Exponential growth, indeed economic growth at all, started with the industrial revolution. For instance, many places in Eurasia had the same GDP in 500 that they had in 1400.
👤andrepd🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

>Human societies have experienced exponential growth since forever, with only occasional brief temporary setbacks.

If that were true why haven't we conquered the galaxy yet? It would only take 3% growth per year for 2000 years (numbers from memory). Oh right, it didn't happen because exponential growth is a fairy tale. It's always been logistic growth with breakthroughs increasing the upper bound.

👤imtringued🕑3y🔼0🗨️0