Hi Foxy,

Welcome back ! I suspect that population growth is slowing and, perhaps not in our lifetimes, will stabilise and start to decline. Not good news for half-wits like Misop or CM, certainly, but that's how it seems it will be:

http://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

What is 'blame' ? Attribution of fault, I suppose. The first step in the road to working out how to overcome a problem. Of course, the Misop and Trumpf approach is to think that, once we can find someone or something to blame, then that's it, problem solved. No, more like the first of fifteen rounds.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

I certainly hope that you're right. That our population
shall stabilise and keep increasing. Hopefully solutions
will be found to help solve our problems, especially those
of resource depletion. We do not need to change our life
styles - and not keep consuming and demanding more and more.

cont'd ...

Ooos - I left out the word - "And NOT keep increasing".
Excuse my error.

Ooops - again.

We do NEED to change our life-styles.

(So there's where the "not" went to).

Please excuse.

To Foxy- Mixing the words up happens to us all. Just a reminder you've used 3 of the 4 posts allowed per article per day. I need to pace myself more than in the General Threads.

Thanks Foxy for your feedback.

I think we need much more than just suspicions that 'population growth is slowing'- if population growth is slowing it means the population is still growing at a reduced rate- weasel words to justify more growth- we need to see and confirm an actual reduction in population to reduce suffering and resource scarcity. To me it seems much easier to increase population if we reduce the population too much than to decrease it- there are many complicit in a growth mindset that need to be firmly managed. In the contemporary context the risks of growth are usually higher than the risks of not growing.

There is a business growth paradox- perhaps strictly speaking not all businesses have to grow continuously- so long as their income is greater than their costs they can survive.

Businesses can grow by acquisition, by sales, etc- there is "the law of diminishing marginal returns".

At some stage perhaps the activities of businesses tend to "return to the water" and disappear into the community- though government red tape seems to discount this effect considering them "ongoing concerns". In ancient and old times businesses were run out of homes in a more organic flexible way as part of life- perhaps modern business is a form of protectionism- with government regulation supporting it- often for ostensively different reasons such as quality and safety- that is not to say that protectionism isn't valid in many cases.

The manor houses of Britain in the 1700's seem to be centres of business supporting a labour force of dependent peasants- this then evolved into the factories of industrialism.

It seems that stability is important to avoid suffering and to maximize productivity- but many consider social mobility to be important too- and this can create instability.

Maybe there is a link between these things and the desperate impetus for growth.

Dear Canem Malum,

Hopefully we are more advanced today in understanding
which economic levers can move us in the right direction.
To a very significant extent, the separate paths of
ecology and economics is possibly the cause of our problem.
We must not let it be a fatal flaw.