Dirk Philipsen on GDP

[@BurkeLCH]

5:00 was that what Brad Pitt was saying in Fight Club?

[@BagoGarde]

RyanBurke yeah , a the wording was a bit different , but idea the same. George carlin said something like that, it really a truth of our society.

[@EarthSayer]

Riane Eisler, a social scientist, attorney, and author makes a strong case for retiring the GDP in the context of a caring economy (video) and the short History of the GDP (video) by economist Alan AtKisson shouldn't be missed - he can't say enough bad things about it. There are others. And it helps to keep bringing it up. Dirk Philipsen's lecture needs to be circulated as widely as possible.

[@lesliewhite6832]

I guarantee that no UK politicians or economic commenters in the UK have seen this talk, or are aware of the negatives of GDP growth.

[@lesliewhite6832]

True, but you'll have to excuse me if I think that if the system is flawed, then the leaders should rectify that flaw, not! protect it.

[@ChrisPollitt]

Well stated.

[@3zan6bel9]

excellent

[@DungeonMetal]

We should really be using the Social Progress Index. I encourage everyone to watch the TED talk by Michael Green about it.

[@dannyholmes4025]

Also check out RSA's 'Changing Education Paradigms' by Ken Robinson

[@hksuperh]

Much of our modern world owes a debt to the Enlightenment. That was a period of radical change in the way humans viewed life and their interaction with the physical world. It's also when we named ourselves homo sapiens, the thinking man. For an individual, life's problems haven't changed too much: personal interactions, making a living, education and so on. But there is now many more of us around. In fact, a natural resource that might have supplied the Enlightenment's world population with 500 years of use would today give just 35 years supply. Not only does GDP fail to discriminate between good and harmful activity, it also assumes that nature is infinite. That might have been an OK assumption when the crunch was several generations away but hardly serves when it is going to happen within the lifetime of the people now on the planet. If we want to retain our moniker, it is high time we redesigned our incentive system to reward activities that nourish the future rather than those that destroy it.

[@PCMcGee1]

Who the F*ck disliked this?

[@bbb695]

aurora7207 I did! There are a lot of problems with GDP and it is without doubt a poor measure. But his criticism of economic growth, and his suggestion that it must come to a halt are utter nonsense.

[@paulmcgee4176]

bbb695 Good points to discuss, thanks for bringing them up. :)

[@bbb695]

z4k 14:54 " Surely you cannot disagree with his point about endless exponential growth..." well yes I can, because he, (and apparently you) don't seem to understand what is meant by 'growth'. In economics growth does not mean an increase in the size or amount, it means an increase in value. to give an example a TV from the 1960's was a massive clunky device that could only be moved by 2 strong men, where as a modern TV is much lighter and smaller but with a bigger screen size better picture and better sound. Now I don't know for sure, but I suspect the modern TV consumes fewer resources, but yet it has a much higher value. To say that we cannot continue to grow is to say that we will run out of ways to add value. "..., nor with the analogy of a person's calorific intake." I don't disagree that continuing to double a persons calorific intake endless would be stupid, but the analogy is broken, economic growth would be analogous to continually improving the quality balance and flavor of a patents diet, finding new ways to make eating fun or reducing the time required to prepare or consume the meal. GDP is a poor measure, counting things that are rebuilt without deducting the things that are destroyed, gives us stupid results like 'war is an economic stimulus' but there is no realistic limit to how much value we can produce.

[@dickhamilton3517]

+bbb695 the modern TV does consume fewer resources, but it does not have a higher value - the opposite, in fact, as demonstrated by the fact that we don't fix them when they break down (and no-one is employed in the commission of that interesting and fulfilling task, these days), and we throw away millions of them, still working, every year. I could not count the number of perfectly good computer monitors that were junked in favor of flatscreen monitors with *lower screen resolution* when those became available.

[@bbb695]

Dick Hamilton "the modern TV does consume fewer resources, but it does not have a higher value" so a better picture, better sound, larger screen size, smaller footprint and lower mass don't add value? "the opposite, in fact, as demonstrated by the fact that we don't fix them when they break down (and no-one is employed in the commission of that interesting and fulfilling task, these days)" this says nothing about the items value, the fact we don't fix them is a pure economic calculation, all it says is the price to repair (note price is not the same as value) is greater than the price to replace. "and we throw away millions of them, still working, every year." because they are now so cheap that we can afford to upgrade long before the life expectancy is up, which is another reason we don't bother repairing them. But why are we upgrading? could it be that the new sets offer us even more value? "I could not count the number of perfectly good computer monitors that were junked in favor of flatscreen monitors with lower screen resolution when those became available." Do you think that screen resolution is the only feature that can add value? do you not understand that people value different things, that to some people the sleek elegance of the flat screen, or the decreased footprint (letting us do things like the multi-monitor system i'm using now, a system that would be unworkable with CRT) added more value than was lost from the lower resolution? Don't confuse value with price; price is what it costs to get a thing, value is what we get out of having that thing.