The paper doesnāt explicitly mention economic growth, but it does discuss technological progress, and at points seems to argue or insinuate against it.
āFor others who value virtue, freedom, or equality, it is unclear why a long-term future without industrialisation is abhorrent: it all depends on oneās notion of potential.ā Personally, I consider a long-term future with a 48.6% child and infant mortality rate abhorrent and opposed to human potential, but the authors donāt seem bothered by this. But they have little enough space to explain how their implied society would handle the issue, and I will not critique it excessively.
There is also a repeated implication that halting technological progress is, at a minimum, possible and possibly desirable. āSince halting the technological juggernaut is considered impossible, an approach of differential technological development is advocatedā āThe TUA rarely examines the drivers of risk generation. Instead, key texts contend that regulating or stopping technological progress is either deeply difficult, undesirable, or outright impossibleā āregressing, relinquishing, or stopping the development of many technologies is often disregarded as a feasible optionā implies to me that one of those three options is a feasible option, or is at least worth investigating.
While they donāt explicitly advocate degrowth, I think it is reasonable to read them as doing such, as John does.
āFor others who value virtue, freedom, or equality, it is unclear why a long-term future without industrialisation is abhorrent: it all depends on oneās notion of potential.ā
Point taken. Thank you for pointing this out.
āThe TUA rarely examines the drivers of risk generation. Instead, key texts contend that regulating or stopping technological progress is either deeply difficult, undesirable, or outright impossibleā ā³regressing, relinquishing, or stopping the development of many technologies is often disregarded as a feasible optionā implies to me that one of those three options is a feasible option, or is at least worth investigating.
I think this is more about stopping the development of specific technologiesāfor example, they suggest that stopping AGI from being developed is an option. Stopping the development of certain technologies isnāt necessarily related to degrowthāfor example, many jurisdictions now ban government use of facial recognition technology, and there have been calls to abolish its use, but these are motivated by civil liberties concerns.
I think this conflates the criticism of the idea of unitary and unstoppable technological progress with opposition to any and all technological progress.
Suggesting that a future without industrialization is morally tolerable does not imply opposition to āany and allā technological progress, but the amount of space left is very small. I donāt think theyāre taking an opinion on the value of better fishhooks.
The paper doesnāt explicitly mention economic growth, but it does discuss technological progress, and at points seems to argue or insinuate against it.
āFor others who value virtue, freedom, or equality, it is unclear why a long-term future without industrialisation is abhorrent: it all depends on oneās notion of potential.ā Personally, I consider a long-term future with a 48.6% child and infant mortality rate abhorrent and opposed to human potential, but the authors donāt seem bothered by this. But they have little enough space to explain how their implied society would handle the issue, and I will not critique it excessively.
There is also a repeated implication that halting technological progress is, at a minimum, possible and possibly desirable.
āSince halting the technological juggernaut is considered impossible, an approach of differential technological development is advocatedā
āThe TUA rarely examines the drivers of risk generation. Instead, key texts contend that regulating or stopping technological progress is either deeply difficult, undesirable, or outright impossibleā
āregressing, relinquishing, or stopping the development of many technologies is often disregarded as a feasible optionā implies to me that one of those three options is a feasible option, or is at least worth investigating.
While they donāt explicitly advocate degrowth, I think it is reasonable to read them as doing such, as John does.
Point taken. Thank you for pointing this out.
I think this is more about stopping the development of specific technologiesāfor example, they suggest that stopping AGI from being developed is an option. Stopping the development of certain technologies isnāt necessarily related to degrowthāfor example, many jurisdictions now ban government use of facial recognition technology, and there have been calls to abolish its use, but these are motivated by civil liberties concerns.
I think this conflates the criticism of the idea of unitary and unstoppable technological progress with opposition to any and all technological progress.
Suggesting that a future without industrialization is morally tolerable does not imply opposition to āany and allā technological progress, but the amount of space left is very small. I donāt think theyāre taking an opinion on the value of better fishhooks.
It is morally tenable under some moral codes but not others. Thatās the point.