🚀 go-pugleaf

   Yep, JConlan wrote on 13 May 95  02:50:37 
    about:   Re: "Wise Disguise" Property rights? eco:

C> Doug Bashford writes:
 B>   I personally put all orthodox economic
 B> systems closer to religion than science, as do a growing number
 B> of science-based economists.  Why?  All systems from Communism to
 B> Capitalism are based in physically impossible assumptions of 
 B> perpetual economic growth.  Growthmania.  The earth is finite.

C> Doug, ecomomic growth is not space-dependant or matter-dependant.  If
C> you don't believe this consider the case of data processing capability.
C> If someone in 1960 had taken your position regarding the  resources
C> that would be required to build a computer with the processing and data
C> storage capability of a typical  
C> Pentium PC they would have estimated that this computer would fill a
C> large room.

  It seems I have responded to this before.  In a nutshell, economic
  growth is utterly dependent on natural resources.  You have merely 
  pointed out that that that growth is not linear.  Because fuel is
  only a small part of a car does not change its dependence.

C> Another example - when I was a kid my friends and I all had cars with
C> over a ton of steel in them, V8 engines and gas mileage of 10 mpg. 

  Again, cars will never be made out of nothing as your argument
  seems to imply.

C> Living space - Most people live in space-inefficient suburbs because

  That is hardly an issue.

C> Telecommuting - I telecommute, fax and e-mail at least half of the
C> information that I transmit in the course of serving my clients.  10
C> years ago much of this communication would have required face to face
C> meetings and energy-intensive travel.     

C> Infinite economic growth is possible because humans are not limited by
C> the space/matter paradigm that you espouse.  Get an imagination!
 
   Get logical, get reality!  You have nothing but suggest that
   efficiency will do away with consumption.  Yet this is impossible!

 B>    Only those unfamiliar with science make claims that it is overly
 B>  prejudiced.  It does have them, nothing is perfect, but it is the 
 B> best system for truth-seeking humanity has yet devised.  Certainly
 B> arm-chair postulating is no match.

C> Science is a system of thought.  Scientists are people.  All people
C> carry prejudices.  Since scientists are people they must carry
C> prejudices.  Fortunately, scientific method, given enough time, is a
C> pretty effective predudice squasher.

   Yes.  Scientific method is designed to be operated by bigoted,
   prejudiced oafs and STILL yield the truth.  By design.
   --Doug


... Modern economics is old theory founded on newly bankrupt assumptions.