I appreciated the longer post, though I'm sure it required extra work and curation!
I also recently read The Future Is Degrowth because, after much online back-and-forth, I wanted an experience with a fleshed-out primary source. While I did find it somewhat lacking in places and while I am not a "degrowther," I am much more sympathetic to it than you. I think much of the strife comes from disputes surrounding the more radical (and ridiculous) prescriptive claims, rather than reasoned discussions around descriptive claims. Modern Monetary Theory in economics suffered from this, for another recent example.
Anyways, this is a long-winded way of saying that a proper steelman of degrowth is now on the docket for my newsletter (though it'll be several months as the next 4-5 months are scheduled). Perhaps I'll be able to make you mildly agree to a paragraph or two.
ooh yes please, i definitely look forward to reading your post. i'm actually somewhat sympathetic to a lot of the ideas & goals in degrowth environmentalism, setting aside the practical details of how to implement it. the parts i like are mostly around building a circular economy & highly efficient, low-pollution industrial ecologies. small-scale localism & the [negative] social/psychological effects of large-scale tech systems speak to me as well. but i think my ultimate conclusion about degrowth is that whatever its potential merits, the highest goal for humanity overall is to ensure its long-run survival, which requires sustainably settling in space. and this requires lots of advanced technology, growth & large-scale cooperation & stability. i strangely agree that the degrowth utopia vision is in some sense ideal, within the scope of our existing earthbound population. but practically speaking there is just a more important, bigger-picture thing to do (colonize space, survive into the longrun) that requires a different path of total resource optimization. so to me, degrowth in the longrun is a suicidal ideology. but that's tragic and i feel very sad about that!
I appreciated the longer post, though I'm sure it required extra work and curation!
I also recently read The Future Is Degrowth because, after much online back-and-forth, I wanted an experience with a fleshed-out primary source. While I did find it somewhat lacking in places and while I am not a "degrowther," I am much more sympathetic to it than you. I think much of the strife comes from disputes surrounding the more radical (and ridiculous) prescriptive claims, rather than reasoned discussions around descriptive claims. Modern Monetary Theory in economics suffered from this, for another recent example.
Anyways, this is a long-winded way of saying that a proper steelman of degrowth is now on the docket for my newsletter (though it'll be several months as the next 4-5 months are scheduled). Perhaps I'll be able to make you mildly agree to a paragraph or two.
ooh yes please, i definitely look forward to reading your post. i'm actually somewhat sympathetic to a lot of the ideas & goals in degrowth environmentalism, setting aside the practical details of how to implement it. the parts i like are mostly around building a circular economy & highly efficient, low-pollution industrial ecologies. small-scale localism & the [negative] social/psychological effects of large-scale tech systems speak to me as well. but i think my ultimate conclusion about degrowth is that whatever its potential merits, the highest goal for humanity overall is to ensure its long-run survival, which requires sustainably settling in space. and this requires lots of advanced technology, growth & large-scale cooperation & stability. i strangely agree that the degrowth utopia vision is in some sense ideal, within the scope of our existing earthbound population. but practically speaking there is just a more important, bigger-picture thing to do (colonize space, survive into the longrun) that requires a different path of total resource optimization. so to me, degrowth in the longrun is a suicidal ideology. but that's tragic and i feel very sad about that!