• bitflag@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    Economic growth is an accounting measure, and so it can definitely be limitless.

      • bitflag@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        No, that’s literally the definition of growth (the variation of GDP from one year to the next, the GDP itself is defined as the sum of gross value added). We can make growth out of thin air if we want, it’s a purely accounting metric.

        I sell you a pebble for a $1000 and you sell it back to me and we created $2000 of growth without anything physically happening.

        • STUPIDVIPGUY@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          You missed the point. Everything you are describing is hypothetical. Cash and dollars are physical, but “value” and “growth” that you have described are hypothetical.

          • bitflag@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            I’m not sure what you mean by “hypothetical”, these aren’t hypothesis, these are their definition. And their definition means they are limitless, just as the definition of “beauty” or “numbers” make them limitless. They aren’t bound by the physical world.

            (also dollars are equally abstract, currencies exists as human convention, having $1 billion more in your bank account is just a few bits flipped in a database)

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      If you have infinite supply of something, it ceases to be a scarce resource with any intrinsic value. Literally nothing in the universe is infinite.

      • bitflag@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        At the scale of mankind, the universe is effectively infinite. The sun has another billion year to go and outputs so much energy it’s virtually infinite to us.