Limits to Growth and Abundance

STOCKHOLM FUTURISTS MEETUP 23 April 2014

Adam Jorlen, FuturistEmerging Fellow, Association of Professional Futurists

Member, World Futures Studies Federation

@adamjorlen

Jim Dator’s 4 Generic Futures

As always, we begin our Meetups with four alternative futures in mind…

Jim Dator’s 4 Generic Futures• Continuation – the current historical trajectory continues, most usually conceivedof as ‘continued economic growth’;

• Collapse – a breakdown of the social order due to one or more of a number ofpossible causes, such as economic instability, environmental overload, resourcedepletion, moral degeneration, military conflict such as an external attack orinternal civil war, meteor/comet impact, etc;

• Disciplined Society – a society organized around some set of overarching values,whether ancient, traditional, ideological, natural, environmental, God-given, etc;

• Transformational Society – which sees the end of current forms of behaviour,beliefs, norms, or organization, and the main sub-variants are ‘emergence of new forms (rather than a return to older or traditional ones, as above), possibly even including intelligent life-forms. The two high-tech’ (technological) and ‘high-spirit’ (spiritual) transformation.

Source: Joseph Voros - Galactic-scale macro-engineering: Looking for signs of other intelligent species, as an exercise in hope for our own

Jim Dator’s 4 Generic Futures

TONIGHT! Generic Future #1 - Continuation

Trust the people in power and the systems in place.

THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE MARKET

(ADAM SMITH)

I struggled with the title of tonight’s Meetup…

Limits to Growth and Abundance?

Limits to Growth or Abundance?

I chose ‘Limits to Growth and Abundance’.

• It might have seemed more logical to use the title “Limits to growth or abundance”, as these two often are seen as polarities.

• We will begin to look at the two concepts and then relate it back to Dator’s four archetypes.

Concept 1: Abundance• Who has watched Peter Diamandis TED talk?

Abundance is our future!

• Onstage at TED2012, Peter Diamandis makes a case for optimism — that we'll invent, innovate and create ways to solve the challenges that loom over us.

• "I’m not saying we don’t have our set of problems; we surely do. But ultimately, we knock them down.”

From the Diamandis TED talk:

• In 2010, we had just short of two billion people online, connected.

• By 2020, that's going from two billion to five billion Internet users.

• Three billion new minds who have never been heard from before are connecting to the global conversation.

• What will these people want? What will they consume? What will they desire?

From the Diamandis TED talk:

• And rather than having economic shutdown, we're about to have the biggest economic injection ever.

• These people represent tens of trillions of dollars injected into the global economy.

• And they will get healthier by using the Tricorder, and they'll become better educated by using the Khan Academy, and by literally being able to use 3D printing and infinite computing [become] more productive than ever before.

What’s behind this belief in abundance?

Exponential Technology

• While previous disruptive technologies have tended to stabilize we are not seeing that with digital technology. Our digital technology infrastructure is unprecedented in human history. It is not stabilizing.

• The core technology components – computing, storage and bandwidth – are continuing to improve in price/performance at accelerating rates and the best scientists and technologists suggest that this exponential pace will not slow down in the foreseeable future.

John Hagel III, Deloitte Center for the Edge

Concept 2: Limits to Growth Who has watched Paul Gilding’s TED talk?

From Gilding’s TED talk…

• The Earth is full. It's full of us, it's full of our stuff, full of our waste, full of our demands.

• Yes, we are a brilliant and creative species, but we've created a little too much stuff -- so much that our economy is now bigger than its host, our planet.

From Gilding’s TED talk…

• We've had science proving the urgency of change.

• We've had economic analysis pointing out that, not only can we afford it, it's cheaper to act early.

• And yet, the reality is we've done pretty much nothing to change course. We're not even slowing down.

From Gilding’s book: The Great Disruption

“As the full scale of the imminent crisis hits us, our response will be proportionally dramatic; mobilizing as we do in war.

We will change at a scale and speed we can barely imagine today, completely transforming our economy, including our energy and transport industries, in just a few short decades…

… it is precisely the severity of the problem that will drive a response that is overwhelming in scale and speed and will go right to the core of our societies.”

What’s behind these beliefs in ‘The Great Disruption’ and ‘Limits to Growth’?

Let’s go back to 1972…

Limits to Growth

• The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book about the computer modeling of exponential economic and population growth with finite resource supplies.

• Authored by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III.

Limits to Growth on a Finite Planet

Ecological Footprint

• The Global Footprint Network calculates the world's ecological footprint to be the equivalent of 1.5 planets (as of 2014), meaning that human economies are consuming 50% more resources than the Earth can regenerate each year.

• In other words, it takes one year and six months to regenerate what we consume in a year.

“The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the reverse.” ― Herman E. Daly

So to summarize, we have two conflicting concepts…

1. Abundance 2. Limits to Growth

TED curation

• The first two talks at the TED conference in 2012 was curated with this conflict in mind, as Diamandis vs. Gilding, i.e. Abundance vs. Limits to Growth.

And now… back to the futurists…

Which of Dator’s four generic futures are represented by Diamandis and Gilding?

Jim Dator’s 4 Generic Futures• Continuation – the current historical trajectory continues, most usually conceivedof as ‘continued economic growth’;

• Collapse – a breakdown of the social order due to one or more of a number ofpossible causes, such as economic instability, environmental overload, resourcedepletion, moral degeneration, military conflict such as an external attack orinternal civil war, meteor/comet impact, etc;

• Disciplined Society – a society organized around some set of overarching values,whether ancient, traditional, ideological, natural, environmental, God-given, etc;

• Transformational Society – which sees the end of current forms of behaviour,beliefs, norms, or organization, and the main sub-variants are ‘emergence of new forms (rather than a return to older or traditional ones, as above), possibly even including intelligent life-forms. The two high-tech’ (technological) and ‘high-spirit’ (spiritual) transformation.

Source: Joseph Voros - Galactic-scale macro-engineering: Looking for signs of other intelligent species, as an exercise in hope for our own

Who is Peter Diamandis?

Who is Peter Diamandis?FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Peter H. Diamandis is an American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur best known for being the founder and chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation, the co-founder and chairman of Singularity University and the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. He is also the former CEO and co-founder of the Zero-Gravity Corporation, the co-founder and vice chairman of Space Adventures Ltd., the founder and chairman of the Rocket Racing League, the co-founder of the International Space University, the co-founder of Planetary Resources, founder of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, and vice-chairman & co-founder of Human Longevity, Inc.

Who is Paul Gilding?

“Earth is full”

Who is Paul Gilding?

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Paul Gilding is an Australian environmentalist, consultant, and author. Gilding, a former executive director of Greenpeace International, and a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, is the author of The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World (2011). He lives in southern Tasmania with his wife and children.

Who can we trust and why?

Diamandis bases his assumptions and his proposed future on science.Gilding bases his assumptions and his proposed future on science.

Which scientists can we trust?

Why?

Can we trust scientists?

How can we know which scientists to trust?

A Shift in Values?

The majority of Danes: “We have enough”

Is new technology cool or creepy?

Discuss

See

Discuss!

• Use the futures triangle (see next slide) to think about the three factors in the ‘Limits to Growth’ vs. ‘Abundance’ scenarios:

PUSH: PULL: WEIGHT:

Upcoming recommended events this spring and summer

(These are hyperlinked from this slideshare presentation, found on the Meetup group)

• Future Infinite Conference • Future Perfect, Grinda• Hannes and the Humanity+ crowd• More… Sussi, Johan?• Others in the room?