on growth

Yesterday I met up with some old friends I don't get to see that often. We get talking and I'm sometimes shocked at how much our views have diverged during the absence. I don't like arguing when I haven't seen them in a long while, and I don't argue well after a few drinks - I'm not that lucid sober come to mention it - and I forget my facts.

This time everyone, apart from me, was in agreement that there was ''plenty of petrol'', and, to put it into some context, we'll all still be driving [petrol or diesel] cars in our 80s. I could have said something more but didn't. If it wasn't about fuel, it'd be about pensions and financial growth, increased affluence etc. Business as usual stuff. Growth ad infinitum.

Back home, I reassure myself of a few facts - after all, they could be right, couldn't they? But, of course, they're wrong. In my search I found this lecture on the mathematics of growth by Dr. Albert Bartlett. While I'd come across the story of the King's chessboard before, I've not seen it applied to so many real world situations, like population and peak oil. It's as simple as it is awesome, and simply awful that so many intelligent people don't appear to get it.



Due to the limits of Youtube clips, the lecture is divided into 8 parts. Be sure to view them all.