Economics for the future – Beyond the
superorganism
2025-01-13T20:14
All productivity, as measured by GDP, leads to hydrocarbon
consumption.
Economics as a field of study has a big error by not properly
accounting for energy. We pay the interest on energy (oil), but not the
principle (10 million years of heat and pressure).
We will soon run out of fossil fuels altogether. We hit peak oil in
the 70s. Since then, we’ve been in the era of “tight oil”. The costs for
acquiring hydrocarbon energy will soon not be worth the payoff.
Debt pulls resources from the future into the present. But, we’ve
been in a 200 year bubble of abundant energy (industrial revolution) and
will not necessarily be able to pay back that debt.
All humans together, thinking of each person as an atom behaving
with simple rules to live the best life each one can, is acting like a
superorganism. This superorganism pursues infinite growth. It is like a
thermodynamic heat pump trying to create as much energy surplus as
possible (on a finite planet).