Seriously, just looking at the examples of "stagnated and failing economies" like Japan should be a give away that this measure is total BS.
In Germany a life saving brain surgery creates 5K USD of economic activity and the same surgery creates 500K USD of economic activity in the USA.
True story, a YouTuber I'm following recently had her mother operated in Germany and then again in the USA and she made a video about the experience and the numbers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-p1nP6hH6U
This obsession with GDP isn't healthy, among other obsessions like the "Number of gigantic companies" which is supposed to show that you are falling back in technology if you don't have extremely large companies by market capitalization metric.
It worries me because it's BS and BS can last just till a point. What happens if at one point in the future people start demanding benefiting from all that riches and success? I'm worried because I don't believe in(goodness of?) revolutions and the situation makes me anxious that the west with the US in particular is headed to some kind of revolution. They had one with the last election I guess but the revolutionaries appear to be pushing for the extreme version of the same thing which eventually might collapse with another revolution with the opposite thing like what UK ended up getting as a Labour landslide after Libertarian landslide.
> I'm worried because I don't believe in(goodness of?) revolutions
That's strange, revolutions have been the some of the most acute moments that improved things for the world population and brought rights to the common people. I'd definitely not want to live through one because it sucks for those during it, but it's great for those that come after.
Sometimes revolutions are also stolen. Often people agree that the current thing needs to go down but don’t agree on what should follow and you end up with things like leftists destroying the elites only to end up in theocratic dictatorship.
That’s probably survivorship bias. The Nobel Prize in Economics for 2024 was awarded for research that has demonstrated that the single most influential factor in the wealth of a nation is the stability of its institutions. Frequent civil wars, coups, and revolutions in certain regions of the world have left them further and further behind.
So I think in general, revolutions are high risk high reward gambles. The rare ones that work out and align with the needs of the population make important strides for humanity, but most revolutions fail or are corrupted and end up a net negative for the society.
I'm yet to see a revolution that improves anything. They certainly destroy a lot and change who's the elite though.
Any benefit, IMHO, comes purely from starting over. Any revolution benefit can be achieved through debt purge, elevating those in precarious state and break any fast feedback loops that led us to that point.
> Any revolution benefit can be achieved through debt purge, elevating those in precarious state and break any fast feedback loops that led us to that point.
Breaking things is very difficult. The status quo would not be the status quo unless a significant part of the people in power wanted it. This means that there is always a significant resistance to overcome, which requires very strong incentives, which historically tends to be despair or starvation. In other words, revolutions.
I don't even think you're wrong in your dislike of revolutions, like I said, I was clear in saying I don't want to live through one, but the extreme view that nothing good every happened is simply, blind.
Fair enough, the correct wording should be something like "revolutions are not worth their cost" as some good does come from revolutions. I'm sure many will argue that the its worth the cost but thats much more subjective.
I agree with this latest comment of yours, and I think I know where you're coming from as counterpositioning to some things one reads online. It's definitely muddy, even the one I linked you was very complex during the following months, but was on the whole good - in my opinion. My parents and grandparents lived through it and would choose to go through it again as many many others.
The American revolution has changed the world hugely. The French revolution carried on from there etc. It is very much better for most people (not the aristocracy).
> The French revolution carried on from there etc. It is very much better for most people (not the aristocracy).
That's a common misconception, but the first three (original, 1830, 1848) French revolutions were failures. They paved the way for future improvements, and established important precedents like human rights and equality... but materially for the average person little changes because of the revolutions. The revolution with the biggest impact in France was undoubtedly the Industrial one, which brought social and economic mobility on a large scale.
Revolutions definitely change things, not necessarily for the better though(depending on what you expect from the revolution). You can have change without a revolution, like with the Brits and Magna Carta.
If for you democratic elections are a form of revolution than how, in gods name, Magna Carta isn't? Fucking wars were waged for Magna Carta. Just historical illiteracy rearing its ugly head again.
I did present an argument. My argument is that wars were fought to enact Magna Carta(historical fact) and thus if we consider, as you do, that January 6th was a revolution there is no imaginable reason, at least I can't think of one (and you refuse to share yours), to think that there was no revolution that brought about Magna Carta.
Saying "fucking" isn't throwing a tantrum. Nor is pointing out something as an example of historical illiteracy calling somebody names.
Now that we are on the same page can you present your arguments on how what happened on January 6th is a revolution and how Magna Carta was not brought about by a revolution?
The Reign of Terror was executing practically any politically active person they could get their hands on (and their families), not just aristocrats. It didn't end until Robespierre was foolish enough to order the execution of one of France's most popular revolutionary politicians (Danton).
When actual peasants revolted, as in the Vendee, the result was what some call a genocide. Against the peasants. By the French Republic.
France continued to see revolutions, "reactions", and Napoleon because the Revolution did not make things better. It was quite some time before that happened for most people.
Oddly you get revolutions without debt purges. Haiti is probably the worst example of this: they were literally forced to pay for their freedom by France.
100% agreed, especially when you print money the GDP is evaluated in, there's no ceiling! What can be bought for money and in what quality, that's a different story... Purchasing Power of Money is what really matters. It's still good in some European countries, but with the current policies, EU has set itself up for times of poverty.
In Germany a life saving brain surgery creates 5K USD of economic activity and the same surgery creates 500K USD of economic activity in the USA.
It doesn’t because the insurer doesn’t pay $500k.
Not to mention that if something costs $10k in the US that costs $5k in Europe, that $5k that doesn’t get spent on something else (which would also increase GDP)
Yes that's the average spent per citizen which doesn't say that the brain surgery will cost just the double of EU. Many Americans apparently don't seek medical help if they feel like they can wait it out, hesitate when call an ambulance etc. Which is not a thing in Europe, its not something you give it a consideration from financial standpoint. If you are poor and you twisted your ankle, you call ambulance. If you have a rash that bothers you and you are poor and unemployed you still go to the dermatologist. If you are rich, you can seek private care(yes, many countries do have private hospitals where you can get an expensive care if you like to have hotel-like room etc).
Anyway, that's another topic and you are right that for the GDP purposes the spent per capita is a good metric. Which is still on the point, the same service costs at least twice as much resulting in useless numbers if you are trying to use GDP as a productivity metric(or anything humane, in fact).
We see a similar thing in Turkey for example when you use PPP(which is supposed to be an improvement). Turkey's PPP is quite high now, meaning that the Turkish lira is strong and on average Turks are supposed to be slightly richer than neighboring EU country Bulgaria. In reality, Turks are miserable because some basic stuff is taxed to extremes and the market is captured by a few groups and to achieve a Bulgarian lifestyle in Turkey you actually have to pay 2X or 3X.
Maybe we just should stop looking and these stats for a proxy to other stuff altogether. They don't work, just use whatever you are looking directly.
Revolutions are neither good nor bad, they just are.
It's what you do after that matters. If you keep on repeating the same mistake and never change the systems that led to the political instability in the first place, then you are bound to have the same results.
I agree. I'm not a fan of revolutions because the process itself is quite damaging - no matter what comes after it. I can definitely enjoy a good revolution if I'm not at the receiving end of it though.
The problem is that those riches and success is just on paper. They are projections and IOUs.
It's like the property market, if everyone has so much money the number of people who can live in Malibu doesn't actually go up. Just the prices of homes in Malibu go up.
No matter what the numbers in the bank account says, the number of people who can get the good stuff will be limited to the actual infrastructure and actual production output. If Americans get even richer, it will simply mean that more millionaires will room share in SV.
EU and Japan, largely cited as economical failure, happen to provide just as good or even better living conditions to their citizens because their infrastructure and actual production output is as good or better than the US.
> No matter what the numbers in the bank account says, the number of people who can get the good stuff will be limited to the actual infrastructure and actual production output.
Only if you define "the good stuff" as "the best stuff." If you define "the good stuff" relative to a subsistence farming or hunter-gatherer lifestyle, the median person today in a developed country is arguably richer than the richest person in town 50 years ago, the richest person in the country 100 years ago, and the richest person on the planet 500 years ago.
Translation: I don't want 'the good stuff', I want 'better stuff than other people.' You're not arguing for quality of life, you're arguing for privilege.
This is nonsense, you could buy a nice car and a home 50 years while working at the post office. Because we have faster computers and smartphones does not make us wealthier.
In Germany a life saving brain surgery creates 5K USD of economic activity and the same surgery creates 500K USD of economic activity in the USA.
True story, a YouTuber I'm following recently had her mother operated in Germany and then again in the USA and she made a video about the experience and the numbers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-p1nP6hH6U
This obsession with GDP isn't healthy, among other obsessions like the "Number of gigantic companies" which is supposed to show that you are falling back in technology if you don't have extremely large companies by market capitalization metric.
It worries me because it's BS and BS can last just till a point. What happens if at one point in the future people start demanding benefiting from all that riches and success? I'm worried because I don't believe in(goodness of?) revolutions and the situation makes me anxious that the west with the US in particular is headed to some kind of revolution. They had one with the last election I guess but the revolutionaries appear to be pushing for the extreme version of the same thing which eventually might collapse with another revolution with the opposite thing like what UK ended up getting as a Labour landslide after Libertarian landslide.