Galbraith wrote about economics years ago, that we were past the point of material need, that we could direct our economic energies to services and other quality of life activities, but the GDP measure has won out, to the ruin of American lives. Objectively, GDP has little or no relationship to quality of life, nor does productivity, in its simple form, although there are material, economic benefits related to the rate of GDP growth. Going further, one might likely find negatives related to GDP, such as more hours worked, but again, this has no benefit to quality of life in the developed world. Not much to say, other than just the facts, although many inobjective cases can be made for the necessity of GDP growth to people's lives.
In response to an Ender's Game discussion (Goodreads), with a link from Reddit, I posted the following: Much of the Reddit stream seems to focus on military tactics, or the lack thereof, used by the Ender, but who reads Ender and thinks it about military tactics, except the 20-year old grunt that started the thread? For a book written in the 80's, then edited in the early 90's, it seems more prophetic, with its use of game immersion, remote military operations and portable computing. Then when you think about the use of children in military games, one can think somewhat more deeply about sociopolitical indoctrination. The series itself becomes a broader exploration of empathy and foreign culture. The criticism seems more like the problem of a man with a hammer, who thinks every problem is solved by hammering, but even worse, every problem is about hammering. An additional post, regarding suspension of disbelief: Some people commented on the suspension of disbelie...
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