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The Economic Superorganism

Summary:
Dr. Carey W King joins the live steam as a special guest. Dr. King performs interdisciplinary research related to how energy systems interact within the economy and environment as well as how our policy and social systems can make decisions and tradeoffs among these often competing factors. Carey’s research goals center on rigorous interpretations of the past to determine the most probable future energy pathways. He reaches these goals by bridging the gaps between economic and biophysical (or ecological) worldviews of economic growth and structural change. Energy drives the economy, economics informs policy, and policy affects social outcomes. Since the oil crises of the 1970s, pundits have debated the validity of this sequence, but most economists and politicians still ignore it.

Topics:
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Dr. Carey W King joins the live steam as a special guest. Dr. King performs interdisciplinary research related to how energy systems interact within the economy and environment as well as how our policy and social systems can make decisions and tradeoffs among these often competing factors. Carey’s research goals center on rigorous interpretations of the past to determine the most probable future energy pathways. He reaches these goals by bridging the gaps between economic and biophysical (or ecological) worldviews of economic growth and structural change.



Energy drives the economy, economics informs policy, and policy affects social outcomes. Since the oil crises of the 1970s, pundits have debated the validity of this sequence, but most economists and politicians still ignore it. Thus, they delude the public about the underlying influence of energy costs and constraints on economic policies that address such pressing contemporary issues as income inequality, growth, debt, and climate change. To understand why, Carey King explores the scientific and rhetorical basis of the competing narratives both within and between energy technology and economics.



Energy and economic discourse seems to mirror Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: For every narrative there is an equal and opposite counter-narrative. The competing energy narratives pit “drill, baby, drill!” against renewable technologies such as wind and solar. Both claim to provide secure, reliable, clean, and affordable energy to support economic growth with the most benefit to society, but how? To answer this question, we need to understand the competing economic narratives, techno-optimism and techno-realism. Techno-optimism claims that innovation overcomes any physical resource constraints and enables the social outcomes and economic growth we desire. Techno-realism, in contrast, states that no matter what energy technologies we use, feedbacks from physical growth on a finite planet constrain economic growth and create an uneven distribution of social impacts. In The Economic Superorganism, you will discover stories, data, science, and philosophy to guide you through the arguments from competing narratives on energy, growth, and policy. You will be able to distinguish the technically possible from the socially viable, and understand how our future depends on this distinction.



https://careyking.com/
Steve Keen
Steve Keen (born 28 March 1953) is an Australian-born, British-based economist and author. He considers himself a post-Keynesian, criticising neoclassical economics as inconsistent, unscientific and empirically unsupported. The major influences on Keen's thinking about economics include John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, Hyman Minsky, Piero Sraffa, Augusto Graziani, Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Thorstein Veblen, and François Quesnay.

5 comments

  1. GhostOnTheHalfShell

    So is the nature of a super organism as sophisticated as slime mold.? 😉

    • Well if you look at the atomic level of slime mold, you may find it very complex 😉

    • GhostOnTheHalfShell

      @Ty Keynes Does the economic super organism beat it though? Change my mind! LOL

      I was kinda biting my typing fingers on the live stream because I've taken in a dollop of Simon Michaux. Especially interesting after being decried as a 'doomer' regarding renewables + hydrogen bringing about a new era of limitless energy. It's already heresy for some to year they may not be enough. Why? because peak oil is a failed assertion..

  2. GhostOnTheHalfShell

    Why treat interest, the price of money, different from any other commodity? Central banks are a form of price support, made "necessary" because of the preference of money from its store of value. The justification is to use interest to lure the means of exchange back into circulation. Inflation is the the stick and interest is the carrot. A big fat hoarding tax of 25% or so removes the "need" for inflation or interest. Use it or lose it because the store of value decays, rather than its purchasing power.

  3. Most understand the necessity to not damage the biosphere which gave birth to the human species however we tend to think of the the survival of the fittest operation in particular of the biosphere or mother nature in Strictly those terms.
    A Framework for analysis of biological self-replicating life-forms without considering the other side of the equation is incomplete and as such will inevitably lead to results in incomplete theories and ultimately, unsustainably inefficient conclusions.
    If the nature of the biosphere is that of Mother of humanity and all life on Earth – is a useful framework to understand life on Earth, then energy specifically it's entropy state and how we maximise it's utility in transition from low to high entropy, is our Father. Only by understanding both our 'cosmic parents' can we ourselves hope to grow and mature into a maximally self-sufficient, self-sustaining planetary technological and truly intelligent civilization capable of shaping our own ongoing living destiny within the cosmos.

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