Skip to content

Comment on Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"parent

Comments

Cycles of peaks and troughs in growth rates are normal.

Right, but let's consider the difference between a recession and a depression. A recession is a contraction in a healthy economy. It's normal, and probably necessary. A depression is something worse. We don't know yet if this is a recession or a depression.

At worst, we're talking about a stagnation, a flatlining in the exponential curve for a few years. I doubt that we'll get to that point. To see growth completely stop we'd need a nuclear war or something to that end.

Life was still better during the Great Depression than it was only a few decades earlier. Progress will continue even if the political and economic landscape is unfavorable.

The D word is mainly used to fill the time in between commercials with talking heads debating irrelevant semantics. I also doubt a long recession or depression would significantly impact a decades long trend by much.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.