Our society is based on the premise of infinite growth - is it a manmade story? Is human society a giant pyramid scheme destined to fail? What about infinite growth on a personal level - are we hardwired to like the idea of growth and yearn for it? What parallels can be drawn between the individual and societal level? Listen to hear Ivan change his opinion from the start to the end of the episode!

0:00 Is the premise of infinite growth an inherent fallacy?

4:30 Is there a distinction between infinite growth and the end of your life or the extinction of humanity?

8:35 Infinite growth is limited by finite resources. But are our resources really finite? Human society is bad at encouraging preemptive problem solving but very good at rapid solutions when it is a really big, profitable problem.

10:24 Is there a problem with a society built on infinite growth? Are the systems we build reflective of our human nature and flaws? Is it naturally true to desire stuff or are greed and desire learned from the world in which we are raised?

15:30 Is growth is all there is for a person or is there merit to a "stagnate and chill" life philosophy? // Is there a distinction between pursuing physical vs intellectual vs emotional growth?

27:18 What would a society without infinite growth look like? (De-growth, slow growth, shrinking growth) // Why is GDP our #1 metric for success?

46:03 Are there any aspects of your life where you think it's ok not to grow? Maybe in small local time points i.e. deadlines or changing priorities.

51:03 Conclusion: infinite growth is not a fallacy.

More about us:

- Wing (https://wingvasiksiri.com): "Founder and Managing Partner at iSeed SEA"

- Ivan (https://ivanfj.com): "PhD researcher in Biodegradable Plastics at UC Berkeley"

- Andrei (https://andrei.ai): "PhD researcher in Machine Learning at University of Cambridge"