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Our Finite World
Personal blog · ourfiniteworld.comeconomicsscience
Our Finite World is a personal blog at ourfiniteworld.com about economics and science. Since 2013, 37 different Hacker News readers have linked it 81 times, most often “There Is No Steady State Economy (2011)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 3 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN commenters on energy, economic growth and resource limits cite these posts as evidence, and a few point readers to them. One thread disputes the author's past oil-supply forecasts.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Exploring how oil limits affect the economy
Most-linked posts?
- There Is No Steady State Economy (2011)6 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2017-12-14
- /2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-state-economy-except-at-a-very-basic-level/4 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2014-02-14
- /2012/03/12/world-energy-consumption-since-1820-in-charts/3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-09-19
- /2011/11/15/is-it-really-possible-to-decouple-gdp-growth-from-energy-growth/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-05-25
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-05-25
- Speech from 1957 Predicting Peak Oil2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-04-05
- /2020/11/09/energy-is-the-economy-shrinkage-in-energy-supply-leads-to-conflict/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-09-30
- Limits to green energy are becoming much clearer2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-04-03
What Hacker News says?
“Germany could become power independent” and I doubt that. First in general, second on statistics (e.g. produce aluminum and other energy expensive products outside of Germany). But I gave you, for the sake of the argument, that it is possible. You still would have to compensate for ongoing energy demand growth. Be it inside Germany or outside. So your "final target" is an exponential moving target. " It just has no…
Comment linking /
on “EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies”Submitted Scientific Models Too Often Prove Whatever the Grant Provider Wants Proven as a story · 41 points
HN discussion"So after your random-blog-post defense failed" I don't see this. The original post was just extraordinary naive. "Germany already produces enough renewable energy to sustain all residential use." Maybe, a short look at the numbers look inconclusive. Besides that Germany relies on its neighbors to stabilize the net (speak nuclear!), it is unclear for me what the numbers mean. "Residential" use. Including heating? Ba…
Comment linking /2011/11/15/is-it-really-possible-to-decouple-gdp-growth-from-energy-growth/
on “EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies”Submitted Limits to green energy are becoming much clearer as a story · 21 points
HN discussionBesides, that Germany is extremely bad suited for re-newable energies (little sun, wind at the wrong places, little hydroelectric power): 1. Yes, population growth may stop 2. Your argument with population numbers is totally irrelevant. Economics growth, which is linked to energy consumption, won't stop. If is stops, our society will likely collapse. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-sta... In…
Comment linking /2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-state-economy-except-at-a-very-basic-level/
on “EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies”Submitted Nuclear electricity generation has hidden problems as a story · 2 points
HN discussion"What they aren’t good at is making people happy. See Hong Kong for the last 6 months." Wrong Chinese people are very happy. In some rankings they belong to the happiest people. Here they are medium range: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/09/10... My prediction: We will see an economic depression, also caused by energy problems. The current quantitative easing is actually the first sign of the…
Comment linking /2019/09/12/our-energy-and-debt-predicament-in-2019/
on “What Will Happen in the 2020s”Submitted Speech from 1957 Predicting Peak Oil as a story · 2 points
HN discussion„Economic Growth Is Closely Tied to Energy Consumption“, Slide 3: “This rather strange situation arises because the standard calculation misses energy embodied in imported goods.” https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/the-ap... https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/10/18/the-approaching-us-ene... "Will I keep the lights on when I sleep because they are 10x more efficient?" Nope. But now you have a computer…
Comment linking /2017/10/18/the-approaching-us-energy-economic-crisis
on “The United Kingdom generates less electricity per person than in the 1970s”Submitted World Economy Is Reaching Growth Limits; Expect Low Oil Prices, (2019) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion>> Communism (Which is what this is), has failed. > communist country. The reason Communism has failed is > because of the lack of checks and balances on power > compounded with corruption not because of concepts like Socialism did not fail because of corruption - capitalism has this too. Socialism failed because of its inability to put pricing on a product due to lack of a market place. On the other hand, Socialism…
Comment linking /2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-state-economy-except-at-a-very-basic-level/
on “A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory”Submitted The climate change story is half true as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide , for the two centuries. Much of that standard-of-living increase has been dug or pumped out of the ground in the form of coal, oil, or gas: http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie-betwe...
Comment linking /2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie-between-energy-supply-population-and-the-economy/
on “The real use of money is to buy freedom”Submitted There Is No Steady State Economy (2011) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion"What does this mean? That these staggeringly high numbers (if true) do not necessarily mean doom but "merely" that at some point people will find out that the pensions they have been promised won't be there when they reach retirement." This is true. And since money, debt and energy are interlinked, it is very possible that there will be a cliff that we are approaching. Only two questions remain: 1. When? 2. How dee…
Comment linking /2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-state-economy-except-at-a-very-basic-level/
on “The Old Are Eating the Young”Submitted Today's energy bottleneck may bring down major governments as a story · 1 points
HN discussionWhat I mean is I don't like how anything that is grouped into "renewables" is considered to be equally perfect. In which case, you're projecting opinions on me which aren't correct. In the world of energy sources available to humans, there are two classes: Renewables which replenish given time. Nonrenewables which don't. For all of human existence save the past 250 years, we've depended virtually entirely on renewab…
Comment linking /2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie-between-energy-supply-population-and-the-economy/
on “Our Newfound Fear of Risk”Submitted Spike in energy prices suggests that sharp changes are ahead as a story · 1 points
HN discussion"There is a very large amount of oil production on hold or at low capacity in North America because the prices are currently too low and very much expected to go higher in the future." You realize that this is the clusterfuck? no? We are looking to a Jojo effect. Oil prices too high? Recession. Oil prices too low? Oil producers can't afford to invest and produce (what is already happening now). This is actually the…
Comment linking /2019/07/10/why-stimulus-cant-fix-our-energy-problems/
on “The Saudis Are Lying About Their Oil Production?”Submitted Why the Economy doesn't have a reset button as a story · 1 points
HN discussionFor the sake of Jesus, read this posts and use your brain: "There is No Steady State Economy (except at a very basic level)" http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-stat... Limits to Growth–At our doorstep, but not recognized http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-02-12/limits-to-growt... Wealth And Energy Consumption Are Inseparable http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and-energy-... Gal…
Comment linking /2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-state-economy-except-at-a-very-basic-level/
on “Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?”Submitted “Observing the end of our economy’s lifetime.” as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMore reading: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Worlds-Energy-Prob... > No politician wants to tell us the real story of fossil fuel depletion. The real story is that we are already running short of oil, coal and natural gas because the direct and indirect costs of extraction are reaching a point where the selling price of food and other basic necessities needs to be unacceptably high to make the overall eco…
Comment linking /2007/07/02/speech-from-1957-predicting-peak-oil/
on “All poverty is energy poverty”Submitted Deflationary Collapse Ahead? as a story · 1 points
HN discussion"However, in many of the advanced economies, we have had gdp growth has been separated from energy consumption for several decades." Do we? "In recent years, a large share of the world’s manufacturing has been moved to developing countries. This shift gives the illusion that the developed countries can get along with less energy to produce their GDP. This is not really the case. The developed countries find themselv…
Comment linking /2016/10/11/why-energy-prices-are-ultimately-headed-lower-what-the-imf-missed/
on “1177 BC – The Year Civilization Collapsed [video]”Submitted Why EIA, IEA, and Randers’ 2052 Energy Forecasts are Wrong as a story · 1 points
HN discussion"Including total collapses of civilisations." It seems to be an inherent thing of civilizations to collapse. The Collapse of Complex Societies https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Ar... The collapse of our society seem to be inevitable. You don't have to believe is but I don't think we can beat mathematics in the long term: "There is No Steady State Economy (except at a very basic level)" http:/…
Comment linking /2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-state-economy-except-at-a-very-basic-level/
on “1177 BC – The Year Civilization Collapsed [video]”I keep seeing these economic treatments of "how much progress has accelerated" (and have been seeing them for some 30-40 years now myself), and ... I'm starting to feel a case of three-card monty or the travelling dime problem -- keep moving the pieces quickly enough so that the audience^Wmarks don't spot the trick. First off: yes, absolutely, the cost of provisioning and operating electronic memory data storage and…
Comment linking /2012/03/12/world-energy-consumption-since-1820-in-charts/
on “Cost of iPhone X in 1957”It is very easy. If you speak German I actually could send you an excellent PDF. Debt is a law like gravity. You can have it explained by Ludwig von Mises. It is a reward for risk and saving. Discounted cash flow is actually the opposite and the reason why a cash creating asset, let's stay farmland, still has a finite price but theoretical unlimited future income. To serve debt you have to create more in the future.…
Comment linking /2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-state-economy-except-at-a-very-basic-level/
on “The Star Trek Economy”1st, check this link: https://www.sciencealert.com/computers-will-require-more-ene... 2nd, check this link: https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/11/30/thoughts-on-why-energy... "3. Rest of the World. This group is the only group showing a favorable trend in energy growth relative to GDP growth, even in the last decade, although the pace of improvement has slowed. Two reasons for this favorable trend seem to be (a) contin…
Comment linking /2011/11/30/thoughts-on-why-energy-use-and-co2-emissions-are-rising-as-fast-as-gdp/
on “Banks, QE, and Money-Printing”
