no it can't continue indefinitely, but there's still a tonne of room left for humans to grow. I dont believe we are near the limit yet. And that's only this planet. There's at least a few more in the solar system, and hopefully, propulsion tech will improve at some point to allow other star systems to be taken over by humans.
On what basis? We are already objectively destroying this planet with absolutely no meaningful action being taken to change, much less reverse course. At this point we will be incredibly lucky if we even manage to sustain a technological civilization long enough to settle other planets.
Maybe we should measure GDP via wages. Since all spending has to come from that anyway... not sure how to classify B2B transactions though, just thinking out loud.
A Tesla uses about 25 tons less fossil fuels than a gasoline car, even if its electricity is powered by a natgas generating station. The Tesla uses about the same amount of fossil fuels as the trucks transporting the fuel to the filling station.
Software of course, is special. New software is better than old software otherwise nobody would buy it. Yet the material usage is roughly equivalent at roughly $0.
These three types of progress can continue indefinitely.
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/questions-and-ans...
Of course this approach breaks when the gigantic corpocracies are able to bloat into larger and larger sizes. But it might be an interesting research topic.
