Expectations of Indefinite Growth

I often find myself speaking with people who believe that technological progress and growth are simple facts of life.  The sun rises in the east, birds fly south for the winter, new iPhones are announced in July.  Most people are not technical, so this is not such an unreasonable belief.  The pace of technological growth has been picking up for several generations now.  Nobody has ever known anything different.

I believe that forward progress is anything but certain.  Most economic growth is underpinned by ever-increasing volumes of energy, while our debt-based economic system is predicated on steady, reliable, exponential growth.  Between population growth and resource exhaustion, we are now facing a steady squeeze in the energy supply.  This will necessarily put the brakes on growth as more capital is diverted to energy procurement and away from consumption of goods and services.

I was recently sent an article by Dr. Tom Murphy, a physicist at UCSD, who has a great blog about energy and growth.  He makes some great points about the ultimate physical limits facing our economic system.

Galactic Scale Energy
Timelines to Physical limits for modest levels of growth.

Can Economic Growth Last
(Sequel to Galactic Scale Energy)  He talks about the infeasibility of maintaining growth without increasing energy inputs