Throughput, Not Efficiency, Drives Growth

Updated: 2025.10.08 13D ago 9 sources
The piece argues efficiency gains have natural limits, while increasing total energy use sustains transformative progress. It points to the Henry Adams curve’s per-capita energy plateau after 1970 as a turning point despite continued efficiency improvements. — It implies pro-energy policies (e.g., faster permitting, nuclear) are central to reviving growth.

Sources

Superintelligence Isn’t Enough
Francis Fukuyama 2025.10.08 78% relevant
Fukuyama contends the binding constraint on growth is not more 'intelligence' but the capacity to build real things in the real world—echoing the claim that increasing total energy use and physical throughput, not cleverness alone, sustains transformative progress.
Celebrate Vishvakarma: A Holiday for Machines, Robots, and AI
Alex Tabarrok 2025.09.17 50% relevant
By proposing a holiday that explicitly celebrates machines, capital, and AI as sources of abundance, the post aligns with the throughput-first growth ethos that valorizes expanding productive capacity rather than austerity or efficiency alone.
A Climate-Scientist President Retreats From Green Policies
Juan David Rojas 2025.08.28 60% relevant
Claudia Sheinbaum’s Pemex plan to 'reactivate unconventional geological reserves' (i.e., fracking) prioritizes higher energy throughput and security over efficiency rhetoric, aligning with the thesis that growth and state capacity hinge on expanding total energy use.
The history of American corporate nationalization
Tyler Cowen 2025.08.24 60% relevant
The article argues that overlapping legal veto points (takings, multi-level regulators, NIMBY litigation) obstruct large buildouts, reinforcing the claim that reviving growth requires enabling high-throughput infrastructure via faster permitting and fewer blockers.
Progress Studies and Feminization
Aporia 2025.08.22 100% relevant
Henry Adams curve chart showing exponential per-capita energy growth ending around 1970.
Reality is evil
Drew M Dalton 2025.08.22 60% relevant
By casting entropy as reality’s default and urging a moral duty to 'strike back,' the essay implicitly supports the view that only sustained energy throughput can maintain and expand human flourishing against decay, dovetailing with arguments for pro‑energy, high‑throughput policy.
The Gulf World That Air Conditioning Wrought
Marianne Dhenin 2025.08.05 65% relevant
Deen Sharp’s point that 'cooling a park' overwhelms any efficiency gains illustrates the Jevons-like dynamic where expanding the scope of cooling (stadiums, promenades, parks) increases total energy throughput regardless of device efficiency.
No Country Ever Got Rich From Tourism
Marko Jukic 2025.07.18 65% relevant
The article claims tourism is a low-upside, zero-sum service that doesn’t raise national productive capacity, implicitly aligning with the view that transformative growth comes from high-throughput, energy- and capital-deep industries rather than expanding low-productivity services.
The Megaproject Economy
Marko Jukic 2025.06.01 70% relevant
The article argues modern living standards depend on high material throughput and large-scale industrial systems that assume growing populations; this aligns with the claim that increased total energy/use and big builds, not just efficiency, power transformative progress.
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