"These pessimistic observations of long-term economic growth are in many ways a much needed splash of cold water in the face for the Kurzweilian "The Singularity is Near" crowd, the people who think nearly everything important has been growing exponentially." [emphasis added]
For the "great stagnation" folks, apparently "everything important" is macro and that indeed, in a documentable way has not been growing exponentially. For the singularity folks "everything important" is micro and has been growing exponentially in a documentable way.
If the article had an argument why micro stuff has suddenly stopped mattering, that would one thing. But the discussion here seems to dismissal through mere trick-language.
I believe he is referring to the exponential increase in computations per dollar which has been ongoing for almost half a century. Furthermore, he refers to the massive industries which have sprung from this growth in computation (personal computing, telecom, entertainment, social networking, etc.).
This being said, there is a large divergence between exponential increase in computation and macroeconomic growth. The gains from computation have been highly consolidated (to a small number of extremely talented entrepreneurs not unlike our own HN community), whereas other major industries have stagnated or declined (housing, finance, manufacturing). I believe Tyler Cowen and his "Great Stagnation" sums it up nicely in that the net loss in those industries has been larger and more relevant macroeconomically than the relatively concentrated gains in Silicon Valley.
tl;dr: computation is fueling rapid new industries which create wealth, but that wealth is highly consolidated as it does not require labor to grow (labor required is replaced by computation). This causes economic stagnation for the great majority of the population (+/- 2 std dev of mean or 95%) who are unable to capitalize on the computational opportunities.
"computation is fueling rapid new industries which create wealth"
I generally agree with your definition of my terms and your points. I would note that "Wealth" itself is a poorly defined term even compared other fuzzy economic terms. Micro-level technology is giving many people more range of actions than ever before but it's impact on measured economic wealth has been obscure.
A much larger portion of homeless people have cellphones today than ten years ago. But larger portion of people are homeless today than ten years ago - at least if you believe this is a recession.
If tomorrow, a chemical was released into the atmosphere which doubled the lifespan of everyone on earth, most would agree life would be improved. Yet no one would have a cent more money and it is actually hard to say what its impact on the economic system would be.
hard to say what its impact on the economic system would be
if lifespan of everybody doubled it would have devastating effect on world economy, as one of the most important issues we face today is population aging (and not just in developed world, but in China as well for example).
For the "great stagnation" folks, apparently "everything important" is macro and that indeed, in a documentable way has not been growing exponentially. For the singularity folks "everything important" is micro and has been growing exponentially in a documentable way.
If the article had an argument why micro stuff has suddenly stopped mattering, that would one thing. But the discussion here seems to dismissal through mere trick-language.