Growth in electricity generation over the last 25 years:

China: 6000%

USA: ~0%

A reminder that electricity generation is actually a good indicator of real (productive) economic growth as opposed to fake growth through financial sleight of hand.

  • RedClouds
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    2 months ago

    Eh, as a Marxist-Leninist living in the United States, I understand that we’re using way too much electricity as it is.

    I mean, China is still a growing and developing country. In theory, it makes perfect sense for their electricity use to skyrocket right now. But the United States basically already grew and short of population growth. We really don’t need any more electricity.

    I mean, we still heat a lot of houses with gas that we can turn over to electricity, and we still have too many gas cars that we can convert to EVs. So there is something there.

    There are way too many single family homes that are like three to five bedrooms with only two people living there because either they’re expecting kids and haven’t had them yet or their kids have all moved out or whatever. And they still keep the whole place exceptionally cold or hot or whatever they want independent of the climate they live in.

    So I guess that is to say that this graph is not unexpected. China is still growing and their electricity use is going up and that makes sense. But there’s really no reason for the United States electricity use to go up. Unless somebody has a compelling reason otherwise.

    • freagle
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      2 months ago

      Electricity is used in industry. American industry simply is not growing

      • RedClouds
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        2 months ago

        This is true. Our industry is not growing. But according to that graph, since the US is using half the electricity of China, and China has four and a quarter times as many people. On a per person basis, the United States is still using twice as much electricity per person as China is.

        The United States chose their industry. They build military. China is actually manufacturing things, not just for themselves, but for the world. I’m happy to see that China continues to grow and I’m happy to see more Belt and Road initiatives spreading.

    • cfgaussianOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      I’m not saying that the US isn’t already using an exorbitant amount of electricity per person, especially if you compare it to the global average. The point is that this graph indicates a lack of real growth. Because the GDP most certainly did increase over that same period of time, and if that growth was due to actual productive capabilities increasing, then you would expect to see a corresponding growth in electricity generation.

      Moreover the population of the US actually grew by more than 20% (60 million people) over that same 20 year period, so even if you assume no industrial growth you would still expect to see more of a growth due to personal consumption. And i don’t think that personal consumption went down that much, so the only thing that you can conclude from this is that industry has not only been stagnating but actually shrinking.

  • lorty
    cake
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    2 months ago

    No need for power if you don’t produce anything anyway.

    • GaryLeChat
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      When 1 arc smelter for steel production is ignored in favour of average people turning on their lights, you get this line of thinking.

    • SadArtemis
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      25 years (more actually) of recovering from western savagery and brutality, just like the rest of the world still is struggling to do to this day? Sounds pretty good to me. Meanwhile, western Europe and the Anglosphere has never been good, never created true “civilization” and never moved past the culture of loot and plunder, and continues to engage eagerly in genocide and racism to this day…

      • Shrike502
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 months ago

        never created true “civilization”

        Gotta ask, what’s your criteria for this?

        • SadArtemis
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          2 months ago

          While it was hyperbole, my criteria is what I described right after- western Europe (with Ireland as the exception) and the Anglosphere have never moved past the culture of loot and plunder. Furthermore, I’d argue the white west has by and large not moved past the exclusionary concept of the ethno-state- or the white settler-state in the Anglosphere’s case- unlike real civilizations, from that of the Chinese, Soviet/post-Soviet and Orthodox, Indian (however problematic Hindutva presently is), Islamic, etc.

          I have a bias here and this is still at least partly hyperbole, but western Europe and the Anglosphere in particular strike me as the pinnacle of genuine barbarism (unlike their unfounded claims against the global south)- these societies are founded and sustained on theft, the settler-societies in particular representing if anything the destruction of actual, indigenous civilization- they are squatters, genocidaires, and essentially the national equivalent of roving bands of murderous bandits, not anything that should be considered civilization, but rather the antithesis of it (though New Zealand arguably might be close to it due to indigenization).

          As I see it, if we’re to use the word (which granted, has its own baggage and is rather problematic) actual civilization is indigenous- it is more than just the ethno-state, or a state based on a racial hierarchy, and it is independent, in the sense that it is not founded on or reliant on theft and genocide. The modern west by-and-large is if anything less civilized, than western Europe might have been 500-600 years ago before they ever started terrorizing the rest of the world IMO.

      • stanka@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        18
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Yes the brutality and savagery of treating china like a … checks notes … most-favored trading nation? Damn our tricks!

        • Sodium_nitride
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          2 months ago

          Do you have any understanding of Chinese history before reform and opening up?

    • GaryLeChat
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      "Well this seems reasoned and reasonable.

      Go post to your home instance where this propaganda is welcomed."

      Practice what you preach lib