(The physicist Freeman Dyson wrote a book ‘Infinite in All Directions’ about the universe, and some would argue he knew what he was talking about, at least on some things, so the pessimistic view that resources are finite might just be a projection of human consciousness . If they seem finite, it may just be you didn’t look far enough.)

So if we had unlimited resources, I would say keep collecting data for the the GDP. I’d collect data on awhole lot of things—-perhaps one could gain access to the NSA database of all internet traffic using a FOIA, and use it to construct more metrics . (With that one might be able to dispense with field data collection, and use e word occurence frequency as a proxy for reality–if someone wrote or said it on internet, then it exists. )

If resources are finite maybe one should do a ‘green new deal ‘ thing and convert all the jobs measuring GDP (and doing military production, etc.) to other more ‘useful’ jobs (those usefulness or utility is subjective in part.)

I think GDP really should be replaced by an ‘ecological’ quality of life metric –Herman Daly’s ISEW or the related one GPI (genuine progress index) are examples–simple modifications of GDP–or the ‘happiness index’.

GDP is really an opinion poll for people’s ‘values’ or ‘utilities’, ‘needs’, and ‘wants’. Its measured in $. Its what people spend their money on. Many ‘scientists’ distinguish ‘opinions’ from ‘facts’. They often plead ‘objectivity’ and say ‘you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts’. (I personally favor the opposite statement, because alot of what ‘scientists’ consider ‘the facts’ i view as their opinions.

(Actually what this usually comes down, except in cases of true ‘error’, fraud, or misrepresentation, is error or lying by omission. i.e. the facts given are correct, its just they left out most of the facts.

(e.g. ‘to understand economics you need to understand supply and demand, know the utility/social welfare and production functions, prices and budget, and calculate these for youself and the GDP. )

So far there is no conbsensus on what values, needs,budgets, etc are so all metrics are just opinion polls or measures.

I think energy is part of the equation but not all of it. People could just use energy–eg oil—for turning their cars on and leaving them running. Energy wise this would be an economy in many ways the same as one with one where people drive somewhere (maybe a little smaller due to friction).

Costa Rica i hear has low GDP but high life expectancy; Nicaragua, El Salvador, Brazil, and Honduras likely have low GDP/capita but also alot of violence. (Brazil historically has had a very high level physics community, but indigneous people there are suffering due to COVID and devlopment of the Amazon.) R Wikinson’s ‘the spirit level’ covers these issues as well (though criticized on ‘statistical’ grounds (cause v correlation, sampling sizes, etc.–but these were probably ideologically based.–some people didnt want to hear that inequaity was bad for health.)

It really depends. There’s something known as the Preston curve, which does show a positive relationship between GDP per capita and life expectancy. But there are huge caveats. Among low-income nations, variations in life expectancy can be quite large. And once you get past a certain income threshold, higher GDP per capita doesn’t seem to help at all. Longitudinal studies for particular nations also reveal that the relationship is quite complicated. Modest levels of economic growth have even been associated with declining life expectancy in some places, perhaps because of higher pollution levels and other “externalities.”

Of course, GDP growth rates are inherently ambiguous, so virtually all the results above are largely meaningless. Improving life expectancy has more to do with investing in health care, education, and other social programs. In other words, targeted and focused spending matters more than a rising “income floor,” although that doesn’t hurt either in many cases.