We are not programmed for growth. We are programmed to attempt to survive. We attempt survival by addressing problems. The problems we address are limited by our own human perceptions.

But our vast social system contains myriad specific complexities that exceed the capability of the human brain to manage them properly in real-time. Instead, we are forced to wait until problems become crises. When the crisis hits, we address the problems on the back end. This ends up requiring growth because we don't do away with the broken components of the failing system on the front end, we instead add new components by acquiring and usurping more resources. The new system components then cause new levels of complexity and problems of their own.

Wash, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.

Take for example the problem of air pollution from cars. We first addressed this by switching from regular to unleaded fuel. Then smaller cars, vapor recovery, and additives. Now, hybrids and electric cars. While all along the way, adding more cars to the roads and adding more roads.

Without ever asking the questions, "why do we need so many cars at all" or "why do we need to travel such long distances at all". Which are where the problems originate, at the front end.

The complex answers to these questions are also not "easy", and being already overwhelmed by information overload, overwork, media saturation, and general disconnection from other humans, other living things, and our environments, we tend to find "difficult" answers to be wholly unpalatable.

It's ironic that sustainability, in the truest sense, is about the end of growth (or equivalently, the continuation of some kind of growth starting with a much smaller population) ...

We don't realize how true this is. It is, in fact, the life-cycle of the human body. We start as a single fertilized cell, which divides several trillion times, specializing along the way, until we reach maturity where growth slows. As a mature adult, we repeat the process through having wild sex, which hopefully after several attempts results in another fertilized cell. Then the mature adult usually gradually declines in energy requirements and body mass (losing many individual living cells in the process). Then the systemic interaction of cells that make up and support the body as a whole abruptly ceases, in what we call "death".

Our civilization (1) has no renewal process for the eventual decline and crash of its complex system and (2) is so incredibly poorly designed as to continually require vastly larger amounts of matter and energy inputs to avoid collapse.

Fast crash.