There's asset price inflation, productivity growth, technological growth, and population growth.

I'm not sure why anyone thinks we need more people.

Humans make up 34% of all land biomass.

There are physical limits to technological growth. We're already getting close to the physical limits for how good a lot of things can get. Short of living in a fairytale, I'm not sure what people are hoping for.

Productivity growth is predominately going to come from technological growth. However, much of the world is ridiculously under-invested in. We have generations of growth left here. Why do we need more people when ~70% of the world is ridiculously under-invested in?

Asset price appreciation is good if you own assets - bad of you want to buy them. In an ideal world, I think assets would be valued based on some kind of sense - not whatever central banks decide.

A run of near zero growth is exactly the same as a bust, so I don't know what you're adding.

That's technically not true if you're running a DCA model (which most people do when they invest in the stock market - they invest a percentage of their earnings), since the price at which you invest is better under a bust scenario than a protracted run of zero growth.

3% a year in real terms is not near zero. It's what the actual state of the economy has been for decades, if not centuries.

When was there near zero growth? The last decade has seen a boom of VC investment and startup growth. There was the Great Recession before that, following the post 9/11 growth spurt. It seems like the last time there was no growth was perhaps the late 70s?