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I love it how all the comments to your post center about the infighting between democrats and republicans, and no one wants to talk about the hot potato that is

by x0054 11y ago

I love it how all the comments to your post center about the infighting between democrats and republicans, and no one wants to talk about the hot potato that is automation. I am not sure if MVI would even be enough at this point. I strongly believe that we are heading for a complete, world wide, economic collapse within the next 30 years. The collapse will not be caused by our failure to correctly apply our current economic theories, but the complete invalidation of the basic economic principles on which those theories are based. To be clear, I am not arguing that capitalism is an invalid theory right now, but it will become invalid with automation, and very soon. And before people rebut this argument with: "this has happened before, and people will just get education and find better jobs" I challenge you, please do, tell me, what job will you get when the robot/AI replaces you? The answer isn't to fear the future though, but to embrace it and figure out how to make it work for everyone. It's a little hard to do that, and to have this conversation, when the overwhelming majority of people refuse to consider this inevitability as even a possibility and dismiss it. Oh well, rent over.

pessimizer 11y ago
This is a fantasy. Productivity growth is catastrophically low, and over the last 40 years has averaged about half of what it was in the 30 years before - and since the crash in 2008, been slower than at any time after WWII. http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15116.pdf https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15116.pdf It's global: https://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/ https://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/ "An alarming result from this year’s estimates in The Conference Board Total Economy Database(TM) is that the growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP), which measures the productivity of labor and capital together, continues to hover around zero for the third year in a row, compared to an average rate of more than 1 percent from 1999-2006 and 0.5 percent from 2007-2012. The challenge on TFP growth is widespread across the globe. Most mature economies including the United States, the Euro Area and Japan show near zero or even negative TFP growth. In China, TFP growth has turned negative, and in India it is just above zero, at 0.2 percent. Both in Brazil and Mexico TFP growth continues to be negative, respectively at -2.3 and -1.7 percent."
- x0054 11y ago
  It's not a myth, it's a fact. What you are talking about is the Productivity Paradox [1]. But it doesn't change the fact that we are standing on the edge of the AI cliff. You can not compare computer advancements till now, which concentrated mainly on making computers faster, with new efforts to make the same computers smarter. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox

by x0054 11y ago

pessimizer 11y ago

This is a fantasy. Productivity growth is catastrophically low, and over the last 40 years has averaged about half of what it was in the 30 years before - and since the crash in 2008, been slower than at any time after WWII. http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15116.pdf https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15116.pdf It's global: https://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/ https://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/ "An alarming result from this year’s estimates in The Conference Board Total Economy Database(TM) is that the growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP), which measures the productivity of labor and capital together, continues to hover around zero for the third year in a row, compared to an average rate of more than 1 percent from 1999-2006 and 0.5 percent from 2007-2012. The challenge on TFP growth is widespread across the globe. Most mature economies including the United States, the Euro Area and Japan show near zero or even negative TFP growth. In China, TFP growth has turned negative, and in India it is just above zero, at 0.2 percent. Both in Brazil and Mexico TFP growth continues to be negative, respectively at -2.3 and -1.7 percent."

x0054 11y ago
It's not a myth, it's a fact. What you are talking about is the Productivity Paradox [1]. But it doesn't change the fact that we are standing on the edge of the AI cliff. You can not compare computer advancements till now, which concentrated mainly on making computers faster, with new efforts to make the same computers smarter. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox