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Well, if it takes some time for workers to shift sectors and if "creatively destructive" technological innovation on the other hand happens to accelerate, it's

by tpeo 10y ago

Well, if it takes some time for workers to shift sectors and if "creatively destructive" technological innovation on the other hand happens to accelerate, it's conceivable that at a certain point, the absolute majority of workers will be redundant. There won't be an equilibrium, because the workers are trying to chase an accelerating point while moving at a constant velocity. There doesn't need to be anything "fundamentally different" except that we finally reached the exponential part of technological progress, which up until now seemed like a linear process. Just like population growth until 1800s, or economic growth until the 1820s. Those two were pretty much linear and not very different from zero until they weren't. I don't actually subscribe to this rationale, though. I'm just putting it out like this because it's pretty much what everybody says and I recognize that it's quite plausible, given the two first hypotheses.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> There doesn't need to be anything "fundamentally different" except that we finally reached the exponential part of technological progress, which up until now seemed like a linear process. Most processes involving people (and lots of others, besides) that look exponential at some point are really logistic, so even in that case, there's probably some equilibrium point somewhere in the future, though its possible that its many generations down the line from the point where the appearance of exponential change first occurs.
- tpeo 10y ago
  Good point. It's quite possible that there's a fundamental limit to technological achievement and that we just haven't reached it yet. On the other hand, I'd like to say that it's also possible that some particular processes can follow exponential laws without any restriction. It might be somewhat hazy, but what if outside of a few measures (infant mortality, life expectancy, etc) economic progress is nothing more than a subjective measurement of how present consumers value past output? I'm not saying anything new here, both Easterlin's paradox and the idea of a "hedonic treadmill" support the idea that more income doesn't necessarily equate into increased happiness. And specially in the case of economic innovation, which might not actually be technically interesting or require any "new physics" at all - just mashing some current technologies into a marketable product - it might never ever stop, and will just degenerate into an endless chase of ever changing fads. Past economies wouldn't be particular poor, just particularly quaint, and a repository of dead fads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox

by tpeo 10y ago

dragonwriter 10y ago

> There doesn't need to be anything "fundamentally different" except that we finally reached the exponential part of technological progress, which up until now seemed like a linear process. Most processes involving people (and lots of others, besides) that look exponential at some point are really logistic, so even in that case, there's probably some equilibrium point somewhere in the future, though its possible that its many generations down the line from the point where the appearance of exponential change first occurs.

tpeo 10y ago
Good point. It's quite possible that there's a fundamental limit to technological achievement and that we just haven't reached it yet. On the other hand, I'd like to say that it's also possible that some particular processes can follow exponential laws without any restriction. It might be somewhat hazy, but what if outside of a few measures (infant mortality, life expectancy, etc) economic progress is nothing more than a subjective measurement of how present consumers value past output? I'm not saying anything new here, both Easterlin's paradox and the idea of a "hedonic treadmill" support the idea that more income doesn't necessarily equate into increased happiness. And specially in the case of economic innovation, which might not actually be technically interesting or require any "new physics" at all - just mashing some current technologies into a marketable product - it might never ever stop, and will just degenerate into an endless chase of ever changing fads. Past economies wouldn't be particular poor, just particularly quaint, and a repository of dead fads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox