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Musk, Thiel etc. are the last people you should be listening to on the subject - moreover - their statements have nothing to do with 'standard of living'. Musk

Musk, Thiel etc. are the last people you should be listening to on the subject - moreover - their statements have nothing to do with 'standard of living'. Musk and Thiel are just old enough to remember and era when technology was making seemingly huge advances: 'men on the moon', 'breaking the sound barrier' etc.. They want to see 'that level' of innovation. I think it's narrow minded and arrogant: Airplanes don't 'seem' like they have changed a lot, but there has been an enormous degree of incremental innovation - just not in the direction they want, i.e. 'faster, higher' etc.. The 'innovation' has been in safety, reliability, fuel efficiency, price, sophistication etc. - all of which has benefited 'the people' far more than someone making a new Concorde that can do Mach 5 but costs $20K/hour per seat. Over the 'long haul' - the standard of living has improved as much since the 1970's as it has been on average for the last 200 years - roughly. The 1940s-1970s was a little bit of a bubble due to the war and the resulting economic effects. This idea of 'wage stagnation' is an unfair economic characterization of what is going on, and it's used by the populist left to fight their ideological battle. Though it's true that a disproportionate amount of returns is going to the 1% - it's not really at the cost of the 99%. The 99% are living a very high standard of living - so long as they have jobs. Employment issues I think are more important than the false canary of 'stagnant wages'

internaut 10y ago
> Musk and Thiel are just old enough to remember and era when technology was making seemingly huge advances: 'men on the moon', 'breaking the sound barrier' etc.. They want to see 'that level' of innovation. I think it's narrow minded and arrogant: I think there is something semantic in our way. Are you familiar with Thiel's concept of representing progress using a Cartesian plane? Technology goes on the Y axis, Globalization on the X axis. Then it becomes possible to represent 4 possible states of play. This is a model of course. There could be different aspects in different states. However it illuminates an important possibility, which is that you could have broad progress in globalization without necessarily having much in technology. Globalization is of course, the spreading of Technology, so it is a kind of derivative. I hope it is clear then what I mean by 'Technological Stagnation'. I am deselecting Globalization and looking at what is left. > Over the 'long haul' - the standard of living has improved as much since the 1970's as it has been on average for the last 200 years - roughly. The 1940s-1970s was a little bit of a bubble due to the war and the resulting economic effects. Sure but we agree with all of that. With the caveat some of that growth was not real (in the finance sector). That is of course true of other eras too, I just mention it because it plays an outsize role when the bubbles come up. We are talking about different things. The standard of living improving is globalization. The improvements in airplanes you mentioned, are improvements, but again, they are a form of globalization. We see that, it is good. But it is not enough if we are to keep going. > This idea of 'wage stagnation' is an unfair economic characterization of what is going on, and it's used by the populist left to fight their ideological battle. I am on the right. The furthest to the right imaginable. The same is true of many if not most people who talk about technological stagnation. The populist left is not wrong about something being not right, just the solutions they tend to throw up. > Though it's true that a disproportionate amount of returns is going to the 1% - it's not really at the cost of the 99%. The 99% are living a very high standard of living - so long as they have jobs. Employment issues I think are more important than the false canary of 'stagnant wages' I would say to you that those 'returns' are almost all fake. The top 1% of 1% is not making real money because their stock portfolios and property valuations are increasing, it is the mother of all bubbles caused by monetary manipulation. I live myself in a house that is worth at most 1/8 of the valuation the market gives it.

internaut 10y ago

> Musk and Thiel are just old enough to remember and era when technology was making seemingly huge advances: 'men on the moon', 'breaking the sound barrier' etc.. They want to see 'that level' of innovation. I think it's narrow minded and arrogant: I think there is something semantic in our way. Are you familiar with Thiel's concept of representing progress using a Cartesian plane? Technology goes on the Y axis, Globalization on the X axis. Then it becomes possible to represent 4 possible states of play. This is a model of course. There could be different aspects in different states. However it illuminates an important possibility, which is that you could have broad progress in globalization without necessarily having much in technology. Globalization is of course, the spreading of Technology, so it is a kind of derivative. I hope it is clear then what I mean by 'Technological Stagnation'. I am deselecting Globalization and looking at what is left. > Over the 'long haul' - the standard of living has improved as much since the 1970's as it has been on average for the last 200 years - roughly. The 1940s-1970s was a little bit of a bubble due to the war and the resulting economic effects. Sure but we agree with all of that. With the caveat some of that growth was not real (in the finance sector). That is of course true of other eras too, I just mention it because it plays an outsize role when the bubbles come up. We are talking about different things. The standard of living improving is globalization. The improvements in airplanes you mentioned, are improvements, but again, they are a form of globalization. We see that, it is good. But it is not enough if we are to keep going. > This idea of 'wage stagnation' is an unfair economic characterization of what is going on, and it's used by the populist left to fight their ideological battle. I am on the right. The furthest to the right imaginable. The same is true of many if not most people who talk about technological stagnation. The populist left is not wrong about something being not right, just the solutions they tend to throw up. > Though it's true that a disproportionate amount of returns is going to the 1% - it's not really at the cost of the 99%. The 99% are living a very high standard of living - so long as they have jobs. Employment issues I think are more important than the false canary of 'stagnant wages' I would say to you that those 'returns' are almost all fake. The top 1% of 1% is not making real money because their stock portfolios and property valuations are increasing, it is the mother of all bubbles caused by monetary manipulation. I live myself in a house that is worth at most 1/8 of the valuation the market gives it.