2 ms·

"Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in wh

"Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated." - Thomas Sowell Earning money != equal to contributing to society, but prices are society's most effective way to communicate which contributions it considers value. Using coding and STEM as your sole examples is a strawman. Mike Rowe, for example, has demonstrated on many occasions that we have a skills gap for many jobs which society needs done that you don't need higher education to perform. There are many jobs that society wants done that aren't STEM or software engineering. https://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/young-americans-have-zero-interest-in-the-most-in-demand-jobs-infographic.html https://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/young-americans-have... Once many of these and other in-demand jobs are lost to automation, I'll buy the argument that massive numbers of people are unviable, but until then, there are many that still are very much viable that just aren't looking at prices to determine what contributions society finds valuable.

intended 10y ago
I agree strongly with you > prices are society's most effective way to communicate which contributions it considers value. But its not perfect. Its vastly imperfect - for a variety of reasons involving joins/intersections of various systems. For example - media will always move towards the grosteque or attention grabbing. The feedback loop between AD -> Money-> Attention competition -> More Attention grabbing ads -> Repeat, is near guaranteed to spontaneously create the echo chamber effect because of human neurology. Other examples - the failure of environmental protection, which also involves the direct manipulation of the information by vested interest who spread and maintain FUD. Not to mention the straight up impact of concentration of wealth, and the ability of a few to then signal value disalgined with the values for the majority. I've also seen the various examples for other industries, and they too will fail because re-training itself is a torturous and difficult process- even when you have all the time and resources you need. Tech is a good example because its one of the easier and better covered fields.

intended 10y ago

I agree strongly with you > prices are society's most effective way to communicate which contributions it considers value. But its not perfect. Its vastly imperfect - for a variety of reasons involving joins/intersections of various systems. For example - media will always move towards the grosteque or attention grabbing. The feedback loop between AD -> Money-> Attention competition -> More Attention grabbing ads -> Repeat, is near guaranteed to spontaneously create the echo chamber effect because of human neurology. Other examples - the failure of environmental protection, which also involves the direct manipulation of the information by vested interest who spread and maintain FUD. Not to mention the straight up impact of concentration of wealth, and the ability of a few to then signal value disalgined with the values for the majority. I've also seen the various examples for other industries, and they too will fail because re-training itself is a torturous and difficult process- even when you have all the time and resources you need. Tech is a good example because its one of the easier and better covered fields.