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We don’t become more productive because we are striving towards it like some shared goal, we do it because if we don’t, we lose (our jobs, among other things).

We don’t become more productive because we are striving towards it like some shared goal, we do it because if we don’t, we lose (our jobs, among other things). There is no element of choice. There is no stopping this.

safety1st 4y ago
That my be true, but what I was referring to when I used the word productivity, and what for example an economist would usually be referring to, isn't personal productivity per se. Like yes you can work more hours a day, or potentially work more efficiently, and yes a shitty boss may force you to do too much of this. But that is a very small part of what happened in the Industrial Revolution. Better to think of increased productivity in this context as "all inputs generate greater outputs," or as a function of available energy a society can produce. Like the increase in what society can produce when you go from horsepower to burning fossil fuels to splitting the atom is many orders of magnitude because you get more energy for cheaper at every step up. Or the way that agricultural technology has enabled us to obtain a harvest that is 100-1,000x more productive in terms of calories than it was in antiquity. That's productivity in this context. Calories (as in food) is a really good example of what I'm talking about with relation to the problems of modernity. For much of human history famine and starvation were basically an agricultural problem, there were situations where a geography couldn't produce enough calories to feed all the people there. Technology has solved this problem, we now produce an insane surplus of calories and can ship them all over the globe with ease, if people starve today it is not an agricultural problem, it is a political problem, it is systems of people choosing not to allocate food to the starving. It's not clear that better agricultural tech will further reduce starvation - quite possibly it won't without some kind of societal evolution.
- SanderNL 4y ago
  I understand and thank you for the clarification. My point was that societal productivity progress is ultimately not driven by factors such as “better lives” (satisfying primary needs). It is IMO not going matter if increasing productivity leads to “better lives” or not because that was never the primary driver in the first place. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this march continues even if it in fact decreases our quality of life as is already happening. What is a primary driver? Good question. I can think of multiple candidates, but power comes to mind. Given a choice we would all rather be financially independent rather than tied to a job. Why? Some of us like the status, others like the freedom, but we all enjoy the power to just say “nope, not going to do that”. I think “nope” may be the most powerful driver of human progress. Edit: I forgot to quote. > it's not obvious that becoming another order of magnitude more productive will automatically lead to people having even better lives. This was my point: no better lives, but an order of magnitude productivity will increase the power we (or a small group) will experience and ultimately that is a stronger drive.

safety1st 4y ago

That my be true, but what I was referring to when I used the word productivity, and what for example an economist would usually be referring to, isn't personal productivity per se. Like yes you can work more hours a day, or potentially work more efficiently, and yes a shitty boss may force you to do too much of this. But that is a very small part of what happened in the Industrial Revolution. Better to think of increased productivity in this context as "all inputs generate greater outputs," or as a function of available energy a society can produce. Like the increase in what society can produce when you go from horsepower to burning fossil fuels to splitting the atom is many orders of magnitude because you get more energy for cheaper at every step up. Or the way that agricultural technology has enabled us to obtain a harvest that is 100-1,000x more productive in terms of calories than it was in antiquity. That's productivity in this context. Calories (as in food) is a really good example of what I'm talking about with relation to the problems of modernity. For much of human history famine and starvation were basically an agricultural problem, there were situations where a geography couldn't produce enough calories to feed all the people there. Technology has solved this problem, we now produce an insane surplus of calories and can ship them all over the globe with ease, if people starve today it is not an agricultural problem, it is a political problem, it is systems of people choosing not to allocate food to the starving. It's not clear that better agricultural tech will further reduce starvation - quite possibly it won't without some kind of societal evolution.

SanderNL 4y ago
I understand and thank you for the clarification. My point was that societal productivity progress is ultimately not driven by factors such as “better lives” (satisfying primary needs). It is IMO not going matter if increasing productivity leads to “better lives” or not because that was never the primary driver in the first place. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this march continues even if it in fact decreases our quality of life as is already happening. What is a primary driver? Good question. I can think of multiple candidates, but power comes to mind. Given a choice we would all rather be financially independent rather than tied to a job. Why? Some of us like the status, others like the freedom, but we all enjoy the power to just say “nope, not going to do that”. I think “nope” may be the most powerful driver of human progress. Edit: I forgot to quote. > it's not obvious that becoming another order of magnitude more productive will automatically lead to people having even better lives. This was my point: no better lives, but an order of magnitude productivity will increase the power we (or a small group) will experience and ultimately that is a stronger drive.