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> The only difference between 2023 AD and 2023 BC humans is the vast accumulations of capital we have in the modern world. Lol whut? Unless you expand the defi

> The only difference between 2023 AD and 2023 BC humans is the vast accumulations of capital we have in the modern world. Lol whut? Unless you expand the definition of capital to include everything except labour, that’s wrong. Ideas and information are not capital, except maybe for brief periods of time while they are protected by legal systems to make them to act as capital. The periodic table of elements is not capital. It’s information. Democracy is not capital, it’s an idea.

roenxi 3y ago
Say all the capital disappears one day. It's magic. Poof, gone. What can you do that a human couldn't do in 2000BC? The answer you've given is sit around and discuss philosophy. Few people do that willingly. All the knowledge is certainly important, but the practical reason for that is it is all knowledge of what type of capital we need, how to produce it and how to organise ourselves to produce it. Give people democracy, and note that they vote in capitalism. Also, I note with a certain pedantry that you can't transfer complex knowledge without capital. A trivial amount of capital, but we still rely on recording the information on somewhere. In this information age the amount of capital used to record data has actually become quite substantial so the point is less pedantic than it once was.
- kennywinker 3y ago
  Yes we can sit around discussing philosophy, while we take breaks re-building the semiconductor factory. Ideas include stuff like “how semiconductors are made” which isn’t capital, unless you count the most recent still-patent-encumbered developments. > Give people democracy, and note that they vote in capitalism. And if they don’t, the CIA will make sure a happy little accident happens to the socialist they do vote in. And yes, books or hard drives are sometimes considered capital. But unless you’re using the most broad definitions of capital, it’d be weird to consider books in a library, or other public institution, capital. It’d be weird to consider my hard drive full of scientific papers that I collected for fun, capital. Capital is stuff that’s used to earn money, not just “stuff”.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    > It’d be weird to consider my hard drive full of scientific papers that I collected for fun, capital Semiconductor plants are some of the most capital-intensive investments available though. To make chips cheap is, ironically, ruinously expensive. And the infrastructure of the internet isn't cheap either. Without those, it is actually pretty hard to see how that knowledge could be stored and replicated safely across time. Oral transmission is highly unreliable, really only hard disks and cables have sufficiently low marginal cost and high bitrate. So I note that your hard drive of scientific papers was likely impossible in the 1950s and required some extremely substantial capital investments to make possible. Up until recently it was probably unrealistic for you to have that much knowledge on hand. Even in the magic example, there is an open question of how to rebuild the semiconductor factory. Nobody actually knows, all the info had to be recorded. It isn't possible to take on most modern engineering projects without a lot of technological aids like pens, paper, hard disk and microprocessors. It is easy to overlook just how fragile humans are, from an economic perspective a human without capital is more or less useless.

roenxi 3y ago

Say all the capital disappears one day. It's magic. Poof, gone. What can you do that a human couldn't do in 2000BC? The answer you've given is sit around and discuss philosophy. Few people do that willingly. All the knowledge is certainly important, but the practical reason for that is it is all knowledge of what type of capital we need, how to produce it and how to organise ourselves to produce it. Give people democracy, and note that they vote in capitalism. Also, I note with a certain pedantry that you can't transfer complex knowledge without capital. A trivial amount of capital, but we still rely on recording the information on somewhere. In this information age the amount of capital used to record data has actually become quite substantial so the point is less pedantic than it once was.

kennywinker 3y ago
Yes we can sit around discussing philosophy, while we take breaks re-building the semiconductor factory. Ideas include stuff like “how semiconductors are made” which isn’t capital, unless you count the most recent still-patent-encumbered developments. > Give people democracy, and note that they vote in capitalism. And if they don’t, the CIA will make sure a happy little accident happens to the socialist they do vote in. And yes, books or hard drives are sometimes considered capital. But unless you’re using the most broad definitions of capital, it’d be weird to consider books in a library, or other public institution, capital. It’d be weird to consider my hard drive full of scientific papers that I collected for fun, capital. Capital is stuff that’s used to earn money, not just “stuff”.
- roenxi 3y ago
  > It’d be weird to consider my hard drive full of scientific papers that I collected for fun, capital Semiconductor plants are some of the most capital-intensive investments available though. To make chips cheap is, ironically, ruinously expensive. And the infrastructure of the internet isn't cheap either. Without those, it is actually pretty hard to see how that knowledge could be stored and replicated safely across time. Oral transmission is highly unreliable, really only hard disks and cables have sufficiently low marginal cost and high bitrate. So I note that your hard drive of scientific papers was likely impossible in the 1950s and required some extremely substantial capital investments to make possible. Up until recently it was probably unrealistic for you to have that much knowledge on hand. Even in the magic example, there is an open question of how to rebuild the semiconductor factory. Nobody actually knows, all the info had to be recorded. It isn't possible to take on most modern engineering projects without a lot of technological aids like pens, paper, hard disk and microprocessors. It is easy to overlook just how fragile humans are, from an economic perspective a human without capital is more or less useless.