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In human society, there are a practically unbounded number of things that humans can do that other humans would be willing to pay for. The same cannot be said

In human society, there are a practically unbounded number of things that humans can do that other humans would be willing to pay for. The same cannot be said for horses, which have zero ability in human society to find new ways to create value for humans and thereby for themselves. To use your notation, when N_horse slumps toward zero, no horse can do anything about it. But when N_human declines, the displaced humans can. Humans can increase their N, horses cannot.

yummyfajitas 14y ago
In human society, there are a practically unbounded number of things that humans can do that other humans would be willing to pay for. Could you explain this statement further? Why do you believe the number of things humans can do is best modeled as being infinite?
- tmoertel 14y ago
  It's not infinite; it's practically unbounded, meaning it can be increased for a long as humans have an interest in increasing it.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    Again, why do you believe this?
    - tmoertel 14y ago
      I believe it because the alternative – that humans cannot find new ways to create value for themselves – is harder to believe. Assume that there is a point in time in which humans run out of ways to create value for themselves. If you were among the displaced masses, wouldn't you like to have work? Oops. We've just created a new way to create value: by helping you find work. Which contradicts our initial hypothesis. In other words, the reason I believe that humans can create value for themselves for as long as they want is that the alternative requires me to believe things that are absurd.
      - capsule_toy 14y ago
        I don't think that's a contradiction. If there's no more ways to create value, then what work are people going to help others find? If there is no work to be found, then those people aren't creating value, either. Why is it absurd? What's your opinion about people that have currently been displaced from their jobs/industry (eg the auto industry), or any other long-term unemployed? Are they just lazy people that haven't found any other ways to create value?
        tmoertel 14y ago
        Let’s be clear about what we’re discussing here. The author of the original article suggested that efficiency was a problem because it threatened employment. I believe this claim to be false because, as I’ve written in earlier comments, when improved efficiency allows fewer humans to produce the same value as before, the humans who are no longer needed to produce that “old” value are freed to create new value. This will always be so. To see why, imagine the opposite: that at some point in time there are displaced masses who are cut off from society because they cannot create new value. But don’t those masses need and want? Don’t those masses have the ability to do things for one another? Of course, they do. So, in this imaginary future, what’s preventing them from creating new value within their own cut-off society? It’s not efficiency. It’s people. It’s people who have written the game’s rules, perhaps unknowingly, to prevent the displaced masses from creating their own value. It’s the displaced masses, themselves, who demand that society turn back the clocks. And this future is easy to imagine, for this future is already here. Which brings me to your question about the auto industry and today’s long-term unemployed. Efficiency isn’t what’s keeping these people out of work. It’s people: politicians and union bosses who sing sweet lies, the unemployed themselves who believe the lies, and executives who drain value from companies for personal gain. These are real problems that keep people out of work. But efficiency isn’t among them. It’s an imaginary problem. (It does, however, make for a good distraction.)
- ScottBurson 14y ago
  Because it is infinite. We have a kind of imagination and creativity that horses lack. Look at the arts -- particularly the modern ones of music and filmmaking. Can you not see that there will always be room for songs and movies that say something truly new about the world we live in? I suppose you could wave your hands and say that's all the "content industry" and counts as only one "thing", but I don't think that's fair. Great (or even good) works of art enrich our lives in different ways. "Content" is not a single commodity, like gasoline, of which we only need a certain amount. And it's obviously not limited to the arts. Every significant new Internet business changes the landscape, creating new opportunities for others. The silver lining in the cloud of this recession, I think, is that collectively we have a lot more free time. As the OP suggests, perhaps some of this would be well spent in face-to-face interactions. But you can also see people being forced by circumstances to reach into themselves and come up with new ways to create value. Oh, they're on a small scale, mostly; I'm not saying everyone who sits down to write a novel is going to create something as successful as Harry Potter. But they are new.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    Can you not see that there will always be room for songs and movies that say something truly new about the world we live in? No, I can't see this. I think it quite likely that fairly quickly, we will reach the point where existing art is sufficient to satisfy most people. At some point, the quantity of good art will be vastly larger than the amount of consumption any human can do in a lifetime. And even if this is false, what happens when machines do just as good a job at creating art as humans do? Do you believe some sort of "meta-art" exists that machines will not be able to perform?
    - ScottBurson 14y ago
      At some point, the quantity of good art will be vastly larger than the amount of consumption any human can do in a lifetime. Oh, I think we passed that point a while ago. I certainly don't have time for all the art I would like to experience. But: so what? Just because a given piece of art finds a relatively small audience, that doesn't mean it's not valuable to those people. We have 7 billion people on this planet now. If you release a music album, and you get .0004% of the world's population to pay $5 each for it, that's $140k, which after production expenses should be enough for you to eat for a year. Tweak the numbers if you like, but we're still looking at needing less than one person in 10^5 to pay for your album in order for you to make a living. If you reach one in 10^4, you're doing well. Do you believe some sort of "meta-art" exists that machines will not be able to perform? Yes, actually, I do. Machines will never possess original creativity. I can't prove this to you. We'll just have to wait and see. But there certainly aren't any counterexamples to be found yet.

yummyfajitas 14y ago

In human society, there are a practically unbounded number of things that humans can do that other humans would be willing to pay for. Could you explain this statement further? Why do you believe the number of things humans can do is best modeled as being infinite?

tmoertel 14y ago
It's not infinite; it's practically unbounded, meaning it can be increased for a long as humans have an interest in increasing it.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Again, why do you believe this?
  - tmoertel 14y ago
    I believe it because the alternative – that humans cannot find new ways to create value for themselves – is harder to believe. Assume that there is a point in time in which humans run out of ways to create value for themselves. If you were among the displaced masses, wouldn't you like to have work? Oops. We've just created a new way to create value: by helping you find work. Which contradicts our initial hypothesis. In other words, the reason I believe that humans can create value for themselves for as long as they want is that the alternative requires me to believe things that are absurd.
    - capsule_toy 14y ago
      I don't think that's a contradiction. If there's no more ways to create value, then what work are people going to help others find? If there is no work to be found, then those people aren't creating value, either. Why is it absurd? What's your opinion about people that have currently been displaced from their jobs/industry (eg the auto industry), or any other long-term unemployed? Are they just lazy people that haven't found any other ways to create value?
      - tmoertel 14y ago
        Let’s be clear about what we’re discussing here. The author of the original article suggested that efficiency was a problem because it threatened employment. I believe this claim to be false because, as I’ve written in earlier comments, when improved efficiency allows fewer humans to produce the same value as before, the humans who are no longer needed to produce that “old” value are freed to create new value. This will always be so. To see why, imagine the opposite: that at some point in time there are displaced masses who are cut off from society because they cannot create new value. But don’t those masses need and want? Don’t those masses have the ability to do things for one another? Of course, they do. So, in this imaginary future, what’s preventing them from creating new value within their own cut-off society? It’s not efficiency. It’s people. It’s people who have written the game’s rules, perhaps unknowingly, to prevent the displaced masses from creating their own value. It’s the displaced masses, themselves, who demand that society turn back the clocks. And this future is easy to imagine, for this future is already here. Which brings me to your question about the auto industry and today’s long-term unemployed. Efficiency isn’t what’s keeping these people out of work. It’s people: politicians and union bosses who sing sweet lies, the unemployed themselves who believe the lies, and executives who drain value from companies for personal gain. These are real problems that keep people out of work. But efficiency isn’t among them. It’s an imaginary problem. (It does, however, make for a good distraction.)
ScottBurson 14y ago
Because it is infinite. We have a kind of imagination and creativity that horses lack. Look at the arts -- particularly the modern ones of music and filmmaking. Can you not see that there will always be room for songs and movies that say something truly new about the world we live in? I suppose you could wave your hands and say that's all the "content industry" and counts as only one "thing", but I don't think that's fair. Great (or even good) works of art enrich our lives in different ways. "Content" is not a single commodity, like gasoline, of which we only need a certain amount. And it's obviously not limited to the arts. Every significant new Internet business changes the landscape, creating new opportunities for others. The silver lining in the cloud of this recession, I think, is that collectively we have a lot more free time. As the OP suggests, perhaps some of this would be well spent in face-to-face interactions. But you can also see people being forced by circumstances to reach into themselves and come up with new ways to create value. Oh, they're on a small scale, mostly; I'm not saying everyone who sits down to write a novel is going to create something as successful as Harry Potter. But they are new.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Can you not see that there will always be room for songs and movies that say something truly new about the world we live in? No, I can't see this. I think it quite likely that fairly quickly, we will reach the point where existing art is sufficient to satisfy most people. At some point, the quantity of good art will be vastly larger than the amount of consumption any human can do in a lifetime. And even if this is false, what happens when machines do just as good a job at creating art as humans do? Do you believe some sort of "meta-art" exists that machines will not be able to perform?
  - ScottBurson 14y ago
    At some point, the quantity of good art will be vastly larger than the amount of consumption any human can do in a lifetime. Oh, I think we passed that point a while ago. I certainly don't have time for all the art I would like to experience. But: so what? Just because a given piece of art finds a relatively small audience, that doesn't mean it's not valuable to those people. We have 7 billion people on this planet now. If you release a music album, and you get .0004% of the world's population to pay $5 each for it, that's $140k, which after production expenses should be enough for you to eat for a year. Tweak the numbers if you like, but we're still looking at needing less than one person in 10^5 to pay for your album in order for you to make a living. If you reach one in 10^4, you're doing well. Do you believe some sort of "meta-art" exists that machines will not be able to perform? Yes, actually, I do. Machines will never possess original creativity. I can't prove this to you. We'll just have to wait and see. But there certainly aren't any counterexamples to be found yet.