3 ms·

The relative value does not increase at the same rate, however. And that's a big issue. Getting people food to eat is very important. Getting people slightly b

The relative value does not increase at the same rate, however. And that's a big issue. Getting people food to eat is very important. Getting people slightly better software, not so much. The further we push up and up the less importance the jobs become. Knowledge work is great, but it's necessarily less valuable from a humanity perspective than laborious work. Of course this flaw isn't solved in a capitalist system, so we just ignore it. We just lie and pay knowledge workers more, because their work takes more human effort/investment, even if the product is less valuable. So we have a mismatch, where money value does not match real world value, and it's only getting worse. It's a bubble - eventually it will have to pop.

satvikpendem 2y ago
> The relative value does not increase at the same rate, however. And that's a big issue. Where is the proof of this? How can you say that this is true? > The further we push up and up the less importance the jobs become. Knowledge work is great, but it's necessarily less valuable from a humanity perspective than laborious work. I reject this conclusion wholeheartedly. After food production and other such ventures, there really is only knowledge work. That you dismiss it so easily does not mean that it is not important. Indeed, the "slightly better software" of today can impact billions, billions who were not alive during the agricultural age. Even by that metric, yes, what we create today impacts many multitudes greater than us. We pay knowledge workers more because of this fact, which is matched in a capitalist system, which, need I remind you, is the single greatest contributor to the increasing of living standards in the world, something that is unmatched by any other system. You may have issues with it, but the facts are as they are.
- consteval 2y ago
  "Knowledge work" is a spectrum that goes higher and higher. There's low level knowledge work, maybe a secretary, all the way up to scientists. > capitalist system, which, need I remind you, is the single greatest contributor to the increasing of living standards in the world I reject this conclusion. The single greatest contributor is technology, which advances with or without capitalism. We can tell because the USSR had increasing standards of living too, because they too had technological advancements. In some areas, more advanced than the west. It's merely a coincidence that capitalism was the vessel. Any somewhat reasonable economic system will do. Certainly, the areas today with the highest quality of life are qusai-socialist - and the capitalist nations, like the US, are left to the bottom of the barrel of the developed world. In spite of her massive wealth. The simple reality is that inventions become less and less valuable as time goes on. The problems become smaller and smaller, less and less important, because we necessarily solved the biggest ones first. A new medicine is remarkable yes, but nothing in the face of aseptic technique. A new phone is neat sure, but nothing in the face of the original global network, the telephony network. Jumping from A to B is much greater than D to F and so on, because innovations build on the previous. It's a pyramid of humanity. If you take out the lowest levels though, it crumbles. Without sanitation, food service, agriculture, you cannot have innovation. Ultimately everyone like you or I could die and that would be a blip. If every agriculturalist dies, then humanity is no more. To me, that is indicative of value - value in terms of service to humanity. This problem will grow with time because not everyone can be knowledge workers. Not everyone can get a college degree just to be paid 20 bucks an hour. Our jobs are going to higher and higher levels of abstraction, but they're leaving people behind. We've solved it as much as we can. We educate everyone now; we provide college assistance too. Suddenly most people can read and write, and we took it 1,000 steps further than that. But people as a whole are limited. When the average person can no longer work the average job, the economy will collapse in on itself. Sure, we can automate and then provide new jobs. We don't know what to do if people cannot work those new jobs. Everything is based on people, like you and me, buying. If we cannot buy, if the average laborer cannot buy, nothing else matters. And it comes down like a house of cards.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    > The single greatest contributor is technology, which advances with or without capitalism. We can tell because the USSR had increasing standards of living too, because they too had technological advancements. In some areas, more advanced than the west. Sorry, no. I know of many people who have suffered due to not having enough to eat under the communist regimes of the USSR and Maoist China, while places like West Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the US were thriving as usual. If you do not have personal experiences with these areas or the people in them, please do not act as if you do, because the statistics and personal experiences tell a different story. It is not simply technology but the distribution of technology, something that should've been done in a communist society, ironically. > The simple reality is that inventions become less and less valuable as time goes on. Again, I am simply unsure of where you came to this conclusion. Solving something like cancer is simply much more monumental than anything that came before. Knowledge work is obviously instrumental to understanding how such a disease works and spreads. > When the average person can no longer work the average job, the economy will collapse in on itself What a strange comment. It's as if you assume that the average person has some set of knowledge (and a corresponding upper threshold of knowledge that cannot be surpassed) whereas the opposite is true; we teach 8th graders advanced calculus concepts where it took Newton decades to understand. If anything, the limit (if it indeed exists within our normal belief of the future) is quite high.
    - consteval 2y ago
      > If you do not have personal experiences with these areas or the people in them I do, and of course there was suffering. I think you're taking me for a commie, that's not the case. > Solving something like cancer is simply much more monumental than anything that came before Um... no. No it's not. It just seems that way now because we solved so much. If you go back 500 years and ask them what they need solved, they wouldn't say cancer. This is actually evidence of my point. As time goes on, our problems become smaller, so thing appear bigger. Cancer appears now as HUGE deal, but historically people dealt with things like infant mortality - where HALF of all infants died. Could you even imagine that in the context of modern life? We fixed that with aseptic technique and vit K. Now, because we did that, we have the opportunity to focus on problems like cancer, which wasn't even something we cared enough to look at in the past. It's to the point where we're so far removed from fundamental flaws of humanity, they are literally unthinkable, unimaginable. You cannot even conceptualize them. Our own understanding of death has changed since we've eliminated so much death. > What a strange comment. It's as if you assume that the average person has some set of knowledge Incorrect, and if you noticed my paragraph above this, I don't know how you concluded that. It's not a matter of knowledge, knowledge is infinite. It's a matter of aptitude or potential, and that is not infinite. We can teach everyone everything, but it won't stick, because not everyone can learn everything. > If anything, the limit ... is quite high. I disgaree, we're already reaching the limit with our current knowledge and technology. In the past two decades, kids were forced essentially to go to college. However, some could not do it, and now they are subject to a life of menial jobs with poverty pay. This is in contrast to the prior generation, where high school grads could get decent jobs. It's to a point where college grads, with bachelor's degrees, are now making 20 dollars an hour out of college (depends on the degree). Better than high school grads making 12, but not by much. Masters will be the next bachelors in the next 10 years, probably sooner. The end result is large chunks of people being assigned to poverty. The newer advice for them is to simply turn to trades - I'm sure you've heard this. The idea being trading off your physical health for being able to perform a job that both pays okay and fits their level of aptitude. This should be obvious to you. Truthfully, I don't know how you don't see it. Maybe it's just because I'm Gen Z so I got slapped in the face with this since birth. But every single day it was pounded into our heads we NEED to go to college or we will fail at life. This WAS NOT the case of the prior generations. I am extremely lucky to have the ability to perform okay in college. If I was born, say, 20 years later it's likely I would not have the ability. If someone like my mother, bless her heart, was born today she would not make even a quarter what she makes now. But, I know many people who did not or could not go to college. Some went anyway and got 'easy' degrees. Despite being educated, they are now making close to nothing. Some are now getting masters, because that's the only way to make money. And some didn't go and are now flipping burgers because that's all that's out there.

satvikpendem 2y ago

> The relative value does not increase at the same rate, however. And that's a big issue. Where is the proof of this? How can you say that this is true? > The further we push up and up the less importance the jobs become. Knowledge work is great, but it's necessarily less valuable from a humanity perspective than laborious work. I reject this conclusion wholeheartedly. After food production and other such ventures, there really is only knowledge work. That you dismiss it so easily does not mean that it is not important. Indeed, the "slightly better software" of today can impact billions, billions who were not alive during the agricultural age. Even by that metric, yes, what we create today impacts many multitudes greater than us. We pay knowledge workers more because of this fact, which is matched in a capitalist system, which, need I remind you, is the single greatest contributor to the increasing of living standards in the world, something that is unmatched by any other system. You may have issues with it, but the facts are as they are.

consteval 2y ago
"Knowledge work" is a spectrum that goes higher and higher. There's low level knowledge work, maybe a secretary, all the way up to scientists. > capitalist system, which, need I remind you, is the single greatest contributor to the increasing of living standards in the world I reject this conclusion. The single greatest contributor is technology, which advances with or without capitalism. We can tell because the USSR had increasing standards of living too, because they too had technological advancements. In some areas, more advanced than the west. It's merely a coincidence that capitalism was the vessel. Any somewhat reasonable economic system will do. Certainly, the areas today with the highest quality of life are qusai-socialist - and the capitalist nations, like the US, are left to the bottom of the barrel of the developed world. In spite of her massive wealth. The simple reality is that inventions become less and less valuable as time goes on. The problems become smaller and smaller, less and less important, because we necessarily solved the biggest ones first. A new medicine is remarkable yes, but nothing in the face of aseptic technique. A new phone is neat sure, but nothing in the face of the original global network, the telephony network. Jumping from A to B is much greater than D to F and so on, because innovations build on the previous. It's a pyramid of humanity. If you take out the lowest levels though, it crumbles. Without sanitation, food service, agriculture, you cannot have innovation. Ultimately everyone like you or I could die and that would be a blip. If every agriculturalist dies, then humanity is no more. To me, that is indicative of value - value in terms of service to humanity. This problem will grow with time because not everyone can be knowledge workers. Not everyone can get a college degree just to be paid 20 bucks an hour. Our jobs are going to higher and higher levels of abstraction, but they're leaving people behind. We've solved it as much as we can. We educate everyone now; we provide college assistance too. Suddenly most people can read and write, and we took it 1,000 steps further than that. But people as a whole are limited. When the average person can no longer work the average job, the economy will collapse in on itself. Sure, we can automate and then provide new jobs. We don't know what to do if people cannot work those new jobs. Everything is based on people, like you and me, buying. If we cannot buy, if the average laborer cannot buy, nothing else matters. And it comes down like a house of cards.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  > The single greatest contributor is technology, which advances with or without capitalism. We can tell because the USSR had increasing standards of living too, because they too had technological advancements. In some areas, more advanced than the west. Sorry, no. I know of many people who have suffered due to not having enough to eat under the communist regimes of the USSR and Maoist China, while places like West Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the US were thriving as usual. If you do not have personal experiences with these areas or the people in them, please do not act as if you do, because the statistics and personal experiences tell a different story. It is not simply technology but the distribution of technology, something that should've been done in a communist society, ironically. > The simple reality is that inventions become less and less valuable as time goes on. Again, I am simply unsure of where you came to this conclusion. Solving something like cancer is simply much more monumental than anything that came before. Knowledge work is obviously instrumental to understanding how such a disease works and spreads. > When the average person can no longer work the average job, the economy will collapse in on itself What a strange comment. It's as if you assume that the average person has some set of knowledge (and a corresponding upper threshold of knowledge that cannot be surpassed) whereas the opposite is true; we teach 8th graders advanced calculus concepts where it took Newton decades to understand. If anything, the limit (if it indeed exists within our normal belief of the future) is quite high.
  - consteval 2y ago
    > If you do not have personal experiences with these areas or the people in them I do, and of course there was suffering. I think you're taking me for a commie, that's not the case. > Solving something like cancer is simply much more monumental than anything that came before Um... no. No it's not. It just seems that way now because we solved so much. If you go back 500 years and ask them what they need solved, they wouldn't say cancer. This is actually evidence of my point. As time goes on, our problems become smaller, so thing appear bigger. Cancer appears now as HUGE deal, but historically people dealt with things like infant mortality - where HALF of all infants died. Could you even imagine that in the context of modern life? We fixed that with aseptic technique and vit K. Now, because we did that, we have the opportunity to focus on problems like cancer, which wasn't even something we cared enough to look at in the past. It's to the point where we're so far removed from fundamental flaws of humanity, they are literally unthinkable, unimaginable. You cannot even conceptualize them. Our own understanding of death has changed since we've eliminated so much death. > What a strange comment. It's as if you assume that the average person has some set of knowledge Incorrect, and if you noticed my paragraph above this, I don't know how you concluded that. It's not a matter of knowledge, knowledge is infinite. It's a matter of aptitude or potential, and that is not infinite. We can teach everyone everything, but it won't stick, because not everyone can learn everything. > If anything, the limit ... is quite high. I disgaree, we're already reaching the limit with our current knowledge and technology. In the past two decades, kids were forced essentially to go to college. However, some could not do it, and now they are subject to a life of menial jobs with poverty pay. This is in contrast to the prior generation, where high school grads could get decent jobs. It's to a point where college grads, with bachelor's degrees, are now making 20 dollars an hour out of college (depends on the degree). Better than high school grads making 12, but not by much. Masters will be the next bachelors in the next 10 years, probably sooner. The end result is large chunks of people being assigned to poverty. The newer advice for them is to simply turn to trades - I'm sure you've heard this. The idea being trading off your physical health for being able to perform a job that both pays okay and fits their level of aptitude. This should be obvious to you. Truthfully, I don't know how you don't see it. Maybe it's just because I'm Gen Z so I got slapped in the face with this since birth. But every single day it was pounded into our heads we NEED to go to college or we will fail at life. This WAS NOT the case of the prior generations. I am extremely lucky to have the ability to perform okay in college. If I was born, say, 20 years later it's likely I would not have the ability. If someone like my mother, bless her heart, was born today she would not make even a quarter what she makes now. But, I know many people who did not or could not go to college. Some went anyway and got 'easy' degrees. Despite being educated, they are now making close to nothing. Some are now getting masters, because that's the only way to make money. And some didn't go and are now flipping burgers because that's all that's out there.