3 ms·

Before the industrial revolution, even though money existed, "wealth" really meant "land" rather than "capital". The industrial revolution didn't really change

by kiba 2y ago

Before the industrial revolution, even though money existed, "wealth" really meant "land" rather than "capital". The industrial revolution didn't really change anything about land. It's still a fundamental and underrated component of our economic system, arguably more important than capital. That's why Georgism is a thing Indeed, it's even contemporary to the industrial revolution. The economics are too alien, we cannot imagine this kind of thing accurately on the basis of anything we have available with which to anchor our expectations. I would refrain from making such wild prediction about the future. As I have pointed out, the industrial revolution didn't change the fundamental importance of land. Arguably, it's much more important, and even more relevant today given how our land use policy is disastrous for our species and climate. So, yes. It is important to ask how consumers will pay for all these robots if they don't have any sort of income that would make using robots economical.

ben_w 2y ago
> The industrial revolution didn't really change anything about land. I didn't say otherwise. I said the industrial revolution changed what wealth meant. We don't pay for rents with the productive yield of vegetable gardens, and a lawn is no longer a symbol of conspicuous consumption due to signifying that the owner/tenant is so rich they don't need all their land to be productive. And indeed, while land is foundational, it's fine to just rent that land in many parts of the world. Even businesses do that. I still expect us to have money after AI does whatever it does (unless that thing is "kill everyone"), I simply also expect that money to be an irrelevant part of how we measure the wealth of the world. (If "world" is even the right term at that point). > Arguably, it's much more important, and even more relevant today given how our land use policy is disastrous for our species and climate. Not so; land use policy today is absolutely not a disaster for our species, though some specific disasters have happened on the scale of the depression era dustbowl or more recently Zimbabwe. For our climate, while we need to do better, land use is not the primary issue, it's about 18.4% of the problem vs. 73.2% being energy. > So, yes. It is important to ask how consumers will pay for all these robots if they don't have any sort of income that would make using robots economical. With a 2 year old laptop and model, making a picture with Stable Diffusion in a place where energy costs $0.1/kWh, costs about the same as paying a human on the UN abject poverty threshold for enough food to not starve for 4.43 seconds. "How will we pay for it" doesn't mean the humans get to keep their jobs. It can be a rallying call for UBI, if that's what you want? But robots-with-AI that can do anything a human can do, don't need humans to supply money.
- kiba 2y ago
  Nope. Land is important because everything rest on it. Even radio spectrum and orbitals can be regarded as a form of 'land'. Georgism doesn't exist in a vacuum. It wasn't like they were formulated during when the time when wealth 'meant' land. It was during the industrial revolution, possibly as a response to the problems they see in their society, problems we're still dealing with today. No longer it merely meant land where productive yield of vegetable garden goes. Anything that capital sits on is land. That includes your factories and your datacenter. Yes, that include renting land on someone else. That's land policy. Housing? Land policy. Pollution? Land policy. Transportation? Land policy. Can't afford to live? Likely your biggest ticket items include transportation and housing. Land is more important than ever. Now, what does this have to do with AI? I would caution against thinking money or capital to be irrelevant or making any definitive prediction about the impact of AI or when or how they will come. Edit: I see that you added stuff, but you have a narrow conception of land policy.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > Nope. Land is important because everything rest on it. Even radio spectrum and orbitals can be regarded as a form of 'land'. Then you define land so broadly that the empty vacuum of space, which robots are much better suited to than us, can exploit trivially when we cannot. If you want to, that's fine, but it still doesn't need humans to be able to pay for anything.
    - kiba 2y ago
      The orbital are literally scarce resources, as are radio spectrum. If you have people just doing whatever, you'll get Kessler syndrome, especially as our orbits are filled with more satellites each year. Similarly you just can't have random folks blasting out radio signals at random. Yes, satellites are robots. However, they have no agency. Incentive structure decides if we have kessler syndrome, which then direct humans to solve problems with robots. So, yes, they are either directly analogous to or are literal form of land.
      - 2y ago

by kiba 2y ago

ben_w 2y ago

> The industrial revolution didn't really change anything about land. I didn't say otherwise. I said the industrial revolution changed what wealth meant. We don't pay for rents with the productive yield of vegetable gardens, and a lawn is no longer a symbol of conspicuous consumption due to signifying that the owner/tenant is so rich they don't need all their land to be productive. And indeed, while land is foundational, it's fine to just rent that land in many parts of the world. Even businesses do that. I still expect us to have money after AI does whatever it does (unless that thing is "kill everyone"), I simply also expect that money to be an irrelevant part of how we measure the wealth of the world. (If "world" is even the right term at that point). > Arguably, it's much more important, and even more relevant today given how our land use policy is disastrous for our species and climate. Not so; land use policy today is absolutely not a disaster for our species, though some specific disasters have happened on the scale of the depression era dustbowl or more recently Zimbabwe. For our climate, while we need to do better, land use is not the primary issue, it's about 18.4% of the problem vs. 73.2% being energy. > So, yes. It is important to ask how consumers will pay for all these robots if they don't have any sort of income that would make using robots economical. With a 2 year old laptop and model, making a picture with Stable Diffusion in a place where energy costs $0.1/kWh, costs about the same as paying a human on the UN abject poverty threshold for enough food to not starve for 4.43 seconds. "How will we pay for it" doesn't mean the humans get to keep their jobs. It can be a rallying call for UBI, if that's what you want? But robots-with-AI that can do anything a human can do, don't need humans to supply money.

kiba 2y ago
Nope. Land is important because everything rest on it. Even radio spectrum and orbitals can be regarded as a form of 'land'. Georgism doesn't exist in a vacuum. It wasn't like they were formulated during when the time when wealth 'meant' land. It was during the industrial revolution, possibly as a response to the problems they see in their society, problems we're still dealing with today. No longer it merely meant land where productive yield of vegetable garden goes. Anything that capital sits on is land. That includes your factories and your datacenter. Yes, that include renting land on someone else. That's land policy. Housing? Land policy. Pollution? Land policy. Transportation? Land policy. Can't afford to live? Likely your biggest ticket items include transportation and housing. Land is more important than ever. Now, what does this have to do with AI? I would caution against thinking money or capital to be irrelevant or making any definitive prediction about the impact of AI or when or how they will come. Edit: I see that you added stuff, but you have a narrow conception of land policy.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > Nope. Land is important because everything rest on it. Even radio spectrum and orbitals can be regarded as a form of 'land'. Then you define land so broadly that the empty vacuum of space, which robots are much better suited to than us, can exploit trivially when we cannot. If you want to, that's fine, but it still doesn't need humans to be able to pay for anything.
  - kiba 2y ago
    The orbital are literally scarce resources, as are radio spectrum. If you have people just doing whatever, you'll get Kessler syndrome, especially as our orbits are filled with more satellites each year. Similarly you just can't have random folks blasting out radio signals at random. Yes, satellites are robots. However, they have no agency. Incentive structure decides if we have kessler syndrome, which then direct humans to solve problems with robots. So, yes, they are either directly analogous to or are literal form of land.
    - 2y ago