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Nobody wants to live in a mining economy. Human slavery, extraordinary taxes, no public infrastructure. Conceivably you only need two roads total: one from the

Nobody wants to live in a mining economy. Human slavery, extraordinary taxes, no public infrastructure. Conceivably you only need two roads total: one from the palace to the airport and another from the mine to the docks. Any more and someone might try to build a school. It seems to me that human quality of life is really tightly coupled to economic systems where there is a high ROI in investing in the public. This is what spooks me about AI. A slow but observable descent on the continuum from knowledge economy to diamond mine economy. The rust belt metastasizes and oversupply of human laborers is such a problem things get really hunger games about which libraries and universities get their bills paid.

phailhaus 4mo ago
This is why I get worried about the hatred for income taxes. No, you want the government to want you to be richer. If all they raised was property taxes, then they don't care if you get priced out of your home, as long as someone's buying.
- otikik 4mo ago
  There's no hate for income taxes. There's hate about income taxes not accompanied with wealth taxes.
  - apetrov 4mo ago
    surely there is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_theft
    - otikik 4mo ago
      That is "tax in general", not income taxes specifically.
      - apetrov 4mo ago
        income tax is a particular instance of 'tax in general'.
skybrian 4mo ago
This suggests to me more separation into industrial versus residential areas. (Or what is the mining for?) Historically, mechanized agriculture allowed most people to move to cities, then to suburbs. Industry became globalized and off-shored. These changes in land use have gone on for a long time. Now we’re getting more solar farms and data centers. Due to Internet shopping, malls close and get converted into residential. There are more warehouses, but shoppers don’t go there. You could think of it as people being increasingly alienated from where the work is done. The logical conclusion is something like a retirement community where goods and services are delivered where possible and the people who work locally are directly providing services to other people there. And retirees are people who secured an income through whatever means and don’t have to work anymore. They don’t have to worry about how AI will affect their job.

phailhaus 4mo ago

This is why I get worried about the hatred for income taxes. No, you want the government to want you to be richer. If all they raised was property taxes, then they don't care if you get priced out of your home, as long as someone's buying.

otikik 4mo ago
There's no hate for income taxes. There's hate about income taxes not accompanied with wealth taxes.
- apetrov 4mo ago
  surely there is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_theft
  - otikik 4mo ago
    That is "tax in general", not income taxes specifically.
    - apetrov 4mo ago
      income tax is a particular instance of 'tax in general'.

skybrian 4mo ago

This suggests to me more separation into industrial versus residential areas. (Or what is the mining for?) Historically, mechanized agriculture allowed most people to move to cities, then to suburbs. Industry became globalized and off-shored. These changes in land use have gone on for a long time. Now we’re getting more solar farms and data centers. Due to Internet shopping, malls close and get converted into residential. There are more warehouses, but shoppers don’t go there. You could think of it as people being increasingly alienated from where the work is done. The logical conclusion is something like a retirement community where goods and services are delivered where possible and the people who work locally are directly providing services to other people there. And retirees are people who secured an income through whatever means and don’t have to work anymore. They don’t have to worry about how AI will affect their job.