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Very nice to hear: "good thing for the world overall", how cute. However, quality of life basically translates into resources/population ratio within a country

Very nice to hear: "good thing for the world overall", how cute. However, quality of life basically translates into resources/population ratio within a country and that's a zero-sum game. The planet at the current level of technology couldn't even provide for all existing Chinese to suddenly start living like people in US/EU do, yet their populations, especially if measured in number of households, much more relevant than just counting heads, keeps growing. And no amount of Internet innovation will solve the problem of diminishing clean water, oil, ocean fish, disappearing forests, soil erosion and increasingly bad air quality. Right now 1st world countries are basically "exporting" these problems to developing nations, eventually these issues will be averaged out: eventually China won't be so poor to accept our non-recyclable electronic garbage anymore, what then?

pg 18y ago
Any increase in someone's quality of life comes at someone else's expense. Historically that has not been the case. Historically quality of life improvements have come from technological discoveries (e.g. penicillin) and social evolution (e.g. of the middle class). Who loses if penicillin is discovered? Who loses if some former serfs decide to become artisans instead? The single biggest improvement in quality of life for most humans over most of history has probably come from improved hygienic practices. How does that come at someone's else's expense? I also disagree with your specific claim that "Internet innovation" can't improve physical world problems. Would you claim books don't help solve the problem of clean water? Not literally, obviously; you can't use books to make clean water, except by ripping out pages and using them as water filters. But think how much harder it would be to solve the problem if books didn't exist. And the Internet is an innovation on the scale of printing.
- old-gregg 18y ago
  I just finished the 2nd book by Jared Diamond (Collapse) and he claims that population growth diminishes the advantages of technological progress. Without penicillin, Internet, improved hygienic practices we wouldn't have nearly 7 billion people living on this planet right now. At the current rate of population growth we'll have a density of 10 people per square foot (!) before year 3000, and the population growth is what usually follows a country's increased economic output.
  - smanek 18y ago
    You can't extrapolate historical population trends and expect them to be remotely accurate. Most current data shows population plateauing at around 10 Billion. Most of the westernized world's population (US, Japan, Western Europe, Australia, etc) is either stagnant or decreasing - and almost every other country (China, India, Latin America) is moving towards that. And the technology has more than made up for our population growth. Almost everyone would agree that the 7 Billion people we have today are far better off (on average) than the 1 Billion people we had 200 years ago.
    - bokonist 18y ago
      I hope population does indeed plateau. But one twist is that the population subgroups that reproduce the most will over time become a larger portion of the population. As these subgroups grow, fertility trends may start to reverse.
  - old-gregg 18y ago
    Let me express my surprise: being downmodded for offering UCLA professor's anti-globalist claims for open discussion on HN isn't terribly encouraging. You don't have to agree with me but why shut the conversation down? Am I offending anyone or posting fart jokes? Meanwhile a lot of folks are debating either "technology and globalization" approach will work, and some of them aren't stupid. At least you downmodders could try to use some curiosity and open up a little to what they have to say. That's a pity: while reading the book I was actually thinking about bringing this topic up for discussion on HN.
    - pg 18y ago
      No one's shutting down the conversation. If you wanted to continue the conversation, there was already a reply waiting for you: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=489006 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=489006
    - davidw 18y ago
      Jared Diamond isn't "anti-globalist". Collapse is a good book, but IIRC, he isn't attacking free trade, but the overuse of resources. They're two different things.
- trapper 18y ago
  www.storyofstuff.com We have finite resources. By using resources we are either doing it at someone in the present times expense, or someone in the future. By keeping more people alive now, we are possibly reducing the longevity of the human race. Just to play devils advocate :)
  - skmurphy 18y ago
    www.nonzero.org We have infinite creativity. By finding more productive and innovative uses for resources we can make the world a better place for everyone. By keeping more people alive now we have more creative minds working on the problems that we face.
- homme 18y ago
  you can't use books to make clean water, except by ripping out pages and using them as water filters I think you would do better by using books as kindling to boil water, killing any latent bacteria.
smanek 18y ago
The basic tenet of capitalism is that trade is not zero-sum: it actually creates wealth. If I have I pay you $10 for a service that costs you $5 to provide, you've actually created $5 of wealth out of thin air. I end up with a service that I value more than $10 so I come out ahead, and you end up with money that you value more than the marginal cost of providing me that service so you come out ahead. As a simple check, the average person (in the world) today is better off than the average person 50, 100, or 1,000 years ago. Even though are population has increased significantly, our wealth has increased even more.
- timr 18y ago
  Wealth is not created when I pay you $10 for something that you made for $5 -- wealth is created when you use labor to add value to natural resources. To this end, capitalism is very much a zero-sum game. There are only so many resources to exploit, and once they're gone (or otherwise locked up), that's it for growth.
  - smanek 18y ago
    You can add value to natural resources by using labor. But that isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about the wealth added by trade. As a simple example, let's say I have a large bag of peanuts - but I'm allergic to peanuts. And you have a copy of Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations' (which you clearly have no interest in reading ;-)). By trading my peanuts for your book, we both come out ahead and no one is worse off - the trade itself creates value. Every time any trade/purchase takes place, value is created. Both parties are better off than they were before the trade - otherwise they wouldn't have chosen to be involved in the transaction.
    - timr 18y ago
      I must have missed the part of Wealth of Nations that you're citing. Because when I read it, Smith defined "wealth" only in aggregate, as the "net revenues" of the labor of a society. So ignoring, for the moment, the fact that Adam Smith's definition of "wealth" isn't the only one (and the fact that you're using the terms "wealth" and "value" interchangeably), I think you've misinterpreted what he wrote. In other words, you're really stretching to use his notion of "wealth" as an argument that trade creates more wealth. Wealth generation does not occur when an item is traded -- it occurs when an item is created, using labor. Smith goes out of his way to say this: "The value of any commodity, ... to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities" (Wealth of Nations, Book 1, chapter V) The peanuts in your example didn't gain or lose value when they were traded for a paperback. Nor did the paperback gain or lose value. We merely created a market that defined their values as equivalent. Confusing this process for wealth creation is a big reason why we're in the economic mess that we're in today.

pg 18y ago

Any increase in someone's quality of life comes at someone else's expense. Historically that has not been the case. Historically quality of life improvements have come from technological discoveries (e.g. penicillin) and social evolution (e.g. of the middle class). Who loses if penicillin is discovered? Who loses if some former serfs decide to become artisans instead? The single biggest improvement in quality of life for most humans over most of history has probably come from improved hygienic practices. How does that come at someone's else's expense? I also disagree with your specific claim that "Internet innovation" can't improve physical world problems. Would you claim books don't help solve the problem of clean water? Not literally, obviously; you can't use books to make clean water, except by ripping out pages and using them as water filters. But think how much harder it would be to solve the problem if books didn't exist. And the Internet is an innovation on the scale of printing.

old-gregg 18y ago
I just finished the 2nd book by Jared Diamond (Collapse) and he claims that population growth diminishes the advantages of technological progress. Without penicillin, Internet, improved hygienic practices we wouldn't have nearly 7 billion people living on this planet right now. At the current rate of population growth we'll have a density of 10 people per square foot (!) before year 3000, and the population growth is what usually follows a country's increased economic output.
- smanek 18y ago
  You can't extrapolate historical population trends and expect them to be remotely accurate. Most current data shows population plateauing at around 10 Billion. Most of the westernized world's population (US, Japan, Western Europe, Australia, etc) is either stagnant or decreasing - and almost every other country (China, India, Latin America) is moving towards that. And the technology has more than made up for our population growth. Almost everyone would agree that the 7 Billion people we have today are far better off (on average) than the 1 Billion people we had 200 years ago.
  - bokonist 18y ago
    I hope population does indeed plateau. But one twist is that the population subgroups that reproduce the most will over time become a larger portion of the population. As these subgroups grow, fertility trends may start to reverse.
- old-gregg 18y ago
  Let me express my surprise: being downmodded for offering UCLA professor's anti-globalist claims for open discussion on HN isn't terribly encouraging. You don't have to agree with me but why shut the conversation down? Am I offending anyone or posting fart jokes? Meanwhile a lot of folks are debating either "technology and globalization" approach will work, and some of them aren't stupid. At least you downmodders could try to use some curiosity and open up a little to what they have to say. That's a pity: while reading the book I was actually thinking about bringing this topic up for discussion on HN.
  - pg 18y ago
    No one's shutting down the conversation. If you wanted to continue the conversation, there was already a reply waiting for you: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=489006 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=489006
  - davidw 18y ago
    Jared Diamond isn't "anti-globalist". Collapse is a good book, but IIRC, he isn't attacking free trade, but the overuse of resources. They're two different things.
trapper 18y ago
www.storyofstuff.com We have finite resources. By using resources we are either doing it at someone in the present times expense, or someone in the future. By keeping more people alive now, we are possibly reducing the longevity of the human race. Just to play devils advocate :)
- skmurphy 18y ago
  www.nonzero.org We have infinite creativity. By finding more productive and innovative uses for resources we can make the world a better place for everyone. By keeping more people alive now we have more creative minds working on the problems that we face.
homme 18y ago
you can't use books to make clean water, except by ripping out pages and using them as water filters I think you would do better by using books as kindling to boil water, killing any latent bacteria.

smanek 18y ago

The basic tenet of capitalism is that trade is not zero-sum: it actually creates wealth. If I have I pay you $10 for a service that costs you $5 to provide, you've actually created $5 of wealth out of thin air. I end up with a service that I value more than $10 so I come out ahead, and you end up with money that you value more than the marginal cost of providing me that service so you come out ahead. As a simple check, the average person (in the world) today is better off than the average person 50, 100, or 1,000 years ago. Even though are population has increased significantly, our wealth has increased even more.

timr 18y ago
Wealth is not created when I pay you $10 for something that you made for $5 -- wealth is created when you use labor to add value to natural resources. To this end, capitalism is very much a zero-sum game. There are only so many resources to exploit, and once they're gone (or otherwise locked up), that's it for growth.
- smanek 18y ago
  You can add value to natural resources by using labor. But that isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about the wealth added by trade. As a simple example, let's say I have a large bag of peanuts - but I'm allergic to peanuts. And you have a copy of Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations' (which you clearly have no interest in reading ;-)). By trading my peanuts for your book, we both come out ahead and no one is worse off - the trade itself creates value. Every time any trade/purchase takes place, value is created. Both parties are better off than they were before the trade - otherwise they wouldn't have chosen to be involved in the transaction.
  - timr 18y ago
    I must have missed the part of Wealth of Nations that you're citing. Because when I read it, Smith defined "wealth" only in aggregate, as the "net revenues" of the labor of a society. So ignoring, for the moment, the fact that Adam Smith's definition of "wealth" isn't the only one (and the fact that you're using the terms "wealth" and "value" interchangeably), I think you've misinterpreted what he wrote. In other words, you're really stretching to use his notion of "wealth" as an argument that trade creates more wealth. Wealth generation does not occur when an item is traded -- it occurs when an item is created, using labor. Smith goes out of his way to say this: "The value of any commodity, ... to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities" (Wealth of Nations, Book 1, chapter V) The peanuts in your example didn't gain or lose value when they were traded for a paperback. Nor did the paperback gain or lose value. We merely created a market that defined their values as equivalent. Confusing this process for wealth creation is a big reason why we're in the economic mess that we're in today.