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>Why would you pay robots? Of course you are correct. But you still pay the company that owns the robots. (Unless you're suggesting that there will be robots w

>Why would you pay robots? Of course you are correct. But you still pay the company that owns the robots. (Unless you're suggesting that there will be robots with no owner? I don't have to point out the problems with that, do I?) The relevant question is, "what expenses does a company that runs a robotic factory have?" This was Step 3 of my exercise. I offer it as a tool someone might use to answer their own questions.

danbruc 14y ago
Unless you're suggesting that there will be robots with no owner? I don't have to point out the problems with that, do I? That's actually what I had in mind - we build some robots doing all the work, maintaining themselves and what not. They would happily continue building iPhones even after the last human died. And they are owned - if you want to call it that - communistically by all humans. From time to time everybody can vote if he prefers to have more iPhones or more Android phones, vanilla ice cream or strawberry to actually produce the desired goods and that's it. You are hinting at some problems with that scenario but I am unable to see them - would you mind to elaborate on this?
- ef4 14y ago
  > From time to time everybody can vote if he prefers to have more iPhones or more Android phones, vanilla ice cream or strawberry to actually produce the desired goods and that's it. This is the crux of the problem: it's not just final consumer goods that need to be chosen, but every intermediate good up and down the value chain. And each of those choices is subject to differences of opinion, rapidly changing inputs, and shifting technologies. And even at the consumer-goods level, the complexity of the voting would be astounding. It's not going to be a question of simple two-way elections -- you really need to measure a gigantic matrix of relative preferences for each person, and nobody has enough information about relative inputs costs to even accurately fill out their own matrix. This is precisely why market pricing is so useful, and why it is unlikely to ever disappear entirely.

danbruc 14y ago

Unless you're suggesting that there will be robots with no owner? I don't have to point out the problems with that, do I? That's actually what I had in mind - we build some robots doing all the work, maintaining themselves and what not. They would happily continue building iPhones even after the last human died. And they are owned - if you want to call it that - communistically by all humans. From time to time everybody can vote if he prefers to have more iPhones or more Android phones, vanilla ice cream or strawberry to actually produce the desired goods and that's it. You are hinting at some problems with that scenario but I am unable to see them - would you mind to elaborate on this?

ef4 14y ago
> From time to time everybody can vote if he prefers to have more iPhones or more Android phones, vanilla ice cream or strawberry to actually produce the desired goods and that's it. This is the crux of the problem: it's not just final consumer goods that need to be chosen, but every intermediate good up and down the value chain. And each of those choices is subject to differences of opinion, rapidly changing inputs, and shifting technologies. And even at the consumer-goods level, the complexity of the voting would be astounding. It's not going to be a question of simple two-way elections -- you really need to measure a gigantic matrix of relative preferences for each person, and nobody has enough information about relative inputs costs to even accurately fill out their own matrix. This is precisely why market pricing is so useful, and why it is unlikely to ever disappear entirely.