This is getting entirely off post, but I promise that it has something to do with intelligent robots.
our economic system is unsustainable because it operates under the assumption that there is the possibility of infinite growth in a finite environment.
Sorry, I’m blocking on it…what is “our economic” system again?
(nearly) Infinite growth is possible given a finite environment. That’s called “economies of scale”, or leverage. Welcome to the industrial revolution, comrade. Produce more output for a given input and so forth.
infinitely renewable resources are only infinitely renewable if the time they take to renew themselves is taken into account.
Time is taken into account by any economist worth his salt. If you’d like to start this discussion, read up on Bastiat’s broken window. Short run v. long run and so forth.
it's not. the well is running dry. it's unsustainable. I've flown over the huge clearcuts in the rainforest on the Pacific Coast of Canada. it's unnecessary to log this way, which was made possible through the advent of labour-saving devices such as the chainsaw, hunter-gatherers, logging trucks, helicopters, automated mills, etc...
this is neo-Malthusianism. What well, exactly, is running dry?
“The well” is not running dry. Even if you believe in “peak oil” and the like, You are entirely ignoring entrepreneurialism. In other words, you are ignoring human ingenuity. Entrepreneurs—in the absence of govt-- find out how to make nature’s given scarcity sustainable when the “well is running dry”. Let’s say you can manufacture all of these resources atom-by-atom (far-fetched nanotech). Would that calm you down?
replacing a forest with a tree farm is not the same thing, despite all the rhetorical spin I've been exposed to on the subject.
why not.
Further, Under private property (a tree farm) you have an incentive to manage the long-term growth of the forest. I.e., you don’t succomb to a tragedy of the commons (cutting down all the trees for short term benefit).
not from where I sit.
remind me where you are sitting. It sounds pointy.
it doesn't make everyone richer.
what doesn’t
there is no economic system that makes everyone richer.
yeah there is. It’s called capitalism. No one tries its. Hence our current predicament.
None that I've ever witnessed.
you’ve never witnessed capitalism. What you call capitalism is at best interventionism/mercantilism and at worst full fledged socialism. Tell me where you live and I’ll give you a more accurate description of your particular economic environement free of charge.
the one i see around me tends to make a few people rich, a very few very rich, and lots and lots and lots and lots of people poor.
no dispute. Its just that the one you see around you cant be blamed on capitalism by any stretch of the imagination. You don’t live in a laissez-faire society. If your society is capitalisr, it is so in name only. The policies are more socialist than capitalist
increasing production per person might not be so bad if we didn't already have more material goods than we know what to do with.
first, the only reason that you can put forth so ridiculous a notion as the above is due to the wonders of the free market, which produces goods from scarce natural resources in such abundance that you can see that we “have more material goods than we know what to do with”. Even homeless folk in my town have better clothing than kings did 300 years ago. Why? Free. Market.
Second, “we” don’t have more material goods than we know what to do with. Do you have every material good your heart desires? Infinite energy? Infinite trees? Infinite water? Infinite beer?
Sorry to shock you. Obviously not. If you do, please donate to me. I can never get enough energy or beer. Let’s focus on a smaller scale now. Subtract debt from assets on your own little personal balance sheet and tell me what your own personal shareholders equity is. Now, subtract your portion of your countrys budget deficit, because their debt is backed by their ability to tax you. I’ll almost guarantee—statistically speaking-- you can’t afford what you have. Even if you can, statistically speaking, the rest of society cannot. Europe and America are effectively bankrupt. Debt’s a bitch. The third world is typically EVEN worse.
Anyway, that’s a tangent. There is no such thing as having all the material goods you want. You can always want more. And even if its not material goods you want, you will still want to substiture leisure for labor, so as to pursue your non-material spiritual ends. Either way, you fall solidly under the laws of economics that you so gleefully ignore at your peril.
our economy depends on waste, which makes it anything but economical. It is inelegant, and lacking in eloquence to boot.
No argument. BuT it don’t even remotely resemble capitalism. It’s communism we have, bro. Tragedy of the commons. Compare your economy with the Ten Planks v. Laissez-Faire and get back to me
I agree with the first clause, however, I don't think that putting our energy into contemplating, researching, developing, marketing, acquiring & refining resources, manufacturing, transporting, retailing, buying and using labour-saving devices saves us any labour.
Then you are very clearly wrong, ignoring both history and theory. And a luddite, I might add.
It might appear that way to any given individual, but overall, we're using more energy, not less.
So what? We’re using more oxygen too. Oxygen was a poison to the environment once as well. Mother nature is one of the larges sources of sulfur emissions (volcanos).
[for the record I’m all for (private) environmental protection, I just think what you’re saying makes no sense. E.g.,, global warming from oil is way overhyped due to psuedo-science…nice hockey stick algorithm!]
It requires fewer people and overall labour to make yourself a rake than all of the multitudes of people and industries necessary to make a leaf-blower possible.
Yup. That’s the whole bloody point. It would be nice if you would kindly take time to read the entire post I wrote above about how what you are saying is economic nonsense.
Anyhoo, it frees those people to pursue other more useful projects. Division of labor and so forth. Comparative advantage. Crikey. Tell me again you’re not a luddite.
it's not economical. it's not even sensible. Yet, in the Autumn, listen to the sounds of the gasoline and electric powered motors rev up on the weekends.
???
we can't continue to manufacture labour-saving devices while the global resources from which these very things are made dwindles. Too many minuses, not enough plusses.
yeah, actually we can. That’s the whole bloody point. More labor (and other resource-saving) devices. See, god gave us limited resources. Land, labour, minerals, energy, etc. That’s not our fault. Our job is to make the most of it.
ie unsustainable. and I ain't no luddite
Your above comments confirm that you are in fact a luddite
I love eloquent technology, modern or ancient. our current environment doesn't reward eloquence and economy enough. it rewards profitability.
Oh, it’s “eloquent” technology you like. My mistake, you’re clearly not a luddite, so long as it stirs your poetic leanings.
Our current environment does not reward profitability. Rather, it taxes it, and on average rewards stupidity. Explain to me the government, for instance—easily 50% of the economy (direct + indirect) in any first world country, and not even remotely profitable, even by crackhead math. Government employees on average (when you add in all the benefits) make more than their private counterpart , not to mention that the private counterpart pays for all of their salary and benefits. Or explain the airline industry, which is continuously bailed out by the dunces in the government, despite an abysmally destructive return on capital You’d have trouble explaining to me how either is in any sense of the word profitable. Do people still strive for profit? Sure. Do people still get rich? Sure. But they are taxed more than they are rewarded for it. It’s much more profitable to become a politician, or at least to become a businessman who gets into bed with one. See Enron, Halliburton, and more recently the home builders.
Our current sytem rewards imbeciles. People buying houses thinking they’ll get rich. Anyone have a tulip? I’m hungry, it’ll go well as jam with my fish. |
I personally don't rate the Turing test, it shows that something can simulate intelligence, or lie really well. Do we want our benchmark of intelligence to be that an AI can fool us into thinking it's human? And you know that humans regularly fail the test, right?