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Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean が 投稿

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[–]say_wot_againTweet all complaints to @Noahpinion 18ポイント19ポイント  (6子コメント)

You have been banned from /r/enoughlibertarianspam for vote manipulation. :P

Also, while you may be annoyed by catapultation, your response seems rather aggressive and unlikely to change people's minds.

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

Damn I love hanging out in ELS....

You're right though, aggression is unlikely to change people's minds. It's frustrating but I should try and keep a generally cooler head about it.

[–]besttrousers 17ポイント18ポイント  (4子コメント)

He's written like two dissertations for him at this point. A man's got to have a code.

[–]say_wot_againTweet all complaints to @Noahpinion 8ポイント9ポイント  (3子コメント)

Fair. But when I get to that point, I usually just switch threads. Better not to engage than to engage poorly imo.

[–]besttrousers 11ポイント12ポイント  (2子コメント)

He has engaged quite well.

[–]say_wot_againTweet all complaints to @Noahpinion 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

Right. Not saying he hasn't in general.

Sorry if I'm coming off as an overly critical asshole in this thread.

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

No need to apologize. Your criticisms are significantly more reasonable.

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 7ポイント8ポイント  (22子コメント)

R1: I truly cannot understand why people are going nuts the way they are over the possibility of achieving some sort of automated singularity. I've copied my text over from there so you can all enjoy the dank praxes I use.

Why didn't the lump of labor fallacy apply to horses?

It is generally accepted that a mathematical representation of the productive capabilities for a country is a function with two arguments: capital and technological labour. In this case, we write it as

Y = F(AK,AL)

Y = Income

K = Capital

A = Technology

L = Labour

In such a scenario, A is an ordinal number that is a technological multiplier when applied to either K or L.

Horses fall under C, humans are L. The comparison is not the same and we shouldn't treat it as something that is. There are fewer horses today because the market for generating returns by using them as capital is much smaller and generally limited to what most would consider luxury goods.

The use of new technology by humans means that they will be able to achieve greater and greater returns to their labour function. That's what technology does, right? It makes us more productive.

Just enough to make a significant portion of the population obsolete.

This claim, to me, is bananas. Humans can't possibly be outmatched because time is a resource. Anytime an automatic machine is doing something it is, by definition foregoing the possibility of doing something else.

Are you saying that a human is completely incapable of doing something that generates value? This is why comparative advantage is such a big fucking deal. We could do something that the machine couldn't by virtue of just doing something.

Obsolescence is not something that humanity will end up at because each person will find a way to be productive in some capacity. For example, I'm showing how my time is valuable by explaining this to some idiot on the internet.

...and we won't need to keep as many humans around anymore

So, who decides that? You? Donald Trump? Me and my economist buddies? What is your barometer for success here? And why does your barometer get to dictate how anyone lives their fucking life? Haven't we always said that human lives are great?

THEY FUCKING ARE. Each person is a productive person, and I think we can agree that having more of them leads to a more diverse environment further leading into more and more success stories. Is further diversity bad in some new evolutionary sense?

Are we going to stop the evolutionary train and cull our population because we've managed to make amazing robots that do everything extremely well? I mean, why the fuck wouldn't you? Everything would have to be FUCKING AMAZING for people to stop deliberately finding ways to do things that make their lives better.

I don't [think so] ... outside of revolutions or similar things.

Why the hell not? Income inequality? There will be a massive market for cheaply made things. If incomes relative to labour are so much lower than the returns of those to capital the people with less capital have a greater incentive to work to increase their income.

Even if that labour has such a low return the prices of everything will be so low that people will be able to sustain themselves. Everything will be so fucking dirt cheap it will be amazing. Revolution, or similar things, will be the last thing that you want to do.

[A]s societies get richer, that wealth spreads out to everyone

In the past, but past performance doesn't predict the future, ... the gains in an economy focused primarily at the top ... rest of society gets very litte.

Marx said that once capitalism got going the whole world saw more growth than in the thousands of years prior combined. Along with that we also got way better at feeding, clothing, educating, entertaining, etc. for a way larger number of people. More wealth has been spread out amongst more people allowing more people to get more wealthy.

It doesn't really matter if the gains are focused too much at the top though because everyone is getting richer and prices are going down.

TL;DR Fuck your bullshit. Humans aren't horses and the job-ocalypse is a myth.

[–]say_wot_againTweet all complaints to @Noahpinion 9ポイント10ポイント  (2子コメント)

Horses fall under C, humans are L.

You mean K. :P Also, human capital exists and is in a weird zone between K and L (or isn't, if you slap it on as a multiplier E for "effective labor").

This is why comparative advantage is such a big fucking deal. We could do something that the machine couldn't by virtue of just doing something.

Not saying you're wrong (you aren't), but you don't really explain how this didn't apply to horses. Just like we get flustered when neo-Luddites don't explain how this wave of automation is fundamentally different than previous ones, people like catapultation seem to get flustered when you don't really explain in detail why comparative advantage didn't apply as much to horses.

prices are going down

Something something inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Okay, this one is largely me being pedantic for its own sake. :P

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

You mean K

Fuck. Whatever, I'm leaving it.

human capital

You're right, I sort of implicitly put it as the technological multiplier. I agree I could be more specific with this.

[–]YourFriendlyGhostfree market shill 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Something something inflation is a monetary phenomenon.

Wasn't that statement said with a lots of ifs and buts? The crux of the theory being that increase in monetary supply relative to production would result in inflation, all else equal.

Maybe I am ignoring money velocity since the equation was MV=PQ.

[–]LordBufoAleppwnd 6ポイント7ポイント  (3子コメント)

Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance.

Recently technology has become increasingly complementary to highly skilled labor, depressing middle skill wages. And in the real world, a lot of those people just go on disability welfare and drop or of the labor force.

Could those middle aged men they get a low skill job standing all day flipping burgers or checking it groceries? Yes, but they don't. And there is good labor economic theory that explains this: it's below their reservation wage.

The massive gains from industrial capitalism were when technology was complementary to low skilled labor; a rising tide raises all boats when the tide happens to need people to just sit and pull levers all day.

While your post is obviously better economics, it's still making massive assumptions that in my opinion make it fall short of good economics.

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

Increasingly complementary to higher skilled labor

You make a very good point.

I think that I would argue that we are increasing the skills of people entering the workforce through education. So the bar set for low skill labour is constantly increasing to keep pace with technology. I don't know if that's necessarily true and I don't currently have the time to look it up, but it's my gut feeling.

[–]LordBufoAleppwnd 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

Actually low skill labor (non-routine manual) is now neither (comparatively) very substitutable nor very complemented by technology. They're the ones in your post working more hours and getting cheaper goods.

The problem is the middle skill jobs (routine cognitive and routine manual) who are being replaced by computers and outsourcing. You see a tiled u shape of wage growth and over the skill distribution. Low skill are doing ok, middle skill are hurting, and high skill are doing great. You also see a u shape in employment changes, the middle skill jobs are disappearing.

To a middle class middle skill worker with obsoleted human capital and a middling reservation wage, you would probably think of yourself as replaced by machines because you don't want to flip burgers at age 50.

There is a long run adjustment to full employment with new workers gaining new human capital like you say, but on the scale of individual life spans it can cause a lot of issues. Also, the long run adjustment could plausible result in increased inequality due to a polarized labor force.

I can link papers later if you are interested.

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Very neat. I would for sure be interested in any literature.

[–]geerussell 5ポイント6ポイント  (12子コメント)

It doesn't really matter if the gains are focused too much at the top though because everyone is getting richer and prices are going down.

So the political economy don't real and we should all be indifferent to the distribution?

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (11子コメント)

Valid point.

As I understand it political economy focuses on the distribution of profits after each sector passes its reproduction point. If that reproduction point is still being hit then IMO the distribution of profits isn't that big of a deal.

I see where you're coming from though.

[–]geerussell 2ポイント3ポイント  (10子コメント)

The example I always come back to is Krugman's yacht economy:

So am I saying that you can have full employment based on purchases of yachts, luxury cars, and the services of personal trainers and celebrity chefs? Well, yes. You don’t have to like it, but economics is not a morality play, and I’ve yet to see a macroeconomic argument about why it isn’t possible.

He's right. It is possible. That economy can reproduce itself. We don't have to like it. Whether we end up with the yacht economy or some other variant is kind of a big deal. The next step is to understand we don't have to accept it, that's why the distribution matters.

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (9子コメント)

That's fair.

I wonder how that fits into the context of everyone getting richer and prices of everything going down. If both the rich and the poor grow at the same rate and the prices of everything go down then both groups are still better off, aren't they?

If poor starts with $100 and grows at 3% it gets $103 in the next period.

If rich starts with $10,000 and grows at 3% it gets $10,300 in the next period.

For sure the rich get more, but the poor also get more. I'm combining this with the notion that the purchasing power of both groups is also increased. Is that not still a good thing?

[–]geerussell 6ポイント7ポイント  (6子コメント)

For sure the rich get more, but the poor also get more. I'm combining this with the notion that the purchasing power of both groups is also increased. Is that not still a good thing?

What's happening in the middle? If it's getting hollowed out as wealth is concentrated in fewer hands at the top end and everyone else is falling towards the bottom end then I'm not so sure we should ignore wealth concentration as long as the poor are incrementally better off.

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (5子コメント)

Is the middle being hollowed out?

Edit: Also, what's your definition of being hollowed out?

[–]geerussell 5ポイント6ポイント  (4子コメント)

By hollowed out I mean reduced, diminishing in number. Squeezed out by the distribution.

[–]serukoR1 submitter 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

To misquote "I'm not saying the demand curve for the three middle quintiles labor is vertical with technology, all I'm saying here is that the demand curve is downward sloping."

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

How is that possible if we're only distributing the surplus after reproduction?

[–]besttrousers 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

What is this 'reproduction' stuff you guys are discussing?

[–]janethefish 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Is that not still a good thing?

Its really only a problem when you have the poor person not getting anything extra, or the poor person getting enslaved and worked to death to build the World Cup Stadium. 3% growth across the board is a pretty ideal scenario.

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

In the data that I've seen I noticed that quintile growth rates are fairly consistent with one another FWIW.

[–]InfinityArch 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

While much of the quoted post is baseless alarmism, in my opinion, there are a number of valid concerns regarding the hypothetical automation revolution.

Firstly, if the (relative) magnitude of economic change is comparable to the industrial revolution, it's look that the transition period could result in widespread upheaval, much what occurred during the industrial era. While society would presumably benefit in the long run, making the economic transition as painless as possible should be an important topic.

Beyond that, here are a number of political concerns, particularly the implications that an automated military has for a democratic society.

[–]derleth 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Each person is a productive person

Really? Because I can think up a whole list of counter-examples, and that's before I get to death row.

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[–]HOU_Civil_EconLunch break is the opium of the masses 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Final Proof

Horses are Humans, terribly mean Humans.

[–]Homeboy_JesusOn average economists are pretty mean[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Wow what a dick