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Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

thoughtinfection.com

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Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#2
The article irrationally assumes the best effort maximizer has no competition and long life, which we have not seen in endless lower powered implementations, and there seems to be no trend so unless it starts going exponential...

There might be a barrier here, like speed of light or various mathematical limits that formalize the old saying of too many cooks spoil the broth. The required complexity of a uber-maximizer to handle the complex universe means its unprovably complicated and unreliable. Or you'd need a bigger computer than the universe to answer the halting question for a universe controlling control loop, or even something much smaller like a mere multinational corporation. Or another way to put it is a predatory competitor maximizer would inevitably be better at predation than its victim that focuses more on some arbitrary goal than on avoid becoming a meal, so in a hyper optimized playing field all you'd get is ever better predators eating each other and eating weaker non-predation focused orgs, or basically the modern business/finance system.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#3
Capital doesn't maximize capital; it maximizes productivity. In absence of controls, capital naturally flows to productivity in order to be maximized by the holders of capital; but only because productivity creates wealth, not the capital itself.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#4
post #3

Capital doesn't maximize capital; it maximizes productivity. In absence of controls, capital naturally flows to productivity in order to be maximized by the holders of capital; but only because productivity creates wealth, not the capital itself.

[deleted]

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#5
post #3

Capital doesn't maximize capital; it maximizes productivity. In absence of controls, capital naturally flows to productivity in order to be maximized by the holders of capital; but only because productivity creates wealth, not the capital itself.

Capital only maximises productivity if it gains an advantage by doing so. In other words, productivity is a means for Capital to maximise itself, not an end. There are infinite examples of this: shrimp peeling machines have existed for ages, but shrimp is still mostly manually peeled in Thailand because it has a cheap workforce.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#6
post #5
post #3

Capital doesn't maximize capital; it maximizes productivity. In absence of controls, capital naturally flows to productivity in order to be maximized by the holders of capital; but only because productivity creates wealth, not the capital itself.

Capital only maximises productivity if it gains an advantage by doing so. In other words, productivity is a means for Capital to maximise itself, not an end. There are infinite examples of this: shrimp peeling machines have existed for ages, but shrimp is still mostly manually peeled in Thailand because it has a cheap workforce.

The workforce in Thailand is cheap because there is not enough capital. The answer will never be less capital.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#8
Capital is not what most people conceive of it to be. Capital is commonly (and correctly) viewed as a "store of wealth", or as "the crystallisation of labour-time" - but capital comes in different flavours, and when you deal with capital in the form of goods which provide an incremental benefit to the user, what you have is indeed capital, but when you deal with money... it's up to you whether it's capital or not.

Often, people confuse money with capital. Money is an exchange mechanism which facilitates the transfer of value between parties through a common unit of exchange. Money can be viewed as a subset of capital (i.e. as a sedentary store of value), or it can be viewed as the destruction of the benefits of labour, as it converts an active instrument (i.e. the work I am doing, or the goods I have produced) into a sedentary instrument which provides no incremental benefit, unless it is spent.

So - how this relates to the article - capitalism is a system which currently optimises for money. When you take a step back and consider that by converting labour and value into money, you are effectively freezing the benefit of that labour away, accruing money as an end of its own ceases to make sense, as much of this value ends up lying in the ledgers of corporates, governments, or wealthy individuals, doing nothing for anybody other than perhaps dealing with some of the more fragile elements of human psychology (security).

We have let a means become the end, and have forgotten that the Purpose of all of this is to promote human happiness - I mean, what other possible Purpose can there be?

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capital only maximises productivity if it gains an advantage by doing so. In other words, productivity is a means for Capital to maximise itself, not an end. There are infinite examples of this: shrimp peeling machines have existed for ages, but shrimp is still mostly manually peeled in Thailand because it has a cheap workforce.

The workforce in Thailand is cheap because there is not enough capital. The answer will never be less capital.

He's not making an argument for less capital. I think he needs to clarify his definition of productivity.
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