A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

Post by ameister14 » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

Wildgoose wrote: post #9

"A third of the rise in the S&P 500 stock market index this year is attributable to Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp." And yet don't those companies directly employ only around 150,000 workers in total? Yes, Apple off-shores employment to Foxconn but they are open about their plans to automate their factories and replace all the workers. This isn't a matter of…

Post by mistermann » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 2:19 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #28

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not the argument the article was making - they note that tech and media (the fastest growing sectors, which not coincidentally employ most intensively IT workers) are just 5% of economy. the argument is that when the rest of the economy employs IT at the same level of intensity, the remaining 95% will have similar productivity growth and hence see gains of wealth creation. we then have to work out how to distr…

The limits are human - psychological, emotional, political - not technological. So yes - today's limits probably are the best we can do, in this society at least. Also, just because it's "obvious" that it's possible to re-engineer a company's code base, that doesn't mean it's as easy as it looks.

Post by unreal37 » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 2:34 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #43

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limits are human - psychological, emotional, political - not technological. So yes - today's limits probably are the best we can do, in this society at least. Also, just because it's "obvious" that it's possible to re-engineer a company's code base, that doesn't mean it's as easy as it looks.

There's a way around human nature in this case: one company can do it efficiently and force the others to do the same, or go out of business. Not that common though really.

Post by arbie » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #26

inciampati wrote: post #8

I have frequently wondered if the lag in productivity is partly due to the distracting power of the internet and social media. This isn't really paralleled by the other technical advances that the authors of the study this piece summarizes were examining. Also, AI? We don't have anything even approaching AI in play now nor on the immediate horizon. The energy costs it would have are still enormous, even if we really…

"Productivity" as economists defines it is purely GDP/hours worked, it is only loosely correlated to what a lay person would consider productivity. It doesn't consider the value of consumer surplus or whether prices for goods have fallen due to foreign competition or anything else, it is purely productivity in the sense of our ability to generate dollars for every hour that someone is working.

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 3:07 PM UTC

heisenbergs wrote: post #18

hliyan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really not the author's point. I think this quote illustrates his point better: "Online shopping came along in the 1990s but retailers struggled to adapt business processes to the internet. They needed to build complementary infrastructure such as fulfillment centers, and, the authors note, customers had to adapt their habits, as well." The lag between commercialization and widespread adoption is wider than we…

Lag is probably the wrong word. It's a misconception that adoption should be instant. It took a good 50 years for the electric motor to supplant the steam engine, despite it being superior in virtually every way. Tech adoption takes time, given that many things need to be re-learnt/engineered. It's why i'm positive that there won't be swathes of unemployeed people due to tech. It will happen gradually, as it has alwa…