Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
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Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
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Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
#2They discuss the fact that we are seeing linear gains from exponential investment in several fields (healthcare, semiconductors to name a few). This is a fascinating problem.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
#3They discuss the fact that we are seeing linear gains from exponential investment in several fields (healthcare, semiconductors to name a few). This is a fascinating problem.
Sounds like pareto principle in final stages.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
#4Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
#5It seems that naturally with technological progress and population increase, we are doomed to always zero out our gains in the minute with losses in the aggregate. How is it that science and technology move forward but crop yields remain constant? Cowen mentions that it seems to be a "last mile problem" for delivering scientific research benefits to all. Collison has a cool list of "Fast" completed projects on his site of big tasks in human history on the order of hundreds of days. Zuckerberg's main focus is to invest in medicine research because he believes the long term eventuality of such investment is a definite decrease in healthcare. Overall, it seems that the questions focus on the global population in aggregate or nations as wholes, and on long-term or permanent solutions to emergent issues. I disagree that Zuckerberg's major impact will be on medicine, human opinion is much more influential than hard science in the shimmering parallax of annals of dimly lit human history backwards into the ages.
I'm glad they are talking about such matters: the intellectual hubs of Vienna and Silicon Valley, the research (or lack of research) in coming to understand Human Progress.
One thing that seems to be ignored the whole time is the progress of the individual, the progress of the family, and the progress of the tribe. We can measure in aggregate all day, but the only true test of progress is if our newer generations of humans shine brighter and are more illuminated than we are.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
#6They discuss the fact that we are seeing linear gains from exponential investment in several fields (healthcare, semiconductors to name a few). This is a fascinating problem.
They discuss healthcare & higher education in parallel, and I do think the cost explosion in both is worth noting... But the differences are as important as the similarities.
Some big healthcare cost increases come from increased consumption. It's not just incentives, bureaucracies and inefficiencies that caused cost increases.
Once upon a time we had less medical care to consume, fewer procedures, cancer treatments and other such costly stuff. Medical care costs were mostly clinical, doctors salaries and such. Prenatal care once meant occasional visits to a doctor or nurse. These days, it also means ultrasounds, genetic testing, more blood tests & such. That costs more.
There are just more available treatments to treat patients, especially the already high-cost stuff like cancer treatment, surgery.... These are new things that the medical industry are doing, and cost money. It's at least partly a "we buy more" situation, not just price inflation.
A sociology degree, OTOH, is not different in a than it was in the 1950s. There are nearly no non-efficiency related cost increases in higher-ed. No new, expensive stuff is being used to teach these students. Prices just increased, and most of that got observed into administration.
In terms of ROI at a societal level... Idk if it's usefully measurable, for medicine at least.
There definitely aren't massive, healthcare-related increases I gross life expectancy and such. Does that mean bad ROI? This gets philosophical.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
#7Mark Zuckerberg takes it for granted that the most important things in the universe are productivity growth and the number of people citing your publication and talks about ways we can make these numbers go up more in this podcast.
Are those really our biggest priorities right now? Should they be? How many more decades are we supposed to pretend the pie getting bigger will cause all problems to ~magically tricklesolve themselves~, because this there is lots of evidence that this is not happening.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
#8Mark Zuckerberg takes it for granted that the most important things in the universe are productivity growth and the number of people citing your publication and talks about ways we can make these numbers go up more in this podcast. Are those really our biggest priorities right now? Should they be? How many more decades are we supposed to pretend the pie getting bigger will cause all problems to ~ magically tricklesol…
Maybe a growing pie is not perfect, but it is greatly preferable to a shrinking one. For a simple example, take a company that looses some contracts and stops growing; you get new conflicts or old ones become critical, ppl start leaving, etc. As long as the pie is growing, it can hide or solve by default many existing problems which would be very difficult or costly to fix otherwise.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
#9> Collison: when we sort of talk about the phenomenon of “progress,” you know, I think GDP or GDP per capita is a pretty good first approximation measure of it and it correlates strongly
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I got confused when Collison said that there was scientific evidence that business productivity increases with improved management practices. That’s the thesis of business schools and management consultants. What’s the new idea here?
1) What’s the difference between “Progress Studies” and economics?
2) When businesses acquire their competitors, does this accelerate or inhibit progress?
Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen
#10Mark Zuckerberg takes it for granted that the most important things in the universe are productivity growth and the number of people citing your publication and talks about ways we can make these numbers go up more in this podcast. Are those really our biggest priorities right now? Should they be? How many more decades are we supposed to pretend the pie getting bigger will cause all problems to ~ magically tricklesol…
Maybe a growing pie is not perfect, but it is greatly preferable to a shrinking one. For a simple example, take a company that looses some contracts and stops growing; you get new conflicts or old ones become critical, ppl start leaving, etc. As long as the pie is growing, it can hide or solve by default many existing problems which would be very difficult or costly to fix otherwise.
Is growing pie sustainable?