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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

#11

Post by whb07 »

vitro wrote: post #10
empiricus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why wouldn't it be? Humans have infinite wants and needs. These change overtime in terms of taste/perception as well. So the counter point should be made as to how this isn't the case and that a "growing pie" is actually against human nature.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

#12

Post by martin_a »

netcan wrote: post #4
martin_a wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like pareto principle in final stages.

Wouldn't that be declining returns from linear investments?

Hm, you're probably right. Not sure though if it looks like linear returns when you choose the timeslot short enough.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

#13

Post by hos234 »

Mark Zuckerberg is too full of himself. Not only does he have a track record of not having an imagination, he seems to have got it into his head, that if he reads two books on Economics and Sociology over the summer he needs to be at the policy making table. WTF seriously? I have no idea why he is being entertained. Hand the cash over to experts and fuck off.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

#14

Post by draw_down »

hos234 wrote: post #13

Mark Zuckerberg is too full of himself. Not only does he have a track record of not having an imagination, he seems to have got it into his head, that if he reads two books on Economics and Sociology over the summer he needs to be at the policy making table. WTF seriously? I have no idea why he is being entertained. Hand the cash over to experts and fuck off.

The sitting US president is a game show host.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

#15

Post by eloff »

whb07 wrote: post #11
vitro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is growing pie sustainable?

Why wouldn't it be? Humans have infinite wants and needs. These change overtime in terms of taste/perception as well. So the counter point should be made as to how this isn't the case and that a "growing pie" is actually against human nature.

It's the compound interest problem. If you keep compounding growth, like growing GDP at 1-2% a year, within some few thousand years you've grown bigger than all the resources within a sphere the same number of light years in radius. So clearly, growth is not sustainable and must eventually slow down until it approaches zero.

To be clear, we're far away from that today. But the parent is mathematically correct, the best kind of correct.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

#16

Post by mytailorisrich »

netcan wrote: post #4
martin_a wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like pareto principle in final stages.

Wouldn't that be declining returns from linear investments?

Linear gains from exponential investments means declining returns.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

#17

Post by n4r9 »

empiricus wrote: post #8
stopads wrote: post #7

Mark 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.

> As long as the pie is growing, it can hide or solve by default many existing problems

I think one issue with this analogy, is that companies have central points of authority but Western economies don't so much. For example GDP growth doesn't magically fix rising homelessness, and in the absence of central authority it becomes very difficult to address. People often don't like the idea that their "taxpayers money" is being spent on other people that aren't (currently) working.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

#18

Post by v4dok »

eloff wrote: post #15
whb07 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it be? Humans have infinite wants and needs. These change overtime in terms of taste/perception as well. So the counter point should be made as to how this isn't the case and that a "growing pie" is actually against human nature.

It's the compound interest problem. If you keep compounding growth, like growing GDP at 1-2% a year, within some few thousand years you've grown bigger than all the resources within a sphere the same number of light years in radius. So clearly, growth is not sustainable and must eventually slow down until it approaches zero. To be clear, we're far away from that today. But the parent is mathematically correct, the be…

But why should growth of the growing GDP should be the target? I don't think that anyone believes that the GDP growth can increase every year. But you can reasonably assume that it can grow every year

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

#19

Post by throwawaymanbot »

netcan wrote: post #6
valleyjo wrote: post #2

They 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…

fascinating, but pity Marks Company is allowing the cancer of fascist content to be delivered with impunity to everyone.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

#20

Post by edanm »

stopads wrote: post #7

Mark 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…

Tyler Cowen has a book with basically that premise - that in the long run, economic growth is the only thing that matters. It's called Stubborn Attachments.

It's not an intuitive position for most people, but it's a pretty convincing argument - it's certainly been the most important thing in the last 100 years, in my mind (think the incredible increase in health, standards of living, etc, which, even if they aren't spread close to equally, have benefited literally almost everyone).

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