So US growth started stagnating in 1974 (allegedly). There's something familiar about that number. Something to do with the gold standard? Coincidence?
The Experience Economy
31–40 of 51 posts
Re: The Experience Economy
#32Technological progress has always been inherently deflationary. Remember, the vast majority of the world's people used to work directly in food production as a matter of necessity. Technology has allowed most of us to get off the farm, and pursue other activities. Whereas a day's work once bought a day's food and not much more, a human worker (using the machines that serve him) is now able to produce a huge surplus o…
>The tragedy of this seems to be that we're running out of stuff for people to do. There is a lot to do for humans. Just look at the problems in any area of science. Not all people are qualified to work there though. This is why instead of whining about disappearing of menial labor jobs, we should be working toward [what would be at least a start] making K16 a basic level of education instead of K12. A thousand year…
Average lifespan was very scewed because of high children mortality. If you survivied first few years chabces were pretty good that you'd live longer than average life expectancy told.
Re: The Experience Economy
#33I think asking "how many jobs does X create" isn't as useful an analytical framework as its inverse, "how productively does X allow its workers to create new things of value".
Re: The Experience Economy
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
While technological progress can be deflationary I have to strongly disagree that work is disappearing. I don't think we are ever going to run out of work. In fact, more "primitive" societies had far lesser work to do - "studies show that hunter-gatherers need only work about twenty hours a week in order to survive and may devote the rest of their time to leisure", though there are criticisms about the measurement. h…
If you want to talk about "survival" , you can easily survive comfortably, much more comfortably than hunter-gatherers, today on even less work. Buying lots of junk and traveling are not needed for comfortable survival, if you want them, buy them, but don't confuse them with even comfortable survival.
No, we are not talking about "survival". If an alien were to observe that of the 3 tribes one spent 50 hrs working, the other 30 hrs and 20 hrs respectively, he will conclude that it is the tribes working 50 hrs that have a tough time surviving. The other tribes weren't hanging on for dear life, otherwise they would have worked much harder. They have plenty to eat and hence plenty of leisure time.
Also, I dispute that buying lots of junk is unnecessary for a decent life in industrialized societies. We are socially competitive animals and if someone were to just focus on "survival", he would end up being a social outcast pretty soon and his mating prospects would have shrunk considerably. Being lazy and having low-income is a pejorative description in industrialized tribes. But Western society has such huge income gaps that no matter where you are in the income spectrum, it looks like there are thousands of people above you living the good life, right up until Bill Gates.
In contrast, in a hunter-gatherer society, the most accomplished guy might be the chief and the competitive pressure on each tribal is much lower. Hence, the possibility of a 20 hour work week.
TLDR, I dispute that technological advances will reduce work. As long as there are huge income gaps, we will have people relentlessly working long hours every day to obtain a better position in society. It is an instinct built into our genes.
Re: The Experience Economy
#35and slower rates of technological change.
Slower? The typical office of 2011 might as well be an alien planet to someone looking from 1981, in comparison to 1951-1981. Computers, fax machines, the Internet, cellphones, social networks, viral marketing, hiring people you've never met in foreign countries and who directly report to you.. several areas of worklife (heck, life in general) have been totally redefined in the past 30 years at a speed never seen before.
Re: The Experience Economy
#36Actually in a more relevant parallel to Brooks's comparison, Larry Page's grandfather worked on a Michigan auto assembly line. I don't think the grandson's economic contributions are that much less tangible or clearly valuable than the grandfather's.
Re: The Experience Economy
#37Intensely interesting. This is the most poignant section in the article: "For example, imagine a man we’ll call Sam, who was born in 1900 and died in 1974. Sam entered a world of iceboxes, horse-drawn buggies and, commonly, outhouses. He died in a world of air-conditioning, Chevy Camaros and Moon landings. His life was defined by dramatic material changes, and Sam worked feverishly hard to build a company that sold b…
Your second and third predictions are predicated on economies of scale breaking down. What makes you think that's going to happen?
Re: The Experience Economy
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to talk about "survival" , you can easily survive comfortably, much more comfortably than hunter-gatherers, today on even less work. Buying lots of junk and traveling are not needed for comfortable survival, if you want them, buy them, but don't confuse them with even comfortable survival.
No, we are not talking about "survival". If an alien were to observe that of the 3 tribes one spent 50 hrs working, the other 30 hrs and 20 hrs respectively, he will conclude that it is the tribes working 50 hrs that have a tough time surviving. The other tribes weren't hanging on for dear life, otherwise they would have worked much harder. They have plenty to eat and hence plenty of leisure time. Also, I dispute tha…
Grandparent's point is that you haven't held everything constant.
Hunter-gatherer types don't have a home. If you are willing to go homeless, you can live for $15-20/day in most cities. That's less than 20-30 hours of work/week in most places.
Hunter-gatherer bands also have a total mating pool measured in the half dozens. If you restrict yourself to fellow homeless people, you're likely to meet a similar number of women, all of whom have roughly the same social standing. The problem is not that there are no mates available, it's that there are no mates that you want available.
Your point that people tend to measure themselves relative to people around them is true but orthogonal. If you hold living standards constant, you can achieve them with a lot less work today than you could at hunter-gatherer tech levels. It's only because living standards are not constant that people have a tough time earning a living.
Re: The Experience Economy
#39Technological progress has always been inherently deflationary. Remember, the vast majority of the world's people used to work directly in food production as a matter of necessity. Technology has allowed most of us to get off the farm, and pursue other activities. Whereas a day's work once bought a day's food and not much more, a human worker (using the machines that serve him) is now able to produce a huge surplus o…
>The tragedy of this seems to be that we're running out of stuff for people to do. There is a lot to do for humans. Just look at the problems in any area of science. Not all people are qualified to work there though. This is why instead of whining about disappearing of menial labor jobs, we should be working toward [what would be at least a start] making K16 a basic level of education instead of K12. A thousand year…
I'd fix K-12 before we make K-16 the default. You could easily learn fit the amount of material in a K-16 education into 12 years if those 12 years weren't just a matter of putting in time without any real focus on learning the material. Let's improve quality of education before increasing quantity.
Re: The Experience Economy
#40Technological progress has always been inherently deflationary. Remember, the vast majority of the world's people used to work directly in food production as a matter of necessity. Technology has allowed most of us to get off the farm, and pursue other activities. Whereas a day's work once bought a day's food and not much more, a human worker (using the machines that serve him) is now able to produce a huge surplus o…
> or manufacturing buggy whips
This reminded me of Other People's Money speech by Danny DeVito: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfL7STmWZ1c