Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

gcaptain.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 483 posts

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#411

Post by ajuc »

codefreeordie wrote: post #410
ajuc wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think going from 2.x kids per family to 1.x or even lower was mostly about money. It's about opportunity costs (and the resource that you must allocate between the alternatives is mostly time). To put it differently: in 80s your standard of living was X no matter if you had kids. Now if you have kids it's 2X and if you don't it's 5X (assuming the same effort). That's why giving people with kids enough money t…

This is really about economics. 100 years ago, having a kid produced more resources. 40 years ago, it was relatively close to neutral ("X no matter if you had kids"). Now, it's super strongly negative.

If that was the case - big social spending would increase natural growth significantly. But it doesn't.

For example in Poland in 2015 a new social program was introduced. Parents get paid 500 PLN for each kid each month till it's 18 years old. At the time the median wage was under 2500 PLN for comparison. So 2 kids increased your earnings by 20%-40% (depending if both parents work).

Natural growth increased by 3.5% for 1 year and quickly returned to the trend. You can't even guess on the graph when it was introduced [1]

It's not about money.

[1] https://portalstatystyczny.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ruc...

The graph shows natural growth vs deaths in thousands.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#412

Post by Hermitian909 »

taylodl wrote: post #404
hintymad wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but are you okay with your livelihood being making shoes? If you're capable of doing higher-value work then isn't it a "waste" for you to be doing lower-value work? This assumes that everyone can do the higher-value work per their standards, right? US is probably the most educated country in the world, while in the meantime we still have millions adults[1] who don't have college degree. We still have millions of ki…

That worries me, actually. Are we leaving a large group of people behind? Have we written them off because they're not able to do "high value" work and yet our life expenses in the U.S. are such that they're not economically viable for doing the "low value" work, either? Is living on public assistance really the best option? Or working in the gig economy? I don't have answers to these questions but I do think about t…

> That worries me, actually. Are we leaving a large group of people behind? Have we written them off because they're not able to do "high value" work and yet our life expenses in the U.S. are such that they're not economically viable for doing the "low value" work, either?

The answer to both of these questions is "yes". I've worked in education and am very familiar with homeless communities and their issues. It's very obvious that in some locations (like the Bay Area) there simply isn't enough low-complexity work for the bottom 10-15%, people for whom "dishwasher" is a complex job. Technology has just been slowly eating away at those jobs for a century and replacements have not come in as fast the jobs are disappearing.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#413

Post by mrow84 »

avrionov wrote: post #390
quickthrower2 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each 100k is 0.03% of the US population. So it is not much.

It added about 1.5M since 1990 which is a huge number.

According to [0] there are more than 3.5 million births per year, so a bit more than 100 million since 1990. 1.5% isn’t insignificant, but I wouldn’t call it huge.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/195908/number-of-births-...

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#414

Post by sloan »

boomchinolo78 wrote: post #221
more_corn wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An economy without growth will fall apart. Yuval Noah Harari said it very well. Lenders only lend because there’s faith that $1 loaned today becomes more than $1 paid back tomorrow. Without growth there’s no incentive to lend. Without lending we’re looking at medieval level economies. It’s not the only thing we care about, but it’s a necessity. That being said growth can come in all shapes and sizes. Elevating everyo…

Yuval Noah Harari is the worst offender of the reductionist mindset. I can't even begin to understand how the WEF even listens to that uppity book peddler.

I know, right? Every time his name comes up I groan inside.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#415

Post by diordiderot »

busterarm wrote: post #272
colechristensen wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to point at Japan and its lack of growth pointing out to various degrees how awful that is, but if you’re actually Japanese, you’re pretty much fine for these decades of zeroish growth. Not to say Japan is an idyllic place free from problems, but the economics of a zero growth society has at least that example of a distinct lack of doom. If the rest of us experience it like that, it’s not really anything…

There's a distinct cost to that lack of doom. In fact, "lack of doom" depends entirely on where you live in Japan. Most of the country is somewhere on the spectrum of "moving to Tokyo" for economic opportunity. Smaller cities just seem to be a waypoint on that journey. Japanese work long hours and don't make very much money. The average salary is just under 54k USD. People continue to work well into old age and in ma…

> moving to Tokyo" for economic opportunity.

This is happening on every country on earth and for good reason. Cities are more efficient. (Growth Ponzi Scheme)

> Japanese work long hours and don't make very much money.

That's culture and not an economic necessity. They also have a months holiday, maternity leave, and healthcare isn't 20% gdp. The French would say that Americans work a lot for little pay.

> People continue to work well into old age

Common in the west as well. Many countries have pushed back pension age since 2000.

> Japan's culture and history are becoming lost due to the rural/suburban exodus.

Cultures changes over time. Italian culture Italian culture did not include tomato sauces or pizza not to long ago. Hell, Italy wasn't a country! France didn't have a unified language until Napoleon

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#416

Post by lwouis »

jjtec wrote: post #401
causality0 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's incorrect in that he thinks the destruction of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry during an invasion by the mainland would be a minor inconvenience for the US but an insurmountable obstacle for China.

Dude you are so incorrect here, its unbelievable. Why don't you go sit down in the corner before you hurt yourself

"You're wrong" + insult is not the kind of reply we are looking for here on HN. Either post a constructive argument explaining how they are wrong in your opinion, or abstain from commenting.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#417

Post by puranjay »

xt00 wrote: post #181
puranjay wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His core arguments focus on geography and demographics, both of which are “hard” problems. Declining populations simply cannot maintain the “grow at all costs” current economic order. Even an advanced country like Japan with plenty of automation and high productivity rates hasn’t see any growth in two decades since its population itself doesn’t grow anymore. Even if you don’t go by his more alarmist arguments, you ha…

One major differentiator between the US and China is that China traditionally / currently is not considered a good destination for foreigners / immigrants. (even Chinese people inside China from lower tier cities / countryside struggle to gain residency in top tier cities or get good jobs / benefits). Whereas the US, for all of its flailing around politically, is perceived by many people in many countries as a good p…

> Whereas the US, for all of its flailing around politically, is perceived by many people in many countries as a good place to move.

The lower language barrier is a massive help. Thanks to British colonizing half the world, there are over a billion people who speak and understand English.

Hollywood (and now, TV shows) help too. American culture is already familiar to most people across the world. You're less likely to get a culture shock moving from India to USA than from India to China.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#418

Post by emilyst »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #403
pphysch wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Western economies are based on consumption, not production. Hence their present downfall. > Machines do not pay taxes, making it harder and harder for the state to pay for the welfare of ageing populations. Taxes are a relic of the long-gone physical money era. Vulgar taxation is a legacy technology that provides more waste than utility in the 21st century. > Automation simply doesn't work for service-focused work.…

> Taxes are a relic of the long-gone physical money era. Vulgar taxation is a legacy technology that provides more waste than utility in the 21st century. It isn't often I see really novel ideas on hacker news, but this is an interesting take. Will need to think about it more but definitely interesting to think about the best means of providing public goods etc and if the system we have does this.

It sounds like you're responding to a cryptocurrency talking point. How likely do you think it is that taxation (as in, "nothing is certain except death and taxes") will disappear at some point?

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#419

Post by puranjay »

pphysch wrote: post #290
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can absolutely argue against this. It's called automation. You're viewing it from a myopic production-focused viewpoint. Whereas the problem is our consumption-led economic order and its reliant on adding an ever increasing number of consumers. Compared to young people: A) Machines do not consume goods and trinkets. Western economies are based on consumption, not production. B) Machines do not pay taxes, making…

> Western economies are based on consumption, not production. Hence their present downfall. > Machines do not pay taxes, making it harder and harder for the state to pay for the welfare of ageing populations. Taxes are a relic of the long-gone physical money era. Vulgar taxation is a legacy technology that provides more waste than utility in the 21st century. > Automation simply doesn't work for service-focused work.…

> Yes it does, increasingly over time. I just ordered my lunch through a virtual cafeteria cashier that was literally a human until a month ago

How does it make a difference whether a tortilla was being made by a human or a machine when that automation just opens up another job somewhere else?

I've been hearing about automation and how it will eat the world for years, yet here we are in 2022 with "help wanted" ads everywhere and businesses literally throwing money to hire people.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#420

Post by the_omegist »

puranjay wrote: post #107
next_xibalba wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of his predictions have failed? How many are timebound and falsifiable? I am not specifically familiar with Zehain, but I am very well acquainted with figures who generate many predictions, have a small number become true, and then get treated as oracles for years before the truth is exposed: predicting the future in massive, chaotic systems is nearly impossible.

His core arguments focus on geography and demographics, both of which are “hard” problems. Declining populations simply cannot maintain the “grow at all costs” current economic order. Even an advanced country like Japan with plenty of automation and high productivity rates hasn’t see any growth in two decades since its population itself doesn’t grow anymore. Even if you don’t go by his more alarmist arguments, you ha…

Japan's workers productivity rates are known to be pretty average/bad and about growth, I don't think the issue is the aging population (as you said there is automation) but rather finite resources.
Post reply on HN