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Let’s Be Less Productive

nytimes.com

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Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#51

Post by sp332 »

jeffool wrote: post #2

The thought of eschewing productivity makes me cringe instantly. But that said, I worry he's not wrong about some things. Our economies don't seem to be growing fast enough to negate the downsides of things like automation. Rather than slow down productivity, which surely few other nations would do, wouldn't it serve us better in the long run to do a better job of splitting up the work between capable hands? In that…

Rich people are not the biggest source of employment in the USA. Most people work for smallish businesses. Forcing those companies to pay very high minimum wage would put them out of business. Unemployment would spike, and how would that help anyone?

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#52

Post by orangecat »

broadstrokes wrote: post #24
jeffool wrote: post #2

The thought of eschewing productivity makes me cringe instantly. But that said, I worry he's not wrong about some things. Our economies don't seem to be growing fast enough to negate the downsides of things like automation. Rather than slow down productivity, which surely few other nations would do, wouldn't it serve us better in the long run to do a better job of splitting up the work between capable hands? In that…

Given the typically disproportionate cost of housing in most areas, I'm in favour of utterly massive protectionism/nationalization of housing infrastructure and other non-tradable goods fundamental to human need; disallow all speculative investment in property (foreign or otherwise), voila, instant price drops and quality of life increase for anyone who doesn't already own a home. What isn't usually mentioned in disc…

disallow all speculative investment in property (foreign or otherwise), voila, instant price drops and quality of life increase for anyone who doesn't already own a home.

Well, that or massive shortages and black market sublets. I agree that housing is way too expensive, but before coming up with new ways to solve it with central planning, how about fixing the central planning that's a primary cause of the problem (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4032046).

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#53

Post by orangecat »

jeffool wrote: post #2

The thought of eschewing productivity makes me cringe instantly. But that said, I worry he's not wrong about some things. Our economies don't seem to be growing fast enough to negate the downsides of things like automation. Rather than slow down productivity, which surely few other nations would do, wouldn't it serve us better in the long run to do a better job of splitting up the work between capable hands? In that…

The ideals of a crazy person like me would be "hike up the minimum wage insanely high, pry money from the pockets of the wealthy"

I'm the only libertarian I know who is provisionally in favor of a universal income. But once you have that, you don't need a minimum wage and in fact you don't want one, because you want to maximize the number of people who can find work. The minimum wage exists to prevent exploitation, but if everybody automatically receives enough to live on, that's no longer a factor.

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#54

Post by yummyfajitas »

tmoertel wrote: post #50
yummyfajitas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of reasoning is fallacious. See the following graph: http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/human_vs_machine_prog... So far, we've invented whole new things to work on. There is no compelling reason to believe that will continue to happen. Incidentally, that scenario hasn't always left biological entities better off. When technology reduced the wages for travel below the level of horse subsistence, the resu…

The fallacy here is that machines “replace” humans. They don’t. They can displace humans from jobs, but the humans don’t disappear. The humans still exist and can still do all the things humans can do, including find ways to create value that other humans are willing to pay for. Horses, however, cannot. When horses are displaced from their “jobs,” they don’t have the option of finding other ways to create value for h…

There is a finite number of things to do which create value and which humans are willing to pay for (just as is the case with horses). The only difference is that N_human > N_horse.

The fact that N_machine < N_human doesn't mean that N_machine will always be less than N_human. I'm only pointing out that it is a fallacy to claim that it is.

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#55

Post by orangecat »

AznHisoka wrote: post #48

I dunno.. I see a lot of depressed faces in NY subways - the pinnacle of economic growth. While those Himalayan villagers and monks don't seem to worry about economic growth and efficiency.. and they're always smiling.

At yet, you're still in NY. Happiness isn't everything: http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=8311

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#56

Post by eru »

dbingham wrote: post #42
eru wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By which I mean, write a law that says the top compensated individual in any company can only be compensated so many times the bottom. That wouldn't work that well. Companies would just split along payment levels, then. I.e. either outsource the peons, or take the CEO on loan from McKinsey.

Good point, you'd have to link it with some sort of law with respect to ownership stakes and control.

Seems more like a boon to lawyers to me than anything else.

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#57

Post by batista »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #39
lincolnq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the argument, although the blog you linked to seems broken right now (the graph doesn't show the data that he claims it to show). I agree: at some point we'll run out of things to employ humans doing. The big question for society is, what will happen when we reach that point? The relevant evidence is that humans care much more about the continued existence of other humans, to a much stronger degree than they do…

The graph shows machines already overtook horses and will eventually overtake humans (even if it hasn't happened yet). No data is graphed, it's just a schematic diagram (as is evidenced by the lack of axis labels). You are correct that humans may feel more charitable towards each other than towards horses. But the point is that mass unemployment is likely to occur and this will be a completely new phenomenon. I.e., w…

>You are correct that humans may feel more charitable towards each other than towards horses.

If History (and PETA) are any evidence, probably the opposite.

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#58

Post by batista »

SudarshanP wrote: post #49
yummyfajitas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ideals of a crazy person like me would be "hike up the minimum wage insanely high, pry money from the pockets of the wealthy"... Ignoring the normative reasons why one might oppose this, how would it even work practically? At the level of most of us, wealth is a claim on consumption. So redistribution of wealth among the middle class does enable redistribution of consumption At the level of rich people, it isn't…

I hope more people realize this. What the rich have more of beyond a threshold is power not objects. If you take the "stuff they own" and give it to the poor, each person on this planet will get very little. They will become a little more freer from the tyranny of the rich and their whims and fancies... but it is unlikely that their standard of living will improve at all. We need to have more energy and resources to…

>They will become a little more freer from the tyranny of the rich and their whims and fancies... but it is unlikely that their standard of living will improve at all.

That's enough of an improvement for our standard of living for me.

We need more freedom from the "tyranny of the rich and their whims and fancies" and less toys and consumer products...

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#59

Post by orangecat »

This is a ridiculous article. Assuming the problem exists, he notes the obvious and correct solution of reducing the time we spend working. Then he inexplicably abandons that and insists that we deliberately limit our productivity, so we can keep the holy 40+ hour work week.

What sense does it make to ask our teachers to teach ever bigger classes?

I learned way more in Sebastian Thrun's online courses than most of my college courses.

Our doctors to treat more and more patients per hour?

If that doesn't compromise quality, then it will lower costs and increase availability of medical care.

The care and concern of one human being for another is a peculiar “commodity.” It can’t be stockpiled. It becomes degraded through trade.

And humans will have more time to care for each other if we aren't forced to work unnecessarily long hours by well-meaning social engineers.

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#60

Post by tmoertel »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #54
tmoertel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fallacy here is that machines “replace” humans. They don’t. They can displace humans from jobs, but the humans don’t disappear. The humans still exist and can still do all the things humans can do, including find ways to create value that other humans are willing to pay for. Horses, however, cannot. When horses are displaced from their “jobs,” they don’t have the option of finding other ways to create value for h…

There is a finite number of things to do which create value and which humans are willing to pay for (just as is the case with horses). The only difference is that N_human > N_horse. The fact that N_machine < N_human doesn't mean that N_machine will always be less than N_human. I'm only pointing out that it is a fallacy to claim that it is.

In human society, there are a practically unbounded number of things that humans can do that other humans would be willing to pay for. The same cannot be said for horses, which have zero ability in human society to find new ways to create value for humans and thereby for themselves.

To use your notation, when N_horse slumps toward zero, no horse can do anything about it. But when N_human declines, the displaced humans can. Humans can increase their N, horses cannot.

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