391–400 of 613 posts
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> listen to economists Did anyone ever keep track of how often economists turn out to be right about anything? I didn't, but have the feeling that it isn't much better than flipping a coin.
Reality is messy. But they are the ones at least thinking the most about this, and I'd say the coin is still overall weighted in their favour than listening to an uninformed opinion.
It is frustrating to not be able to predict the future. How can you get married, have children, get a 25 year mortgage on a house, buy a car for comfort even though you don't absolutely need it? Even if you do consider buying a home, how do you know it's worth anything if you can't predict this particular place's future situation? Some countries tax enough to make the risk of buying quite high. A leap of faith is req…
The only way free will is possible is that we are oblivious to the future.
Good luck with your choices, and your life!
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> without a certain level of societal and economic complexity. Well, the good news is that organizing societal and economic complexity and living into it is exactly what differentiate us from other species.
OK, true, but the question is: what is the minimum workplace effort of living people that must go into that organizing process? Let us measure it in hours for the sake of simpliticy. In the extremes, 1 hour weekly is probably too little and 100 hours weekly is excessive. But given how almost the entire world has converged to approx. 40 on average, I'd be surprised if it was very different from 40. Yes, this may chang…
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If you own a factory, what you see is a big box with input and output, human labor is just an annoying variable, removing it won't turn the entire thing "free". The owner will still expect to trade the output for something else for his benefit.
I am thinking of a case where governments will own the robots. People will pay some minimal tax to pay for the maintenance of the robots. If other robots can be made to do it, then even that cost is saved. Government will, among other things, oversee that the needs of the people are well served by these robots.
Taxes is human labor dedicated to the maintenance of state.
I think it is naive to think that once humans are not needed they will magically be fed by the machines.
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Maybe critique his ideas instead of his predictions. Piketty is an economist, not a future-teller.
What's the significance of his "ideas" with respect to economics if they don't lead to actual predictions? Why did he decide to make these predictions if his ideas supposedly have no bearing on how predictions are created? Does economics no longer even have the pretense of being a science, which by its very nature exists to make testable predictions?
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Krugman is a bitch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiJXALBX3KM
I wouldn't call Krugman nasty names, but I do have to wonder why anyone pays any attention to someone who has been so consistently and uniformly wrong about virtually everything he's commented upon. Even a Nobel should only earn you so much slack in life. If you look at his track record, it's hard to explain without resorting to accusations of a humiliation fetish.
> If you look at his track record, it's hard to explain without resorting to accusations of a humiliation fetish.
It may not have been a nasty name but damn that was brutal.
It is frustrating to not be able to predict the future. How can you get married, have children, get a 25 year mortgage on a house, buy a car for comfort even though you don't absolutely need it? Even if you do consider buying a home, how do you know it's worth anything if you can't predict this particular place's future situation? Some countries tax enough to make the risk of buying quite high. A leap of faith is req…
That's the neat part, you don't. At least as far as the younger generations is concerned there is no future for us, even if you don't include climate change. Laying flat / quiet quitting, etc. movements are not accidental.
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> The reason why the masses should consume is to motivate them to work. The masses work because they want to consume, not the other way around. Everyone wants more > But if you imagine a sci-fi world where machines can build and do everything humans can do, the concept of a human-centric economy would be pointless. There’s a number of obstacles I can think of to get there, in a human governed world, where humans make…
> Everyone wants more Not true at all. If I could work two days a week for 40% of my current income I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat and would be much, much happier for it. Unfortunately that option isn't available to me, nor to most people.
It is frustrating to not be able to predict the future. How can you get married, have children, get a 25 year mortgage on a house, buy a car for comfort even though you don't absolutely need it? Even if you do consider buying a home, how do you know it's worth anything if you can't predict this particular place's future situation? Some countries tax enough to make the risk of buying quite high. A leap of faith is req…
End times are nothing new, it's the historic default mode.
It is frustrating to not be able to predict the future. How can you get married, have children, get a 25 year mortgage on a house, buy a car for comfort even though you don't absolutely need it? Even if you do consider buying a home, how do you know it's worth anything if you can't predict this particular place's future situation? Some countries tax enough to make the risk of buying quite high. A leap of faith is req…
Well, imagine being able to actually predict the future. It would suck. There would always be an optimal choice all of the time. You would be a slave to your prescience. The only way free will is possible is that we are oblivious to the future. Good luck with your choices, and your life!