151–160 of 240 posts
I think this is a useless exercise. The economics of Star Trek won't be coherent, because it was pieced together through multiple series and some wishful thinking while retaining certain properties needed for the universe to be interesting. You can't have a TV show about drone ships flying around and beaming back exploration data via subspace. Without Star Trek replicators in the foreseeable future, all the 3d printi…
So, economic models are more or less based on, or at least constrained by, human psychology, right? Communism and socialism don't work because peoples' brains aren't wired to do lots of work for little or no or unequal reward. This isn't restricted to just people, either, it's been observed in monkeys ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_... , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0 -- it…
This was a reply, but devolved into a dump of my current thoughts on economics. As I'm no economist it is likely muddled, naive, nonsense. The UK newspapers regularly have articles about the increased use of food banks. I haven't looked into it at all so can't comment on details such as how much is genuine need versus playing the game, or the rate of increase, etc. Combined with wage deflation or stagnation, food inf…
This is an interesting idea, but has been shown to be false. One example is that the average company on the S&P 500 lasts for less than 20 years, and this is dropping.[1] Another example can be seen by simply looking at all the richest families in the USA in 1900, and seeing which of them is still a famous dynasty; there are a number of studies on this, but it seems like family wealth does not usually last more than 3-4 generations. Even the Annheiser-Busch family, who created the still-popular Budweiser brand, have lost their empire after six generations of hard work.[2] Or look at a list of the "robber barons", and see how many of the family names correspond to the list of richest people on earth.[3]
[1] http://www.innosight.com/innovation-resources/strategy-innov...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anheuser-Busch
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
The main hurdle facing post-scarcity economics is not actually scarcity. Rather it is the elitist class, who will do everything it can to ensure continued scarcity in order to keep their socioeconomic positions. We already see this today in a number of ways. For instance, if a commodity isn't scarce, it can be made scarce by effectively creating a monopoly (even if it doesn't appear to be a monopoly from the outside)…
So, economic models are more or less based on, or at least constrained by, human psychology, right? Communism and socialism don't work because peoples' brains aren't wired to do lots of work for little or no or unequal reward. This isn't restricted to just people, either, it's been observed in monkeys ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_... , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0 -- it…
1) Cap every individual at a maximum he can earn for private use – if he earns beyond this, it'll redistributed amongst the society (as basic income). The cap could be say $500000/$1000000, which is high enough to encourage a part of the population to create wealth and enjoy it. At the same time, it disincentivises individuals to create infinite wealth which causes monopoly and consequently concentration of power. If I think about it, it actually encourages more competition as people can replicate other successes while noone has had tangible incentive to crush all its competitors. But humans have a tendancy to show that they are better. Yes, in such a system, they can satisfy it by actually teaching others to create the same businesses they've got success with thereby creating social capital in the name of popularity.
2) Remove inheritance. Inheritance is one of the reasons why people continue to accumilate more and more. In a post-scarcity society, everyone is borne equal in terms of wealth and must work to create more wealth (with a cap) starting from adulthood.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One capitalist hybrid which does not distort the market is a free market with a basic income Yes, it does distort. Why work on a manufacturing line producing required and high-demand materials and equipment when instead you can be creating arts and crafts that very few people would want and adds little to the productive capacity of the economy? People need to realize that prices are not just a pain in the butt, but t…
The key point to basic income, in my opinion, is that it seems like it would increase social welfare while minimally distorting prices and being cheap to administer. So let's take this to its logical conclusion, that lots of people don't work/do "useless" jobs, but still want to buy high-demand goods. Demand gets higher, and prices for those goods go up. Does this break the economic signalling mechanism? I'd argue th…
One must remember that the US grew only 0.5% faster than the UK through the 20th century, and this led to a large difference in outcome.
One capitalist hybrid which does not distort the market is a free market with a basic income [1], i.e. an unconditional income as a right of being a citizen. At what level - survival, comfort, or luxury - the income is set is an open question to each society. Too high and scarcity erupts in the form of inflation, too low and inequality and populism corrode the society. Post-scarcity economics is more the study of loc…
One capitalist hybrid which does not distort the market is a free market with a basic income Yes, it does distort. Why work on a manufacturing line producing required and high-demand materials and equipment when instead you can be creating arts and crafts that very few people would want and adds little to the productive capacity of the economy? People need to realize that prices are not just a pain in the butt, but t…
I think this is a useless exercise. The economics of Star Trek won't be coherent, because it was pieced together through multiple series and some wishful thinking while retaining certain properties needed for the universe to be interesting. You can't have a TV show about drone ships flying around and beaming back exploration data via subspace. Without Star Trek replicators in the foreseeable future, all the 3d printi…
> Concrete and glass might be virtually unlimited, but certain metals are definitely not. Automated asteroid mining basically takes care of that. Even the largest asteroids can be easily excavated right down to the core, and many of them contain a wide abundance of many metals, basically everything from Lithium to Copper to Nickel to Platinum or Iridium. With low gravity and 24/7 in situ solar power any reasonable se…
And there are a whole _lot_ of typical asteroids.
I'm a big fan of the High Frontier.
We just gotta get out of earth's gravity well cheaply and easily.
So, economic models are more or less based on, or at least constrained by, human psychology, right? Communism and socialism don't work because peoples' brains aren't wired to do lots of work for little or no or unequal reward. This isn't restricted to just people, either, it's been observed in monkeys ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_... , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0 -- it…
What is 'work', anymore? In context of capitalism/communism (and the old industrial economy), 'work' had basically meant a 'worker' getting paid to do some tangible, quantifiable task. E.g. I pay you $5 to move those 100 widgets. Or, maybe you get a loaf of bread if you move those 100 widgets. But, in terms of the modern, knowledge economy, work means something different. I don't need someone to move widgets. What I…
I disagree with your arguments that we lack a system for competition. Markets do (did) a pretty job of deciding whether an idea or invention is truly valuable. The problem is that most markets are relatively zero-sum, and people are dictated by myopic concerns like bills, quarterly earnings, etc. What this means is that ideas tend to cluster along similar branches as players react to one another rather than engaging in truly 'free-form' exploration of ideas. Basic income will help in this respect, however for every ambitious dreamer there is a gluttonous, entitled individual who blows his money on himself and contributes very little. Coming from a econ/finance background, I can tell you that people can be very selfish in contrast to the comparatively idealistic tech and research community. Unfortunately, current economic systems are obsessed with the stability of quantifiable targets such as inflation, unemployment, etc; i.e. we have a system that promotes incremental growth rather than a system that is more likely to experience creativity/innovation shocks.
One capitalist hybrid which does not distort the market is a free market with a basic income [1], i.e. an unconditional income as a right of being a citizen. At what level - survival, comfort, or luxury - the income is set is an open question to each society. Too high and scarcity erupts in the form of inflation, too low and inequality and populism corrode the society. Post-scarcity economics is more the study of loc…
One capitalist hybrid which does not distort the market is a free market with a basic income Yes, it does distort. Why work on a manufacturing line producing required and high-demand materials and equipment when instead you can be creating arts and crafts that very few people would want and adds little to the productive capacity of the economy? People need to realize that prices are not just a pain in the butt, but t…
We're rapidly reaching the point where 'manufacturing' will be what farming is today.
Farming employes (iirc) 3% of the US population. Yet they feed _everyone_. No one _has_ to be a farmer: people _choose_ farming.
Automation allows fewer people to make more stuff. People will choose to labor in a factory for the same reason they choose farm work: it's challenging, fun, and an interesting way to make a living.