Where is Figure II?
On page 7!
"Readers who find Figure II puzzling should recall that a diagram of an imaginary axis must, of course, itself be imaginary."
The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
#22Where is Figure II?
Since it is imaginary, you have to imagine it.
Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
#23He's so funny and smart, and yet guys like him are one of the bigger obstacles on this planet to accumulating enough capital to finance space exploration. Makes you think...
Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
#24More interesting is what resources or products would be potential candidates for interstellar trade.
Kim Kardashian.
No really.
Assuming you're a hyper-evolved super-intelligent post-singularity being, I predict that nothing is going to make you feel better about your surprisingly boring extra-dimensional existence than watching the pathetic little meat sacks on unevolved worlds continually missing opportunities for advancements and obsessively focusing on irrelevant trivia (why it's just like the good old days!). Just insert the galactic laughtrack signal and hilarity ensues, reality television on a galactic scale.
In fact, for all we know, we're already the galaxy's equivalent of Sea Monkeys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-Monkeys) whilst assuming we were closer to the Sand Kings.
Or as Edmund Kean said on his death bed: "Dying is easy, it's comedy that's hard."
Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
#25More interesting is what resources or products would be potential candidates for interstellar trade.
Probably information -- art, music, culture, scientific discoveries, technological blueprints (that could be "printed" anywhere), software, genetic material, anything informational. Information has the benefit of weighing nothing and being easily transmissible at the speed of light. This is also probably true for interplanetary trade, such as with a Mars colony... though return of very precious materials via somethin…
Yes, long-term everything could be printed via nano-robots. Even if not directly but as a sequence of building different plants. So something like a seed nano-robot colony + manufacturing blue-prints.
Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
#26This is by Paul Krugman??! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman That this is written by a Nobel Prize winner and NYT columnist definitely makes it a bit more noteworthy.
I think it makes it less noteworthy. Among Krugman's other "accomplishments" is this quote: "The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet…
Are you honestly going to drop a quote from the 100th anniversary of Time magazine in which the authors were instructed to speculate about the world in 2098 as some sort of referendum on Krugman's economic knowledge?
Cherry picking a random sentence from a variety magazine isn't quite as strong of an argument as people keep insisting.
Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
#27This is by Paul Krugman??! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman That this is written by a Nobel Prize winner and NYT columnist definitely makes it a bit more noteworthy.
I think it makes it less noteworthy. Among Krugman's other "accomplishments" is this quote: "The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet…
And another Krugmanism, in the early 2000's: "To fight this recession the Fed needs…soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. [So] Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble."
this guy has been on the wrong side of history so often I have no idea why anyone listens to him.
Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
#28[deleted]
Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it makes it less noteworthy. Among Krugman's other "accomplishments" is this quote: "The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet…
And another Krugmanism, in the early 2000's: "To fight this recession the Fed needs…soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. [So] Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble." this guy has been on the wrong side of history so often I have no idea why anyone listens to him.
I'm not sure why I feel compelled to defend Krugman again, but this specific argument is so incredibly tired and completely disingenuous. Krugman in the early 2000's was as far away from the seat of power as humanly possible, he had 0 impact on policy in the Bush administration.
Just look at how the quotes are represented on HN:
"To fight this recession the Fed needs…soaring
household spending to offset moribund business
investment. [So] Alan Greenspan needs to create a
housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble."
"The basic point is that the recession of 2001 wasn't a
typical postwar slump, brought on when an inflation-
fighting Fed raises interest rates and easily ended by a
snapback in housing and consumer spending when the
Fed brings rates back down again.
This was a prewar-style recession, a morning-after
brought on by irrational exuberance. To fight this
recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs
soaring household spending to offset moribund business
investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put
it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to
replace the Nasdaq bubble."
Bear in mind also that government officials have a stake in
accentuating the positive. The administration needs a
recovery because, with deficits exploding, the only way it
can justify that tax cut is by pretending that it was just what
the economy needed. Mr. Greenspan needs one to avoid
awkward questions about his own role in creating the
stock market bubble.
Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) [pdf]
#30This is by Paul Krugman??! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman That this is written by a Nobel Prize winner and NYT columnist definitely makes it a bit more noteworthy.
I think it makes it less noteworthy. Among Krugman's other "accomplishments" is this quote: "The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet…
Krugman's response in a letter to Business Insider. Business Insider was asking him about that quote and about his recent commentary on Bitcoin.
Well, two things.
First, look at the whole piece. It was a thing for the Times magazine's 100th anniversary, written as if by someone looking back from 2098, so the point was to be fun and provocative, not to engage in careful forecasting; I mean, there are lines in there about St. Petersburg having more skyscrapers than New York, which was not a prediction, just a thought-provoker.
But the main point is that I don't claim any special expertise in technology -- I almost never make technological forecasts, and the only reason there was stuff like that in the 98 piece was because the assignment required that I do that sort of thing. The issues about Bitcoin, however, are not technological! Everyone agrees that it's technically very sweet. But does it work as money? That's a very different kind of question.
And the fact that people are throwing around my 98 quote actually shows that they don't get this point -- that they're confusing technology with monetary economics. -- Krugman, Business Insider Letter [http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-responds-to-inte...]