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The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

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Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#121

Post by BurningFrog »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #45
pjc50 wrote: post #11

Tournament wages theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_theory This seems to happen whenever there's (a) direct competition (b) the value provided by the winner is very scalable (media, sports, software) and (c) most importantly, it can't be substituted by splitting the job among more people. So footballers follow this model because you can only have 11 people on the pitch - there's no amount of low-wage no…

Software engineers follow for the same reason as footballers or doctors. In football, there's only a market for the best. Nobody likes a loser. It's the same in health. There's no market for mediocre or bad doctors. Similarly, there's not really a market for software that doesn't work. Writing novel software that solves real problems isn't yet trivial. So there's not a huge market for bad software engineers. And ther…

This is quite confused reasoning. Sports are by definition zero sum games. There can only be one world champion etc.

No such mechanism exist for doctors or software engineers. They get rewarded for the value they create, and there can in principle be any number of them, as long as they create additional value.

Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#122

Post by BurningFrog »

coldtea wrote: post #26

> We can see, too, that these bifurcations are driven by a shift from a world of scarcity to a world of abundance. To me all these bifurcations seem to me to stem from a change of a world of more evenly distributed wealth (for working, lower middle, and middle class) and one with wild inequality. It's a world where a 10-20% can afford the "whatever" (e.g. best phone, live in NY/Bay area, university degree, etc) and t…

One reason people could afford to live in NYC in the 80s is that it was a dystopian murderous hellhole. Watch this trailer for the 1981 move Escape From New York for a taste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckvDo2JHB7o

Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#123

Post by NeedMoreTea »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #53
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now compare 60 years ago with now.

Statins, anti-retrovirals, common availability of antibiotics, treatment for TB, vaccines for many population-decimating (in the traditional sense of the word) viruses. Everyone has a super computer in their pocket, the vast majority of human knowledge is available in your hand for free all the time, you can video chat anyone you want anywhere in the world in HD for free, world-leading educators post hundreds of hour…

Things are also moving the other way at unprecedented speed - the expensive ones: housing, medical care, education. None of which is discussing the comparative inequality of the two periods.

Are you saying inequality is required for that list of innovations? If so, on what grounds?

We came up with contraceptive pills, eradication of polio, visited the moon, transformation of aviation and personal transportation, domestic appliances - including TVs, washing machines, dish washers went from unaffordable luxury to in every home. Doesn't seem like the pace of innovation has increased, just moved to a different field compared with the period of lowest US inequality. If anything it's slowed markedly.

So why didn't these innovations need inequality?

Nit: antibiotics were commonly available 60 years ago, they just weren't yet abused by stupid uses in agriculture.

Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#124

Post by newshorts »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #45
pjc50 wrote: post #11

Tournament wages theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_theory This seems to happen whenever there's (a) direct competition (b) the value provided by the winner is very scalable (media, sports, software) and (c) most importantly, it can't be substituted by splitting the job among more people. So footballers follow this model because you can only have 11 people on the pitch - there's no amount of low-wage no…

Software engineers follow for the same reason as footballers or doctors. In football, there's only a market for the best. Nobody likes a loser. It's the same in health. There's no market for mediocre or bad doctors. Similarly, there's not really a market for software that doesn't work. Writing novel software that solves real problems isn't yet trivial. So there's not a huge market for bad software engineers. And ther…

Google does hire lower bar candidates, they are called vendor contractors.

Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#125

Post by bhl »

roenxi wrote: post #105
coldtea wrote: post #26

> We can see, too, that these bifurcations are driven by a shift from a world of scarcity to a world of abundance. To me all these bifurcations seem to me to stem from a change of a world of more evenly distributed wealth (for working, lower middle, and middle class) and one with wild inequality. It's a world where a 10-20% can afford the "whatever" (e.g. best phone, live in NY/Bay area, university degree, etc) and t…

> To me all these bifurcations seem to me to stem from a change of a world of more evenly distributed wealth (for working, lower middle, and middle class) and one with wild inequality. > Back in the 50s and up to the 80s a single-income middle class household could still send a kid to college, buy a house, and so on. Is the right word inequality? There aren't less college places, houses in NY/the Bay, etc in the worl…

Is the right word inequality? There aren't less college places, houses in NY/the Bay, etc in the world than there were in the 80s. By extension, the problem is not enough new wealth creation rather than inequality.

Yes, the right word to describe this bifurcation is inequality. It's correct to note that the absolute number of available housing and students going to university are up, but relatively compared, people are finding harder to do both because the number of available spots has grown slower than population growth.

At first glance, this may seem like an issue with not enough wealth creation: why are there not more houses and universities being built? But when you look at productivity versus income [1], the issue is with the unequal capture of wealth not with its creation.

[1] https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#126

Post by CPLX »

BurningFrog wrote: post #122
coldtea wrote: post #26

> We can see, too, that these bifurcations are driven by a shift from a world of scarcity to a world of abundance. To me all these bifurcations seem to me to stem from a change of a world of more evenly distributed wealth (for working, lower middle, and middle class) and one with wild inequality. It's a world where a 10-20% can afford the "whatever" (e.g. best phone, live in NY/Bay area, university degree, etc) and t…

One reason people could afford to live in NYC in the 80s is that it was a dystopian murderous hellhole. Watch this trailer for the 1981 move Escape From New York for a taste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckvDo2JHB7o

While NYC certainly had a street crime problem then, video from a fictional sci-fi movie where New York is converted to a lawless prison island for criminals is a remarkably poor way to support your argument.

Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#127

Post by throwawaymath »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #45
pjc50 wrote: post #11

Tournament wages theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_theory This seems to happen whenever there's (a) direct competition (b) the value provided by the winner is very scalable (media, sports, software) and (c) most importantly, it can't be substituted by splitting the job among more people. So footballers follow this model because you can only have 11 people on the pitch - there's no amount of low-wage no…

Software engineers follow for the same reason as footballers or doctors. In football, there's only a market for the best. Nobody likes a loser. It's the same in health. There's no market for mediocre or bad doctors. Similarly, there's not really a market for software that doesn't work. Writing novel software that solves real problems isn't yet trivial. So there's not a huge market for bad software engineers. And ther…

> Similarly, there's not really a market for software that doesn't work.

Not sure you and I are in the same market, friend.

Engineers and doctors are highly commoditized compared to professional athletes and celebrity entertainers. We produce a fundamentally fungible good.

If you can pay the market rate, you can find a replacement engineer to work your software. If Taylor Swift's concert is sold out, you cannot see Taylor Swift. If Aaron Rodgers dies, there are how many quarterbacks in the world capable of replacing him?

These are categorically different things with categorically different market dynamics. Approximately no software engineers (or doctors) have a personal brand, nor an objectively superior skillset.

Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#128

Post by BurningFrog »

CPLX wrote: post #126
BurningFrog wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason people could afford to live in NYC in the 80s is that it was a dystopian murderous hellhole. Watch this trailer for the 1981 move Escape From New York for a taste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckvDo2JHB7o

While NYC certainly had a street crime problem then, video from a fictional sci-fi movie where New York is converted to a lawless prison island for criminals is a remarkably poor way to support your argument.

My point is that in 1981 you could make a movie on the premise that NYC would be like this in 16 years.

That tells you something about NYC in 1981!!

Or so I imagine(d). You're probably right that my intended message doesn't exactly reach everyone...

Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#129

Post by CPLX »

BurningFrog wrote: post #128
CPLX wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While NYC certainly had a street crime problem then, video from a fictional sci-fi movie where New York is converted to a lawless prison island for criminals is a remarkably poor way to support your argument.

My point is that in 1981 you could make a movie on the premise that NYC would be like this in 16 years. That tells you something about NYC in 1981!! Or so I imagine(d). You're probably right that my intended message doesn't exactly reach everyone...

Indeed. Using similar logic one could have correctly predicted the 1949 attack on the Empire State Building by a giant ape.

Re: The Access Economy: Why the Normal Distribution Is Vanishing (2015)

#130

Post by antt »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #78
unreal37 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fix is to always hire contractors, let the bad ones go, and convert the good ones to full time if you can.

In any industry where good employees are in high demand (like tech) this strategy has the unfortunate effect of filtering out most individuals who are both good employees and experienced. None of the really good software engineers I know would accept this arrangement unless the contracting wages were a ridiculous multiplier of their normal salary.

Really? Because I wouldn't accept a normal salary unless it was 20% higher than my contracting rates. Because I go through my own company I get to minimize my taxes so much that regular employment seems like a ripoff by comparison.
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