Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Moore's Law for Everything

moores.samaltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 554 posts

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#281

Post by sudosysgen »

wmf wrote: post #23
ravi-delia wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent what is likely way too much mental energy wondering about this, and I'm no closer to an answer. Is there any limit to lifestyle inflation? Is it possible to have growth that simply outpaces what a human could possibly consume? Intuitively it seems obvious that there should be something like that, but in the 1800s our growth today would seem like it should be enough.

I think it's a good sign that per-capita energy consumption is decreasing in the US; there are limits to consumption.

Does that take into account the energy needed to produce what Americans consume?

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#282

Post by dflock »

This is predicated on taxing capital and giving to labor, once labor is no longer necessary for capital.

This isn't going to happen, absent an _enormous_ crisis to precipitate this kind of change. No way are the establishment going to allow this kind of thing to happen ahead of time. The kind of political engineering required to do any of this is far beyond anything that the US government is currently capable of.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#283

Post by mrkramer »

koboll wrote: post #226
sudosysgen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't get myself to agree with this. Indeed, it's true, horses don't create demand, but neither do unemployed humans. Our economy isn't centred around humans, it's centred around capital. Unemployable humans are as useless to it as horses, as they can't exchange their labour with capital owners (or become capital owners themselves). Unemployable people might want more, but will they get more? No, they won't.

>horses don't create demand, but neither do unemployed humans. What Sam is proposing is massive wealth redistribution by taxing land and capital. Seen any memes referencing $1400 lately? Unemployed humans who are given cash absolutely create demand.

>Unemployed humans who are given cash absolutely create demand.

That's artificial demand which creates inflation.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#284

Post by darawk »

bnralt wrote: post #261
darawk wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there's two distinct ideas being discussed. Can people be unemployed because of structural, societal, or political reasons? Sure, and I think most people would agree. We have plenty of example of that happening - depressions, recessions, mass refugees, etc. > But can people be unemployed because we run out of things for humans to do? That's what the video is arguing, but it won't be the case unless we've fu…

Well, there's slight of hand here on CGP Grays part (and sleight of hand in other parts of the video as well), since horses are not doing work out of their own volition and to meet their own needs. Correct for that, and the same will be true for horses - they're not going to run out of work to do until they've fulfilled their desires. Now, I'm talking about typical desires as they stand now. Obviously you can have pe…

> Consider a case where person A builds widget X, and person B builds widget Y, and they trade with each other. Automation takes over, they lose their jobs. If they continue getting the widgets they used to trade for (which are now created automatically), they simply have the same wealth as before but more time. If they don't have the widgets, they're now detached from the new automated widgets both in production and consumption. There's no reason they couldn't carry on the same work as before and continue to trade with each other. This might require societal and political will (they might need some sort of support to reach their previous arrangement), but if the desire for their old work is there and not being met, then there is work to be done.

I mean, sure this arrangement can happen. But why would it? Why would person A want to trade with person B when they can get their goods made by a robot cheaper and better?

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#285

Post by aksss »

NortySpock wrote: post #232
aksss wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As prosperity increases, growth booms but then predictably falls below replacement rate. So humans kind of do this on their own if you can get through the boom period without breaking things too badly.

But why would we not see "those who desire to have kids" out-reproduce those who don't have kids, within a few generations?

Maybe I don't understand the question, but you can see that in population statistics - certain populations reproduce at an above replacement rate, some below. In a lot of the developing world, however, and no different 150 years ago in the developed world, you'd have a lot of kids because you'd expect several to die early. Once a certain level of prosperity and peace is reached, this doesn't become as much of a biological imperative.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#286

Post by musingsole »

nindalf wrote: post #123

> We will discover new jobs–we always do after a technological revolution CGP grey put this well > Imagine a pair of horses in the early 1900s talking about technology. One worries all these new mechanical muscles (cars etc) will make horses unnecessary. The other horse reminds him that everything so far has made their lives easier - remember all that farm work? Remember running coast-to-coast delivering mail? Rememb…

Horse population peaked? So what? That assumes the population number is an indicator on their quality of life. However, as the allegory indicates, a horse's quality of life today is leagues better than what it once was. Better feed, better health care. A good barn is a harder to come by, but what "good barn" means is a raising bar by the day. Pretty good odds of making it into your late 20's.

There's fewer horses now, but it's not like they were taken en masse out back and shot in the head (though that certainly happened to some). They just aren't bred as much. I don't think anyone (horses included) bemoan that.

If horses are the comparison, then I don't think humans have a thing to worry about.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#287

Post by neilparikh »

pgsimp wrote: post #240

I live in a city with high rents. What would it look like if everybody had a shot at fulfilling their economic dreams? Let's say their dream is to live in the center of the city, in one of those flats that now cost 2 million dollars. So society is obliged to give everybody a shot at that 2 million dollar flat, no matter what their line of work or their qualifications are. How is that supposed to work? Some things sti…

A land value tax doesn't really change the market dynamics of housing. That is to say, living in desirable locations will still cost more, and will still be allocated via a market to those who can pay the most.

The key thing is that the rent you pay for locations will go to the commons, rather than private landowners, which makes sense, since locations are valuable because of all of society.

So some people will still be unable to afford to live in desirable locations, just as they can't afford to live there right now. The key difference is that even if they can't afford to live there, they will still share in some of the wealth created there, through the land value tax. Effectively, those who can afford to live in the desirable locations will pay some of their rent to those who can't (indirectly).

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#288

Post by sudosysgen »

pgsimp wrote: post #243
colinmhayes wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robots building houses on cheap land due to mass work form home would make housing much cheaper. Robot doctors make healthcare much cheaper. Robot teachers make childcare/education much cheaper. Robot farmers + GMO make food much cheaper.

I don't think building costs are the main issue with availability of housing. You need the land to build on - and not just any land, but land in desired locations. How are the artificial mega cities in China doing? Didn't they build several cities from scratch that are supposed to house several million people each?

Most of those cities are filled up or filling up, so maybe there is something more to building new cities when WfH becomes even more viable.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#289

Post by adwf »

musingsole wrote: post #286
nindalf wrote: post #123

> We will discover new jobs–we always do after a technological revolution CGP grey put this well > Imagine a pair of horses in the early 1900s talking about technology. One worries all these new mechanical muscles (cars etc) will make horses unnecessary. The other horse reminds him that everything so far has made their lives easier - remember all that farm work? Remember running coast-to-coast delivering mail? Rememb…

Horse population peaked? So what? That assumes the population number is an indicator on their quality of life. However, as the allegory indicates, a horse's quality of life today is leagues better than what it once was. Better feed, better health care. A good barn is a harder to come by, but what "good barn" means is a raising bar by the day. Pretty good odds of making it into your late 20's. There's fewer horses now…

That logic only works because we have no issue with slaughtering horses en masse. It'll take 100+ years of economic deprivation for the human population to balance out.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#290

Post by edem »

This is an absolutely horrible idea. As Raoul Pal always says: "Capital will find a way. It always does.". Let's take a look at some examples with real estate:

George owns a flat, he lives in it. He owns no other properties and he works a low-wage job What will happen? He'll pay the 2.5% for a while then he'll be forced to sell.

Jane owns 5 houses and lives in one. She doesn't have a job, he lives off of the rent payments. What will happen? Jane will raise the prices by 2.5% every year.

Plot twist: George is now renting from Jane. Since George works a low-wage job he'll have to move out after a few years to an even smaller apartment, and at some point he'll be practically homeless.

The same is true for companies. They'll just raise the prices by 2.5% creating a price inflation that will hit __everybody__ who doesn't have a company or real estate.

Real life example: where I live there is a government program that will let certain kinds of people (newly wed couples) to get their VAT back from buying a house. What happened to the market? Real estate prices went up by 5% and everybody who is not in this bracket now suffers.

Post reply on HN