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Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

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Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#71

Post by ralfd »

Matheus28 wrote: post #48
Auracle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land/space are limited. I live where most on HN would consider very rural - the closest town is 600 people and a town of 20,000 is about 30 minutes from me. Even when I was buying a home back in 2011 there were basically no good plots of land for sale. What was there was about $10,000 an acre. I eventually got my house for $180,000 and it’s on 15 acres, meaning my 3,000 square foot house was basically only $30,000 wh…

Blaming immigration on how much we aren’t building is a mental gymnastic I haven’t seen before. Besides, those immigrants are the ones building those houses.

That is not what the parent said and you put words in his mouth. Immigration is not the reason too few housing is build, but it is the reason demand outstrips the limited capacity to build more. The opposite is for example happening in Japan which has with a stagnant/declining population a relaxed housing market.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#72

Post by barelyauser »

kortilla wrote: post #59
johnklos wrote: post #31

Considering that the amount of computing that could be rented for the price of a house every month could now be bought for $20, this isn't surprising. What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food.

Homeless people have cell phones. Why do you think great advancements bringing down the price of computing would solve housing?

I don't understand why this post is being downvoted. What is the point of more compute if everyone will get locked out of the "wealth pool" because they can no longer produce any value?

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#73

Post by dukeyukey »

Auracle wrote: post #35
johnklos wrote: post #31

Considering that the amount of computing that could be rented for the price of a house every month could now be bought for $20, this isn't surprising. What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food.

Land/space are limited. I live where most on HN would consider very rural - the closest town is 600 people and a town of 20,000 is about 30 minutes from me. Even when I was buying a home back in 2011 there were basically no good plots of land for sale. What was there was about $10,000 an acre. I eventually got my house for $180,000 and it’s on 15 acres, meaning my 3,000 square foot house was basically only $30,000 wh…

> Canada built 321,000 units of housing in 2021 but is in pace to have over 500,000 immigrants this year.

That sounds about right? Most housing units will house 2-3 people, and a lot will house quite a few more. Obv this excludes natural population growth, but Canada's fertility rate is lower than most of Europe, and one of the lowest in the Western world, so that's probably not a problem.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#74

Post by tonymillion »

tqi wrote: post #67
Auracle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land/space are limited. I live where most on HN would consider very rural - the closest town is 600 people and a town of 20,000 is about 30 minutes from me. Even when I was buying a home back in 2011 there were basically no good plots of land for sale. What was there was about $10,000 an acre. I eventually got my house for $180,000 and it’s on 15 acres, meaning my 3,000 square foot house was basically only $30,000 wh…

> There were 2.7 million illegal border crossings in FY 2022: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna53517 > It’s unsustainable and people think you’re a racist for bringing it up so it never gets talked about. Not to mention 3.7M live births in the US last year - and I know for a fact not a single one of those freeloaders has a job.

Don’t forget about all those lazy old people who aren’t contributing and just taking up space… usually too much space (an old couple in a 3 bedroom house)

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#75

Post by soperj »

6DM wrote: post #11
rsynnott wrote: post #8

Mildly weird piece, in that it's really measuring two things; lighting efficiency (and only at an extremely low resolution, implying a whole-system efficiency that doesn't change between the invention of the light bulb and the fluorescent light) and wage growth. 60 hours of work may have bought 72 hours of electric light in 1880, but rather more in 1990, say, for a combination of both reasons. That said, LED bulbs do…

I have a love hate relationship for led lights. They are more efficient, come in an array of colors for you to personalize your space. But I consider them expensive and a lot of them surprisingly don’t last that long, especially for their price. I’ve already replace two out of three led light fixtures that are supposed to last at least a decade and it hasn’t even been 5 years. I hope the quality improves or there’s s…

> I’ve already replace two out of three led light fixtures that are supposed to last at least a decade and it hasn’t even been 5 years.

I think you must be getting cheap bulbs. I bought a bunch before my kid was born, and he's 10 and none have gone out. I've even taken them with me when I moved.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#76

Post by lph »

tqi wrote: post #67
Auracle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land/space are limited. I live where most on HN would consider very rural - the closest town is 600 people and a town of 20,000 is about 30 minutes from me. Even when I was buying a home back in 2011 there were basically no good plots of land for sale. What was there was about $10,000 an acre. I eventually got my house for $180,000 and it’s on 15 acres, meaning my 3,000 square foot house was basically only $30,000 wh…

> There were 2.7 million illegal border crossings in FY 2022: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna53517 > It’s unsustainable and people think you’re a racist for bringing it up so it never gets talked about. Not to mention 3.7M live births in the US last year - and I know for a fact not a single one of those freeloaders has a job.

...and the same folks who rail against immigration can often be found lamenting the low national birth rate. It makes one suspect their complaint isn't with the rate of population growth, but with its hue.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#77

Post by soperj »

psychphysic wrote: post #32
rsynnott wrote: post #8

Mildly weird piece, in that it's really measuring two things; lighting efficiency (and only at an extremely low resolution, implying a whole-system efficiency that doesn't change between the invention of the light bulb and the fluorescent light) and wage growth. 60 hours of work may have bought 72 hours of electric light in 1880, but rather more in 1990, say, for a combination of both reasons. That said, LED bulbs do…

Ironically, LEDs being so efficient means I need to use the central heating more often. My CFL TV used to provide some respite, not now I have an OLED.

Probably not in the summer time.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#78

Post by pfannkuchen »

bombcar wrote: post #26
nmz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to blame pre BC humans for needing light, especially when nocturnal creatures existed. If anything this is an absolute win, we are still burning something in order to produce light, but what we burn is way less of a pollutant than wood.

I'm referring to light pollution, not the power source. It used to be that if you saw light at night, you knew humans were there - now we light millions of uninhabited acres.

What uninhabited land do we light up? Not familiar with what you’re referring to.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#79

Post by vineyardmike »

itake wrote: post #65
Auracle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land/space are limited. I live where most on HN would consider very rural - the closest town is 600 people and a town of 20,000 is about 30 minutes from me. Even when I was buying a home back in 2011 there were basically no good plots of land for sale. What was there was about $10,000 an acre. I eventually got my house for $180,000 and it’s on 15 acres, meaning my 3,000 square foot house was basically only $30,000 wh…

Do you think two working parents factors into this? My coworker's families have annual income over $1m/yr, b/c both mom and dad work. In previous generations, with only one parent working, it is almost impossible to compete.

This is actually well documented. There has been a notable increase in prices couples with an increase in women working (instead of staying home). It’s not a 1:1 increase of price to household income, but it’s well documented, and geographically correlated to rate of double-income households.
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