Fast food automation...

[doodle]

You know, another interesting thing to think about is control. Before the agricultural revolution humans didn't really control nature. They didn't attempt to confine animals to certain pastures or control where certain types of foods would grow. Humans essentially moved along and plucked things to eat as they came across them. They had a deep understanding of how nature worked, but they didn't use this knowledge to attempt to dominate it. In turn, social relations between tribe members were also rather equal and while certain people had greater skills than others and were given more responsibility, you wouldnt have seen the great disparity and hierarchy between people like there exists today.

It was during the agricultural revolution that we first began to control nature and maybe this desire to control nature began to extend into society itself in an attempt to regiment and control others. Or maybe it became necessary to do so for a landed agricultural society to function. I don't know the answers, but I'm just saying that perhaps control and power are the lynchpin that holds our modern capitalist society together. No one would dream of creating a business and having no managers or supervisors. Why should we think we can have a functioning nation and yet dispense with a government?

[Pointedstick]

No one would dream of creating a business and having no managers or supervisors.

Actually...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Cor ... _structure

But I think this is an exception; Valve needs to hire the very best who can actually work without constant supervision and micromanagement. It's like how a libertarian society would be a great place to live so long as it had only libertarians in it.

[Kshartle]

Did we not learn anything from I, Robot?

I would be completely ok with people getting to sit around and think things up with work robots doing all the repeatable labor. 

It is what the Anunnaki did or at least that is what the greatest show in modern time is saying. 

A very close analog to a society that should be composed entirely of the leisure class is Saudi Arabia, except that rather than robots preventing people from needing to work, it has been oil for the last 70 years or so.

And how has that worked out for Saudi Arabia?  Not very well.  The wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a tiny percentage of the population and the rest of the population has turned into a farm league for international terrorism.

Doh!

Is this the Saudi Arabia comment you are referring to TennPAGa?

I don't understand the point that's being made here. Wealth concentration in the hands a a few is very bad in my opinion. Is the point that this is a result of work-reducing technology?

[Kshartle]

Work reducing technology makes production costs lower. Reducing costs allows producers to charge lower prices (absent inflation) to compete. This lowers prices and makes life easier and better for the poor. Tens of millions can get by without even choosing to work.

Labor has been getting replaced by technology since the industrial revolution. We don't get massive amounts of unemployment from new technology. New technology allows to do a lot of other things instead. Leisure for example. Leisure jobs only exist because we don't all have to scrape by and survive.

Heck, tens of millions live in permanent leisure. It might not be that nice but for them it beats getting a job.

[Kshartle]

As the value of menial labor by a human is diminished by work saving technology, humans will only be able to add value if they offer something the market wants. Dumber people will have a more difficult time than smarter people, no question. To have it any other way would be destructive to all. Stealing from one group or barring the use of work saving technology to level the playing field is just going to result in more poverty and more social unrest and wealth inequality.

The results of this are all around us.

Parents want their kids to learn valuable usable skills. If they were not forced to pay thousands per year for sub-standard education (that is basically lowering the bar to the ground for the least capable children), perhaps we wouldn't have young adults finishing 13 years in school with zero marketable skills and barely literate.

This is much more destructive to employability than a new tool that saves menial work.

[MediumTex]

As the value of menial labor by a human is diminished by work saving technology, humans will only be able to add value if they offer something the market wants. Dumber people will have a more difficult time than smarter people, no question. To have it any other way would be destructive to all. Stealing from one group or barring the use of work saving technology to level the playing field is just going to result in more poverty and more social unrest and wealth inequality.

The results of this are all around us.

Parents want their kids to learn valuable usable skills. If they were not forced to pay thousands per year for sub-standard education (that is basically lowering the bar to the ground for the least capable children), perhaps we wouldn't have young adults finishing 13 years in school with zero marketable skills and barely literate.

This is much more destructive to employability than a new tool that saves menial work.

I'm not arguing against labor saving technology.

I'm just trying to figure out what you do about masses of people who have nothing to do during the day except get more and more pissed off that their society doesn't seem to be providing them with any opportunities (whether this is actually true or not is a different discussion).

I cited Saudi Arabia, but I could just as easily have cited south central L.A.

Once the population of people who feel like they are missing out on the good things in a society (or the world) reaches a critical mass, that's when movements like communism and radical Islam begin to gain traction and this leads to the destabilization I am talking about.

The point I am making is almost an anthropological question--i.e., how do cultures/societies remain cohesive when too many members of the culture/society feel that they no longer have a place?

[Kshartle]

The point I am making is almost an anthropological question--i.e., how do cultures/societies remain cohesive when too many members of the culture/society feel that they no longer have a place?

I think we're going to find out unfortunately. I am hopefull in the long-run that the world will be a much better place. In the short run we are going to have to deal with all the problems that embracing government solutions rather than market ones have caused.

Putting the government in charge of education and money creation has racked up a bill that is coming due.

[Gumby]

Putting the government in charge of education and money creation has racked up a bill that is coming due.

Aren't the banks really in charge of the overwhelming majority of money creation (or at least "deposit" creation)? Loans create deposits and deposits are far larger than the amount of state-issued money. It seems like people just like to use government as a scapegoat for liquidity/monetary issues when the reality is that the private sector is responsible for creating most of its own deposits.

Since (electronic) state issued base money never leaves the Fed, it's easy to see that state-issued money is really just how we officially liquify and facilitate the exchange of private sector assets — such as bank deposits (via interbank transfers).

[Kshartle]

Putting the government in charge of education and money creation has racked up a bill that is coming due.

Aren't the banks really in charge of the overwhelming majority of money creation (or at least "deposit" creation)? Loans create deposits and deposits are far larger than the amount of state-issued money. It seems like people just like to use government as a scapegoat for liquidity issues when the reality is that the private sector is responsible for creating most of its own deposits.

No. They can only create what they are allowed to. They are allowed to create dollars out of thin air just like they would be absent government control, but who would take them if you weren't forced to by law?

The money supply is a function of the government, not the market. It's not even close. People wouldn't even stick thier money in risky insolvent banks if not for the FDIC sticker in the window. The market regulation would demand safer, sounder banks or at least a respectable interest rate to compensate for risk.

You have to understand how the invisible fist distorts natural human interaction. That is, if you want to correctly understand what is happening and why. Now if you don't concern yourself with it that's another story and that's fine.

The banks and bankers are forever the scapegoats of the government, not the other way around. But they don't pass the laws and have the armies and the guns and the dungeons. They might write the laws to exclude competition, they might fund the politicians campaign, but they are just trying to get control of the gun like pretty much everyone else. They are pretty good at it though. That's why the salaries are so high.

[Pointedstick]

Would you be OK with a market-driven solution that has the disaffected buying guns and killing you or people like you?

Maybe that's what's coming after the existing market-driven solution of going deeply into debt to purchase luxury trucks, RVs, thousand-channel cable TV packages, and vacations to Disneyworld.

[Kshartle]

The point I am making is almost an anthropological question--i.e., how do cultures/societies remain cohesive when too many members of the culture/society feel that they no longer have a place?

I think we're going to find out unfortunately. I am hopefull in the long-run that the world will be a much better place. In the short run we are going to have to deal with all the problems that embracing government solutions rather than market ones have caused.

Would you be OK with a market-driven solution that has the disaffected buying guns and killing you or people like you?

I am not ok with my own death.

Solution to what?

[MediumTex]

The point I am making is almost an anthropological question--i.e., how do cultures/societies remain cohesive when too many members of the culture/society feel that they no longer have a place?

I think we're going to find out unfortunately. I am hopefull in the long-run that the world will be a much better place. In the short run we are going to have to deal with all the problems that embracing government solutions rather than market ones have caused.

Would you be OK with a market-driven solution that has the disaffected buying guns and killing you or people like you?

Ironically, the government has been a great friend of the status quo as it has doubled the prison population in the last 30 years as one way of thinning the ranks of would-be revolutionaries who are fed up with being poor, unemployed, and seemingly "left out" of the American Dream thing.

[Pointedstick]

People wouldn't even stick thier money in risky insolvent banks if not for the FDIC sticker in the window. The market regulation would demand safer, sounder banks or at least a respectable interest rate to compensate for risk.

You have to understand how the invisible fist distorts natural human interaction. That is, if you want to correctly understand what is happening and why. Now if you don't concern yourself with it that's another story and that's fine.

Kshartle, we all understand this. Really, we do. Gumby is simply talking about how things currently work. I don't think anyone's making any kind of prediction about how things would work in the absence of the FDIC or Fed or government itself. GIVEN that we have the Fed, and GIVEN that we have the FDIC, what gumby says makes sense to me because he's describing the world we actually live in, not trying to show some kind of hidden connection that he and I and all of us already understand.

[Kshartle]

I think we're going to find out unfortunately. I am hopefull in the long-run that the world will be a much better place. In the short run we are going to have to deal with all the problems that embracing government solutions rather than market ones have caused.

Would you be OK with a market-driven solution that has the disaffected buying guns and killing you or people like you?

Ironically, the government has been a great friend of the status quo as it has doubled the prison population in the last 30 years as one way of thinning the ranks of would-be revolutionaries who are fed up with being poor, unemployed, and seemingly "left out" of the American Dream thing.

Yes this is a good example of a bad solution to the problems it creates by outlawing perfectly acceptable voluntary exchanges and operating horrid schools that leave young adults mentally hobbled.

[Gumby]

No. They can only create what they are allowed to.

Nevertheless, banks still create the overwhelming majority of our deposits. Shadow banking is even larger. The government only creates a small amount in comparison.

The credit based monetary system is enormous compared to the minuscule amount of state-issued money. All the state issued money does is facilitate the interbank transfer of credit based money and other assets.

[Kshartle]

People wouldn't even stick thier money in risky insolvent banks if not for the FDIC sticker in the window. The market regulation would demand safer, sounder banks or at least a respectable interest rate to compensate for risk.

You have to understand how the invisible fist distorts natural human interaction. That is, if you want to correctly understand what is happening and why. Now if you don't concern yourself with it that's another story and that's fine.

Kshartle, we all understand this. Really, we do. Gumby is simply talking about how things currently work.

Not talking about how things really work with a statement like this "Aren't the banks really in charge of the overwhelming majority of money creation".

The money creation and associated problems are 100% a function of law. The law is created and enforced by another organization.

[Gumby]

The money creation and associated problems are 100% a function of law. The law is created and enforced by another organization.

So, you're basically saying that you'd rather trade and barter with people than have a unit agreed to by law — despite the fact that civilizations have been using agreed upon units to value and exchange things since early Mesopotamia?

The purpose of currency is to facilitate trade. If we can't agree on a standard unit of currency (via a law) how are we supposed to easily trade? (Genuinely curious).

[Pointedstick]

Kshartle, in the end, you could say that EVERYTHING in the United States is controlled by government. The shirt I'm wearing was produced in a regulated factory. The internet I'm using to type this message is heavily regulated and largely built on government equipment and the ISPs are basically regulated utilities. The house I'm sitting in meets codes adopted by government and incurs property taxes. I drive my car on roads patrolled by armed vehicular predators, and so on and so on.

I don't think it terribly insightful to reduce everything to government control. Once you understand it, it doesn't really help you learn anything else, and can actually obscure other truths if you're constantly trying to immediately figure out how it's really the government's fault. It may well be... but you miss out on so many interesting details of life if the kaleidoscope you're looking through only has one lens that says, " it's the government's fault."

[MediumTex]

The U.S. with all of its flaws is a perfectly fine place to live.

It could be better, but it could be a LOT worse.

It's useful to take a complaint break from time to time and just walk down the street and marvel at what a neat world we have built.

Getting overly annoyed with the government once you understand its true nature is IMHO sort of like getting freshly annoyed every time a severely disabled person dribbles on his shirt.

[Kshartle]

So, you're basically saying that you'd rather trade and barter with people than have a unit agreed to by law — despite the fact that civilizations have been using agreed upon units to value and exchange things since early Mesopotamia?

The purpose of currency is to facilitate trade. If we can't agree on a standard unit of currency (via a law) how are we supposed to easily trade? (Genuinely curious).

No I'm saying that when one group decides what everyone is going to use for exchange and enforces it by force it distorts human behavior and hurts trade rather than facilitate it.

An agreed upon unit of exchange would be far superior. You are making the mistake of confusing something forced with something chosen. The dollar isn't agreed upon it's enforced.

"a unit agreed to by law " - this is a self contradictory statement. It's like saying "consensual rape".

[Kshartle]

I don't think it terribly insightful to reduce everything to government control. Once you understand it, it doesn't really help you learn anything else, and can actually obscure other truths if you're constantly trying to immediately figure out how it's really the government's fault. It may well be... but you miss out on so many interesting details of life if the kaleidoscope you're looking through only has one lens that says, " it's the government's fault."

If you impoperly ascribe the problems to the wrong entity you make the wrong decisions and exacerbate the problems. Ignoring the government's role at the heart of a problem is the opposite of insightful. If you blame the housing bust on the "greedy, reckless" banks and don't realize they were reacting naturally to artificially cheap money and other laws incentivising home purchase how can hope to avoid a repeat of the disaster? Or some other similar disaster?

[MediumTex]

I don't think it terribly insightful to reduce everything to government control. Once you understand it, it doesn't really help you learn anything else, and can actually obscure other truths if you're constantly trying to immediately figure out how it's really the government's fault. It may well be... but you miss out on so many interesting details of life if the kaleidoscope you're looking through only has one lens that says, " it's the government's fault."

If you impoperly ascribe the problems to the wrong entity you make the wrong decisions and exacerbate the problems. Ignoring the government's role at the heart of a problem is the opposite of insightful. If you blame the housing bust on the "greedy, reckless" banks and don't realize they were reacting naturally to artificially cheap money and other laws incentivising home purchase how can hope to avoid a repeat of the disaster? Or some other similar disaster?

I don't think that you need to persuade this group that government is a corrosive force in the economy.

Everything I post takes the point above as a given.

But once you fully internalize this point, there isn't any point in dwelling on it.  Once you understand the true nature of any party that you are dealing with, nothing it does should ever surprise you (or annoy you too much).

Harry Browne wrote about many strategies to insulate yourself from the effects of misguided governmental policies with an eye toward living a happy life as free of government interference as possible.

[Pointedstick]

If you impoperly ascribe the problems to the wrong entity you make the wrong decisions and exacerbate the problems. Ignoring the government's role at the heart of a problem is the opposite of insightful. If you blame the housing bust on the "greedy, reckless" banks and don't realize they were reacting naturally to artificially cheap money and other laws incentivising home purchase how can hope to avoid a repeat of the disaster? Or some other similar disaster?

I'm not advocating ignoring the government's underlying role in things. I'm just saying that the world is a more complicated place with many actors all simultaneously reacting to each other. How the banks and buyers reacted to the government-created distortions on the real estate market are to me just as interesting a set of stories as the government's role. The government didn't make those policies out of thin air because they're a bunch of big meanies; to a certain extent, at least some of its constituents wanted them.

In a representative government, at least some of the blame for the government's actions can be placed at the feet of the segment of the population that cheered on the politicians responsible. That we still have a government means that in the aggregate, our society has decided that the benefits of government outweigh the drawbacks. Or at least, we've collectively decided that at least for now, the drawbacks of destroying it would outweigh the benefits of its absence. Isn't that an interesting story as well? I think it is.

[Kshartle]

In a representative government, at least some of the blame for the government's actions can be placed at the feet of the segment of the population that cheered on the politicians responsible. That we still have a government means that in the aggregate, our society has decided that the benefits of government outweigh the drawbacks. Or at least, we've collectively decided that at least for now, the drawbacks of destroying it would outweigh the benefits of its absence. Isn't that an interesting story as well? I think it is.

+1  This is the most interesting story to me.

[doodle]

I don't think it terribly insightful to reduce everything to government control. Once you understand it, it doesn't really help you learn anything else, and can actually obscure other truths if you're constantly trying to immediately figure out how it's really the government's fault. It may well be... but you miss out on so many interesting details of life if the kaleidoscope you're looking through only has one lens that says, " it's the government's fault."

If you impoperly ascribe the problems to the wrong entity you make the wrong decisions and exacerbate the problems. Ignoring the government's role at the heart of a problem is the opposite of insightful. If you blame the housing bust on the "greedy, reckless" banks and don't realize they were reacting naturally to artificially cheap money and other laws incentivising home purchase how can hope to avoid a repeat of the disaster? Or some other similar disaster?

I don't think that you need to persuade this group that government is a corrosive force in the economy.

See, I totally disagree...you look at government and a market economy as antagonistic entities. Historically speaking, this isn't the case. Market economies nourished government, and government facilitated the development of marketplace economies. They have a symbiotic relationship. You guys are really missing the boat on this one by not see the way that they are interconnected. Go back and study the transition of society from hunter gather to agricultural settlements. Then look at when and why governments began to appear and how this coincided with the development of marketplaces, laws, currency, contracts etc. etc.