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Comment by TexanFeller | Hacker News Reader

If we apply the AI gains to working less and people in Asia simply add them to their current productivity we will continue to lose the economic battle. Local productivity gains probably don't matter in a world where we compete globally, only relative gains against our global competitors.

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This reminds me of a meme I saw recently where an American emails his European colleague boasting that the latest reporting shows, yet again, that America is leading Europe in every economic measure.

He receives a reply from his European colleague, "Thanks for your email. I'm currently out of the office on a family vacation until October 16th..."

It’s madness for me how much people in US care about GDP numbers, richest people in the world etc. maybe being very proud while in the queue for the food bank

Seems like it’s about 3/4ths of the way through the Tortoise and the Hare if you ask me though. Bragging about current state benefits when the trajectory of things suggests significant loss is not great. Europe is in decline.

The American would be the hare in this story.

Europeans bragging about lifestyle benefits is the thing that I find a bit ironic.

There’s a lot of luxuries to European life that folks insist are a basic dignity. Maybe that’s fair, maybe that isn’t. The ones to ask if that makes any sense isn’t the current gen Americans but the future gen Europeans.

I can’t help but imagine future generations will think extremely poorly of current gen Europeans for the plate their being handed.

Unions, social security, get healed at the hospital without having to raise a mortgage, laws protecting minimums... Yeah sure, you don't need those if you are wealthy enough. But if you're not rich, what is guaranting you this decency in America ?

These are good things and I think America could do better on all of these that you have listed. But again, the question when it comes to making claims about “decency” and “dignity” should not compare to the US, but to Europe’s future. I find it utterly nonsensical and non decent to suggest that the European way is net wiser when it’s actively declining and it’s children will be worse off.

I don't quite understand your point, you seem to imply the future Europe will have less good things than today's America ?

Maybe you're right, I can't predict the future.

So you don't care about living without good things today and seem to be satisfied with the only fact that Europe's future will be worse than US' present.

Luxury != decency

My point is that in the parable about Americans bragging about economic achievement while the European auto replies while on vacation we are to assume that the European has the wiser and more worldly lifestyle. But if this parable ends with the Europeans grandkids have markedly worse opportunities in life because the elder generation chose leisure, then it’s not really wisdom they were invoking but some mix of selfishness and / or hubris about the sustainability of it.

Europe is trending down.

Apart from the fact that there is no generalized "economic battle", the productivity gains in most Eurasian countries will go straight to paying for pensions. Of the countries with healthy demographics, the US is in fact the only large and fastly growing economy.

Working less also doesn't necessarily reduce productivity btw.

When people are given more free time and disposable income, they have the bad habit of creating new stuff. Just because you aren't making Jim, stare at a screen for 40 hours a week, doesn't mean that he won't be contributing to the economy. In fact, there is reason to believe that, the more we chain people to offices and desks, the less we advance as a society.

Just look at silicon valley and the businesses popping up out of nowhere. Imagine if Job, Wayne, and Wozniak didn't have the spare cash to make computers in a garage. Imagine if they had all been working 80 hour work weeks in the coal mines or offices.

Do the healthcare and FIRE sectors help the US compete against other economies?

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