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Comment by simgt | Hacker News Reader

That's clearly the "why" no one pushing for innovative products is answering. A couple decades ago one salary could sustain a family in most developed countries, now it seems to be a struggle with two for many, we have mass unemployment, productivity soared but somehow society also can't afford enough cleaners to keep places decent.

Is the solution really to replace even more workers by capital, or do we have an issue with how we measure value that we should fix first?

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> Is the solution really to replace even more workers by capital, or do we have an issue with how we measure value that we should fix first?

I have more faith in our ability to solve world peace and AGI than I do in us getting to a more objective way to measure value that everyone can agree and adhere to.

I'm afraid that "a more objective way to measure value that everyone can agree and adhere to" is necessary to solve AGI (as opposed to getting extincted by one), and world peace will kind of follow naturally.

In other words: we're screwed.

It doesn't have to be more objective, it just has to not run away.

The problem with the wealth-weighted-value that gets optimized by capitalism is that the gini coefficient tips the optimization process from being about doing what other people want to being about doing what rich people want. Rich people mostly want to get paid for being rich, of course, so they pump assets to increase their wealth. Their weight goes up, the objective function pumps assets harder, their weight goes up, the objective function pump assets harder... and gini heads to 1 and you return to a palace economy.

A note of optimism: we've been here before, shortly after the industrial revolution. We've fixed this before, even though Marx predicted that we couldn't. We should all be trying to figure out how to make sure that next time the USA gets neo-Roosevelt, not neo-Hitler or neo-Lenin.

> We've fixed this before, even though Marx predicted that we couldn't.

Is it fixed if it falls apart in a couple generations? Maybe flex tape over the problem isn't going to cut it.

Any readings to recommend? :)

I don’t really understand what you’re proposing. How would we fix things to “not run away”. If we’re not trying to value fix to be more objective, what guiding principle should we follow?

On the wealth weighting, I’m a fan of a 100% inheritance tax tbh. I’m in the “top 1%” and I don’t plan on giving my kids more than a great upbringing and education. I’m not giving them any additional cash injection. I think that solves a lot of the wealth weighting problem by shortening the lifecycle of capital holds, but I don’t know if I’ll ever live to see it (or some form of it like inheritance caps).

efficiency and productivity is clearly more important for development of all industries than what you value. Political institutions are not very good at preparing for unfamiliar problems, dont count on them doing that. Just push for progress in natural way, and for politicians to adjust to an already happend changes. Thats the best that we can do.

"efficiency and productivity is clearly more important for development of all industries than what you value"

And yet countries that value more than efficiency and productivity are repeatedly ranked as the happiest in the world [0].

"Just push for progress in natural way, and for politicians to adjust to an already happend changes"

How much damage has unfettered tech done to society at large? Maybe we'll never know the full answer, but we can definitely agree it hasn't all been positive (advertising, social media etc..). We're now retrospectively regulating, but a lot of it feels too little, too late, for some elements of society (privacy being a notable example).

0: https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2020/the-nordic-exceptional...

Perhaps being happy is not the goal? What if the happiness isn't sustainable?

Happiness is the only goal, because all other goals no longer matter if you're unhappy. Infinite money is worthless if you do not have the motivation and drive to enjoy it. Have 1 trillion dollars and spending none on something you care about is equivalent to having zero dollars.

> we have mass unemployment

We do?

No, not in the US at least, but society runs on vibes these days

Vibes being misinformation and populist propaganda campaigns. Emotionally manipulating people is highly effective and, by far, the easiest it's ever been with technology.

Fair enough, I'll withdraw the "mass": EU 6.5%, USA 4.5%. That's still enough to have all sorts of policies to reduce that amount, apparently...

Arguably in the recent election the Democrats learned that increasing inflation to reduce unemployment was a bad political tradeoff.

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