Very relevant. We've seen massive unemployment due to globalism during our lifetime.
And we solved all of the cultural and social problems that caused by calling anyone who complained about it racist for five decades straight. Why reinvent the wheel? Just open up the console and type:
The worldsheet is time-symmetric, otherwise, if you pulled a single point of the worldsheet, the point would remain, and no elastic resistance would occur. If we presume that elastic resistance occurs, then we assume any pulled point will restore to elastic equilibrium with the aggregate elastic potential of the entire worldsheet, and thus, time symmetry IS the zero aggregate elastic equilibrium of a worldsheet.
We are not talking about zero UNIFORM elastic equilibrium, in which each point is at zero elasticity between all other points in a worldsheet. We are talking about zero aggergate elastic equilibrium between all other points in a worldsheet, thus, we are presuming the elastic resistance between all points on a worldsheet is always in flux, but eventually trends towards zero.
Eventually, this natural jiggling of the elasticity of points forms elastic folding within the worldsheet itself. Most of these folds revert back to zero aggregate elasticity, but sometimes, these structures hold because while they have odd topography, they achieve elastic equilibrium with the rest of the worldsheet because of their odd topography. This is because of the distribution of tension within the topology. Because it is at elastic equilibrium, the topology remains. Eventually, more topologies appear and eventually, some even interlock with each other like worldsheet velcro.
If the elastic equilibrium of these topological structures is pulled beyond its internal tension balance, each of these "tension contracts" will be pulled apart in favor of the dominant tension. Despite these topologies being made of time symmetric worldsheets, the topologies themselves are time asymmetric and cannot be made again by simply reserving the elasticity as the worldsheet still remains at zero aggregate elasticity, and thus, preserves its time symmetry AS A WHOLE. This is how arrows of time can arise from time symmetric universes.
From here, these tension contracts combine with each other, forming either a velcro binding or a tension binding, where one topology correctly scales the flow of tension to its neighbors, increasing its tensile strength, and thus, extending its influence upon the rest of the worldsheet. This, I believe, is the foundation behind Higgs fields.
The key take away is that every particle in the entire universe is nothing more than complicated folds of a two-dimensional conformal field theory coupled to symmetric time. Nothing rests on the worldsheet or exists beyond it. All energy and matter is made up of a complex combination of elastic equilibrium. Gravity, then, is the resolution of elastic equilibrium between two tension contracts. To prove this, we simply have to envision a blackhole as being anchored upon the universe at the very edge of the event horizon because that is where the rest of the worldsheet has achieved elastic equilibrium with the blackhole.
This is why negative energy does not appear in the wild. EVERYTHING is already made up of "negative" energy.
> regulations are vital for ensuring human health and happiness
I agree. The regulations created for the war on drugs has lifted millions of African Americans out of poverty and into group-oriented communities that promise shelter, free food, and at least one hour of happiness per day.
Rolling Stone's fake rape story to double down on the feminist (and thus pro-Clinton) narrative?
Complete MSM involvement to sell the war in Iraq?
As far as I'm concerned, as long as MSM acts as the executive branch's lap dog, it should be considered an official wing of the government and should qualify for constitutional regulation just like the other branches.
MSM has been openly doing this for two decades now. They poisoned their own well which why they are getting ready to run to the government to craft legislation to protect themselves after such a horrendously off-the-mark Clinton obsession.
> Does my question look like I was asking for a counter-example, no matter how horrible or remote? If that's the goal then I have an even better answer "Sadism would keep a farm owner from using technology to do farming"
The point was to show the lengths of insanity humanity can endure just to protect itself from automation, thus, answering your questions. Cuban food importing is due to it's economic distribution to allowing populations to grow well beyond what that island can naturally sustain. If anything, that's actually a sign of it's economic effectiveness to bypass resource shortages.
> Was the industrial revolution so unique and clever that something similar will never ever be repeated?
Yes. The mathematical formulations that powered that revolution are now known by the whole of humanity. Barring an apocalyptic calamity, the discovery of statistics that allowed for mastery of nature through chemistry and atomic theory and mastery of mankind through economics will never be repeated because our entire system has been designed to maximize the gains from that mathematical discovery. The next mathematical revolution, which I suspect will be Bayesian inference, will reveal new things about nature and human behavior, and our economic engines will tilt to maximize those discoveries.
> "response time are too slow" and even if not, back to "social protectionism".
Again, all of your questions were trying to draw absurd conclusions that somehow, only through technological prowess can every single problem of AI be resolved. I'm here to remind you that William Lee, and Cuba, and China, and Venezuela, and political protectionism are real reoccurring things that can completely crush any "technology always wins because Silicon Valley" hope you have.
That protectionism is what "refusing to address the labor shortage problem with our established institutions" actually looks like.
Consuming oil means you are engaging in economic activity. If oil is cheap, then the profits from that economic activity should be higher across the aggregate of labor.
If oil is cheap and it is not being consumed, then the profits to be had through its consumption are not high enough. If the oil is cheap and it is being consumed, then the profits to be had through its consumption are too low.
If the profits of oil consumption are not high enough, then what we are actually describing is a labor shortage because the human cost of living has deterred additional oil consumption. Thus, labor that does not have to shoulder such costs of living (robotic) CAN consume oil and achieve profits to sustain its own consumption.
So if oil is cheap and no one is buying it, it is because we have a labor shortage for that particular oil price point.
> We have seen actual labor shortages in rural America. Petrol drilling in the Dakotas. That lead to dramatic wage growth for anyone remotely qualified to work in petroleum engineering, so much so that at its height a qualified person with a 3 month training program could make 30k a month.
Natural resources in demand requiring labor is can absolutely cause a labor shortage. But that's not the only way to achieve a labor shortage.
> Demand comes from financial pressure on suppliers to generate supply. Be it labor, corn, or software. Real demand creates a business opportunity.
Correct. Current configurations of labor determines what is and is not profitable. For centuries, horses and man were the most profitable configuration of labor. In my world, robots and AI are. How you configure labor determines the accessibility of demand, which determines venture opportunities in production.
> All the examples you cited are just the exploitation of poor helpless masses for cheap labor to do work that would not be done if people could not be paid so little for it.
My examples are of politically expedient labor doing work that politically inexpedient labor would do, highlighting the influence of political lobbyists in the consumption/demand model.
> Its the extra toaster cozy of the labor market, a thing you do not actually particularly want or need enough to create actual substantial demand, but something you will get on the cheap because its there and convenient.
I would argue this type of conspicuous demand is an artifact of technological slack, allowing producers to market and sell virtualized importance of their own goods. When paired with demand having excess wealth to expend, productive forces adapt accordingly. When technological slack is paired with lack of wealth expenditure, again, all this means is a labor shortage to drive the price points down. Having a robotic work force that can produce goods for pennies can allow those goods to be accessible to even the poorest, allowing them to depart with their wealth in exchange for the good. Thus, the reason the good is not consumed is because of its price point, which is caused by labor shortages. Robotic labor can soften the labor shortage price spike by simply allowing more labor that doesn't have human costs.
> There is no future in that. Economics cannot be powered by the utmost of human desperation and poverty.
Yes. However, the productive forces of economics can be decoupled from human desperation through robotic labor. That changes everything.
> People move from rural areas to urban ones because there is no demand for them where they came from.
There is no demand where they came from because they suffer from a labor shortage to provide the goods of their labors against urban economies of scale.
> A labor shortage means wages go up. If wages aren't going up then there's no labor shortage.
This is correct in theoretical economics. This is incorrect in actual economic practice only because theoretical economics has no game theory model for political advantages. In fact, the entire concept of these advantages are hand-waved away as "corruption". Labor shortage only justifies wage advantage among specialist workers. (Programmers, lawyers, accounts, and other symbol artisans) Labor shortage among common workers justifies cost crisis for the producer, forcing them to engage in political games via lobbyists to discover advantage for the cheapest worker and alter the laws to make that worker accessible. (The Ford model)
> An alternate theory for why resources aren't being exploited is an aggregate demand shortfall. This would result in low capital utilization, low labor utilization and slow growth.
The current aggregate demand shortfall happened after 2008, in which the Fed absorbed all toxic mortgages and cut off the productive forces of the world to supply the American housing boon. The entire global economy was geared for that type of collective oil consumption, and when it became obvious Americans couldn't pay their mortgages, the jig was up. Yes, this resulted in slow growth for the PREVIOUS configuration of human interaction. (The Miltonian model) Every housing opportunity short was taken off of the books AND off of the market, depriving housing service labor wealth opportunities and consolidating them all into the Fed. Thus, the housing market was forced into an artificial labor shortage because of artificial inventory contraction. In exchange, the banks were given an asset swap, flooding them with liquidity, and they all sought profit opportunities overseas to pay themselves out of outright nationalization in exchange for their hard assets. Thus. the post-war American consumer role of first and last resort for world productivity was intentionally stifled by Federal Reserve intervention, resulting in time-specialized capital utilization, which cause low mass capital and mass labor utilization, finalizing in slow growth.
> Which model better fits the facts in the world today: the one which supposes there's a labor shortage or the one that supposes a demand shortfall?
Current demand shortfall is a byproduct of the factors I have mentioned above, and hardly a model worth extrapolating from unless you can eliminate the Federal Reserve's role in the matter. In a world in which there is no consumer of first and last resort, what is the alternative? China absorbs its own productive capacity? African consumption absorbs… what? Facebook's benevolence? You're left with an intentionally fractured world in which nations are forced to realign their entire political and social arrangements to maximize oil consumption from a dynamic list of competitors to stave off politically destabilizing labor shortages. This means that, if oil is deprived from your nation, you will absolutely experience a politically destabilizing labor shortage! You will not be able to mobilize your masses to chase global opportunity because you will be priced out of the game before you even start… unless you engage in socialistic configuration to absolutely control prices, and then you're just managing peak production limitations.
If my reasoning holds, then the question is thus: Is America experiencing an oil shortage?
> What would keep you from addressing it technologically even when it is addressed with your so-called established institutions?
A fantastic question. Socialist protectionism can absolutely drive the cost of human labor down well beyond competitive price points of even the most cheapest and sophisticated robotic labor. Cuba is a fantastic example of this. (Which I suspect will be the last place to embrace robotic labor) The Castro's have established strict price controls, which means doctors or janitors can get $6 a day while bread costs a few pennies. They have the material utopia... which sounds good, until you realize the Castro's offer their nation's labor at $20 an hour to Europe. With a 48 hour work week, the Castro's pocket $19.375 dollars PER WORKER PER HOUR while the worker takes home $0.625 per hour. They've established a familiar aristocracy under the name of actual, functional socialism. Never underestimate the power of political organization to drive human value to subslavery price points.
> When tractors were widely available and cheap, did land-owners refuse to buy them, and kept hiring farm employees?
> Did they ask for established institutions to help them out, instead of buying a bunch of tractors, hiring a fraction of the previous number of employees for driving the tractors, and never having to look back?
For tractors to be widely available and cheap, this implies a juxtaposition with a time in which pre-tractor farming was expensive. The industrial age ultimately rendered traditional slavery too expensive compared to the common laborer due to unique combination of clever agricultural engineering, the birth of modern financial capitalism, and robust land availability via new gains in military conquest. Be it a slave, an immigrant, or a vagabond, the final price points didn't significantly affect yield, thus, the real cost of slavery (maintenance, security, lobbying, administration, etc.) was exposed and was no longer competitive. America, a major cotton exporter, fought a bloody civil war to protect that exporter status against Egypt and India, so yes, institutional assistance to preserve the previously profitable model was absolutely involved in both the enrichment of successful labor practices and replacing it with something more GDP efficient.
This transition took place in a world where the first steam tractors in the 1870s weighed 30,000 pounds![1] The technical maintenance of these beasts was impossible for the average farmer. It wasn't until Ford and the gasoline revolution that tractors finally took off and were make cheap enough. By then, human organization was also in the midst of the electric light bulb, doubling human productivity, and the steel highrise, linearly scaling the productivity of a parcel of land. This massive surge of productive capacity, when paired with growth-oriented industrial capitalism, created a tremendous labor shortage. Peak tractor production didn't occur until 1951, well after America established itself as the world reserve currency. I'd be suspicious of using the tractor as a valid analog for artificial intelligence.
When productive capacity skyrocketed due to these three technological innovations, farm owners did hire more employees, as did the rest of the aggregate productive forces of society.
> Are there farm owners out there who still long for the days established institutions solved their labor shortage problems so they don't have to buy tractors?
I believe you call them “southerners” and they are solving their labor shortages with institutional mandates (via globalization and NAFTA) that allow immigrant labor to be cheaper than native labor.
> Have you seen CGPGrey's Humans Need Not Apply?
I have. I'm deeply familiar with Baxter and it's ability to augment FoxConn. Notice I said augment, not replace. It's response times are still too slow, and even if it got a CUDA-powered GPU neural network, China can always engage in protectionist legislation that render all technological advantages moot. CPGrey doesn't address the ability of the Cuba's and the China's of the world to socially absorb actual labor costs due of political paranoia. I recommend studying the tale of William Lee[2] to see just how far back the political fear of automation goes.