Thanks for posting the article, it's really well written and worth reading! I think he raises some important points in the `“Possible” doesn’t mean “guaranteed”` section.
His argument is based on comparative advantage, and he says
"The key difference here is that everyone — every single person, every single AI, everyone — always has a comparative advantage at something!".
This is why everyone in the world has a job and a decent salary today, just as humanity will in the future(!!). In reality it is not like this, and he talks about some of the reasons for this in the above mentioned paragraph.
I also disagree massively with his discounting of the scenario where energy gets relocated to AI instead of food production. He paints that as unlikely, while I think it is almost inevitable. I don't necessarily think it will happen in one fell swoop with force, but it can definitely happen over a generation through pure market forces. The owners of AI just have more money, and will use this to buy energy. Cost of food will rise compared to the value of labour, aka cost of living will rise, and it will be harder and harder to sustain a family. Since we somehow think that taxing wealth is absurd, we will keep taxing labour.
It seems to me that he tries to wave away the fact that if AI becomes much more productive than humans in everything, then economy predicts that it will be allocated the energy, not humans. And he waves this away with 'politics will save us', which I find unlikely.
People often use it instead of 'raises the question'. E.g "There was very little fallout to the Y2K bug, which begs the question: was the Y2K crisis real and well handled or not really a crisis at all?"
Others has given good reasons, but I think it's hard to overestimate the effect of 'rich gets richer'.
Once you have the stronger pool of talent you get the better companies, you get more income, higher salaries and talented people wants to work with talented people. As a young geek I was very attracted to the tech environments in the US, MIT and silicon valley, and other places were not really on my mind. Even though there are competent places in Europe as well.
> Once you have the stronger pool of talent you get the better companies
Don't really have anything to back up what I'm about to say except a gut feeling. But Europe actually has got plenty of talent. European business just doesn't seem to value that or have ideas what to do with it.
So you think USA will go into Venezuela and do a complete takeover, rewrite it's constitution, and have troops there for 50 years to enforce the new order?
I have some friends on the east coast of Canada playing in a indie band. They have experienced this many times, that the venue is sold out but then only 15-20 people show up. Supposedly a lot of these places have people buying annual access packages to support the venue, but don't end up going.
They have now started touring in Europe instead. Many cities with short distances, and people actually show up for the show. Much more rewarding to play with actuall audience.
Where would this blockade be? In the NATO sea (baltic sea)? Covered by European Nato countries at every direction, and then whole entry passes through Denmark.
I live with amazing technology all around me, and I often take it for granted. But whenever I take mebendazol (against e.g. pinworm) I think about my ancestors, and how they just had to live with it!
Your ancestors probably had plant-based cures like garlic or walnut hulls for the same infections. Modern medicine improved on the spectrum of parasites that can be treated but there's still some caveman-level stuff that works reliably for some species.
b/c he lives someplace where people get parasites regularly? Also b/c it is cheaper and easier to treat for parasites (take a pill) than to test and then treat (visit a doctor, get a prescription, take a pill).
Many parasites are endemic to the southern USA. As a child I was checked for parasites every year. Most modern doctors I've met are negligent in this regard. Under questioning several have stated that it is unimportant. Some doctors assert incorrectly that blood tests would reveal any significant parasitic infestation. I always correct them but I also change doctors b/c medical school seems to "harden" the brain - nothing new can be learned once they have graduated.
Ever walk barefoot across the lawn?
Ever eat uncooked fish/flesh/sushi?
Ever own/pet a cat?
If so, you might want to get tested!8-))
Neglected Parasitic Infections: What Family Physicians Need to Know—A CDC Update:
At least in the US parasite risk from sushi is very low because nearly all seafood sold/served is put through a deep freeze cycle.
But if you're slicing up something you just caught that could be an issue. It's a concern with hunting/game as well. Most people who get trichinosis in the US get it from eating bear apparently.
In my case it was getting mud into my mud boot from interacting with an aggressive horse. It took me a while to figure out the thing on my foot was not fungal but a parasite. Ivermectin horse paste cleared it up but I also have FenBen just in case I missed one. Most of them exited on their own after applying acetic acid.
As far as i know, current medical advice is not to treat toxoplasmosis (except in exceptional situations like if you have AIDs) so im not sure what the benefit of getting tested would be.
Are there areas in the developed world where this is common? I’ve never heard of anyone regularly taking anti parasitic medication because their kids kept bringing home parasites from daycare. I had a friend whose son was prescribed medicine for pinworms once when he was fairly young (mostly as a precaution).
Pinworms are particularly common in children, with prevalence rates in this age group having been reported as high as 61% in India, 50% in England, 39% in Thailand, 37% in Sweden, and 29% in Denmark. [1]
Remember that
prevalence is the proportion of a particular population found to be affected by a medical condition (typically a disease or a risk factor such as smoking or seatbelt use) at a specific time.
So it is not just that percentage has had it at any point in their life, it is that percentage that has it at any time.
And yes, kids. Pinworm is literally called 'children worm' here.
That’s interesting, thanks. Looks like it’s 11%-ish in the US which is lower than the other cited countries but still more common than I would have guessed.
If you’re a suburban kid, GenX or later you may have missed the peaks. In the 60s, it was more like 35-45% of kids.
Things like rules for handwashing and standards for things like residential plumbing improved hygiene and reduced ringworms. Many urban and rural households didn’t have things we take for granted like hot water!
Millennial. But I was thinking less about my own childhood and more about never treating my kids or (with the one exception) hearing of friends treat theirs.
It is actually extremely common in Europe (as I linked to in a sibling chat), with 30-40% of kids having it at any time.
With those rates, my guess is that you probably had it several times, but just thought your bum was itching for no reason (or you were one of the asymptomatic cases). I think the awareness of it has gone up, now it's common to let the kindergarten know if you suspect it in your child, and they send a message to the other parents.
To be blunt you do not get it from eating cookies in sand. You get it from ingesting pinworm eggs, you ingest them by someone touching their bum (where the worms lay eggs) and then touching something that you then touch and touch your face/mouth, or scratching your own bum in your sleep then scratching your face / mouth.
If you don’t think it’s super commen in Europe it’s generally a lack of diagnoses. Literally 1/5th
Of British kids have it at any given time (and I imagine that tracks across Europe and USA at least)
Yes, it’s fairly common infection in children. I mean they don’t wash carefully their hands, they put everything in their mouth - it would be a real surprise if they would not catch it.
I believe I know an immune-compromised adult who was taking anti-parasitics for more than two years due to workplace (care context) reinfections. I say “believe” because these are two things people talk about in coded, careful ways. It might be a little more common than polite conversation ever really reveals.
For example if you know anyone who raised early concerns about antivaxxers causing short supply of ivermectin formulations for human use during the pandemic. More or less anyone who knew what ivermectin was at that point in time was either a farmer, a vetinarian, a doctor… or a patient with a condition.
Images are a good example where doing it at install-time is probably the best yeah, since every run of the image starts 'fresh', losing the compilation which happened last time the image got started.
If it was a optional toggle it would probably become best practice to activate compilation in dockerfiles.
How can you conclude that the current price and value is fairly close? Seems to me that all you are showing (rightly so) is that there are some use of gold which has higher value than today's price.
I agree that industry use creates a price floor, but that might be much lower than what the price is today. I.e if suddenly everyone lost faith in gold as a carrier of value, so everyone who keeps gold just as a passive keeper of value started selling it off, then we would get a new market clearing price which represents golds 'real value'. I have no clue what this would be, but it is certainly not obvious to me that it's close to today's price.
I’m talking orders of magnitude here. Supply and demand curves generally have a slope. As in the demand for goods by industry increases as the price decreases. A significantly larger portion of minded gold is used for jewelry than industry or investment, but a price drop would also reduce the amount mined.
Combine those and yes gold could get significantly cheaper especially with the vast quantities on hand, but it would still be a very expensive metal vs steel, aluminum, etc.
Gold's resistance to oxidation is pretty unique and valuable. Every metal with similar properties is also expensive — palladium is the most common and its price hovers around several hundred dollars per ounce despite being much less popular for jewelry or currency.
Notice that the weavers, both the luddites and their non-opposing colleagues, certainly did not get wealthier. They lost their jobs, and they and their children starved. Some starved to death. Wealth was created, but it was not shared.
Remember this when talking about their actions. People live and die their own life, not just as small parts in a large 'river of society'. Yes, generations after them benefited from industrialisation, but the individuals living at that time fought for their lives.
His argument is based on comparative advantage, and he says
"The key difference here is that everyone — every single person, every single AI, everyone — always has a comparative advantage at something!".
This is why everyone in the world has a job and a decent salary today, just as humanity will in the future(!!). In reality it is not like this, and he talks about some of the reasons for this in the above mentioned paragraph.
I also disagree massively with his discounting of the scenario where energy gets relocated to AI instead of food production. He paints that as unlikely, while I think it is almost inevitable. I don't necessarily think it will happen in one fell swoop with force, but it can definitely happen over a generation through pure market forces. The owners of AI just have more money, and will use this to buy energy. Cost of food will rise compared to the value of labour, aka cost of living will rise, and it will be harder and harder to sustain a family. Since we somehow think that taxing wealth is absurd, we will keep taxing labour.
It seems to me that he tries to wave away the fact that if AI becomes much more productive than humans in everything, then economy predicts that it will be allocated the energy, not humans. And he waves this away with 'politics will save us', which I find unlikely.
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