03/04/23 10:21:07
@daily
- I’m not too sure how applicable this is but just in general, it might be a good name for times when I feel I’m not doing enough, that I’m wasting time rather than just enjoying what I’m learning.
- The author recommends writing about moments when you noticed you’re in a status spiral. A process of exposure, where you bear what the moment actually entailed.
- I don’t feel I fully relate to this article. In fact, one question the author poses
If you weren’t so busy trying to prove your worth through status games, what would you want your life to be in service of?
- I wold say science and doing something useful. Which seem non statusy.
On my walk in from the startalk podcast
You would have to live in a post-scarcity society to not have money. Do we operate, using money on some spectrum here? Need to think about this.
If you assume that the problem is, “there’s not enough x to go around” then the way out is to produce more of x. So more x production captures technological changes.
Does it capture “its easier, requires less work to produce x”?
In this scenario, the price of the good will capture this. So price would capture both questions. Rather than just pure quantity. Price also encapsulates how much demand there is for something.
In a post scarcity world everything is essentially free.
If we have something like bread, which is in really high demand and not everyone has access to. We’re assuming no one is hoarding it and that everyone could have it if it was available (big assumption). Then the way to make things better (in the sense that people’s lives get better when they’ve more access to bread) is to make more bread. The more bread you make the cheaper it gets so rising gdp (if gdp was just bread) would be bad right? Or it could be viewed that more people have access to money to buy bread?
Just measuring an increase in the quantity of bread wouldn’t capture the ‘true’ value that increase is providing as demand might rise with it.
Ok, so gdp doesn’t really work here. Productivity would have to be measured some other way maybe. This is my model for how the world economy kind of runs though so I cant see how gdp measures progress.
I think the correlation is more on the income side. That people have more access to money to buy things.
After interacting with chat gpt it’s evident that things are complicated. In that, yes you’d want GDP to be really small in this world. This isn’t the world though and there are several ways to kind of balance equality.
Chat GPT and me
Here are some not very realistic assumptions about the bread economy thought experiment:
No population growth: The economy assumes a fixed population size that never increases or decreases. In reality, population growth affects demand for bread and other goods, which in turn affects production and pricing.
No technological progress: The economy assumes a fixed level of technology and knowledge for bread production. In reality, technological advancements in bread-making and other related fields can greatly impact production efficiency, cost, and quality.
Perfect competition: The economy assumes perfect competition, where all bread producers are small and compete freely with one another. In reality, many markets are dominated by large producers, monopolies, or oligopolies, which can significantly influence pricing and production levels.
No externalities: The economy assumes no externalities, meaning that bread production has no unintended or indirect effects on other aspects of the environment or society. In reality, bread production (like any other activity) can have both positive and negative externalities, such as pollution, resource depletion, or health impacts.
I asked it how tech progress could be measured. It suggested patent filings, productivity growth, R and D spending.