• T Clark
    13.9k
    the pages of the National LampoonBC

    There's a reasonable chance that you and I are old.
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    There's a reasonable chance that you and I are old.T Clark

    My big sister bought this.

  • Vera Mont
    4.3k
    That was about when I bought a 5-cent chocolate bar and a 10-cent Classic Comic with my weekly allowance. And everything that couldn't run away was being renamed for Winston Churchill.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k
    No matter the skill and sagacity of the central planner, whether human or AI, he is beset by the knowledge problem. It is the problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose importance only these individuals know.

    People are capricious, unpredictable, and subject to whim. Their circumstances, needs, and appetites change. Assuming that a central planner could gather all the relevant data required to plan an economy, by the time he had possessed it, it would have changed and become obsolete. As we’ve seen with these regimes, any attempt to plan an economy invariably leads to tyranny, misery, and death.
  • frank
    15.8k

    You been reading Hayek? He said price reflects all pertinent information in a free market. It's a powerful idea, especially if you're an investor.

    Except Hayek approved of dictatorship as the best method for insuring a free market.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    The knowledge problem is from Hayek, yes, but is by now routine economics.
  • frank
    15.8k
    The knowledge problem is from Hayek, yes, but is by now routine economics.NOS4A2

    For now, yea.
  • Shawn
    13.2k
    No matter the skill and sagacity of the central planner, whether human or AI, he is beset by the knowledge problem. It is the problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose importance only these individuals know.NOS4A2

    I beg to differ. AI as a central manager will be able to do this with greater ease than any human manager. Everything in the marketplace is heading towards computerization. With greater complexity in the marketplace, then only AI can do it.

    If not AI, then who?
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    I beg to differ. AI as a central manager will be able to do this with greater ease than any human manager. Everything in the marketplace is heading towards computerization. With greater complexity in the marketplace, then only AI can do it.

    If not AI, then who?

    No one. As intimated, the feat is impossible. I’m not even sure why anyone would want a planned economy in the first place.

    AI would not be able to grasp the thoughts, motivations, and circumstances of 10 people, let alone millions.
  • Shawn
    13.2k
    AI would not be able to grasp the thoughts, motivations, and circumstances of 10 people, let alone millions.NOS4A2

    I'm not sure if you understand how the marketplace works. The marketplace is based on the relation between supply and demand. Where there is supply, demand is measured by the rise or decline in prices. Computers for the most part already do this kind of assignment of prices to goods.

    The only thing a computer cant do at the moment is create supply.
  • kudos
    407
    This has clearly been sitting in your vinyl collection for some decades just to prove this point.
  • BC
    13.6k
    More like YouTube's vinyl collection; I first heard the song on the Prairie Home
    Companion. There is, though, a pile of titles, jokes, and quotes waiting for just the right occasion. I want to use as many as possible before I die, which could be any day now.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    Thanks for the education. But the market is based on the relation between flesh-and-blood human beings as they exchange goods and services. Though AI might be able to reiterate economic concepts such as supply and demand, and do all the economic math better than an economist, it could never grasp the activity of the market.

    Do you think AI could and should plan your life?
  • Shawn
    13.2k
    Do you think AI could and should plan your life?NOS4A2

    Regardless of any should's or oughts, AI is being utilized and (in the future) continue to be exploited to do so. Any should's or ought's, never stopped the rich and wealthy from becoming richer and more wealthy.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    My big sister bought this.unenlightened

    The web says that's 1957, when I was 6. I didn't know they still made 78s then. The web says they still made them until the early 1960s. Looks like your big sister may be old too.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    Regardless of any should's or oughts, AI is being utilized and (in the future) continue to be exploited to do so. Any should's or ought's, never stopped the rich and wealthy from becoming richer and more wealthy.

    Good. After all, there is nothing wrong with becoming richer and more wealthy.
  • Vera Mont
    4.3k
    AI would not be able to grasp the thoughts, motivations, and circumstances of 10 people, let alone millions.NOS4A2
    Why should it? People have very few and simple needs and motivations. The circumstances could be made a whole less variable by an AI making sure every human has the necessities of life and no one human hogs 10,000 people's allotment of necessisties. Equity ain't that complicated!
    After all, there is nothing wrong with becoming richer and more wealthy.NOS4A2
    J.J. Ward would agree!
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    Why should it? People have very few and simple needs and motivations. The circumstances could be made a whole less variable by an AI making sure every human has the necessities of life and no one human hogs 10,000 people's allotment of necessisties. Equity ain't that complicated!

    Life isn’t a zero-sum game, thank god, though the fallacy has led us to such injustice in the past.

    J.J. Ward would agree

    So would history!

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornucopia
  • Vera Mont
    4.3k
    Life isn’t a zero-sum game, thank god, though the fallacy has led us to such injustice in the past.NOS4A2
    Yes, it pretty much is, according to the laws of chemistry but I doubt a deity had anything to do with it.
    Are you aware that Greek mythology is neither history nor current actuality, while slavery is both?
    Once the Earth's cornucopia has been sucked dry, everybody becomes destitute. Those who are wealthy now will starve to death in their luxury bunkers.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    Sorry, I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t want people to be wealthy. Do you prefer people to be poor? Do you prefer they should have just as much as Vera Mont allows?
  • Vera Mont
    4.3k
    Sorry, I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t want people to be wealthy.NOS4A2
    It's that conservation of matter thingie. Nothing comes from nothing. In order for something to accumulate in one place, it has to be removed from another. In order for one person to have more money, some other person or people must have less money. The way wealth is accumulated is through the exploitation of the environment and the labour of poor people.
    If you can't see the exploitation, it's either because you choose not to look, or because it's hidden from your daily gaze by a distance of continents. And of course, as long as you're doing okay, you can have the police protect your sensibilities from all the homeless people in rich countries, and all the slaves in 'developing' countries. If you have ample food, you never need not ask how many hectares of soil were lost to industrial farming or how many people starved to death today. You never have to look at all the dead fish and pelicans after an oil spill or drink the water downstream from a mine, just so you can have all the conveniences served up by the mega-rich owners of those toxic enterprises. You never need to ask where the wealth comes from and how it is obtained.

    This is really quite elementary and should not require explanation. I don't decide how much the human economies can grow on a finite planet: the laws of physics do.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    What sort of matter is the money in your bank account made out of? Wealth is not a fixed pie, I’m afraid. Zero sum bias, especially when it comes to wealth, is a fallacy. This is elementary and should not require explanation, but of course it does.

    Wealth is accumulated through effort and ingenuity. The only wealth exploited from you or me has been taken in the form of taxes.
  • Vera Mont
    4.3k
    What sort of matter is the money in your bank account made out of?NOS4A2
    1's and 0's. Nothing. It's a concept.

    Wealth is not a fixed pie, I’m afraid.NOS4A2

    The Earth is.
    Wealth is accumulated through effort and ingenuityNOS4A2
    Yup. Bull markets shit golden apples for bear markets to eat.
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