Sasha Chislenko wrote:
> If everything in the world is made cheap and durable, then
> people would just work less, and spend more time dancing,
> writing poetry, having sex, and contemplating the peculiarities
> of he economic process.
It sure would. And so long as enough people and businesses forsee, anticipate,
and plan for changes into such an economy, there shouldn't be that much
instability. However if large changes occur that most people don't anticipate
and plan for, then there will be an interregnum period of instability and
dislocation as everything takes time to sort out the new order.
> But in the reality, we have ever faster growth, in 3 months
> (10 years on flimdoodle industry time scale), we have
> HyperFlimDoodles (HFDs) introduced, and the popolation,
> psyched about continuing innovations, is motivated to
> work and consume more than ever before, to the extent
> that they have less time than ever left for dancing, poetry,
> sex, and contemplation.
>
> - And that's exactly what has been going on for awhile now.
Yes, it has. And we've known since 1968 that the previous generation of
technology for the computer industry is replaced every 18 months for the same
price, and the price of the old generation is then worth half as much. Industry
now knows this and uses it as a standard model for planning new products require
x amount of processing that needs to be sold for x dollars. As computers have
become a larger and larger part of our economy, that 18 month effect takes on a
bigger and bigger role in moderating longer term economic cycles.
I think a good question to ask is: when the dominant technology is replaced by
significantly more advanced generations in cycles shorter than the typical
economic cycle, and every new generation is anticipated and planned for, and
does not cause a need for significant retraining of personnell, what effect does
this have on the economy in general?
I would propose that just as the singularity of intelligence is seen to begin
when desktop computer technology exceeds the capacity of the human mind, the
economic singularity should be seen to have begun when the world's economic
cycle is dominated by this 18 month cycle as well, rather than the older
business cycle model...
Mike Lorrey
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