tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post1064486072807192523..comments2024-03-18T17:09:55.964-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Moving the Goalposts: Part IIDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87461603283355117742018-10-26T08:29:33.692-07:002018-10-26T08:29:33.692-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.siskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07076079736141144027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24464092055753828962015-04-20T11:22:26.842-07:002015-04-20T11:22:26.842-07:00Looking at the world, I marvel that people think s...Looking at the world, I marvel that people think so differently about things. That's a good thing. I think of diversity of opinion as I think of bio-diversity, an unquestionable positive.<br /><br />But what's interesting these days, is how violently people can disagree about the same data.<br /><br />It's almost as though some of us are in parallel universes. Still,in the net age, I wonder if parallel universes aren't merely context sensitive search parameters. The beauty is, only a complete lunatic, or a very smart algorithm, would ever notice.i_/0https://www.blogger.com/profile/07951656396749002585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18377267924536433532015-04-18T20:14:24.864-07:002015-04-18T20:14:24.864-07:00onwardonwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7019498489691573122015-04-18T19:18:46.184-07:002015-04-18T19:18:46.184-07:00Hi Alfred
The comments about the post war period a...Hi Alfred<br />The comments about the post war period are correct<br />The USA operated in unusual conditions of advantage<br /><br />However the productivity increases continued after this period and continue to this day<br /><br />As an engineer I put this down to our continuous pursuit of methods of making things faster better and cheaper<br />When we went to CNB grindstones we were able to get 1000 times as many pieces off per stone (the stones did cost 10 times as much)<br /><br />Effectively "the pot" kept growing with the growth created by "mid level" employees<br /><br />What happened was the rewards started going to the 1% and none of the rewards went to the mid level<br /><br />Why did that happen?<br />Because the other countries caught up??<br />Seems a bit thin to me<br /><br />The USA is not the world - and the anglophone world is not the world<br />So what happened in the rest of the world?<br /><br />It seems to me that the closer you get to the USA the stronger this effect was<br /><br />In Germany the "mid level" wages increased to the extent that back in the 70's the USA was the best place to be a working man<br />Nowadays - not at all a "working man" in Germany is a lot better off <br /><br />Jobs began to move offshore - but not in Germany??<br /><br />Pension promises were unsustainable<br />Only because big companies bribed the politicians so they didn't pay for them as they incurred the debt<br />As soon as I put my first week of work in (in a company with a pension) I have created an obligation for the future<br />In theory even in the USA my company should put some money into a sock to pay for that future need<br />Big US companies did not put the money away (claimed it as profits and bonuses)<br />Then claim poverty when it became due<br /><br />Wages and pensions were "unsustainable"<br />If that were true then profits would have gone down or stayed the same<br />Instead profits have increased dramatically<br /><br />No what happened was the Unions were destroyed <br />This made the power imbalance between management and employees much much worse<br /><br />And the result was the 1% stealing the fruits of our labors<br /><br />To add insult to injury the tax system was changed to reduce the taxes on companies and the 1% and increase the burden on the rest of us<br /><br />And worse of all our stupid politicians followed your lead straight off the cliff<br />Duncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4402905033329464562015-04-18T18:46:10.868-07:002015-04-18T18:46:10.868-07:00Odd talk of narcissism in the age of "my igno...Odd talk of narcissism in the age of "my ignorance is just as good as your science."Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76881195985457534352015-04-18T18:12:34.215-07:002015-04-18T18:12:34.215-07:00@Duncan: Please allow me to turn the question arou...@Duncan: Please allow me to turn the question around on you for a moment. You might see it from an odd perspective and understand my concerns. I'm not trying to convince you I am right (and you are wrong), but I do think turning the question brings up an important discovery.<br /><br />Consider the possibility that the period right after WWII was unusual enough to link productivity in the US with the median wage and then somewhere in the 70's the link condition finally broke. Many like to blame the people at the top for cheating the system and raking in the difference as productivity continued to rise. My question for you is this. Why should the local median wage be tied to local productivity? Be careful of trying to tie the value of labor to the price we pay for it as you think about this. If you do, I'll accuse you of falling into the trap Marx fell into. <br /><br />The post WWII era was unusual in the sense that the world economy was recovering from a devastating war. For all intents and purposes, the recovering economies of European nations (in the west) were indistinguishable from round-off errors compared to the US economy for many, many years. My mother's departure from London to America in '61 is part of that story. The link between productivity in the US and our median wage might have been related to the shape of the world at the time. By the 70s, much of Europe was recovered and competing again. Is it a coincidence that productivity in the US unlinked from the median wage around the same time?<br /><br />I am extremely skeptical of ALL explanatory narratives from the field of economics, so don't think I'm advocating for one over another. It is often the case that different narratives fit the same evidence. None of these things can be falsified in the scientific sense except in a very narrow domain where human desire rarely makes a difference. That's not the case in the labor market.<br /><br />My sneaking suspicion is that the median wage should have dropped in the US if wages weren't so incredibly sticky. The world market was recovered enough by the 70s for US companies to realize that their earlier promises of pensions and rewards for loyalty were completely unsustainable. Jobs began to move off-shore as soon as the world was recovered enough to allow it. THAT is what likely stalled the US median wage. To stop that we'd have to erect protectionist measures forcing the productivity/wage link to continue. That would be a stupendous mistake in the financial sense. It would also be a moral atrocity. I'm not exaggerating when I say that either. We ended the Cold War mostly through the use of soft power and the world has benefited enormously. Effective protectionism would have stopped the continuation of the world's economic uplift.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41284305793568241702015-04-18T11:10:36.804-07:002015-04-18T11:10:36.804-07:00smurphs, thanks for your sincere input. But I hav...smurphs, thanks for your sincere input. But I have to tell you that I do NOT think locum is a troll! Not even slightly! I think he is sincere, intelligent, articulate... and when he jabs at me it is in a spirit of mordern, sharp-elbowed and collegial rivalry.<br /><br />No, it is clear I will never get through to him. He does not understand paraphrasing as the opposite of the filthy habit of strawmanning. He is completely incapable of grasping positive sum games, even in a theoretical sense. And, as illustrated even in his most recent posting above -- he seems incapable of any other argument than constantly re-massaging the following:<br /><br />"Everything is subjective!!!! Anyone trying to 'Prove' anything is just a bully!"<br /><br />So why do I continue? Because YOU all need to be able to parse the variations in the foes of the enlightenment. YOU guys need to be able to see that some of our opponents aren't as much jerks and assholes as they are genuinely and sincerely INCAPABLE of seeing certain aspects of the world that's taking shape around them.<br /><br />They cannot see them, the way a fully color blind person might declare there is no such thing as 'blue.' And this is a different phenomenon than raging trolls.<br /><br />For all of the fact that we insult each other, as I just did, in a sense, I feel zero hostility toward locumranch. He would not enslave our children... something I believe treebeard would do gladly, the instant he could. Of course he can't.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-3659567922910596762015-04-18T08:40:58.709-07:002015-04-18T08:40:58.709-07:00I stand rebuked; I had forgotten how unpopular epi...<br />I stand rebuked; I had forgotten how unpopular epistemology (aka 'the study of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion')has become; and I will try not to concern you all with such detail in the future.<br /><br />As David says: " The enlightenment ENTITLES me to my opinion".<br /><br />It follows, then, that all we have left is Faith. Faith in the scientific method is, I agree, mostly justified. Faith in our own actions & motives, perhaps. But faith in human perfectibility? In a just world? In the intents & actions of others? I think not, with the Shoah as sufficient evidence to the contrary.<br /><br />Yet David's statement fills me with wonder. Entitlement Enlightenment? What does such a culturally-specific construct signify?<br /><br />To me, it signifies a retreat from reality, a turning inward and a descent into narcissism (which, coincidently, has been documented in studies that show a parallel increase in obesity AND narcissistic personality trait prevalence among US college students from 1980 to the present).<br /><br />With up to 34% of the US target population affected, this is a cultural catastrophe on a grand scale. More info available at:<br /><br />http://news.discovery.com/human/narcissism-epidemic-college-students.htm<br /><br /><br />Trollishly yours,<br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15410306159421225842015-04-18T08:22:44.694-07:002015-04-18T08:22:44.694-07:00David “I am getting sooooooo bored with the endles...David “I am getting sooooooo bored with the endlessly predictable nature of this endlessly repeated cant.”<br /><br />We understand. Locum is obviously a very intelligent person, and he writes well. (Not as well as you, but certainly better than me.) And it is equally obvious from lurking here for several years that you enjoy the debate. I think your efforts at openness and inclusiveness is one of the major factors your blog has been able to remain a civil and welcoming port in a sea of Internet sewage.<br /><br />I don’t mention this to build your ego, but to beg you to stop.<br /><br />You have tried reasoning. You have tried admonishing. You have tried threatening. You (and others here) have tried intervention. You have been trying for years.<br /><br />None of it has worked. <br /><br />Locum is a troll. Articulate, intelligent, and occasionally insightful. But still a troll.<br /><br />It’s your blog, and I thank you for it. It truly is one of the best communities on the web.<br /><br />But, please, stop feeding the troll.<br />Smurphsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2080777870702947342015-04-18T07:42:37.944-07:002015-04-18T07:42:37.944-07:00Jerry, I haven't had any luck with the address...Jerry, I haven't had any luck with the address you sent. Try this one: (all lower case) my first initial followed by the word shinbone at yahoo.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88266350476664221892015-04-18T07:22:25.882-07:002015-04-18T07:22:25.882-07:00Glad you reminded me. Look at this insanity as Eur...Glad you reminded me. Look at this insanity as Europe turns off nuclear power:<br />http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/16/3644889/woody-biomass-is-thicket-of-trouble/Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-71807952562858859502015-04-18T07:13:37.469-07:002015-04-18T07:13:37.469-07:00No mention of the liberal political assassination ...No mention of the liberal political assassination of nuclear power?Shanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03605660561691357227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-29465601657564179052015-04-18T04:04:51.390-07:002015-04-18T04:04:51.390-07:00Another market distortion is the arbitrary system ...Another market distortion is the arbitrary system of "retail" and "wholesale." The impressive progress of shipping and sales systems especially as a result of computers and software hasn't been matched by internet vending. Someone tell me how to get 50 lbs of high quality dried corn, fit for milling into meal, delivered to my house at a commodity price (prior to shipping cost). Or a 50 lb. bag of flour, or spaghetti noodles, or oatmeal. I assume it may be possible, but it ain't happening through Google.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44970898422644074282015-04-17T19:15:09.303-07:002015-04-17T19:15:09.303-07:00Paul Shen-Brown, if you ever want to continue our ...Paul Shen-Brown, if you ever want to continue our previous conversation privately, my email address is just my first name followed by the domain name:<br /><br />x5dna.com<br /><br />In other words, it is jerry followed by the above domain name.<br />Jerry Emanuelsonhttp://www.futurescience.com/je.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56999128134325705592015-04-17T19:08:37.070-07:002015-04-17T19:08:37.070-07:00Let's try the Personal Incredulity Fallacy:
ht...Let's try the Personal Incredulity Fallacy:<br />http://www.trulyfallacious.com/logic/logical-fallacies/relevance/argument-from-personal-incredulity<br /> <br />Senator Inhofe threw a snowball in Congress, thinking he was disproving climate change, a move similar to the recent introduction of a 13% growth in Arctic ice figure for this year. Instead of proving that climate change is fake, Inhofe proved his own ignorance. Climate change models do not predict a consistent rise in global temperatures and/or loss of ice on a year-to-year basis, just as daily weather data will not show a consistent temperature rise in the Northern Hemisphere in all places from the Vernal Equinox to the Summer Solstice. Weather systems involve huge numbers of interacting variables that make any given weather event at any given moment difficult to predict, but overall patterns are easily discernible (like the average, though fluctuating, rise in temperatures from Spring to Summer. We all know we can get a cold snap in there, or a few days of cooler than average weather. But consistently the coming of Summer means overall hotter temperatures. Having one year with 13% more sea ice in one locale than average is predicted by current climate models, not anomalous. The predictions show increased fluctuations during a long period of adjustment before a new dynamic equilibrium level is established. If any one of us fails to understand that, it doesn't invalidate the model, it invalidates the fool who isn't getting it (either out of willful ignorance or the more garden variety). This is, of course, unless the snowballs and sea ice articles are making straw men rather than demonstrating personal incredulity. Either way, it's foolish at best, more likely churlish.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66497438172616634182015-04-17T18:46:00.412-07:002015-04-17T18:46:00.412-07:00Alfred
The US median wage grew in pace with incre...Alfred<br /><br />The US median wage grew in pace with increased productivity from the 1940's until about 1970 - then the median wage stopped growing<br />Productivity kept increasing and is now approximately three times the level it was in 1970 <br />The median wage has not increased at all<br /><br />If the median wage had kept up with productivity it would now be three times what it is<br /><br />Instead all of the increase in productivity from everybody in the country has been hoovered up by the 1%<br /><br />If we can stop this process then we can go forwards<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_growthDuncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85293325976509354902015-04-17T16:42:08.150-07:002015-04-17T16:42:08.150-07:00@jumper: GDP per capita shows the surplus growth o...@jumper: GDP per capita shows the surplus growth on an annual basis and a crude assumption that we can integrate it to approximate an upper bound on average personal wealth is enough to show that the money available to the average person has been growing faster than the babies they could produce to consume it. Try it out with real numbers and you’ll see just how amazing the early Enlightenment era was for those who survived it. With the internet available today, we are finally able to capitalize on a lesson from Ricardo about market sizes. As a result, we can collectively lift billions out of poverty. It’s happening if you look at the stats. Check out gapminder.org for easy to digest material on it.<br /><br />Pessimists will point out arguments like those in ‘Limits to Growth’ and claim we can’t continue. I rather doubt it. There are many, many millions today who want the good times to continue. Threaten that with something that honestly scares them and they will innovate. We are pushing that number into the billions. I don’t want to get sappy about inevitable outcomes, but I honestly doubt anyone has a clue what billions of creative people can do to solve the problems we know now and future ones we can’t even guess at. Could people alive while Malthus wrote guess at the extinction of Small Pox? The near eradication of Polio? A world population over seven billion where obesity is more of a problem than starvation? Heh. As long as we keep pointing our attention in multiple directions looking for killers and stupid ideas as David suggests, we will be fine. People who want the good times to continue will concoct black swans in their home-brewed bio labs.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52923907123590534902015-04-17T15:59:22.966-07:002015-04-17T15:59:22.966-07:00Blah blah I insist that everything is subjective a...Blah blah I insist that everything is subjective and even if there are facts like climate change that will impoverish billions, that's still just another narrative blahblah...<br /><br /><br />...and blah blah because everything is subjective, MY subjective strawman projections of progressives and enlightenment people and Brin as oppressors is MORE valid than actual truth or facts!<br /><br />...because everything is subjective, and therefore MY subjective beats all!<br /><br />I am getting sooooooo bored with the endlessly predictable nature of this endlessly repeated cant.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78078741024366209012015-04-17T15:51:44.831-07:002015-04-17T15:51:44.831-07:00This is especially true in climate change projecti...<i>This is especially true in climate change projections which (first) presume and (then) conclude that climate change (of the human-mediated variety) is unequivocally *bad*, the source of this assumed *bad*ness being either Freudian projection or the biblical concept of Original Sin.</i><br /><br />I'm sorry, but I missed the part of the Bible that describes Original Sin as being increased desertification, increased flooding, melting ice caps, higher sea levels, ocean acidification, possible disruption of the ocean currents, and the possible discovery of a tipping point that will send our climate into a completely new configuration, perhaps even a runaway greenhouse effect. You must be reading different Bible than I do. :)<br /><br />You also have a very high tolerance for badness in order not to consider such things "bad." :)<br /><br />Or, perhaps, you are simply hiding your eyes from the science and pretending it is something else entirely? ;)A.F. Reynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67768139417740994132015-04-17T15:31:06.701-07:002015-04-17T15:31:06.701-07:00I'm not sure that I can restate my perspective...<br />I'm not sure that I can restate my perspective in more simplistic terms, but I will try:<br /><br />(1) Facts are tautologies that are narrative-independent;<br />(2) Narratives (which may or may not be fact-based) are stories, theories and cultural constructs;<br />(3) Cultural constructs are the end-product of underlying philosophical assumptions; and<br />(4) Philosophical assumptions tend to prefer question-begging narrative over fact.<br /><br />This is especially true in climate change projections which (first) presume and (then) conclude that climate change (of the human-mediated variety) is unequivocally *bad*, the source of this assumed *bad*ness being either Freudian projection or the biblical concept of Original Sin. <br /><br />Like TWODA (which prescribes certain actions presumed as *good* irrespective of climate change), the pending catastrophes most recently attributed to climate change *bad*ness have been a long time coming, with the depletion of the global fishery being mostly due to factory (over) fishing techniques rather than acidification, and the increased impact (economic & otherwise) of hurricanes & storms being due to dramatic population increases in affected areas. <br /><br />(1) The Ice Caps are melting rapidly !! (except that the Arctic ice volume is 13% higher than its 5 year average);<br />(2) Terrorism is a global scourge!! (except it's not if we exclude active war zones); and<br />(3) Rape is an raging epidemic !! (except it's not because society has never EVER been safer).<br /><br />I tire of this Omnipresent Cultural Narrative that prefers to gloss-over the facts and insists (instead) on telling us what these non-facts supposedly mean.<br /><br />Res ipsa loquitur: "Facts (should) speak for themselves".<br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83238618588254571292015-04-17T13:22:04.618-07:002015-04-17T13:22:04.618-07:00Population well-being needs plotting, too. The GNP...Population well-being needs plotting, too. The GNP per person is a better estimate. But again, each person has a freight of externalities loaded on them, which the numbers also don't reflect.<br />Is it true that when hunter-gatherers first were outnumbered by agricultural specialists, the real quality of health went down?Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87976056472392663012015-04-17T13:12:00.009-07:002015-04-17T13:12:00.009-07:00@jumper: Economic growth used to be the same as po...@jumper: Economic growth used to be the same as population growth in the time just before Malthus. That ended with the Industrial Age. Wealth grew far faster that we could produce babies to consume the surplus. It’s a neat exercise in biological speculation. Look at the doubling rates for various levels of female fertility and then look at how fast some of our economies grow. GDP isn’t the best proxy for wealth, but is a reasonable first attempt. How many babies must a woman have in her fertile years to match the growth rate of a newly industrializing society growing at 10% compounded each year?<br /><br />I note that in most places in the world, women are having just enough kids to reach the replacement level. Some are slightly less and some are slightly more. Where women are having many more than needed is where they have legitimate reasons to believe their babies won’t survive to adulthood. It is an eye-opening exercise to ask how fast GDP growth has to be to match our CURRENT population growth rate. We are way, way above it pretty much everywhere.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44207381110881840682015-04-17T13:10:33.088-07:002015-04-17T13:10:33.088-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16730895625889468092015-04-17T12:59:41.675-07:002015-04-17T12:59:41.675-07:00@reason: Knowledge doesn’t always grow fastest whe...@reason: Knowledge doesn’t always grow fastest when it is free. That is a universal statement for which no collection of evidence will ever suffice as proof. I’ll support the claim that some knowledge grows fastest when it is free, though.<br /><br />Patents aren’t cheating IF the vast majority of market participants decide they aren’t. What their motivations are doesn’t really matter because cheating is a moral evaluation. All you really need is for most of the moral agents involved to agree on something and that’s enough.<br /><br />If you want me to rationalize patents, though, I usually stick with the argument that some people won’t innovate without them. They will fear the loss of earning potential when someone takes their idea and runs with it in the market. I might prosper for a while by tolerating this kind of theft, but probably not for long. If people recognize the negative sum nature of theft, they won’t play the game. As long as they ARE playing, the game is either positive sum or they are confused, so that’s how I decide (for myself only) whether the current patent rules are reasonable or not.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65228360737353995742015-04-17T12:50:59.503-07:002015-04-17T12:50:59.503-07:00@jumper: I'm skeptical that any non-squishy de...@jumper: I'm skeptical that any non-squishy definition exists for anything. That's why I respond with raised eyebrow to locumranch's most that start with word definitions. It is a fine approach for a lawyer or mathematician, but the rest of us who are fluent in English know dictionaries only tell part of the truth.<br /><br />When it comes to fraud, though, all you really have to do is watch people react to it. 'Fraud' is a word we've added to our language, but 'fraud' is really just a preceptor people build in their minds for detecting certain kinds of market cheating behaviors. What the preceptor is evolves. What it is described as in the dictionary is a collection of other perceptors. Squishiness cannot be avoided because we are the detectors. Subjectivity is inherently built in.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.com