tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post7170395858639271484..comments2024-03-27T23:28:20.274-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Contemporary Malthusian impressions 1: Crime, housing, and nutritionagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-52719243278414410472010-07-15T21:59:22.580-04:002010-07-15T21:59:22.580-04:00When technical progress is possible, a graph of ma...When technical progress is possible, a graph of marginal returns in some sector takes on a sawtooth appearance. A technical advance enables high marginal returns, those diminish as the ramifications of the advance play out, and, if another advance appears, the whole thing repeats.<br /><br />I believe our current society is damping down those graphs severely. In many areas we're stuck in the "diminished" returns zone because public policy retards, even forbids, technical advances.<br /><br />Basically, our elites have finally managed to scramble back to the top of the pile which was so shaken up by the industrial revolution, and they've implemented "regulatory" policies to keep themselves there by reducing economic growth which might lift up competitors.<br /><br />Some people think computers have improved faster than housing because more improvements are possible. Even I think that's partly true, but I also note that "zoning" and "building permits" and union-drafted "building codes" and "urban growth boundaries" and "school attendance zones" and "environmental impact statements"-- all of which are political problems, not technical ones-- severely limit the supply of good housing.<br /><br />Something similar is going on with food-- Europe's "GMO" bans, for example, are political restraints on farm productivity, so the proles can't afford the elite's favorite foods.<br /><br />The elite consensus no longer embraces clear-quill Socialism-- that has been tested and proved too uncomfortable even for elites. Instead, the elites have adopted a recipe of economic stagnation and the cartelization of most industries under the control of the elites, enforced by severe restrictions on new economic activity (in the name of "safety" or "the environment" of course).<br /><br />This is hardly the first epoch in which the positive feedback loop of the "regulatory state" has produced stagnation and even regression which cannot be undone from within, but which eventually so enervates a society that it is conquered by foreigners.<br /><br />I don't know if the US has passed the point of no return, but it's a very bad sign that everyone's highest hope for their children now is that they will grow up to be senior bureaucrats.Pipernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-42778185830014927862010-07-15T05:50:42.906-04:002010-07-15T05:50:42.906-04:00Some areas of technology need to improve at a quic...Some areas of technology need to improve at a quick pace to keep the standard of living steady, e.g. mining and energy tech have greatly improved, although this is heavily offset by depletion of easily accessible resources. Huge, huge agricultural improvements from breeding, pesticides, etc have continued in recent decades.<br /><br />I agree that overall utility of typical college-educated whites hasn't changed very much in the last few decades (except for period-specific desires, like preferring the music one grew up with, or gay equality vs inequality). Still, it's important to remember that the requirements for a utility gain can increase rapidly for quite a while before that gain is realized.<br /><br />In medicine, death and debilitation among the elderly is the result of many, many conditions. Eliminate a few of them, and other conditions will kill the patient a few years later. But as you come close to eliminating all of them, and then do so, the lifespan shoots through the roof. The same for cancer: until you can get all or almost all the mutations cancer treatments just make the cancer repopulate from resistant cells. So we can see long term trends in technological capacity that don't amount to much utility yet, while expecting that if they continue long enough they'll deliver huge utility gains.<br /><br />Robust AI would be another such thing: replacing 25% of the jobs in the economy with robots and computers gets you some impressive gains, but as you get near to 100% you get ridiculously large effects.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-42811601393541237362010-07-08T22:42:41.651-04:002010-07-08T22:42:41.651-04:00Genetic engineering, designer babies, more sophist...Genetic engineering, designer babies, more sophisticated AI/robots, artificial reality, and biomedical technology will dramatically improve the quality of life of people. There is plenty of reason to be optimistic even after factoring in immigration.Underachievernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-21930664111506827802010-07-07T20:44:36.837-04:002010-07-07T20:44:36.837-04:00The negative second derivative is evident in our o...The negative second derivative is evident in our official measures of progress - GDP - as I summarized <a href="http://lyingeyes.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-we-gonna-grow-our-way-out-of-this.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />Steve Sailer has pointed out that any improvements over the last 30 years are by-products of Moore's Law. Prior to that our astonishing growth was driven by the development of steam engines, internal combustion engines, turbines, electricity, petroleum (plastics), agriculture, construction material, galvanized rubber, atomic energy, lasers, aluminum, aerodynamics, anti-biotics, optics, electromagnetism, rocketry.<br /><br />The above is just a stream-of-consciousness listing of all the things I see around my house and looking outside and up at the sky. Perhaps nanotechnology will bring some awesome improvements to our standard of living, but as far as I can see we don't have anything today we didn't have 40 years ago that can't be chalked up to Moore's Law.zielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03669293146969638930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-54801844346443804552010-07-07T20:07:27.454-04:002010-07-07T20:07:27.454-04:00In addition to the diminishing marginal returns re...In addition to the diminishing marginal returns related to land, it's also worth mentioning that the modern economy exacerbates this problem. There's a ton of land you could live on in a subsistence agricultural hermit lifestyle, somewhat less where you could set up the means to carry out some stage of the industrial manufacturing and distributing process, and very little where you have close proximity to high quality human capital necessary for most modern economic activity. Such human capital is not a very liquid resource, since it likes to be in a community where it has pre-existing relations and can find a spouse and support a family. So nationally, there may be some halfway decent land in North Dakota but people flock to Silicon Valley and lower Manhattan and RTP etc. instead (the same dynamic plays out intra-city on a smaller scale).<br /><br />While the quote about land I've seen attributed to Will Rogers is not entirely accurate, it is close enough - it is pretty universally acknowledged that land is a good investment on which to gain a return (as opposed to, say, a car) since its value goes up long term, so I don't understand why no one seems to ever put two and two together and think, "Wait a minute, a key human need is becoming more and more expensive."Jokah Macphersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04185675633464395897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-2845580651340647572010-07-07T15:21:33.061-04:002010-07-07T15:21:33.061-04:00In the preface, I stipulated that quality of stuff...In the preface, I stipulated that quality of stuff overall has been improving, prices declining, and variety widening. But those are first-derivative observations, and therefore tell us nothing about whether diminishing marginal returns have set in.<br /><br />For that we need to compare rates of improvement over time since the beginning of capitalism. Just looking at cars (price, quality, safety, whatever), compare the gains from 1920 to '50, '50 to '80, and '80 to 2010.<br /><br />"So the average lifespan is going up because fewer people are dying at 30, at 40, at 50 and at 80."<br /><br />Right, but the average lifespan itself has not increased from 30 to 33. That would be a dramatic and palpable improvement. People at age 30 expect to live longer because of prolonged golden years, not because famine, war, and plague had recently been tamed.<br /><br />"The U.S. still has plenty of land, plus there is a ton of room for building up or infill. "<br /><br />Diminishing marginal returns. The most desirable land will be settled first, then the next most desirable, etc. At some point, there may be a lot of land left, but because it's not so high-quality, people are not very willing to head out there. That keeps them in crowded areas and drives up prices, all endogenous and in the absence of external state interference.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-67156587562601789422010-07-07T12:32:00.387-04:002010-07-07T12:32:00.387-04:00Most things have become cheaper relative to income...Most things have become cheaper relative to income over the past 30 years. Clothing, furniture, most other materials goods. Car prices have remained the same (but the quality has improved significantly). The things that have become more expensive relative to income are housing, education, and health care. Compared to most other manufactured goods, these things are either highly regulated industries, have third-party payment, or do not offer return on payment. Housing has become more expensive mainly due to the bubble, which is now self-correcting, as well as building restrictions (which are often created to protect the price of existing housing).kurt9https://www.blogger.com/profile/02101147267959016924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-14770523469454172082010-07-07T09:27:52.301-04:002010-07-07T09:27:52.301-04:00If the average lifespan had increased from 30 to 3...<i>If the average lifespan had increased from 30 to 33, people would be truly grateful, but 3 more years of elderly life, while still positive, don't affect us as much.</i><br /><br />When I looked at the data, there was improvements in mortality rate across the entire span of age groups. So the average lifespan is going up because fewer people are dying at 30, at 40, at 50 and at 80.<br /><br /><i>Again the basic economic concepts of diminishing marginal returns and rivalrous goods should have led economists to expect a decline in the standard of living in recent times. </i><br /><br />The U.S. still has plenty of land, plus there is a ton of room for building up or infill. The two main factors pushing up housing prices are a) cheap credit policies and b) zoning laws making it expensive to build.Devin Finbarrhttp://intellectual-detox.comnoreply@blogger.com