Political Economy

Sol Des

Chill Clowns, Evil, Political Economy

We do seem to have just given up. Solar is far superior, though the desert isn’t lifeless. I agree that the priority should be solar, though, and put it in places that have the least long-term impact on humans.

Damn we are fucking up so bad.

Not Great At All

Chill Political Economy

I agree with Amanda. The labor market is worse now than during the GFC in general, and far, far worse in tech and tech-adjacent fields.

Source: I lived through it and got a tech job in a low-tech city in April of 2009, right at the worst of the fallout of the Great Recession. That would be extremely unlikely now.

Crash

Chill Evil, Political Economy

Amanda is right. Those jobs are gone forever. The economy is going to look very different in a year or two (mega-crashed).

AI Off

Chill Clowns, Political Economy

It doesn’t really matter if AI can really do your job or not, it’s so much cheaper they will try it anyway.

Exactly. That’s what so many otherwise smart people do not understand about AI. I am actually not sure how they can be so incredibly naïve about how this will work.

In short, it does not matter if an AI can actually do your job. If an MBA thinks they can string together four mediocre to bad AI agents to do your job for 1/20 the cost and 1/4 the quality, that is what is gonna happen.

It’s already happening. Pretending it’s not is just pure clownery.

Despin

Chill Political Economy

The economy is doing very poorly but it takes a while for it to be obvious.

And things are going to get so much worse.

Tray Table

Chill Political Economy

Why do people say they feel “betrayed” when they get laid off? What is going on their heads?

I’ve only ever seen my relationship with a company as a business one. I provide labor. They pay me. I try to do good work, be honest, and deliver what I promise but I have zero emotional attachment to my role or company. It’s merely a service I provide in exchange for money. In a sense, a company subscribes to me. When they cancel the subscription I am out.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t understand the emotional component. It’s a business relationship and should remain one.

Perhaps that’s why I do well day-trading and the like.

Econ BS Preemption

Chill Annoying, Clowns, Political Economy

Yes, yes, houses were smaller in 1960, insert the usual economist blah blah bullshit here. The point is that it was far easier to buy a house in 1960. And I can’t buy part of a fucking house. No matter what the econs say, it’s just a more difficult time for younger people.

Degrade

Chill Gutter Philosophy, Political Economy

Cohesive, coherent nations are probably the only structure we can support with current minds and sociocultural development that can provide something like general welfare benefits to the downtrodden.

Anything else is leftist fantasyland crap. They destroy themselves with worship of third-world immigration and clownish allegiance to Hamas and the like.

Baumed Out

Chill Political Economy

Agreed, Baumol’s is not an adequate explanation; it only accounts for about 20% at most of this massive change. Not nearly enough, in other words.

Essentially, we just don’t want to offer the services and benefits we could vastly more easily provide now. Like most things in this world, it’s a choice. And we choose not to do so. For no good reason, either. Nearly all of what we once were able to do as a civilization we could do now and it would benefit everyone. But in the descent into zero sum thinking that has occurred for an enormous variety of reasons, people are convinced it’s more worthwhile to hurt their neighbor rather than to help them.

This, they incorrectly believe, will raise them up. The reality is that it drags them both down. As we’ll see soon enough.