>The problem we have as a species is that we’ve been so effective at optimisation that we have eliminated the need for anyone to exist. A few farmers can feed the country. A few automated production lines could produce the goods.
But then all the other people would starve to death. So we just keep on making jobs to put them in. It gets further and further away from reality the further down the hole we go.
I understand it to be hyperbole but the point that as a rough estimate only at most 1/10th of the available work force is actually "needed" in a developed country to "function" is probably accurate. From a late 19th/early 20th century capitalist pov the optimization point was reached somewhere in the 60s/70s. The problem is we have inherited and institutionalized how to "provide for oneself" from a long gone era.
If the goal was - metaphorically speaking - to reach the West Coast from the East Coast; this kind of capitalism had done a fairly good job until the 70s or so. By no means perfect but at least somewhere in the ballpark of a right trajectory.
Atm however we are past the west coast somewhere at the edge of our outer solar system lost in the Oort cloud. Remarkable engine indeed but way off course. And because it is so confusing out here (e.g. global financial market 10x bigger than world's GDP witnessed by all in 2008) in the vast 2.7 K cold nothingness of uber-optimization, the goal of wealth distribution (participation in the market) to the levels of say the 70s seems futile and utterly romantic - a long forgotten pale blue dot of paradisiacal opportunities. Even if the propulsion system which took us way out here is proof of the exact opposite in principle. Nobody has to starve to death as in "natural law" because of a conceptual eternal idea of how a certain kind of economics which was very successful at some time period (and ultimately had won the Cold War) has to work. But people really indeed do in the millions. It is just a sad state of affairs, still.
... but yet some dream to eventually reach Alpha Centauri with this good old machine: "We are halfway there, look, you can even "see" it."
When in reality it would take approx. 1000 generations at the current speed.
I understand it to be hyperbole but the point that as a rough estimate only at most 1/10th of the available work force is actually "needed" in a developed country to "function" is probably accurate. From a late 19th/early 20th century capitalist pov the optimization point was reached somewhere in the 60s/70s. The problem is we have inherited and institutionalized how to "provide for oneself" from a long gone era.
If the goal was - metaphorically speaking - to reach the West Coast from the East Coast; this kind of capitalism had done a fairly good job until the 70s or so. By no means perfect but at least somewhere in the ballpark of a right trajectory.
Atm however we are past the west coast somewhere at the edge of our outer solar system lost in the Oort cloud. Remarkable engine indeed but way off course. And because it is so confusing out here (e.g. global financial market 10x bigger than world's GDP witnessed by all in 2008) in the vast 2.7 K cold nothingness of uber-optimization, the goal of wealth distribution (participation in the market) to the levels of say the 70s seems futile and utterly romantic - a long forgotten pale blue dot of paradisiacal opportunities. Even if the propulsion system which took us way out here is proof of the exact opposite in principle. Nobody has to starve to death as in "natural law" because of a conceptual eternal idea of how a certain kind of economics which was very successful at some time period (and ultimately had won the Cold War) has to work. But people really indeed do in the millions. It is just a sad state of affairs, still.
... but yet some dream to eventually reach Alpha Centauri with this good old machine: "We are halfway there, look, you can even "see" it." When in reality it would take approx. 1000 generations at the current speed.