square wrote:

The author gets some style points, but his thesis didn't really hit home for me.  So tech start-ups are pursuing future Mammon, fueled by VCs and a cottage industry of boosterism.  A past of racism and inequality isn't being fixed, just papered over.

So who am I supposed to hold responsible?  Google?  Goldman Sachs?  Myself?  What are the alternative opportunities that should be pursued?

That's the 64,000 dollar question.  What's the next "stuff" that needs to be invented that's not just either more of the same or smaller/bigger, better versions of the same?  We've either caught up with Science Fiction or realized that some things like Teleporters, Anti-gravity, and Faster than Light Drives could be centuries or millennia away.  I still think there's great potential in Aerospace and Aeronautics.  A year or two before 09/11 NASA had built an efficient jet engine that could have completely recreated the airline industry into small regional airlines with small jets that act more like private jets where you pick the destination and time instead being a cog in the Hub and Spoke method wheel.  The engine still exists and is being used but there has been no real movement in that direction.

I think we're seeing the beginning of the end for Capitalism.  When the only business is money, and nobody cares about how it's made, what need innovation?  Look at how many of the companies that helped build America are gone and the ones that are left only produce a better version of the same thing.

America is oddly better situated than most societies for the robotics take over, frankly automated factories are no different to us than Chinese factories.  This is what Trump may or may not understand and still directly opposite of what he's selling.

Melon's believes creativity is the answer, I think a rise of the craftsman (maker) is a good answer for the long term.  The localisation movement helps.

Not that anyone asked, but I'd like to see a Taibbi-style bare-knuckle exploration of the following thesis: the growth industry of today is addiction.

We of course have old-school examples.  Pharma is happy to flood the market with opioids on the flimsiest pretense that their use is safe.  There is regulation in this area, but it's way behind and unlikely to garner forceful support from the administration and Congress.  Gambling is another well-known activity, now increasingly designed to foster compulsive behavior; states are themselves so dependent on the vig they receive that they're expanding it, not reining it in.

The leading edge of this is now digital; social-media sites and "free to play" computer games explicitly target the brain's reward system.  We're allowing tech firms to monetize addiction with hardly any scrutiny.  Even the hint of regulation in this area would be met by the profiteers and laissez-faire capitalists with vigorous screams and big-money lobbying.

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

square wrote:

the growth industry

Growth industries in the first world is a lie to begin with.  Without the unfettered breeding the in third world and knock on immigration our population decline would be remarkable, as education spreads the birth rate drops.  So to grow an industry either has to create a new need to fill (be the newest fad in distraction & entertainment) but that isn't growth that is merely redirection from one consumption to another or lock in technological obsolescence (think memory footprint of browsers).  Obsolescence is effective however that is still replacement not growth.  Outside of that as the population continues to shrink consumption and thus production will shrink.  Granted you will have productivity advances but that's really built into the system anyway.

Uninformed hypothesis: Since there is nothing new under the sun growth is an illusion.

square wrote:

the growth industry of today is addiction.

Addiction is not as much the target of growth but the easiest way to get to the ultimate goal, dependence. Dependence is the never ending cash stream. Addiction is the measure of how well you are meeting your goal. You can be naturally dependent (like we are on food, water, air, etc.) on something, beneficially dependent on something (electricity, transportation, medication) or detrimentally dependent on something (opioids, self-validation). It matters not to the person providing the product for a profit, as long as you are dependent then they are free to maximize profits. It's a much more regular revenue model than supporting and monetizing the discretionary choices in our life. The holy grail is, of course, to convert the discretionary into dependence. (Like Facebook or bottled water.)

We don't say we are "addicted" to food, we are addicted to the wrong food. Likewise, we are addicted to overpriced water, inefficient transportation, constant social validation, etc. In appropriate amounts, our dependence is natural. In inappropriate amounts our dependence is unnatural.

So, what is the right amount? Since the Greek precept at Delphi of "Nothing in Excess" society has been concerned with this question. Society is only becoming more accepting of these addictions because we have the excess capacity at this level of civilization to support those dependencies without it affecting the functioning of society as a whole. (At least that is what we tell ourselves). When we can no longer support it, the pendulum will swing the other way and we will condemn it.

In my experience most addictions stem from the inability to calculate total costs, so the perceived benefit/cost is much larger than the actual. "Drugs won't hurt me", "the air quality is fine", "I can afford to hit the casino this weekend" all look like great ideas when you fail to do a full accounting of the total cost. So how do you present the total cost of a decision? Education helps, but education has only ever helped interested parties, the willfully ignorant cannot be taught. Government restriction has worked well for many years, but, like square said, when the Government gets a piece of the vig they can't be trusted to provide the regulations. Societal pressure? We are becoming too amorphous a society for that to work well any more. No, the only real restriction addictive behavior is to require the addicted party to handle the full cost of their decisions, that's the only way to educate them as to what those limits are.

So maybe no more bankruptcy for gambling debts. No free medical treatment for recreational drug overdoses, willful obesity, or other related health matters. It's "cruel", but it's the only real way to make the majority of people aware of the total cost of their addictive dependency and to make decisions based on the real total cost, not just that part of the cost above what society chooses to sweep under the table for them.

Last edited by GooberMcNutly (2017-06-12 11:01:58)

GooberMcNutly wrote:

No, the only real restriction addictive behavior is to require the addicted party to handle the full cost of their decisions, that's the only way to educate them as to what those limits are.

So maybe no more bankruptcy for gambling debts. No free medical treatment for recreational drug overdoses, willful obesity, or other related health matters. It's "cruel", but it's the only real way to make the majority of people aware of the total cost of their addictive dependency and to make decisions based on the real total cost, not just that part of the cost above what society chooses to sweep under the table for them.

Unfortunately this leads towards crime and us bearing the costs in a different bucket - same weight on society just a different bucket.  True financial accounting after societies decision to ban cruelty is impossible as the numbers can be tortured into telling you anything you want them to say. 

But to point - if we, as a society, decide to allow our government to sanction or even take part in (Lotto) the exploitation of the inbuilt mammalian tendency towards over-indulgence/addiction then we have a serious moral dilemma such as we do now.  Are you comfortable with a world in which we, as a government/society, intentionally addict you so that we can in turn punish you for that addiction?

Lotto, Liquor & Opiods have emerged as a true bane to our society yet all are sanctioned or even pushed by our governments.

Smudge wrote:

Good thread. Add "Big Gulps" to your list above.

And Twitter.