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[Maximum Spin]

We have that benefit of centralization today ... What we are missing though are the social protections against the abuses that can be perpetrated because of such centralization.  This is the "one trick" humanity hasn't seemed to be able to figure out - how do you keep the benefits of specialization without devolving into tyranny by whomever controls that centralized production?

The essential problem is this: as the theoretical upper limit of labor productivity increases, it becomes less and less efficient to even house, even feed, even have people who are operating at far below this level. The corollary of Ford's thesis that people who make Model Ts should be paid enough to afford them is: people who don't make Model Ts and don't contribute directly to making them don't need to be able to afford them.

The entire first world budget for first world lifestyles comes out of the global productivity surplus. It should be obvious on the face of it - the global productivity surplus is "the sum total of everything humans on Earth produce". If it's not part of the global productivity surplus, we don't have it. All very well. That means that anyone whose labor isn't directly productive of that surplus, including the vast majority of western jobs today, but who lives a first world lifestyle and doesn't scratch in a dirt hovel, is drawing down that surplus. This is in some sense "parasitic", but it isn't a problem because we generally understand that those jobs still produce value. The problem comes in when the value they produce is very marginal. A significant part of the problem comes in from the fact that the entire world economy today depends on a handful of factories, many of which are in Asia, for the production and decoration by various means of high-purity crystals of silicon. It's also dependent, in other ways, on materials like steel and cement, of which China is the largest producer. It's dependent on fossil fuels for the majority of its energy, and the embodied energy costs of alternatives are frequently extraordinarily high so that moving away from fossil fuels means using even more fossil fuels for some time. Any resource like this without which the global economy does not move is, as it were, a lever by which it can be moved - that is, by which a greater proportion of that global production surplus can be extracted. Compared to that, the economic power of most of the people in western cities is minimal. If China wishes to increase the price of its steel by five cents, the millions of dollars that amounts to come out of the paychecks of people like a hotel janitor in New York, because the world can do with slightly grubbier hotels rather more than it can do without steel.

This is a simplification in certain ways, but it addresses the core concern. I won't hang more and more elaborate epicycles onto it for now. The point is that as long as there are inconceivable, almost immeasurable gulfs in labor productivity, it will be more efficient to invest more of that surplus into expanding the highest productivity than to parcel it out as living standards; and its being more efficient means that the nation or civilization or group that does so outcompetes those who don't. Maybe not forever - there are social factors, very real risks of revolution - but long enough, like the stock market, to bankrupt anyone who bets against it. It also means, obviously, that the workers who are most willing to immiserate themselves to shave their expenses closer and closer to the bone outcompete those who won't. This is not a moral question; I very much wish it were the opposite of the case. It's a question of producing more, or less.

The only way living standards can be maintained is if the global production surplus increases faster than the growth of the world population, and faster than the process of capture erodes the "slice of the pie" that can be divvied out. This is probably impossible in the long run for the obvious reason that it would seem to require the average worker's workload to go to infinity.

Yes, there are things to cavil and nitpick about around the edges of this broad-brush picture, but the core has to be understood. Anything that changes the dynamics of specific situations contributing to it - like demographic collapse in China, say - must in some way consume existing capital and consequently shrink at least the rate of growth of the global production surplus, if not the surplus itself. This, obviously, makes the problem worse. The only way to fight back would be to fight to capture more of that surplus yourself, not even to improve living standards, but just to reinvest to keep growing the "pie" from which living standards are paid.

[Folly]

The only way living standards can be maintained is if the global production surplus increases faster than the growth of the world population, and faster than the process of capture erodes the "slice of the pie" that can be divvied out. This is probably impossible in the long run for the obvious reason that it would seem to require the average worker's workload to go to infinity.

I have to disagree. Modern automation techniques allow production to easily and greatly exceed demand. The only problem is that that production is being limited so that there is only enough to satisfy the population segment which will optimize profits for those who already have far more than they have any real use for.

Sheer unchecked greed is entirely accountable for all poverty in the modern world.

[Maximum Spin]

The only way living standards can be maintained is if the global production surplus increases faster than the growth of the world population, and faster than the process of capture erodes the "slice of the pie" that can be divvied out. This is probably impossible in the long run for the obvious reason that it would seem to require the average worker's workload to go to infinity.

I have to disagree. Modern automation techniques allow production to easily and greatly exceed demand. The only problem is that that production is being limited so that there is only enough to satisfy the population segment which will optimize profits for those who already have far more than they have any real use for.

Sheer unchecked greed is entirely accountable for all poverty in the modern world.

This is fundamentally untrue and also doesn't matter to what I said.
Let me start with the second part. In order to meet the criteria I described, where the rate of increase of the global production surplus to increase faster than the growth of the world population as well as faster than the process of capture, the production surplus per person has to go to infinity in the long run. Not double or treble or even sextuple - the amount of capital produced per worker has to increase unbounded. This is nonphysical; eventually you will run into some fundamental productivity limit due to physical reality, productivity growth slacks off, and efficiency once again slowly consumes the worker's surplus.

As to the first part. All production trades off against other production. Modern automation techniques cannot mine ore or smelt steel vastly faster than we already do - because we're already using them. Nor would we want them to, since one of the biggest limitations on stripmining and coalburning industry is our tolerance for the ecological devastation. To produce ten times the steel we would need to mine ten times as much, make ten times as much coke, build ten times as much smelting capacity (whether as new smelters or expansions to existing facilities). All of this would require an input of materials and an enormous input of energy that could not be used for other things (like building houses or feeding people). There's no good reason to do this. Look at your own sentence and reflect upon it: "Modern automation techniques allow production to easily and greatly exceed demand." If production greatly exceeds demand, you are wasting resources to make things - a great many things! - that nobody wants. Okay, fair enough, suppose that we want production to exactly equal demand. Setting aside the information issue - nobody knows what the exact demand for anything is - this still requires more energy than we currently use. Shall we burn more coal or more oil? Will we divert still more resources away from other tasks like building houses and feeding people to build nuclear plants or oil wells or solar farms, all of which require still more mining, smelting, cement and semiconductor production, and most of all still more energy to build? We are not a post-scarcity society. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar.

[Folly]

We have long passed the point where clean energy alternatives are more cost-efficient than coal and oil, and easily capable of meeting all of our energy demands. The only reason we still burn fossil fuels is the greed of corporations already set up to profit off of them.

Let's stop throwing the word 'infinity' around; what you're describing is exponential growth, which is conceptually daunting but entirely manageable so long as our automation grows at a matching exponential rate, a task easily achieved under the management of AI.

And yes, eventually our planet will run out of resources. When we reach that point we will either have to find other planets to mine, or impose restrictions on reproduction and enforce strict recycling mandates, depending on what options are available to us when that time comes. But at our current rate of growth that problem lies far beyond any of our projected lifetimes, and is not really worth worrying about right now.

[Maximum Spin]

We have long passed the point where clean energy alternatives are more cost-efficient than coal and oil, and easily capable of meeting all of our energy demands. The only reason we still burn fossil fuels is the greed of corporations already set up to profit off of them.

With what sources of energy will you mine the lithium, run the precision zone melting equipment that produces the silicon boules, fire the limestone to make cement, smelt the steel, fuse the glass, operate all the trucks and cranes and other machines needed to build them? All of that must take away from current production before you can expand clean energy, and most likely will be fuelled by burning more fossil fuels. Sure, in the long run, you have more energy, but you cannot get there without first spending energy to build it, and you will always need to keep spending more and more energy to expand. This is the trap we're in - investing any greater portion of resources means that someone will have to go without - that living standards somewhere must decline.

Let's stop throwing the word 'infinity' around; what you're describing is exponential growth, which is conceptually daunting but entirely manageable so long as our automation grows at a matching exponential rate, a task easily achieved under the management of AI.

How? Do you know how to build this? Nobody ever has. The AI that can do this does not exist. Even if it did, it would still have to redirect resources from OTHER USES to invest them into this.

And yes, eventually our planet will run out of resources. When we reach that point we will either have to find other planets to mine, or [...] enforce strict recycling mandates

Both of these require substantial sources of energy to do, or, in other words, once the planet has run out of resources, they become impossible to achieve. That doesn't mean that those aren't still far future concerns, to be sure, and the planet running out of resources wasn't even part of my argument... but it seems relevant that you don't appear to know it.

[Robot Parade Leader]

We have that benefit of centralization today ... What we are missing though are the social protections against the abuses that can be perpetrated because of such centralization.  This is the "one trick" humanity hasn't seemed to be able to figure out - how do you keep the benefits of specialization without devolving into tyranny by whomever controls that centralized production?

The essential problem is this: as the theoretical upper limit of labor productivity increases, it becomes less and less efficient to even house, even feed, even have people who are operating at far below this level. The corollary of Ford's thesis that people who make Model Ts should be paid enough to afford them is: people who don't make Model Ts and don't contribute directly to making them don't need to be able to afford them.

The entire first world budget for first world lifestyles comes out of the global productivity surplus. It should be obvious on the face of it - the global productivity surplus is "the sum total of everything humans on Earth produce". If it's not part of the global productivity surplus, we don't have it. All very well. That means that anyone whose labor isn't directly productive of that surplus, including the vast majority of western jobs today, but who lives a first world lifestyle and doesn't scratch in a dirt hovel, is drawing down that surplus. This is in some sense "parasitic", but it isn't a problem because we generally understand that those jobs still produce value. The problem comes in when the value they produce is very marginal. A significant part of the problem comes in from the fact that the entire world economy today depends on a handful of factories, many of which are in Asia, for the production and decoration by various means of high-purity crystals of silicon. It's also dependent, in other ways, on materials like steel and cement, of which China is the largest producer. It's dependent on fossil fuels for the majority of its energy, and the embodied energy costs of alternatives are frequently extraordinarily high so that moving away from fossil fuels means using even more fossil fuels for some time. Any resource like this without which the global economy does not move is, as it were, a lever by which it can be moved - that is, by which a greater proportion of that global production surplus can be extracted. Compared to that, the economic power of most of the people in western cities is minimal. If China wishes to increase the price of its steel by five cents, the millions of dollars that amounts to come out of the paychecks of people like a hotel janitor in New York, because the world can do with slightly grubbier hotels rather more than it can do without steel.

This is a simplification in certain ways, but it addresses the core concern. I won't hang more and more elaborate epicycles onto it for now. The point is that as long as there are inconceivable, almost immeasurable gulfs in labor productivity, it will be more efficient to invest more of that surplus into expanding the highest productivity than to parcel it out as living standards; and its being more efficient means that the nation or civilization or group that does so outcompetes those who don't. Maybe not forever - there are social factors, very real risks of revolution - but long enough, like the stock market, to bankrupt anyone who bets against it. It also means, obviously, that the workers who are most willing to immiserate themselves to shave their expenses closer and closer to the bone outcompete those who won't. This is not a moral question; I very much wish it were the opposite of the case. It's a question of producing more, or less.

The only way living standards can be maintained is if the global production surplus increases faster than the growth of the world population, and faster than the process of capture erodes the "slice of the pie" that can be divvied out. This is probably impossible in the long run for the obvious reason that it would seem to require the average worker's workload to go to infinity.

Yes, there are things to cavil and nitpick about around the edges of this broad-brush picture, but the core has to be understood. Anything that changes the dynamics of specific situations contributing to it - like demographic collapse in China, say - must in some way consume existing capital and consequently shrink at least the rate of growth of the global production surplus, if not the surplus itself. This, obviously, makes the problem worse. The only way to fight back would be to fight to capture more of that surplus yourself, not even to improve living standards, but just to reinvest to keep growing the "pie" from which living standards are paid.

At the risk of touching this at all, because there's a reason I usually don't touch this. I almost want to ask if this is right back to trolling, again. I really wonder if I bother responding to it at all or just block like others have:

The essential problem is this: as the theoretical upper limit of labor productivity increases, it becomes less and less efficient to even house, even feed, even have people who are operating at far below this level.

I started responding to this and then just erased it because WOW, "to even house, even feed, even have people...."
Source: the killbot instruction manual for justification of eliminating whoever is "undesirable?" Jesus.
God help you if you're whoever the ultra rich calculate isn't worth existing.
I'm just gonna spend my time on something else. Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

[Maximum Spin]

At the risk of touching this at all, because there's a reason I usually don't touch this. I almost want to ask if this is right back to trolling, again. I really wonder if I bother responding to it at all or just block like others have:

The essential problem is this: as the theoretical upper limit of labor productivity increases, it becomes less and less efficient to even house, even feed, even have people who are operating at far below this level.

I started responding to this and then just erased it because WOW, "to even house, even feed, even have people...."
Source: the killbot instruction manual for justification of eliminating whoever is "undesirable?" Jesus.
God help you if you're whoever the ultra rich calculate isn't worth existing.
I'm just gonna spend my time on something else. Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

Yeah, that's why... that's why I call it a "problem"...

As long as some societies and some people are willing to pursue efficiency at the expense of humanity, it means there is less and less left over for those who aren't. Without some way to overturn that, those who are most willing to shave human lives ever thinner to extract more capital will win. It's a serious and thus far intractable problem that won't go away if you say "Yikes, I can't even." and blame someone who tries to explain it to you. Stopping this downward spiral is the most important thing in the world.

[Egan_BW]

I'd figure that a home/dwelling that also grows food won't ever beat the efficiency of a field, for a given land-footprint. Since the amount of sun falling on a certain area won't go up if you build upwards, you'll just cast a bigger shadow and potentially cast someone else's house-garden into darkness. On the other hand, using your house to inefficiently grow food is a better usage of that solar energy than you were likely using it for already, so why not supplement the food supply from farms with a smaller food supply from houses? Similar to putting solar panels on your roof and selling a bit of energy back to the grid when your usage is low.

Of course, the growing will probably have demands in energy (probably electrical and not chemical-biological) if you're to reduce the labor demands, and the plants themselves will be competing with your solar panels for energy, if you have them. It might or might not be more efficient to just have your home produce electricity and leave food production to large scale ventures. But having plants and fresh produce around is a quality of life improvement over living inside a bubble of solar panels.

[Robot Parade Leader]

At the risk of touching this at all, because there's a reason I usually don't touch this. I almost want to ask if this is right back to trolling, again. I really wonder if I bother responding to it at all or just block like others have:

The essential problem is this: as the theoretical upper limit of labor productivity increases, it becomes less and less efficient to even house, even feed, even have people who are operating at far below this level.

I started responding to this and then just erased it because WOW, "to even house, even feed, even have people...."
Source: the killbot instruction manual for justification of eliminating whoever is "undesirable?" Jesus.
God help you if you're whoever the ultra rich calculate isn't worth existing.
I'm just gonna spend my time on something else. Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

Yeah, that's why... that's why I call it a "problem"...

As long as some societies and some people are willing to pursue efficiency at the expense of humanity, it means there is less and less left over for those who aren't. Without some way to overturn that, those who are most willing to shave human lives ever thinner to extract more capital will win. It's a serious and thus far intractable problem that won't go away if you say "Yikes, I can't even." and blame someone who tries to explain it to you. Stopping this downward spiral is the most important thing in the world.

There's that backpedal and condescending too. Bravo. You "explain" nothing.
We know there are people who write others off.
What you said was horrible, factually wrong, and quoted, but gaslight all you like.

Henry Ford wanted a chicken in every pot and a ford in every garage. I got told he was actually was sued by the Dodge Brothers Horace and John Dodge, because he wasn't being ruthless enough and trying to run a "charity." So no, it wasn't "The corollary of Ford's thesis." This is propaganda and excused horribleness at best.

[Truean]

Please do not quote

Apparently a duplicate post, done while editing. Please ignore, and see the next post, which this was effectively a duplicate of....
Please do not quote

[Truean]

Please do not quote

Not again....

Ok, first, , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co. yes, "the Michigan Supreme Court held that Henry Ford had to operate the Ford Motor Company in the interests of its shareholders, rather than in a manner for the benefit of his employees or customers."

RPL; I'm gonna again advise you to ignore him. He will think what he will think. You won't change that. Nothing good comes of this.

Now can we please move on?

Agree, may not be as "efficient" by some measures. Building upwards requires artificial light, so building shadow is relevant but mitigable point, potentially. You mentioned "On the other hand, using your house to inefficiently grow food is a better usage of that solar energy than you were likely using it for already, so why not supplement the food supply from farms with a smaller food supply from houses?" Agree, especially given that we are not good enough at storing electric power right now, and we need much better batteries. If power production capabilities keep increasing but storage (battery) doesn't keep improving as much, why not make that energy used as a grow light/heater/plant nutrient pump? (If you can't efficiently store it).

Suboptimal uses may have their place. Suboptimal capacity production + optimal capacity production = greater total output than just "optimal capacity production" IF the "suboptimal capacity production" can't be better used overall. In essence a home that produces some food compared to a home that produces no food produces more food. May not produce as much food as a farm field but you can live in the house, not the field. 

Simply, Let's say the fields produce ... "10" (a nice round number).
Let's say the house produces ... 2 This is indisputably less than 10.
10 + 2 = 12.
12> 10 (production with house and field verses field alone. Would be "11" if house produced "1" instead of "2").
Home additionally provides shelter, while the field does not. Home provides other "value" or worth aside from food.

Everything demands energy. Trade off between plants and solar panels depends upon placement. Your point may be valid, in re "larger scale ventures" producing more food and home specialization in energy production resulting in more overall. (We don't have the math, which would depend upon future advancements). Specialization may produce greater overall yields. This depends upon if combinations of things can produce more desirable outcomes in combination (see also https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/agrivoltaics-solar-and-agriculture-co-location), rather than strict specialization.

With future advances, might turn out combining solar panels with crops results in more plants and power. Unclear. 
Risk, rather than straight production, factors in as well. Drought impacts crops, but not solar panels?
Consider combining both insurance: lost the crop, kept the solar power production.

But having plants and fresh produce around is a quality of life improvement over living inside a bubble of solar panels.

Agree entirely, qualitative improvement matters, even if difficult to quantify. It's unclear even today if presence of solar panels increase or decrease house value. I would personally consider paying more, but some places tried to ban them for "appearance"  reasons. That's subjective, oddly. Logically a house without a power bill (due to solar/wind) would be cheaper to maintain, and more desirable, but ... some people hate how it looks?

You will have people saying,
A.) "This house that costs $100,000 (I know, but nice round number) and that's better than that $110,000 house across the street with those weird solar panels on it."

B.) That $100,000 house across the street has no solar panels and it's better to pay $110,000, because that way there's no electric bill. That other house's $100/month electric bill will add up to $10,000 in 100 months (about 8 years and 4 months, assuming electricity bills don't increase). So after 100 months the solar panels pay for themselves. That other house across the street without the solar panels will be worse long term.

This is an investment choice people seem to make and there's not a ton to be done about it. You could logically apply the same argument to food growing infrastructure as a feature, and again, get the same two viewpoints. Some would still hate it.

Please do not quote

[Starver]

I just want to say, as this seems to be a currently active thread, though it's apropos of virtually nothing being discussed, and not even the right nation (yet).

Happy New Year from 2025!


So far, the future seems not too different from the past. (Except the weather means that I haven't popped outside yet, tonight. Some brave souls are launching fireworks over in the distance, though...) When I've finished my glass of something emminently sippable, I might still put my hat on and pop my head out...

...but please continue as you were.

[Truean]

Please do not quote

Happy New Year.

Actually, I see where you're coming from, but food discussion relates to American Politics.

Remember, Trump said he won the American Presidential election off the border and groceries.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-says-reason-won-153231497.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
"I won on the border, and I won on groceries," the president-elect said in an interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press."

Recent two week old news articles:
https://abc7.com/post/trump-now-says-bringing-down-grocery-prices-will-be-hard/15651643/

Same goes with inflation (related to food) swaying many people's votes. Some say it was only perceived inflation (Argument concerning egg prices), and then people highlighted hunger/food. From there, alternatives to feed people came up with sympathy about them not having food, because that really is a shame. So some, as yet not feasible alternatives were suggested.

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[hector13]

New Year, same people making the same assumption Max is advocating for an observation he’s made.

Felicitations.

One thing I don’t think anybody has mentioned (I mostly skimmed the big discussion re: urban agriculture) is what happens to the farmers if we start growing our own food at home. Do we use them as compost when they inevitably go out of business?

[Strongpoint]

What do we do with the farmers? What a silly question. We need proteins to complement veggies we'll grow at home. Soylent green is the future after all!