Visualizzazione post con etichetta #caplan cornucopia. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta #caplan cornucopia. Mostra tutti i post

sabato 26 ottobre 2019

IL DE-CONSUMISMO

https://feedly.com/i/entry//cnXVr/5HNe2pDqTI3udBeVx4AbJSW9TNhacAl8h6Dc=_16e0340c660:f55c5a:3dac2425
IL DE-CONSUMISMO
Siete rimasti agli anatemi contro il consumismo della società moderna? Andrew McAfee offre una provocazione da meditare facendo notare che in realtà capitalismo e progresso tecnologico spingono verso il de-consumismo. Otteniamo sempre di più consumando sempre meno.
Sorpresi?
Se una volta la crescita economica andava di pari passo con il consumo di risorse (era industriale) oggi la relazione è inversa: più ricchi consumando sempre meno beni materiali.
Il motto è: più beni con meno cose.
Esempi di smaterializzazione.
1) Agricoltura. Quanti ettari di terreno sono stati abbandonati dall'agricoltura e restituiti alla natura? Molti, grazie soprattutto a macchine, pesticidi e fertilizzanti.
2) iPhone. Quanta roba ha rimpiazzato il tuo iPhone? Una sfilza: macchina fotografica, calcolatrice, sveglia, radio, telefono, registratore, gps, barometro, altimetro, compasso... Tutto sparito, smaterializzato. Pensa che risparmio in termini di "cose".
3) Pubblicità. Quanto valore aggiunge la pubblicità? Ieri era poco più che informativa, oggi invece forgia il prodotto e talvolta ne raddoppia il prezzo senza muovere una molecola nell'ambiente.
I nostri desideri sono infiniti ma fortunatamente l'economia capitalistica ci ha dimostrato che puo' crescere all'infinito consumando sempre meno risorse. Il pianeta non deve "temere", anzi deve "invocare". E' la ricerca del profitto che consente questo piccolo miracolo: meno risorse, meno costi per il produttore, più profitti. Il consumo del carbone cala grazie al fracking del gas naturale e il consumo di gas naturale calerà con l'utilizzo dell'energia nucleare. E' un percorso che fa bene a noi, fa bene alle imprese e fa bene all'ambiente.
Più profitti, più ricchezza, meno consumi materiali. Sempre di più con sempre meno. Sempre più desideri soddisfatti utilizzando sempre meno molecole. Vogliamo chiamarlo Secondo Illuminismo? McAfee lo chiama così.

AMAZON.COM
From the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller The Second Machine Age, a compelling argument—masterfully researched and brilliantly articulated—that we have at last learned how to increase human prosperity while treading more lightly on our planet. Throughout history, the only way...

lunedì 30 settembre 2019

LA CRESCITA ECONOMICA PUO’ ESSERE INFINITA?

LA CRESCITA ECONOMICA PUO’ ESSERE INFINITA?
No: il numero di atomi a nostra disposizione è finito.
Sì: con la realtà virtuale ciascuno di noi puo’ essere il Dio di un universo.
OVERCOMINGBIAS.COM
Current growth rates simply cannot continue at familiar levels for ten thousand more years. We’ll eventually learn everything worth knowing about how to arrange atoms, and growth in available atoms will be limited by the speed of light.

giovedì 25 luglio 2019

LA VIE EN ROSE

LA VIE EN ROSE

Alla base della crescita economica oggi – più che il capitale fisico – poniamo la conoscenza: se SO come coltivare un tipo di grano con spighe che ospitano il doppio dei chicchi, raddoppio la mia ricchezza. Speriamo che sia davvero così poiché la conoscenza è un bene che potenzialmente si diffonde a costi vicini allo zero (rendimenti crescenti).

Con questi assunti che fondano la nuova ortodossia il futuro è roseo e la crescita economica infinita.

Pensate, tra un secolo avremo anche una moltitudine di cervelli artificiali – ancora più potenti del nostro – che ci aiuteranno a conoscere, e magari anche costruire cervelli più potenti di loro. Probabilmente, potremo raddoppiare la nostra ricchezza ogni 5 anni, poi ogni anno, poi ogni giorno, poi ogni ora...

Ma che significa che la ricchezza di una nazione si raddoppia ogni ora (o ogni secondo)? Riuscite a immaginarlo? E’ fisicamente possibile? E’ logicamente possibile? E’ metafisicamente possibile?

venerdì 12 luglio 2019

HL Chapter 2 Modes le 3 transizioni: uomo-cacciatore-agricoltore-industriale-artificiale

Chapter 2 Modes
Note:2@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 379
Precedents
Note:Ttttttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 380
A review of the biggest past changes offers a weak basis for expectations about the magnitudes and types of future changes.
Note:IL METODO

Yellow highlight | Location: 382
three key transitions: the introduction of humans, farming, and industry.
Note:TRE GRANDI TRANSIZIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 383
Humans foraged, that is, searched, for food from a few million to about 10 000 years ago. From then until a few hundred years ago, we farmed and herded.
Note:STORIA DELL UOMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 385
Social group sizes have steadily increased over this history.
Note:DIMENSIONI GRUPPO

Yellow highlight | Location: 389
These sizes fit a simple if mysterious pattern: each era’s community sizes have been roughly the square of the previous era’s sizes; a band is roughly a group of groups, a village is roughly a band of bands, and a city is roughly a village of villages.
Note:LEGGE DEL QUADRATO

Yellow highlight | Location: 392
About 20 billion humans have been born since 1750, roughly 50 to a 100 billion were born between 10 000 years ago and 1750, and a similar number of near-humans were born in the million or so years before 10 000 years ago (Haub 2011
Note:NUMERI

Yellow highlight | Location: 403
maybe primates needed sufficient cognitive abilities before they could switch to slowly accumulating innovations via culture, rather than via genes.
Note:IL GRANDE SALTO DELKA CRESCITA...

Yellow highlight | Location: 408
What if new modes of growth and information diffusion are possible, modes that we have not yet seen because they are not yet feasible with our current technology
Note:ccccccccDAI GENI ALLA CULTURA ALLA

Yellow highlight | Location: 415
given the previous pattern of era community sizes being roughly the square of prior era community sizes, communities in the next era might hold roughly a trillion people.
Note:ESTRAPOLAZIONE SULLA POPOLAZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 417
If the pattern of past growth rate changes continues, a new growth era will appear sometime in the next century or so. At that point, within the space of roughly five years the world economy might change from current growth rates to doubling steadily roughly every few weeks or months. And within a year or two of this new doubling rate, the economy in such a new era might have doubled another 10 times, and thus could plausibly be ready to change yet again to a new era, perhaps even one that doubles in hours.
Yellow highlight | Location: 423
Prior Eras
Note:Nttttttttttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 425
They lived something like today’s chimps and bonobos, in large sexually promiscuous groups with complex and intense Machiavellian politics, and using unusually large brains to manage such politics.
Note:PRIMATI PRE UMANI...BANDE

Yellow highlight | Location: 428
Pre-human primates were split into many species, one of which eventually evolved a strong cultural capacity, that is, ways to reliably copy associates’ detailed behaviors.
Note:NASCE L UOMO E LA CULTURA...MOLTO PIÙ VELOCE DELLA GENETICA

Yellow highlight | Location: 431
human foragers had longer lives, larger brains and bodies, stronger mating pair bonds, larger social groups, better relations between neighboring groups, a greater division of labor, and more mobility.
Note:RISPETTO AGLI ALTRI PRIMATI

Yellow highlight | Location: 434
Tools and language enabled foragers to enforce general norms against overt dominance,
Note:EGALITARISMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 435
Groups didn’t war, although individuals were sometimes violent
Note:GRAZIE ALLA MOBILITÀ E ALL EGUAGLIANZA

Yellow highlight | Location: 439
Roughly 10 000 years ago, when humans acquired a sufficient density and reliability of food sources, they began to “farm,” that is, to stay near local plants and animals instead of wandering the wild.
Note:LA SVOLTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 441
The settlement and density of farmers enabled both trade and war, both of which complemented property in items, land, wives, and slaves. Farmer advantages in war, coming in part from their higher density, helped to ensure that farming replaced foraging.
Note:GUERRA E SCHIAVITÙ

Yellow highlight | Location: 443
Compared with foragers, farmers became richer in material comforts, but poorer in leisure time.
Note:TRADE OFF

Yellow highlight | Location: 444
Farmers’ increased food reliability also encouraged less sharing and stronger property rights.
Note:EGOISMO E DISEGUAGLIANZA

Yellow highlight | Location: 449
farmers spent less time on play such as music and art. Instead, farmers played more competitively such as by introducing competitive sports.
Note:RITUALI MENO MERCATO NTENSI

Yellow highlight | Location: 452
Many farmer-era changes, such as explicit dominance, group violence, stable locations, less art, less varied diets, less sharing, and easier mental work, can be understood as farmers partially reverting back to the ways typical of non-human primates.
Note:LA VITA DURA DELL AGRICOLTORE...ERANO ANCHE PIÙ MALATICCI VIVENDO IN GRANDI GRUPPI

Yellow highlight | Location: 455
Stronger pressures to conform, and the introduction of stronger religions with moralizing gods, added more pressures to act like farmers.
Note:LE ARMI VINCENTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 456
more reliable access to the mood-altering drug of alcohol, and writing later allowed the accumulation and sharing of persuasive propaganda and stories.
Note:LA NARRAZIONE...INTRODUSSERO ANCHE IL BACIO ROMANTICO

Yellow highlight | Location: 461
Farmers cared more about politeness, self-control, self-sacrifice, and bravery in war. Farmers planned ahead more, disciplined their children more, had more children in good times, and were less accepting of pre- and extra-marital sex.
Note:LE VIRTÙ

Yellow highlight | Location: 463
rates of death from war, that is, organized conflict, have consistently fallen (Pinker 2011). Interest rates have also consistently fallen, reflecting more long-term planning,
Note | Location: 465
DA 10000 ANNI IN QUA

Yellow highlight | Location: 465
Cities seem to have predated farming, and may have helped initiate farming. The first cities mainly offered monumental architecture for large rituals.
Note:RUOLO DELLE CITTÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 473
Our Era
Note:TttttttttttINDUSTRIALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 475
Such factors may have included technology levels, communication or travel costs, the division of labor, trading region scope, organization size, savings rate, and expert network connectedness.
Note:IL FATTORE DECISIVO CHE HA SUPERATO LA SOGLIA CRITICA E FATTO SCATTARE LA RIVOLUZ INDUSTRIALE

Yellow highlight | Location: 477
fast changing clothes fashions,
Note:PRIMO EFFETTO...LA MODA

Yellow highlight | Location: 478
promoted a general taste for exploration, science, and innovation
Note:CULTURA

Yellow highlight | Location: 480
Whereas geography mattered greatly for prosperity during the farming era, social institutions came to matter more for prosperity during the industry era
Note:DALLA GWOGRAFIA ALLE ISTITUZIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 483
Forager sleep patterns are similar to ours today (Yetish et al. 2015), but in the winter in cold climates farmers tended to sleep in 4-hour blocks broken by a serene 2-hour midnight wakeful period (Strand 2015
Note:DOPO LA RIVOL IL SONNO SI FA PIÙ COMPRESSO

Yellow highlight | Location: 485
Cheaper glass allows more people to see well,
Note:OCCHI

Yellow highlight | Location: 486
Cheaper clocks make our lives more scheduled,
Note:OROLOGI

Yellow highlight | Location: 487
cheaper soap, underwear, dinnerware, and sewers have made us cleaner.
Note:PULIZIA

Yellow highlight | Location: 487
Cheaper refrigeration gives us more kinds of food,
Note:CIBO

Yellow highlight | Location: 487
cheaper maps, engines, and the wheel (used much less before) let us visit more places more often.
Note:VIAGGI

Yellow highlight | Location: 489
mood-altering drugs are more widely available
Note:SOGNARE

Yellow highlight | Location: 491
propaganda and stories have became more persuasive, and more easily distributed.
Note:NARRAZIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 496
political coalitions became stronger and more often defined by ideologies, instead of by locations, families, or ethnicities.
Note:IDEOLOGIA

Yellow highlight | Location: 498
Cities moved from holding a few percent of the population to holding the majority.
Note:CITTÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 499
Law came to be dominated by specialists such as lawyers and police
Note:AZZERATO L INFORMALISMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 499
Empires that rarely mattered much to ordinary farmers were replaced by nations,
Note:LA NAZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 505
The industrial era has also seen a steady fall in fertility and a steady rise in life-span, per-person income, abstract intelligence, leisure time, peace, promiscuity, romance, civility, mentally challenging work, and medical and art spending (Flynn 2007; Pinker 2011).
Note:ALTRE VARIABILI

Yellow highlight | Location: 508
we industrial people are rich.
Note:IN SINTESI

Yellow highlight | Location: 511
Compared with the farming era, industry has also seen more egalitarianism, fewer overt class distinctions, and more emphasis on individual self-direction.
Note:TORNA L EGALITARISMO DA ABBONDANZA

Yellow highlight | Location: 514
This increased individualism has led to more product and behavior variety, and fewer overt rituals.
Note:INIVIDUALISMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 516
Many of these industrial-era trends can be usefully seen as a reversion to forager values as wealth weakened farming-era social pressures.
Note:UN RITORNO AI VALORI FORAGE

Yellow highlight | Location: 517
at work industrial era people are more like hyper-farmers. Schools train us to think more abstractly, and to accept more workplace domination than most farmers would accept.
Note:TUTTAVIA....

Yellow highlight | Location: 525
we have consistently seen more and faster growth, larger organizations, more specialization and tool use, more artificial environments, more effective propaganda and drugs, more population density and inequality, and more alienation from work habits that feel natural to foragers.
Note | Location: 527
TREND OMOGENEI NELLE TRANSIZIONI

Yellow highlight | Location: 528
We’ve also seen large but inconsistent changes in health, fertility, mobility, peacefulness, art, planning horizons, the mental challenges of work, and attitudes toward sex.
Note:CAMBIAMENTI POCO CHIARI

Yellow highlight | Location: 531
When proto-humans became humans the transition inequality was huge; all but one subspecies went extinct. Even the subspecies that contributed most to our DNA, the Neanderthals, only contributed a few percent.
Note:I PERDENTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 533
The transition from foraging to farming was more equitable; a larger fraction of new farmers were foragers who switched to farming
Note:SECONDA

Yellow highlight | Location: 534
The transition from farming to industry was even more equitable;
Note:TERZA

Yellow highlight | Location: 538
Although the transition to an em world is likely to materially benefit most humans, descendants of only a tiny fraction of humans dominate the new society; most ordinary humans have a far smaller fractional influence on the world than they did before the transition.
Note:LA PROSSIMA

Yellow highlight | Location: 542
Era Values
Note:Ttttttttyttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 543
how values have changed in the past,
Note:Ttttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 547
Small family values emphasize resources, dominance, and achievement, and larger communities’ values emphasize humility, caring, and dependability.
Note:ASSE FAMIGLIA NUCLEARE COMUNITÀ...USA URSS

Yellow highlight | Location: 555
Poor nations place more value on conformity, security, and traditional values such as marriage, heterosexuality, religion, patriotism, hard work, and trust in authority. In contrast, rich nations place more value on individualism, self-direction, tolerance, pleasure, nature, leisure, and trust.
Note:SECONDO ASSE...RICCHI E POVERI

Yellow highlight | Location: 557
left/liberal (rich) versus right/conservative (poor) axis.
Note:GROSSO MDO

Yellow highlight | Location: 558
Foragers tend to have values more like those of rich/liberal people today, while subsistence farmers tend to have values more like those of poor/conservative people today.
Note:AGRICOLTORI E CACCIATORE.....DA QUANDO L INDUSTRIA CI H FATTO RICCHI

Yellow highlight | Location: 563
The rich know that they can better afford to behave in ways that feel natural and admirable,
Note:IL RICCO SI CONCEDE L INDISCIPLINA....PUNTA SULL IMMAGINE COMPETE SUI CONSUMI E IL TALENTO LE ABILITÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 563
and these behaviors tend to be forager-like. For example, the rich can better afford to focus on impressing those around them, instead of just surviving.
Yellow highlight | Location: 568
Spending on medicine has risen from 4% in 1930 to 18% today.
Note:ESEMPIO DI SPRECO CONTEMPORANEO

Yellow highlight | Location: 574
Rich-nation industrial-era values do differ from forager values in important ways, however, such as in accepting city-level density and anonymity, and high levels of workplace alienation and domination.
Note:RICCHI E CACIATORI...NN PROPRIO UGUALI

Yellow highlight | Location: 578
ems may have more farmer-like conservative values.
Note:TESI....COSÌ COME NN ESISTONO EM BAMBINI NEMMENO ESISTERANNO I PERDIGIORNO

Yellow highlight | Location: 579
Dreamtime
Note:Ttttttt

Yellow highlight | Location: 584
our rich industrial-era behavior is biologically maladaptive in the sense of not even approximately maximizing each person’s number of descendants.
Note:IL LUSSO DELLA MODERNITÀ....QS LUSSI ERANO INVECE IN ARMONIA CON L AMBIENTE DEI CACCIATORI

Yellow highlight | Location: 587
social rates of change have outpaced the abilities of both genetic and cultural selection to adapt our behaviors well to our new environments.
Note:NN TENAMO IL PASSO

Yellow highlight | Location: 591
Today, we tend to rely on more abstract styles of thought, which leads us to more often embrace good-looking delusions.
Note:UN SEGNALE DI ESIBIZIONISMO SPRECONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 593
evolutionary pressures encouraged foragers to unknowingly do many things to show off to each other. Our wealth today induces us to do this more,
Note:ESIBIZIONIMO SPRECONE...ALTRI ESEMPI

Yellow highlight | Location: 595
art, music, dress, and conversation
Note:Cccccccc

Yellow highlight | Location: 604
good sex, food, places, and objects.
Note:ALTRE TENTAZIONI DEL CACIATORE RESUSCITA

Yellow highlight | Location: 605
rhetoric, eloquence, difficulty, drama, repetition,
Note | Location: 605
Ccccccccccf

Yellow highlight | Location: 606
Today, such habits leave us with weak defenses against the super-stimuli of mass-produced food, drugs, music, TV, video games, ads, and propaganda.
Note:NELL ABBONDANZA TI ANNULLA....CONSUMIAMO PIÙ DELL OTTIMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 608
The “demographic transition” is the tendency of societies to switch to having far fewer children as they become rich, often via new status norms transmitted via education and mass media
Note:IL CENTRO DEL MANCATO ADATTAMENTO

Yellow highlight | Location: 610
in farming societies richer people tended to have more children,
Note:LA REGOLA

Yellow highlight | Location: 614
This fall in fertility is perhaps the most dramatic demonstration that our behavior is biologically maladaptive.
Note:CVD.....L AMBIENTE MUTA COSÌ VGELOCEMENTE CHE NN CI ADATIAMO

Yellow highlight | Location: 617
our cultures today also seem maladaptive, in the sense that they don’t promote their own adoption as much as they could, via war, trade, teaching, and proselytizing.
Note:ALTRO BRUTTO SEGNO

Yellow highlight | Location: 619
criminal convicts have higher fertility than do others, mostly as a result of having more partners (Yao et al. 2014).
Note:BRUTTO SEGNO

Recently, some have celebrated our maladaptive behaviors (Stanovich 2004). They see such behaviors as evidence that we are breaking free of the shackles that have enslaved us to our genetic programming.
LA CELEBRAZIONE DEL MANCATO ADATTAMENTO


Yellow highlight | Location: 639
our era is indeed an unusual dreamtime that probably cannot last.
Note:L ERA DELLO SPRECO NN DURERÀ

Yellow highlight | Location: 640
Limits
Note:TtttttttttttIL LIMITE CI BLOCCA E CI DA TEMPO DI RECUPERARE...IL RITORNO DI MALTHUS AL TEMPO DI EM

Yellow highlight | Location: 642
Unless we greatly misunderstand the nature of physical law, substantial useful innovation and economic growth must come to end “soon,” at least on cosmological timescales of billions or more years.
Note:PREVISIONE DI LUNG XIODO

Yellow highlight | Location: 644
if the economic growth rates of the last century were to continue for only a million more years, that would produce growth by a factor of 10 to the power of 3000, which seems physically impossible, at least for value gains of human-like psychologies in a universe such as ours.
Note:ESEMPIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 647
Once all available physical matter is converted into very advanced artifacts there seems little room for further rapid growth in physical resources.
Note:VALORE E TRASFORMAZIONE FOSICA...DUBBI

Yellow highlight | Location: 653
Yes, the extent and detail of virtual realities could increase without limit, but
Note:UNA VIA DI FUGA

Yellow highlight | Location: 660
In fact, for the vast majority of future history, growth and innovation are probably mostly imperceptible, and thus irrelevant for most practical purposes.
Note:TESI RIPETUTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 663
this end of innovation suggests our descendants will become extremely well adapted in a biological sense to the stable components of their environment.
Note:COROLLARIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 665
population will rise to levels consistent with a competitive evolutionary equilibrium, with living standards near adaptive subsistence levels. Such consumption levels have characterized almost all animals in Earth history, almost all humans before 200 years ago, and a billion humans today.
Note:RITORNO DI MALTHUS

Yellow highlight | Location: 684
a larger population of creatures that are smaller, use less energy, and have low living standards, behavior better adapted to their environment,
Note:IL FUTURO È DI MALTHUS

Yellow highlight | Location: 686
ems seem to have less leisure and income, better-adapted behaviors, and cultures that are more fragmented than ours in important ways.
Note:EMS ADATTIVI

Yellow highlight | Location: 687
Although growth is faster “objectively,” that is, relative to a fixed clock, to the typical em growth seems slower “subjectively,” that is, relative to the rate at which he or she personally experiences events.
CRESCITA SOGGETTIVA E OGGETTIVA

giovedì 11 luglio 2019

LE GRANDI INVENZIONI

LE GRANDI INVENZIONI
1) Invenzione dell’uomo (200.000 anni fa).
2) Invenzione dell’agricoltura (10.000 anni fa).
3) Invenzione dell’industria (200 anni fa).
4) Invenzione dell’intelligenza artificiale (tra 100 anni).
La quarta invenzione è misteriosa ma possiamo fare delle previsioni estrapolando dalle precedenti.
Esempio: se i trend di crescita economica continueranno, un nuovo balzo è prevedibile nel prossimo secolo, in questa nuova era il raddoppio della ricchezza potrà avvenire ogni poche settimane o mesi, e dopo qualche anno di transizione è ragionevole ritenere che il raddoppio della ricchezza globale possa avvenire in poche ore.

martedì 12 febbraio 2019

CORNUCOPIA INFINITA

CORNUCOPIA INFINITA

Scorrendo la bacheca di amici scopro che “credere nella crescita economica infinita è da pazzi”.

Quando ci si spinge nella dimensione dell’infinito fare pronostici è difficile, anche se non tutti meritano di essere bollati come “pazzie”. Ma il punto qui sembra un altro, tanto è vero che poi viene detto: “il PIL non puo’ crescere all’infinito perché… la Terra è finita”.

Siccome conosco i miei polli, probabilmente chi parla così ha in mente tesi riciclate da quelle del Club di Roma aggiornate con le tematiche del global warming (che noia), qui però mi interessa altro, ovvero: puo’ un’economia capitalistica crescere all’infinito data la natura finita dei beni e della materia in generale?

In linea teorica mi sembra di sì: il PIL in fondo esprime un valore; ovvero, è proxy di una grandezza mentale, e noi possiamo pensare valori sempre più alti che tendano all’infinito. Se un certo bene per me oggi vale 100 e domani 1000 il PIL del sistema in cui sono inserito aumenta di conseguenza senza che venga spostato un atomo sul pianeta (forse giusto qualche mia cellula neuronale, il che ma mi sembra irrilevante). Il fatto quindi che la materia sia finita non inficia la crescita infinita dell'economia.

Il caso più classico è quello della pubblicità: un mero atto informativo immateriale che innalza il valore di un bene senza alterarlo fisicamente. Una borsa abbastanza banale di Dolce&Gabbana raddoppia di valore se pubblicizzata con il loro marchio! Gli ambientalisti dovrebbero essere dei fan della pubblicità: creazione di valore ad impatto ambientale nullo.

giovedì 30 agosto 2018

LAVORI DI MERDA

Riccardo Mariani
4 min
LAVORI DI MERDA
Per il Keynes profeta degli anni trenta oggi avremmo dovuto lavorare 15 ore al giorno. In realtà lavoriamo più di ieri sebbene lo sviluppo tecnologico sia andato anche oltre le aspettative più rosee di Keynes. Perché allora il profeta ha “toppato” ancora?
Per colpa (anche) dei “lavori di merda”. Sono lavori ambigui che hanno preso il posto del nostro potenziale tempo libero. Sono una caterva, e a volte sono persino i più pagati. Io li dividerei i tre categorie:
1. DISOCCUPAZIONE MASCHERATA: vi rientrano molti lavori statali, con la scuola e la sanità che fanno la parte del leone. Non risolvono problemi reali ma li mascherano bene.
2. LAVORI ANTI-BUROCRATICI: servono a neutralizzare l’alluvione di impegni burocratici che affliggono ogni occupazione produttiva, in questo senso neanche loro risolvono i problemi reali ma solo problemi che ci siamo auto-inflitti.
3. LAVORI STREGONESCHI: Creano “valore spirituale”. Mi spiego meglio con un esempio: il valore di una borsa D&G sta per il 10% nel mix materiali/manodopera e per il 90% in qualcosa d’altro che definirei bene immateriale (o spirituale). Ecco, una parte consistente dei servizi ormai è dedito alla creazione dii valori “spirituali” quali l'identità, il conforto, la rassicurazione, l'appartenenza... L’abbondanza materiale sembra aver moltiplicato il bisogno di sacerdoti dello spirito.
N.B. la terza categoria ci fa anche capire come una crescita infinita dell’economia capitalistica sia possibile ad inquinamento zero: il nostro spirito, infatti, diversamente dalla nostra materialità, è infinito.
FAHREUNBLOG.WORDPRESS.COM
Qualche appunto preso dopo la lettura di “Lavori di Merda” di David Graeber. La profezia formulata da Keynes negli anni trenta: lo sviluppo tecnologico ci consentirà presto di lavorare 15 ore al gi…
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sabato 15 aprile 2017

Cornucopia infinita

Cosa rende unica la nostra epoca?
Probabilmente la comunicazione: tutti possono parlare con tutti. Non era mai successo.
Ma anche la ricchezza strabordante.  Nelle parole di Robin Hanson....
... I also suspect our era is uniquely rich, in terms of thinking-talking folks having a median income so far above their subsistence levels... Today median world income is now roughly five times subsistence level and rising...
Per molti la benedizione non potrà continuare a lungo: esistono dei limiti fisici all'arricchimento...
... Wages have risen because economic growth rates have outpaced feasible rates of growing well-trained people. But current growth rates simply cannot continue at familiar levels for ten thousand more years. We'll eventually learn everything worth knowing about how to arrange atoms, and growth in available atoms will be limited by the speed of light...
Una questione di atomi e velocità della luce, quindi.
***
Ma c'è chi la pensa diversamente. Per Bryan Caplan non ci sono limiti alla crescita economica che potenzialmente è eterna.
Tanto per capirsi: pensate solo alle potenzialità di un bene come il simulatore di realtà virtuali...
... I'm baffled. You don't have to be a sci-fi guy to think that in the next century we'll get working virtual reality. And once we have that, why couldn't economic growth of 1% (or 10%) continue forever in simulations? In the real world, we can't all be emperor of an infinite universe. But I don't see why every one of us couldn't preside over our own simulated utopias?...
Tutti possiamo diventare padroni assoluti di interi universi.
Detto in maniera più istituzionale: la crescita economica concerne i valori, non gli oggetti.
E’ l’interiorità che conta, non la materia
... As for all this talk of atoms: Economics is about value, not matter. As long as people regard vivid virtual goods as acceptable substitutes for actual goods, how can the scarcity of atoms stop everyone from having everything he desires?...
Per questo la potenziale cornucopia a disposizione degli uomini non conosce fine.
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Facciamo l'esempio della classica obiezione, quella per cui non abbiamo atomi a sufficienza per crescere in eterno...
... There are roughly 1057 atoms in our solar system, and about 1070 atoms in our galaxy, which holds most of the mass within a million light years. So even if we had access to all the matter within a million light years, to grow by a factor of 10200, each atom would on average have to support an economy equivalent to 10140 people at today’s standard of living, or one person with a standard of living 10140 times higher, or some mix of these...
Un'obiezione che non regge al semplice esperimento mentale del simulatore...
... Suppose the universe contains one person and one really good virtual reality machine. In this virtual reality, the universe's sole inhabitant is a god. Whatever he thinks, happens. Question for Robin: As long as this person regards virtual reality as a good substitute for actual reality, why shouldn't we say that his standard of living is not just 10140 times greater than ours, but infinitely greater than ours?...
Non occorre sfruttare più atomi per produrre più ricchezza.
In piccolo lo vediamo bene con la pubblicità: si raddoppia di valore un bene senza spostare un atomo. La pubblicità crea valore agendo sull’interiorità delle persone. Anche per questo motivo gli ambientalisti dovrebbero venerare questo mezzo che ci arricchisce a consumo zero.