D
Deleted member 173304
Iron
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Pencils are relatively simple tools. It consists of a wood-wrapped graphite core with perhaps a rubber on the end. But there's not a single person in this world who knows how to make a pencil.
Sure, there are people who know how to run the machines which turn graphite and wood into such a form. But do they know how to mine the graphite or chop down the trees? Do they understand any of the many processing steps required to take the raw graphite and wood and convert them into a form that the machine accepts? Do they know how to build the machines that they operate, or how to build the machines that build those machines? Do they know how to generate the electricity that factory runs on or build the cars that they used to get to work?
There's clearly a lot more going on with the pencil than meets the eye. But the pencil is one of the simplest tools we use. Surely, if no one can make a pencil, no one can make a nuclear reactor or a space shuttle or a computer chip.
But then how on Earth do we have all of these magical devices if no individual is capable of performing all of the steps required in their construction? Where do they come from?
The answer is that each man specializes into a very small subset of the entire production process. He focuses his effort on those tasks that he finds himself best suited at. The baker does not need to know how it is that wheat is harvested or processed into the flour that he uses to bake his bread, or how the harvesters and processors are made. All he must understand is the step of how to turn flour into baked goods. Other men can pick up the slack, and together they can make all kinds of things.
You'll hear primitivists and communists of various types decrying this massive system of cooperation, saying that it turns men into mere cogs within a greater machine. But what exactly is the alternative? If people are not specializing into those jobs which they deem to be of greatest advantage to them, then everyone would have to live a subsistence lifestyle, achieving only those goals where he is able to perform all of the steps required himself.
In a world without this division of labor, there'd be no pencils, no cars, no computers. There would be only mud and scraps of food. Even primitive tribes recognize this — they go out in hunting parties whilst others stay behind and gather. This is a division of labor.
What is interesting is that nobody can even hope to plan such an intricate network of cooperation. This magic power of the division of labor — to grant us with goods that we would never dream of possessing otherwise — can only be harnessed insofar as people are free to live their own lives.
Let's imagine a central planner attempting to arrange such a structure of production. First, you'd have to figure out whose labor is most effective where. You'd have to pick out the bankers from the bakers and the railway workers from the loggers. This task would be quite impossible. He does not understand every step required in making bread or storing coinage or felling trees or building railroads. So by what means could he determine which men are best suited at each stage of production if he does not even know all of the stages to begin with?
This is true also of those non-human factors of production. The central planner can't know whether lead or steel is best to build railroads. He cannot know the best fineness with which to grind flour, and he cannot know whether axes or saws are more urgently required by the loggers.
But perhaps this is merely a limitation of our flimsy human brains. And when some new computer technology — AI systems — will be able to plan the economy by calculating every step required in these production processes. Well, this solution would require that we already have a method of constructing such a device, which would surely be far more complex than a pencil. So if the division of labor is to be achieved by centrally planning ex nihilo, we would first need to have such a device. But we can only get such a device with the division of labor. And we can only get that division of labor with the device. And so on.
So such a solution presupposes the necessity of a capitalist division of labor prior to the socialist one.
But even if we assume that such an AI system is able to be constructed, the AI is faced with an insurmountable problem. You see, these lines of production which obtain in the capitalist market did not come about due to some inherent superiority of line A over line B. They came about because line A was calculated to be more profitable than line B. But due to the fact that the AI is the one planning the entire production process, there can be no more trading of the factors of production. And because the factors of production are not being traded, there can be no prices on these factors.
This means that these profit/loss calculations which tended men into certain lines of production could not be performed by the AI. Therefore, this AI is left with an entirely arbitrary choice between different lines of production.
Let's imagine that this AI knows that people want chicken eggs. So it sets about trying to calculate the best way to produce chicken eggs. Just one step involved in the production of chicken eggs is feeding the chickens to produce the eggs. But which food should the AI pick?
In nature, chickens eat various bugs and other small creatures. But chickens can also eat grain. So how could the AI decide whether to feed the chickens bugs or grain?
If a capitalist entrepreneur is faced with this problem, all he needs to do is pick the cheaper option. And in so doing, he is using the bundle of resources that are less urgently required by other people. But because the AI has no access to prices in the factors of production, it has no way of determining which bundle of resources is required more or less, as the more heavily desired bundle is not being bid up in price.
We see here that this problem — called the economic calculation problem — cannot be solved by simply throwing more compute power at it. The issue is not that it is very computationally intensive to work out the correct line of production. Rather, the issue is that without factor prices, there is no computation that could be performed in the first place.
So even with a supercomputer, the socialist society would quickly regress into the state of nature — dirty and without any of these magical goods that we so dearly depend on. This would be mass death and suffering.
Therefore, if there is a truly superintelligent AI tasked with making the economy more efficient, the very first thing it would do is eliminate any and all socialist interferences in the economy, including but not limited to: taxation, minimum wage laws, civil rights legislation, and any non-fraction-reserve banking.
@psychomandible
Sure, there are people who know how to run the machines which turn graphite and wood into such a form. But do they know how to mine the graphite or chop down the trees? Do they understand any of the many processing steps required to take the raw graphite and wood and convert them into a form that the machine accepts? Do they know how to build the machines that they operate, or how to build the machines that build those machines? Do they know how to generate the electricity that factory runs on or build the cars that they used to get to work?
There's clearly a lot more going on with the pencil than meets the eye. But the pencil is one of the simplest tools we use. Surely, if no one can make a pencil, no one can make a nuclear reactor or a space shuttle or a computer chip.
But then how on Earth do we have all of these magical devices if no individual is capable of performing all of the steps required in their construction? Where do they come from?
The answer is that each man specializes into a very small subset of the entire production process. He focuses his effort on those tasks that he finds himself best suited at. The baker does not need to know how it is that wheat is harvested or processed into the flour that he uses to bake his bread, or how the harvesters and processors are made. All he must understand is the step of how to turn flour into baked goods. Other men can pick up the slack, and together they can make all kinds of things.
You'll hear primitivists and communists of various types decrying this massive system of cooperation, saying that it turns men into mere cogs within a greater machine. But what exactly is the alternative? If people are not specializing into those jobs which they deem to be of greatest advantage to them, then everyone would have to live a subsistence lifestyle, achieving only those goals where he is able to perform all of the steps required himself.
In a world without this division of labor, there'd be no pencils, no cars, no computers. There would be only mud and scraps of food. Even primitive tribes recognize this — they go out in hunting parties whilst others stay behind and gather. This is a division of labor.
What is interesting is that nobody can even hope to plan such an intricate network of cooperation. This magic power of the division of labor — to grant us with goods that we would never dream of possessing otherwise — can only be harnessed insofar as people are free to live their own lives.
Let's imagine a central planner attempting to arrange such a structure of production. First, you'd have to figure out whose labor is most effective where. You'd have to pick out the bankers from the bakers and the railway workers from the loggers. This task would be quite impossible. He does not understand every step required in making bread or storing coinage or felling trees or building railroads. So by what means could he determine which men are best suited at each stage of production if he does not even know all of the stages to begin with?
This is true also of those non-human factors of production. The central planner can't know whether lead or steel is best to build railroads. He cannot know the best fineness with which to grind flour, and he cannot know whether axes or saws are more urgently required by the loggers.
But perhaps this is merely a limitation of our flimsy human brains. And when some new computer technology — AI systems — will be able to plan the economy by calculating every step required in these production processes. Well, this solution would require that we already have a method of constructing such a device, which would surely be far more complex than a pencil. So if the division of labor is to be achieved by centrally planning ex nihilo, we would first need to have such a device. But we can only get such a device with the division of labor. And we can only get that division of labor with the device. And so on.
So such a solution presupposes the necessity of a capitalist division of labor prior to the socialist one.
But even if we assume that such an AI system is able to be constructed, the AI is faced with an insurmountable problem. You see, these lines of production which obtain in the capitalist market did not come about due to some inherent superiority of line A over line B. They came about because line A was calculated to be more profitable than line B. But due to the fact that the AI is the one planning the entire production process, there can be no more trading of the factors of production. And because the factors of production are not being traded, there can be no prices on these factors.
This means that these profit/loss calculations which tended men into certain lines of production could not be performed by the AI. Therefore, this AI is left with an entirely arbitrary choice between different lines of production.
Let's imagine that this AI knows that people want chicken eggs. So it sets about trying to calculate the best way to produce chicken eggs. Just one step involved in the production of chicken eggs is feeding the chickens to produce the eggs. But which food should the AI pick?
In nature, chickens eat various bugs and other small creatures. But chickens can also eat grain. So how could the AI decide whether to feed the chickens bugs or grain?
If a capitalist entrepreneur is faced with this problem, all he needs to do is pick the cheaper option. And in so doing, he is using the bundle of resources that are less urgently required by other people. But because the AI has no access to prices in the factors of production, it has no way of determining which bundle of resources is required more or less, as the more heavily desired bundle is not being bid up in price.
We see here that this problem — called the economic calculation problem — cannot be solved by simply throwing more compute power at it. The issue is not that it is very computationally intensive to work out the correct line of production. Rather, the issue is that without factor prices, there is no computation that could be performed in the first place.
So even with a supercomputer, the socialist society would quickly regress into the state of nature — dirty and without any of these magical goods that we so dearly depend on. This would be mass death and suffering.
Therefore, if there is a truly superintelligent AI tasked with making the economy more efficient, the very first thing it would do is eliminate any and all socialist interferences in the economy, including but not limited to: taxation, minimum wage laws, civil rights legislation, and any non-fraction-reserve banking.
@psychomandible
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