> It runs in to comparative advantage theory eventually - just because someone else is much more efficient than you at literally everything doesn't mean you can't still do something inefficiently and set up a win-win situation.
Comparative advantage has some assumptions built in, which can be violated in practice, especially by technology, especially when you can (we can't yet in general but can in specific domains) build compute and power supplies for that compute for less than it costs to raise a human to the point of being economically productive.
There's a few isolated tribes around the world, most famously North Sentinel Island. They have nothing to trade with us, nothing we want to buy. We let them be because even their land itself isn't important to us. They could be educated the way anyone else is and become as productive as any of us, but even people interested in taking slaves wouldn't bother with the effort required.
> I dunno why geohotz thinks in this article that shares in a granary are a bad idea, someone has to profit from storing food. May as well be me. I'll do it if he won't. I like granaries.
Because:
When the grain is produced by machines, the peasants are cut out of the loop.
Trump, Exxon Mobil, Venezuela. Exxon Mobil says Venezuela is "uninvestable", the comments I see say they've got legitimate reasons to fear that any investments they do make would just get seized by some future government.
Comparative advantage has some assumptions built in, which can be violated in practice, especially by technology, especially when you can (we can't yet in general but can in specific domains) build compute and power supplies for that compute for less than it costs to raise a human to the point of being economically productive.
There's a few isolated tribes around the world, most famously North Sentinel Island. They have nothing to trade with us, nothing we want to buy. We let them be because even their land itself isn't important to us. They could be educated the way anyone else is and become as productive as any of us, but even people interested in taking slaves wouldn't bother with the effort required.
> I dunno why geohotz thinks in this article that shares in a granary are a bad idea, someone has to profit from storing food. May as well be me. I'll do it if he won't. I like granaries.
Because:
Trump, Exxon Mobil, Venezuela. Exxon Mobil says Venezuela is "uninvestable", the comments I see say they've got legitimate reasons to fear that any investments they do make would just get seized by some future government.Same applies.