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Ben's avatar

Great article. Would have been funnier if it ended with:

“This article was written entirely by OpenAI’s next-gen o2 model. Find details on pricing in bio”

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Bob Huskey's avatar

This is another area In which I readily agree with Oren's views. I do think it's a little unfair to expect AI to give a useful or meaningful analysis of an economic issue since the economics discipline itself can't. Economics has always suffered from insufficient scope. Oren has pointed this out in different ways and it's something I've understood since Econ 101 decades ago. Economics and politics are obviously intricately connected. I believe substantially more so than even first appears. Politics and culture are also intertwined. Thus economics and culture are also. Economic measures that seem consistent or reliable tend also to be not very useful. Dogmas concerning growth for example aren't really meaningful. Piketty showed economic growth in developed countries is Mostly population growth. Actual economic growth exists but is far smaller than conventionally understood. So even growth in GDP is in itself misleading, besides having little to say about how people are living.

Here, I digress. I'm curious what Oren might say about the following. The above has implications for policy adjustments toward sustainability, which should be a true conservative's goal. I don't conceive of sustainability as stagnation; far from it. It is a more considered approach to economic policy that actually does account for workers, consumers, owners, bystanders, externalities and the future. Move fast and break things is pretty much the opposite and an appalling attitude. "Deeply consider the ramifications of possible actions and move deliberately for the benefit of all" seems like both a more conservative and progressive approach to policy. Innovation implemented in a way that actually improves lives without hidden damage in other domains is the aim.

When we have actual emergencies we must respond quickly the best we can. But we can anticipate most of what we experience as emergencies and disasters. To a conservative, for whom stability and security is extremely important, a substantial part of policy should be aimed at preventing and mitigating disasters and emergencies Before they occur. We can anticipate for example, that the satellites we rely on for so much could be wiped out by either a political event-war, some unanticipated technical event, or an astronomical event. It is insane that we don't have robust ground based duplicative redundancy for our communications. Another example, as we move toward electrification our electrical grids must be substantially upgraded and unified. Is dysfunction the only thing that can motivate us to make that happen? Floods Fires, even earthquakes can be prepared for and mitigated in advance. Yet we just wait to be beaten down.

Perhaps this is naive but I resent tax money going toward servicing national debt. Who is benefiting from that? I've never understood why we as a nation would not have running a surplus as national policy. Having a surplus would mean we as a nation could be a lender and receive interest payments instead of sending them out. That is national income that is not taxes. Our citizens could be free from the abuses of private banks if we so desired. A surplus could be self sustaining once it's achieved. Of course it would mean much higher taxes to catch up on the deficit, but that also would go down to merely a balanced budget once a surplus is achieved. Food for thought, if not a goal for action.

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