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Almost any way developed countries spend our titanic industrial surpluses will be epic frivolity by historical standards, whether it be sprawling regulatory & scholastic priesthoods or a “service economy” where mobile servants wait on the tables of secular priests & investors. /4
There are no solid standards of historical precedent or economic rationality that can help us much in predicting which forms of frivolity will dominate, rather they point to the optionality & unpredictability among a vast universe of choices. /5
So you’re saying we don’t need to fear the rise of automation because there will always be a booming frivolity industry
Indeed. Frivolity as a whole is insatiable, but its forms generally unpredictable. Makes it next to impossible to plan for a career, outside traditional professions like law and medicine and some of engineering.
I wonder how often those frivolous bubbles turn into huge industries...
Eery new kind of business will at first be called a bubble. OTOH there will be many more bubbles that do disastrously pop, and we won't be able to tell the difference, although some "pros" will still go on pretending they can.
Then what’s a bubble? there are industries which are only useful during a limited period in history during which they’re enormously beneficial but then quickly become essentially irrelevant - let’s say e-scooters for example, to be replaced w jet packs. Bubble or evolution?
The term bubble implies over-inflation of expectation vs reality, but more often than not it’s just the standard hype cycle applied to an actually significant new thing. Just cuz it loses impact over time and eventually fizzles out, does that retroactively make it a bubble?
Are "forms of frivolity" by definition all that can be purchased?
Opportunities to make more long-term contributions, esp. (a) less frivolous areas lower in Maslow's hierarchy, esp. ag/bio scalability & climate adaptation, (b) social scalability, e.g. better money, (c) historically fruitful intersections of sci & engr, e.g. materials science.
Very true. I'd say one can go even higher up the needs hierarchy and avoid frivolity; Michelangelo's patrons skirted it, for example. As world prosperity increases, art is the next potential area of explosive growth - much will be bad, but some percentage transcendent.
#Capitalism + Sound money can, for the first time ever in history, rid humanity from the boom/bust cycles of Crony Capitalism and the continuous busts of #Socialism @saifedeanpic.twitter.com/4uRRM4wd41
Great thread. Reminds me of Bataille’s theory on excess and accumulation. This sudden abundance is natural in humans and when concentrated in the hands of a bureaucratic state can lead to violent/coercive outbursts
My personal technical interest is the application of automation to defense, which I believe will straddle the line between basic needs and frivolity going forward.
Thanks, Nick. Compelling points. Would you support the US buying Bitcoin?
Forecasting is difficult. Forecasting becomes even more difficult and less accurate the farther into the future we try to forecast.
Surplus is being and will continue to be dissipated by gigantic social transfers by governments. There will be nothing to show for it other than the detritus left behind by modern consumption.
I love this thread. My adoration for behavioral econ is that it digs into human decisions in face of endless choices, analyzes trends of frivolous/conspicuous consumption, rational v. irrational decisions..
After years of reading, researching, digging into it, have decided there really is no solid answer or "gold standard" hahhahah but the curiosity and questioning continues
I’m a fan of the billionaires-compete-to-be-first-to-Mars form of frivolity The side effects of it *could* be quite fantastic for humanity.
Makes me think about how surpluses spent by individuals should in aggregate be better then those spent by local violence monopolists.
The undeniable effects of a world with a vast and eductated proletariat
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