Why are economists wrong about technology?
The problem of economics is economists. The problem of economists is technology. Take any book on economics and look at the table of contents. You can hardly find Moore's Law there. But in the book there will be many elegant theories, but when applied to life to make us rich or poor, they may turn out to be a little ... useless. And technology and the ability to create them separate modern Homo sapiens, living in luxurious apartments in a large city, from a peasant working in the fields of medieval England.
So where are the economists wrong? Michael Baxter, co-author of the book iDisrupted, writes about this.
Without technology, we would live in trees. Perhaps it would be better, but return will not work. Our achievements have made our life different.
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Economists view the current period as “age-old stagnation.” The theory suggests that our children will not live better than ourselves, that technological progress has reached a plateau. The problem with this theory is that it cannot be true.
More precisely, there are two versions. The first is that we live in an age of stagnation due to the fact that technological progress is not as fast as it was before. She adheres to the economist Robert J. Gordon. He asked the man to watch television during the week and write about it. As a result, in the “recall” there was a phrase: “I was shocked by the sitcoms of the 50s, life did not differ then from today”. Gordon found out that the difference between the fifties and eighties was small, as well as between the eighties and two thousand tenths. But the lifestyle of 1920 was different from the 1950s. An even more radical transformation occurred between the 1890s and the 1920s.
The second version of the "theory of stagnation" suggests that it is not the technology that stopped developing, and the demand for them is declining. She sticks to Bill Clinton, and she is more realistic.
The last seven years have been terrible for the economy. Is it because technological progress has reached its peak? Has he slowed down? Do economists who subscribe to the theory of "age-old stagnation" know about nanotechnologies, about robotics, the Internet of things and graphene, about achievements in the field of 3D printing? Are they thinking about artificial intelligence that can take many people’s work and save their lives by speeding up the search for drugs for tropical diseases?
The worst in the situation - once economists look at the possibilities of technology development incorrectly, they make wrong decisions out of the wrong source data. The theory, which says that the technological process has reached a plateau, forces us to get used to low costs, pay off debts and live within our means. Such conclusions and decisions based on them are capable of plunging the global economy into depression, comparable to the events of the thirties in the United States.
And now imagine that we woke up next week, and three new, stunning innovations appeared in the world. For example, nuclear fuel creates free energy, a new, ultra-efficient way of producing food has emerged, and 3D printers print everything, including at home, without any help from people. Ironically, if this happens, a recession begins - it will destroy a lot of jobs.
Governments should not only listen to technology cynics, because they will make the wrong decisions.
So where are the economists wrong? Michael Baxter, co-author of the book iDisrupted, writes about this.
Economists and technology
Without technology, we would live in trees. Perhaps it would be better, but return will not work. Our achievements have made our life different.
')
Economists view the current period as “age-old stagnation.” The theory suggests that our children will not live better than ourselves, that technological progress has reached a plateau. The problem with this theory is that it cannot be true.
More precisely, there are two versions. The first is that we live in an age of stagnation due to the fact that technological progress is not as fast as it was before. She adheres to the economist Robert J. Gordon. He asked the man to watch television during the week and write about it. As a result, in the “recall” there was a phrase: “I was shocked by the sitcoms of the 50s, life did not differ then from today”. Gordon found out that the difference between the fifties and eighties was small, as well as between the eighties and two thousand tenths. But the lifestyle of 1920 was different from the 1950s. An even more radical transformation occurred between the 1890s and the 1920s.
The second version of the "theory of stagnation" suggests that it is not the technology that stopped developing, and the demand for them is declining. She sticks to Bill Clinton, and she is more realistic.
The last seven years have been terrible for the economy. Is it because technological progress has reached its peak? Has he slowed down? Do economists who subscribe to the theory of "age-old stagnation" know about nanotechnologies, about robotics, the Internet of things and graphene, about achievements in the field of 3D printing? Are they thinking about artificial intelligence that can take many people’s work and save their lives by speeding up the search for drugs for tropical diseases?
Misdiagnosis
The worst in the situation - once economists look at the possibilities of technology development incorrectly, they make wrong decisions out of the wrong source data. The theory, which says that the technological process has reached a plateau, forces us to get used to low costs, pay off debts and live within our means. Such conclusions and decisions based on them are capable of plunging the global economy into depression, comparable to the events of the thirties in the United States.
And now imagine that we woke up next week, and three new, stunning innovations appeared in the world. For example, nuclear fuel creates free energy, a new, ultra-efficient way of producing food has emerged, and 3D printers print everything, including at home, without any help from people. Ironically, if this happens, a recession begins - it will destroy a lot of jobs.
Governments should not only listen to technology cynics, because they will make the wrong decisions.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/284040/
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