The Future is More Stuff \ stacker news ~econ

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The Future is More Stuff www.joanwestenberg.com/the-future-is-more-stuff/

1347 sats \ 18 comments \ @k00b 27 Mar econ

Most of us can identify the problem - which frustrates me as much as the author. The cause, as usual, will never be agreed on.

In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, the average work week would be about 15 hours. Technological advancement would free us from toil, creating a society of abundance where creativity and the "proverbial" pursuit of happiness could be our primary occupation. How laughable that seems now. Instead, we've created a world where work colonizes every aspect of life, where productivity tools "empower" (spew) us to work at all hours, and where tech innovation primarily serves to create new needs rather than satisfy existing ones.

We now work longer hours than we did in the 1980s, despite massive gains in productivity and efficiency. Why?

New technology creates efficiency, which theoretically should reduce work. Instead, capitalism absorbs that efficiency into increased production and consumption, creating new jobs centered around making, marketing, selling, and servicing more stuff.

While productivity is certainly misallocated, it's easy to believe labor hasn't been saved when most of us reading and writing stuff like this have never had a labor intensive job because so much labor has been saved that most jobs are bullshit.

A friend of mine bought a "smart" refrigerator. It has a touchscreen that displays recipes, can be controlled via a smartphone app, and (allegedly) tracks food freshness. It cost $4,800. After two years, the manufacturer stopped updating the software. Now half the features don't work, the touchscreen occasionally reboots itself mid-defrost, and the compressor makes an ominous clicking sound.

Meanwhile, my in-laws' boring "dumb" refrigerator continues functioning perfectly after 10+ years of service.

The average American now consumes twice as many material goods as 50 years ago. And studies show fuck-all corresponding increase in happiness or life satisfaction. In fact, many metrics of wellbeing - from mental health to social connection - show decline during a period of unprecedented material abundance.

This next part is interesting. It at least makes sense - providing marginal utility for people with lots of ability to pay will at some scale be as profitable as providing high utility for people with little ability to pay at another scale:

Research and development follow money, not need. The problems of the wealthy - how to get slightly better entertainment, slightly more convenient services, slightly more exclusive products - receive disproportionate attention because solving them is profitable.

Well ...

Cryptocurrency is a clear example, become clearer in the past 18 months. Despite massive investment and endless hype, its primary real-world application remains speculation - gambling with digital tokens named after slurs and enriching corrupt politicians. The promised revolution in finance has mostly materialized as new ways for the already-wealthy to become wealthier.

So, the cycle continues. More stuff. Slightly better stuff. More marketing to convince us we need the slightly better stuff. More debt to buy the slightly better stuff. More work to pay off the debt. More environmental damage to produce the stuff. More waste when we discard it for the next slightly better iteration.

The tragedy is in the opportunity cost. Every engineer designing a slightly better juicer with smartphone connectivity is not designing better public transportation. Every marketing dollar spent convincing people they need new sneakers is not spent educating about climate change. Every factory producing incremental gadgets is not producing renewable energy infrastructure.

Bitcoin fixes this?

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270 sats \ 9 replies \ @SimpleStacker 27 Mar

New technology creates efficiency, which theoretically should reduce work. Instead, capitalism absorbs that efficiency into increased production and consumption, creating new jobs centered around making, marketing, selling, and servicing more stuff.

Why blame capitalism? Why not blame the unlimited wants of human desire?

And at a deeper level, it's driven by the fact that our desires are not individualistically determined. What we want depends on what our neighbors have. Thus, the wants become unlimited.

This explanation (that wants are socially determined) also pretty much explains the rest of the authors' complaints as wel.

Bitcoin fixes this?

Yes, it does because it makes consumption relatively more expensive than saving (relative to fiat.)

77 sats \ 4 replies \ @79c9095526 27 Mar

Capitalism/marketing has made people feel these "unlimited wants of human desire". Those are not natural feelings, but rather ones that we have been conditioned to believe. In the words of Noam Chomsky:

Advertising is meant to fabricate consumers. The PR and advertising industry were developed in the freest countries [Great Britain and the US].

It quickly became very clear that it wasn't going to be very easy to control the population by force —too much freedom had been won.

(...) It was understood and expressed that you have to control them [the people] by the control of beliefs and attitudes. And the best way to do this is by "fabricating consumers."

Measurement of a decent life [Internet and Television] present you what the proper life would be, what kind of gadgets you should have.

You spend your time and effort gaining those things which you don't need, you don't want, and maybe you will throw them away...

But that's the measure of a decent life.

Advertising create uninformed consumers

If you have taken an economics course, you know that markets are based on "informed consumers making rational choices."

Well, if we had a market system like that, a market system, then a television ad of, say, General Motors, putting up information, saying, "Here's what we have for sale."

That's not what an ad for a car is.

An ad for a car is a football hero, and actress, a car doing some crazy thing like going up a mountain or something.

The point [of advertising] is to create uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices —and for politics, it works in the same way.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @SimpleStacker 27 Mar

I think it's a little reductive to blame it all on advertising.

Just curious, would you also consider yourself an uninformed consumer?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @79c9095526 27 Mar

I think I'm well informed about certain things and less informed about other things. With that said, I'm a minimalist, at least by typical American standards so I'm less of a consumer in general (despite how uninformed or informed I may be).

"Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works." -Morgan Housel (The Psychology of Money)

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 27 Mar

I don't disagree with you on advertising that it can create useless and irrational wants... but I think the endless desire would still be there, even without a big advertiisng industry

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @79c9095526 28 Mar

Yeah, perhaps we just disagree on the percentages? My guesstimate is that 80%+ of material wants/desires of man are driven by the advertising industry.

I think there are natural evolutionary desires that push humans (or any animal for that matter) to survive, make themselves an attractive mate in order to procreate and pass on their genes.

Advertising/PR industries have bastardized those desires by making brainwashing society into believing that the Rolex or BMW or Prada shoes signify you are an attractive mate. Their advertisements make it clear they are trying to brainwash the population into believing these things. The man with the Rolex is a jetsetter with an attractive lady at his side. The gorgeous lady with the Prada shoes is an attractive mate.

They are trying as hard as possible to link their product to the fundamental human desires of survival, procreation, love, happiness, etc... and I must say they are quite successful at it!

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30 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Mar

Two economists enter, one message leaves.

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 27 Mar

Why blame capitalism?

Its the thing to do. It is VERY hard for me to find anything these days that doesn't blame "capitalism" as the cause of some ill. When I'm talking to a person I often ask them what they mean by capitalism. Most are stumped by this question. I don't do this in an adversarial way mind you, I do it in a curious way. What I've found is that many of us or an inch deep, and a mile wide.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 27 Mar

yep..... great way for helping people see things in new ways is just asking them, "what did you mean by that?"

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 27 Mar

Been doing that for a while. Mostly because I'm curious but also people really love when you show interest in their thoughts with genuine curiosity. I started noticing this when I started asking more questions. It also became clear to be how few people do this to others. Then I started noticing that people I enjoy being around often ask me what I think or why. Most of us are so focused on what we think and want that I wonder why anyone would want to talk to us.

123 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 27 Mar

This point is interesting.

In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, the average work week would be about 15 hours.

I won't pretend to know if labor statistics are right about this but I would guess and I've heard that worker productivity has increased massively since the 1930s. I think that's pretty hard to argue against. So in a way Keynes was right. But, people aren't paid based on their productivity due to many factors around wage price fixing (min wage) and cultural norms around equality of pay for both hourly and salary people.

Imagine if workers were actually paid for the product they produce vs. the hours they work or their years in the job. People lose their minds when groups get paid more or less on average. We don't really value meritocracy. Not really when weighted against fairness and anti-discrimination. The larger the company the more likely it is to see less focus on merit.

Also it is hard to quantify the value of Jim's labor vs. Johns. There are things like sales where it is much easier and you see merit based pay as the norm.

I wonder if the money hadn't been monkeyed with if we could work 15 hours a week. I kinda doubt it. I think we just want more stuff. The quality of life we have in 2025 vs 1930 is insane. A low income worker has many luxuries the most wealthy would have lacked. But even with this the money being devalued has had a massive impact on how much and how long we have to work.

That's my 2 sats.

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 27 Mar

Turns out Keynes was right. We are more productive. 5x+

120 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Mar

Broadly the point is interesting. I make some version of it pretty often. I don’t think the author’s pet commie projects are mainly suffering from lack of investment, though.

We probably could live at a high 1930’s standard with only 15 hours of work per week per household. However, human wants are unlimited, so we work more to live at a previously unimaginable standard instead.

A lot of the new consumer goods are junk, but I bet that’s been true the whole time.

77 sats \ 1 reply \ @SpaceHodler 27 Mar

We probably could live at a high 1930’s standard with only 15 hours of work per week per household. However, human wants are unlimited, so we work more to live at a previously unimaginable standard instead.

I don't really understand that. When I was working full-time I wanted reduced hours so badly. Time has always been precious to me. Perhaps those who work more than they have to only to buy more consumption goods don't have anything better to do.

Discovering Bitcoin has changed this balance for me towards taking on more work, because now at last I have something to work for other than survival. Before I discovered it, I would have worked 5 hours a week had that paid my bills, because free time was the only thing I wanted, as long as my survival need was met.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Mar

I personally share your sentiments, but there’s a chance we’re not in the center of the distribution.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 27 Mar

Reading this reminds of just how spoiled we modern humans that live in capitalist economies have become. The fact that we have such abundance of choice and that the vast majority of people have access to tools and goods that didn't even exist is just proof we are spoiled brats. We have one end of the scale where the entitled human complains about the most unimportant things, not appreciating how awesome things are for us. If their food takes 5 minutes to long, or something breaks they lose their minds.

Then you have people like this author. To much stuff. It reminds me of the mindset of the socialists like Bernie Sanders that complain about there being to many choices. Then you go to a socialist country and they lack so many things we take for granted. Honestly, capitalism isn't perfect. But, I have come to believe the issue isn't capitalism but rather human desires and morals. There are many things I wish didn't exist or were less desired but that's just my opinion. The reality is that if people value something, if it is possible to provide it will be done without central planning. Central planning (socialism) leads to want and starvation. It feels like those that take this for granted are gonna kill the golden goose.

The bottom line for most critiques of capitalism is that it boils down to the person not liking something about the world they live in. The reality is that they are in the minority. Its really elitism at the core.

39 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 27 Mar

Every engineer designing a slightly better juicer with smartphone connectivity is not designing better public transportation. Every marketing dollar spent convincing people they need new sneakers is not spent educating about climate change. Every factory producing incremental gadgets is not producing renewable energy infrastructure.

What do public transportation and education about about climate change have in common?

Both are largely publicly funded and do not have much exposure to market forces.

There's this weird thing that happens when I read things like this. Its like there is a massive blind spot to this entity which has its thumb on the scales, distorting natural market forces and human desires. The state.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @jtraub91 27 Mar

both of y'all are off on the bullshit jobs point. "capitalism" didn't create bullshit jobs. and bullshit jobs are not a luxury. state capitalism which we leave under, accumulates capital to the political class, which in turn uses that capital to keep us pre-occupied with bullshit jobs, so that the masses don't become a threat to their grift