1. “…military robots transformed into sleigh-pulling reindeer…”
2. Paul Krugman on whether the technological slowdown in ending.
3.”The Wall Street Journal’s survey of economists shows they largely don’t practice what the naysayers preach: 51 of 54 respondents said they bought loved ones gifts; the other three initially said they didn’t, but later admitted they did.” Story here.
4. “Can drones compete with this truck?” And were one million drones gifted today? How many were sent by drone? Next year?
5. Putin perfume.
6. What do Beijing residents think of Christmas?
#6 bravo to the people interviewed for their frank responses on the questions posed, especially the final question.
Christians seem to have been over sampled but interesting to read. When I worked in China about 15 years ago Christmas was pretty marginal.
Krugman switches the goalposts. He claims that technology is improving command over material resources, letting us do more with less. In fact, his major claim on energy is that we can get more environmental holiness for less.
Stagnation often gets excused by changing priorities. Surely late Rome consoled itself for having fewer functional aqueducts by noting that there were now more Christians.
Computation providing more efficiency in materials and energy would improve the bottom line (and be deflationary) even if no one had invented the environment.
A profit motive and new tech are sufficient drivers
Overall I think Krugman made a poor case. We can point to neat stuff like landing rockets (right out of 50’s sci fi) but they are not yet great drivers of consumption or employment.
A kid who wants to be a billionaire will still take the easy route, hire maybe 100 people, and do an app.
Yes, I concur that Krugman made a weak case.
Rockets? Absent an alien invasion, who cares? They were like 95% efficient in 1970. Bezos may get a 10x gain in support infrastructure, but rockets is rockets.
Air travel hasn’t improved? My last flight was India to the USA on four hours notice. Like 20 hours total with hotels, planes, cars, breakfast, lunch, a few drinks and a couple of movies all sorting themselves out. Try doing that in 1970. Would cutting this down to 1 hour really improve your life?
There is no stagnation in technology if you are rich enough to take advantage of it. A 13 year old today with $50K/year of support technology, people, and infrastructure is an almost unrecognizable being to someone from 1920. 24/7 communication with your global friends? Travel to anywhere? All the world’s information on-line? Click and stuff you want arrives in two days?
Keep your rocket ships with their pilots using slide rules. Deep learning, graphene, CRISPR/Cas9 are 2015. 2025 will be beyond recognition.
“A kid who wants to be a billionaire will still take the easy route, hire maybe 100 people, and do an app.”
OK if I steal this for my kid?
I don’t see any switching of goalposts. Krugman is claiming that technological stagnation outside of consumer electronics and communications technology may finally be coming to an end. In support of this claim, he cites the examples of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and recent advances in the energy sector in fracking, solar and wind. In the past, he has also praised self-driving cars as another path-breaking, life-changing technology.
Did anyone read the reader comments on Krugman’s column. People are astonishingly stupid.
Merrrrrrrry Christmas!
I never quite understood people’s fascination with Star Wars, but now that I see Krugman is a fan too, I’m even more determined to dislike the franchise. But I did find one thing puzzling: technological advance gauged against Star Wars tech. To me it seems Star Wars is technologically very backward, compared to the Star Trek universe. And gauging against the Star Trek universe, technology has advanced considerably. Sure we don’t have warp speed an teleportation, but most of the other stuff described in the Star Trek universe which at the time seemed futuristic, is a reality today or in early stages (even replicators can be found in the primitive 3D printers of today).
Not sure where people get the idea that there is/was some technological slowdown.
One of Star Trek’s major technological failings is the absence of robots (transporters were a cheap alternative to creating shuttle footage, so perhaps replicators and computers were the cheap alternative to robots).
Yes the Star Wars universe just doesn’t seem stable technology. They already had fairly good AI, why are they fighting with human pilots? Etc etc. it’s basically 1950’s tech projected forwards. In the 1950’s they had great aerospace tech already but electronics were still very new. So people focussed on the linear development of what they had then and ignored the very new electronics potential. The baby boomers came of age during this period which solidified this view of the future as what future tech should look like. It’s the same as the Victorians extending railways or Dirigible tech, so well satirised by Harry Harrison in “A transatlantic tunnel, Hurrah!”. The baby boomers limited mental model of the future is exemplified by Krugmans throwaway comment about Global Warming being the greatest threat to Humanity. If only that were true, with AI round the corner.
My understanding is that the Star Wars universe is absolute stability in technology. There are no fundamental discoveries left, only applied engineering. Ships represent different trade off decisions (faster versus more arms versus heavier shields etc.) but this is just fashion.
The AI in Star Wars is not that great. Consider, why does it make sense to have to buy two robots, one that actually does something and the other whose job it is to tell you want that one is saying? There’s also no software concept (why buy a droid who can run some type of machine rather than just download software for your current droid?). Medical tech is pretty poor too…an upper class pregnant woman is not even given an ultrasound to learn that she is carrying twins? Some is simply inconsistent too….humans can be cloned but artificial limbs are the best that can be done?
All interesting points. On the last one, cloning is a lot easier than artificial limbs. I’m pretty sure we could having cloning already if we were “ready” for it (I don’t think we should go there), but I somewhat doubt that we will ever be able to grow new limbs, not for a veeeery long time anyways.
We have transplanted limbs. One possibly explanation might be that with such a diverse range of intelligent species, human medical knowledge in the Star Wars universe just hasn’t advanced
The tech is kind of lame, but Star Wars does fantasy epic better.
#4…Is it legal to fly a drone from your backyard if you’re drunk? I can’t wait for New Years Eve.
It is as though Krugman has never heard of the laws of thermodynamics.
It is clear that Krugman does not appreciate how significant the advances that were made between 1800 and 1900 (mostly between 1840 and 1880) were and how long we have coasted on the progress of our great great great grandfathers.
Low hanging fruit.
Krugman is a child.
He’s a big boy and has a bigger platform, a Noble and more readers than you. I guess he’s winning.
Barack has a Nobel too. Trump is way richer then you. So yeah those two are winning too – not.
Krugman is bigoted against people that disagree with him – also a child.
V. Smil the economist/ physicist expounds on this theme of 19th century being the forerunner of 20th century tech (pace nuclear) in his books.
I’m fairly sure he is familiar with both ideas. Many innovations such as steel-frame skyscrapers, automobiles, airplanes, and telephones have their origin in prototypes originating in the late 19th century but advances in engineering and industrial processes were necessary to make them scalable. The GDP per capita numbers of the 20th century confirm that there was more than just “coasting” going on. By the late 70s, of course, there is a stronger case that we have been coasting since.
2. How much of the decreasing price for solar and wind is due to technological advancement and how much is due to government subsidies and economies of scale?
They have been interrelated since forever, but the tech finally broke through a price barrier.
The same can be said for cars. The first commercial internal combustion engine car was released by Benz in 1886, his wife was the first to do a cross country tour by motor car the same year, 121 miles.
But it took government subsidies before motor cars became practical. In 1921, universal RFD Parcel Post service was begun resulting in subsidies to pave roads for Post service. Then as unemployment rose in the 20s, public works projects to employ idle men did lots of road paving to meet the demands of cyclists. Hoover’s efforts to address unemployment included lots of grants to the States that were already maxed out on public debt. In the 20s, motor car touring clubs had lobbied Congress to provide paved roads to and through National Parks.
Post WWII, the forced savings of the war resulted in lots of people with cash able to buy cars because the GI Bill reduced the down payment for buying housing which was in very short supply due to limited construction during the war of private housing, plus the population boom. And the hundreds of thousands of miles of roads made cars practical for more than the upper classes. Before the war, cars were out of reach of the working class, and without paved roads, they would not have been that practical.
Before WWII, the upper class and business vehicle traffic had resulted in government regulation setting traffic rules, inventing traffic signals, standards for lighting (head and tail) and brakes, road design, and driver tests and driver education. Thus post WWII, the stage was set for high manufacturing volumes to enable rapid innovation in motor vehicles. I grew up when each model year was a big deal for the big revolutionary innovations competing for attention.
Could the motor vehicle industry have grown rapidly without government building paved roads that were not need by 99% of taxpayers? Would the automakers have formed a consortium to pay for paving roads?
In the Northeast where bankers and industrialists dominated, building improved roads privately was attempted, and always failed, prior to 1820, and afterward such efforts were abandoned and government forced to build improved roads.
Basically, an old technology and innovation, motor vehicles, languished for decades until government subsidies and government investment (that benefitted the upper classes and business most) drove the manufacturing volume to create rapid innovation and the benefits of economies of scale.
Until roads between cities enabled traveling outside cities, electric cars were competitive.
I am sure this is how it got going, but to throw the bicyclists some credit for helping to kick-start things:
Car drivers assume the roads were built for them, but it was cyclists who first lobbied for flat roads more than 100 years ago
I share that for the “get bicycles off ‘our’ roads” aspect.
Lobbied for them, yes. did anything to pay for them? No.
Remember it is the gas taxes that pay for the roads and bike paths.
Gas tax certainly does not cover it all now. There is a transfer from other taxes.
No one wants gas tax high enough to cover roads.
There is a transfer, but it just makes up for the money taken from the taxes to pay for bike trails, ect.
I do support taxes that equal the costs of providing roads.
Solar prices have come down by a factor of 10 in 20 years. Tax credits reduce price by around 30%-40% on top of that. The basic design of silicon panels hasn’t changed much, most of the improvements are due to scale and process imrovements.
NREL was founded in 1974.
Wright’s law
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhandy/2013/03/25/moores-law-vs-wrights-law/
Swanson’s law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson's_law
I am fine with “laws” of improvement in technology, as long as we acknowledge that they don’t happen without time and money spent.
There is often an attention problem, and easy innovations happen late because no one is working on them.
Hybrid cars suffered an attention delay while US researchers chased hydrogen dreams (that did not follow either happy law).
@Gochujang
Sure. There are no guarantees. And we can be reasonably sure that there is a limit to how low we can get the price. But the curve gives us some hope for the future of solar power.
@Gochujang
I enjoyed this piece on China’s drive for solar.
http://monetaryrealism.com/china-asks-how-much-will-it-cost-us-to-make-solar-cheaper-than-coal/
The Krugman Derangement Syndrome in this blog’s comment section is approaching the level of self-parody.
I, for one, am a fan of Krugman. He just got it wrong this time.
A more broad reaching and pessimistic version of the same, Krugman on Reich. Not fully endorsed.
It seems though that factors align in a bad way for unspecialized US labor.
6) I’m in China these days, and the sounds and sights of Christmas are everywhere.
I spent Christmas in China in both 2006 and 2009, and there has been major change since then. Both times before, I didn’t get any gifts from anyone. Giving apples in a decorated box has become a big thing, and I have so many apples i doubt I’ll be able to eat them all before they go off.
Because I’m white, I get loads of random strangers shouting out “Merry Christmas”, which never happened at all in 2006 or 2009.
It’s pretty commercial, but people I asked mostly said that their Christmas activities (if any) revolved around friends and family. There’s none of the charitable dynamic of Christmas that you find in the West.
Quite a few problems liberals worry about could be solved by implementing a relatively mature and inexpensive technology called birth control. Another strategy could be to subsidize irresponsible over-breeding poor cultures and try to escape the planet to settle extremely hostile environments in the name of “reproductive freedom” or “the nobility of savages.”
The biggest obstacle is conservative men, in the USA, and in the regions of Western pillage and plunder (everywhere mining is being done by global corporations, not the local population for the local economy).
Get rid of the House of Saud, and all the institutions it supports to hold power in service of Western pillage and plunder, and the biggest obstacle to limiting population growth almost immediately would be eliminated.
But US conservatives defend the terrorism sponsoring House of Saud because they make pillage and plunder of the region a top priority. Iran is the enemy of US conservatives because it refuses to submit to Western pillage and plunder. The isolation of Iran since 1980 has made Iran more self sufficient and thus no longer an opportunity for pillage and plunder for the benefit of global corporations. Iran is probably below replacement rate, with growth happening only due to the the skew to young adults. The Iranian conservative men trying to boost birth rates is not going to work. Just like US conservative men trying to sell larger families is failing in the US.
Patience is a virtue, as noted in the Psychomachia. A development of that virtue is a part of human maturation. A demand that must be satisfied immediately was considered childish until very recently. Now entire industries have sprung up to satisfy immature impatience. A pizza delivered in 20 minutes isn’t as good as one brought to the door in only 15. Just one more sign of the coming apocalypse.
No that article was “Paul Krugman on nasty terrible republicans with technology his pretend subject.”
Come on this stuff is easy.
Krugman has been consistently wrong about technology for over 20 years. He wrote in 1998 that “The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
Of course, a few years ago Krugman defended it saying he was just having fun for a Time article. Yet he has said similar things over the years as well. Part of it must be that like most economists, he does one thing: economics. They will often have a hobby like eating, but nothing that relates to coming technology. Since the late 90s, Krugman usually comes off as too-cool-for Silicon Valley — they are just hype, while he is the grown-up. But the grown-up who is way off on tech matters. The self driving car quote from is another example: To paraphrase, “We all thought something like the driverless car was decades away, but it looks much closer now.” Who is this “we”?
I’m going to stick up for Krugman here. I don’t think he actually believes most of the BS he spews out for the NYT readers.
http://arstechnica.com/features/2008/09/future-of-driving-part-1/4/
Mike Montemerlo of the Stanford Racing Team that won the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge told Ars Technica, quoted there, that he thought that fully autonomous vehicles were more than 2 decades away. In 2008. He may yet be proved right, but fundamentally serious people believe that there will be autonomous vehicles on the market in two years, and 12 years is definitely way over in the pessimistic category, now. And that guy was probably in the top 20 most qualified experts in the world when he spoke. It was not crazy to believe that driverless cars were decades away until very recently.
1998 is also a hell of a long time ago. Do you stand behind every statement you made 17 years ago? Sometimes you just get things wrong.
I don’t agree with Krugman on much, but he’s not obviously crazy here. We are seeing some early promising signs on a number of physical technologies (and if you don’t like self-driving cars, fracking, solar panels, and rockets, we’re seeing evolutionary progress on battery technology, which would help make a diverse range of goods cheaper and/or better, there are some vague fits of life in fusion (though… my money is still on “no fusion in the next two decades”), drone aircraft probably hold some promise in physical goods delivery, GMO offers some potentially pretty awesome gains in agriculture, and so forth. It’s definitely too early to call it on a new generation of physical-world technological growth similar to the computer revolutions of the last 20 years, but there is some reason for optimism.
“He wrote in 1998 that “The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
2005 real GDP was about 14.3T. 2015 it was 16.3T. An increase of 14%. In 1995 it was about $10.2T so from 1995 to 2005 we had about a 40% increase in GDP yet from 2005 to 2015 we only saw 14%, despite the fact that the internet grew much more from 2005 to 2015 than from 1995 to 2005. Even if you could claim all of the post 2005 growth was due only to the Internet, it is hard to seriously argue that Krugman wasn’t pretty close to the mark when he said the internet’s impact on the economy isn’t as dramatic as people would like to think.
Donald Trump has been selling perfume for years.
2. I can’t agree with Krugman that nuclear will play any part in the future energy mix. Existing nuclear plants may toddle along for quite some time, but new nuclear is simply not competitive. In cloudy old England, solar power plus energy storage and supply management is expected to cost about half of what electricity from the proposed Hinkley C nuclear reators will cost. And the United States is much sunnier than the UK and the cost of new nuclear has turned out to be not much different from Hinkley C.
This PDF gives details on how solar can be much cheaper than nuclear in the UK: http://www.solar-trade.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Comparing-the-cost-of-electricity-generation-from-Hinkley-Point-C-with-solar-and-flexibility-mechanisms.pdf
I am suicidal and support eugenics for character traits that lead to feeling like me, whether those are inferior traits or simply a negative mental outlook. I imagine the eugenics we are likely to get will be for things that simply make the inferior even more suicidal due to inability to compete.
Buck up. Also, coffee.
Don’t kill yourself. Just don’t have any children.
sorry – that should have been a reply to Noumenon72
jorgensen – I’m pretty sure the comment by Noumenon72 was written by a pro-eugenicist describing the sort of people he thinks we’d be better off without (hints being “inferior” and “inability to compete”).
I’m pretty sure that in 50-100 years we’ll have advanced enough knowledge of brain chemistry to effectively treat most (all?) non-situational causes of depression with cheap pills. And with all these CRISPR technologies, even if society does eventually become eugenics-minded, there will never be any need to sterilize anyone or try to convince the “inferior” to kill themselves.