The rich and powerful have hijacked progress throughout history, says Daron Acemoğlu. They did so back in the Middle Ages and also now in the age of artificial intelligence. In an interview, the MIT economist dives into the question of whether Silicon Valley is plunging humanity into destitution.
This is what I mean when I say it’s going to end up being a circular argument.
Both the maxim gun and nuclear weapons had the biggest possible impacts possible on the economy. The maxim gun (and other war technologies) were hugely important in the viability of colonial administration. Nuclear weapons made the US one of two superpowers, which defined 20th century economic debate.
High fructose corn syrup has had a paramount impact on the entire American food system, probably the single most important part of an economy, from our agriculture to our food processing.
Plastics have so transformed our economy that we rely on it to get basically any physical good to the consumer, and the resulting trash now exists in every part of Earth, including our own bodies.
Is there harm side from technologies? Of course. But say plastic overall has much more economic good for an average person. And I do not think that war and war technologies is part of this discussion. By definition everything relating to war is waste of resources on civilization scale. It was always so, has nothing to do with technology and our discussion.
“But see, if you draw all these bizarre, arbitrary lines around things, I’m absolutely correct. We’re talking about technology, not economics when it comes to war, because then I’d have to acknowledge that imperialism drives economics and it immediately defeats my argument.”
“Plastic doesn’t count because it does more good than harm and – STOP GESTURING EXCITEDLY AT GLOBAL WARMING!!! WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT!”
That’s what you sound like. Why are the things that invalidate your point out of bounds?
I could prove to you that war is actually a good thing as long as we don’t discuss the loss of human life, or the losing side of any of them in any way. Should we have that discussion next?