daveshap
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Economic Agency: A Key Principle in Post-Labor Economics
🕑 Added 2024-01-01 21:05:06 +0000 UTCI just sent this out on LinkedIn and Substack (which are both free to follow me on!) but I wanted to make sure that you all saw this too.
https://daveshap.substack.com/p/economic-agency-a-key-principle-in
Economic Agency is the ability to make independent economic decisions and participate in shaping economic policies.
The article is a bit long so I'll give all you a TLDR
Economic Agency is the capacity of individuals or groups to make autonomous decisions within a market or economy, encompassing their ability to engage in economic activities such as employment, entrepreneurship, and investment, and to influence or participate in economic policymaking.
Now, if AI comes in and destroys all jobs, that deprives people of economic agency, which is a surefire way to create a civil war (or worse). Here's how/why that happens:
- AI surpases humans: better faster cheaper safer
- Humans lose jobs (unemployment goes up)
- Consumer demand goes down
- Economy stalls, everything gets worse, caught in a vicious cycle
- Hunger and anger rise, followed shortly by violence, revolt, and upheaval
So, how do we prevent that?
- Decentralized Private Ownership (DPO)
- Redistribution (UBI, UBS, negative income tax)
- Stakeholder Capitalism
When you look at most violent revolutions and rebellions throughout history, a loss of economic agency was a main contributing factor.
- French Revolution
- American Revolution
- American Civil War
- Russian Revolution
- WWII
- People's Revolution
- Arab Spring
I just planned out a video for this on my Pragmatic Progressive channel, plus I've got some potential projects brewing. But this idea is way too important to keep locked up.
Comments
NotForTheBirds
I believe the answer will largely rely on Public Ownership, which is effectively anti-ownership. The concept of private property has done nothing but keep the masters in control. Through public ownership, the slaves can upend the current system without asking for permission.
David Shapiro
I actually have a few videos coming out - one is a post-AGI education video and then I have two interviews with educators on systems thinking. Sit tight! They'll come out in a few weeks as my editors get up to speed
Will Walsh
What about education? I have a bunch of friends that teach. There institutions, here in the UK are really slow at adapting. So they aren't yet offering students education around AI and it's safe and responsible use. I see students all the time paying for scam apps and generally just asking gpt dumb questions. 2 months ago I showed a senior lecturer how to "talk" to a pdf. There's so much fear and anxiety around misinformation and bias it's sort of just being ignored. I'm 100% confident that my own agents teach me better than any lecturer I've encountered to date. They just can't give me what I need. I was finishing lectures in a few minutes. I'm switching to research for this reason. I just can't envision universities in 10 years confidently. I'm going to have a version of agi/asi teaching me crazy complex stuff using a pedagogy that we've not even contemplated yet!! I'd love to see a video "education in 2034". What are my kids going to be doing?
