The Cellar - View Single Post

Undertoad · 03-21-2005, 10:09 AM

Take a look at your own (and Britain's) history, and current activities.

We don't make the chart. I suppose we have to try harder.

Are there any mass graves near you?

Now let me address this "cake" theory, because it's a very serious mistake IMO. When you look at the history of the world you see that innovation and progress create wealth, not consume it. For example, with the invention of the integrated circuit chip we have taken the simplest of raw materials (such as sand!) and turned it into machines capable of some really remarkable things.

What we do in these cases is to increase the size of the cake that is cut up. The world's wealth is NOT some sort of "zero-sum game" where the powerful steal the pieces that the less powerful then have no access to. It is NOT NOT NOT true that if one nation has a bigger slice of "cake" that poorer nations have less "cake".

How it ACTUALLY works is that the powerful nations of the world are those who have CREATED the greatest amount through approaches that maximize innovation and human effort.

A hundred years ago, life in the world required 50% of the population to be involved in agriculture, just to produce enough food for all of us. Today, it only requires 2% of the population to be involved in agriculture. The reason is that innovation has increased the productivity of the average person and the average farm.

Now GPS is going to do that again by making it possible to run tractors at night without people on them. The people who used to farm can do other productive things. Voila, wealth is CREATED.

03-21-2005, 10:09 AM	#12
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	Take a look at your own (and Britain's) history, and current activities. We don't make the chart. I suppose we have to try harder. Are there any mass graves near you? Now let me address this "cake" theory, because it's a very serious mistake IMO. When you look at the history of the world you see that innovation and progress create wealth, not consume it. For example, with the invention of the integrated circuit chip we have taken the simplest of raw materials (such as sand!) and turned it into machines capable of some really remarkable things. What we do in these cases is to increase the size of the cake that is cut up. The world's wealth is NOT some sort of "zero-sum game" where the powerful steal the pieces that the less powerful then have no access to. It is NOT NOT NOT true that if one nation has a bigger slice of "cake" that poorer nations have less "cake". How it ACTUALLY works is that the powerful nations of the world are those who have CREATED the greatest amount through approaches that maximize innovation and human effort. A hundred years ago, life in the world required 50% of the population to be involved in agriculture, just to produce enough food for all of us. Today, it only requires 2% of the population to be involved in agriculture. The reason is that innovation has increased the productivity of the average person and the average farm. Now GPS is going to do that again by making it possible to run tractors at night without people on them. The people who used to farm can do other productive things. Voila, wealth is CREATED.