bonsaii
3mo ago
From a GDP perspective, absolutely. From a utility perspective, maybe? As a hypothetical, I would obviously benefit monetarily if I worked for an extra hour and put 95% of the net earnings towards skipping an hour-long queue, but sometimes I don't really feel like working that extra hour and would rather stand in a queue reading random stuff on my phone.
I also think more generally that matching prices strictly to scarcity doesn't always improve society-wide utility. Often times you end up restricting to a clientele that has more money than genuine appreciation. Is there really more societal value if most die-hard sports fans end up watching from home because they were priced out by richer people who are there largely because they value money less and wouldn't really care if their conspicuous consumption were directed elsewhere? Obviously true from a monetary perspective, but I still tend to believe that there's more to utils than pure cash flow.
deep language skills as the no-bullshit zone of the humanities
Could you expand on what you mean by this?
bonsaii
3mo ago
(Incidentally there is imho a huge underrated and interesting question about long-term space colonization, as imho space colonies are likely to be insanely productive due to founder effects, but may also be prone to regimented thinking.)
On this note, I've always thought that one of the greatest advantages the US had was in being able to construct its constitution with significantly reduced baggage/inertia. Trying to reform the US constitution today seems essentially impossible. My hope is that if space colonization ever works out that a new set of founders with foresight manage to take the chance at a fresh start at put together an even better constitution for the modern era. It would be a fun discussion to hear what people would want explicitly included.
I think those things, while correlated with their work culture, are also potentially separable from their work culture
This is a question I ask myself almost every day.
For now, I want to push back slightly on the wealth/GDP comparison. I've posted before about my struggles in thinking about it. The numbers show Americans are at median higher in per capita wealth and GDP, but it is difficult for me to square that with my personal experience actually living in the US vs East Asia. In a phrase, it feels like when I'm in the US I'm always paying more for less. Food tastes worse, interactions with a service workers feel worse, I'm shaken down for tips even on take-out, public spaces are covered in literal piss and shit, public transit is garbage, there's lower trust, principal-agent problems seem to play out with a high rate of defections, etc.
If GDP is the sum total of all money flows, how should I feel about getting paid >3x while I'm also having to shell out >2x for everything but it's all worse. PPP is supposed to account for this, but I don't think it quite captures the full picture, particularly the part where everything is lower quality. Every transaction in the US will nickel and dime you to death. In comparison, I generally feel a much greater utility surplus in places like Japan.
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When Japanese waiters just do their job because it's culturally expected while American waiters drag their feet and still whine about 20% tips not being 25%, that's not captured by GDP.
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When the best ramen shops in Tokyo don't hike up their prices despite massive queues and still put full effort into quality just out of pride in their work while American restaurants are tacking on random surcharges and skimping on ingredients, that's not fully captured by GDP.
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When the city can just delete most of its trash cans and citizens will still largely refrain from littering while Americans are paying several full time salaries to pick up dog feces, that's not fully captured by GDP.
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When restaurants don't have to pay for security guards because crime rates are low, that's not fully captured by GDP.
In the thread I linked above, someone gave the example that his wife could increase national GDP by getting a job and paying a nanny and a housekeeper, etc. instead of being a stay-at-home mom. The sense I get is that similar things are at play in every aspect of society and the US culture is one that lies on the former extreme in almost all of them.
Edit: It was pointed out that I went a bit off on a tangent. To get back to your question, my main thoughts comparing US and East Asia are that 1.) The productivity gap isn't as high as the GDP numbers would suggest and 2.) The advantages and disadvantages largely emerge from cultural differences rather than systemic ones. If I were to reduce it to a principal component, I'd put it along a "trust" axis, with East Asian inefficiencies arising from cultural rituals that may or may not be needed to maintain this trust while American inefficiencies arise from the constant defections in the setting of low trust. Given how difficult culture is to change I don't see much opportunity for a Hegelian sublation between the two but if there is one, I'd wager it'd be easier for East Asia than the US, simply because trust is far easier to maintain than it is to build.
How would you feel if a random mentally ill human who spends his time licking up his own vomit and sniffing random piles of feces came and licked you on the face as you walked by? Would reassurances by his family that he's "friendly" and "harmless" make any difference to your response?
bonsaii
3mo ago
Some non-negligible fraction of the time, feces are not fully solid, which means even a decent effort leaves quite a bit of residue behind. I'd say my walks are 50/50 chunks and skid marks. It simply disgusts me that we as a society see dog owners covering our cities in literal piss and shit daily and simply tolerate it.
There are no rules that are sufficiently enforceable. Look at the ineffectiveness of the laws that already exist. These people don't even have the decency to stay out of non-dog buildings despite the abundance of dog-friendly ones. The one time I lived in one that purported to be so an emotional support pitbull moved in across the hall within a year and would bark violently every time I even got close to my own door. The only solution is a blanket ban, but too many Americans would rather drown in slobber, barking, and excrement than give up the one thing too stupid to realize they don't deserve affection.
I sit here now having listened to near-continuous barking since waking up. Owners do nothing about it. Landlords do nothing about it. Noise complaint line does nothing about it.
Common sense rules already exist: dog-free housing, leash laws, noise ordinances, restrictions on pets in places that serve food, pick-up-feces laws, etc. A certain subset of dog owners simply takes it upon themselves to consistently ignore these rules. They pull up “Emotional Support” certificates or just indignantly grandstand any time someone calls them out. There are effectively no dog-free spaces left. You'd think it'd be easy to find at least one apartment building that categorically denies them but it simply doesn't exist in my city. From what I've read, it doesn't really exist in any city in the US.
On some level it makes sense. An animal that was selectively bred for unquestioning loyalty is obviously appealing to the kind of person that any thinking human would find selfish and detestable — someone so insufferable it took thousands of years of genetic engineering to create something that responds not with the disgust they deserve but instead some facsimile of love and adoration. Of course the kind of person to believe rules are beneath them would have significant overlap with dog-lovers.
But at the end of the day, dog-ownership, even by good owners, has to be one of the highest negative-externality hobbies in developed society. I can’t walk on the grass in my city because it’s invariably soaked in urine and feces. Every sidewalk smells of urine constantly. My head has to be angled down when walking anywhere to watch out for the feces piles and skid marks. There is rarely an hour that goes by in my home without a cacophony of barking nearby. Both of the nearest parks reek of wet dog. Dog-walkers take up the entire sidewalk and make no effort to keep their pet from slobbering over you. They bring their dogs into grocery stores and feign ignorance while they lick boxes.
I’m utterly sick of it. If I woke up to find a Thanos glove I’d snap dogs out of existence permanently. I have minimal doubts the world would be better for it.
bonsaii
3mo ago
I don't think this is something you can execute via homeschooling alone unless either parent or a closely involved grandparent is multilingual, but I think there's a lot of value in having early exposure bilingualism in children, particularly with two distant languages like English and Mandarin (in comparison, I don't think there's a whole lot of perspective to be gained from a kid knowing both Spanish and Portuguese). I know well-educated, reasonably intelligent adults who still think translating between languages is largely a 1:1 mapping or never thought about the ways that differing language structures make it so certain ideas can't be expressed with the same set of connotations. I suspect the experience of being bilingual itself can be an early lesson in distinguishing map from territory.
Can someone who’s good with economics explain to me, as you would a child, is “global GDP” a useful measure of human productivity, or of anything at all for that matter?
My understanding GDP is a measure of productivity (via total value goods/services), but it’s measured in dollars, which are a self-referential measure of people’s willingness to work or pay for a service. All of these goods and services also have differing values to consumers based on their circumstances. If I’m trying to conceptualize a “fundamental unit of productivity” I feel like no matter how I do it I end up in a recursion loop. What am I missing?
Secondarily, I was recently in a fast food place and realized what I thought was a police officer taking a break was actually a full-time security guard employed by the restaurant. This guard is presumably paid some amount X per year, which is rolled into the national GDP. If we compare to another country where low crime rates mean they don’t need a security guard at every McDonald’s, it seems in this instance that GDP has captured a societal drag on productivity and is treating it as a gain. True, the guard is producing a service, but the fact that the service is needed at all when in other countries it is not seems like there should also be some factor captured as a negative that is being missed. Are similar warping effects (e.g., make-work projects or services that are created to compensate for a societal failure) a major contributor to variations in GDP values? And if so, how useful can GDP be really?
bonsaii
4mo ago
Then they successfully blamed Republicans and the profit motive for increasing the percentage of 29 hr/wk jobs with no healthcare, making all healthcare costs skyrocket, making doctors and nurses quit and new people not want to go into the field, and making Big Pharma rich.
I get the 29 hr/wk thing, assuming it's basically a variation on the minimum wage leads to less jobs argument.
Why does skyrocketing healthcare costs drive doctors and nurses to quit?
How does Big Pharma specifically benefit?
bonsaii
4mo ago
Does anyone have good resources (textbooks, article collections, etc.) for understanding various supply chains (i.e., the interactions and dependencies of different economic sectors)? For example, if I wanted to trace the inputs required for chip manufacturing, where would I go to figure out the manufacturers of intermediate components all the way to which raw materials are needed/how are they extracted, as well as the associated transport, energy, and diplomatic needs?
bonsaii
4mo ago
Does your position on the acceptability of braces/orthodontics for children differ from that for any of the following: eyelid surgery, nose job, lip filler, v-line jaw surgery? If so, why? (For purposes of this question assume that there are not medical indications for any of the above. I.e., consider only purely cosmetic cases, ignoring those in which braces may significantly improve chewing or where nose jobs may improve airflow, etc.
bonsaii
4mo ago
Even for something that happens every week at an average hospital, if you go from 10 residents to 40 you're going from residents who have trained on it 25 times to residents who may have only done it 6 times.
bonsaii
4mo ago
This may be true for some very common surgeries, but you still need the surgeons on staff to be trained in less common situations/surgeries as well. Otherwise, you have scenarios where you need a surgery but turns out the surgeon on shift has done that particular surgery once in his life and has to wing it.
bonsaii
4mo ago
But who would pay for necessary infrastructure and surgical supplies. Where are the patients going to get the MRI and CT scans necessary for pre-operative planning? The places that already have resources for those things have their own surgeons to train.
bonsaii
4mo ago
I think the problem here is that you often don't know what you're dealing with until you're already knee deep.
If we're keeping with the baseball analogy, the specialist is the guy you call when you already know you're up against the absolute best knuckleballers. The generalists are still out there dealing with most pitchers, who aren't the best at it but do mix in knuckleballs among fasts and curves. I guess the analogy I should have used is:
"If I'm betting my life on a baseball team, I want most of their batters to have at least gone up against a lot of knuckleballs in their life instead of a bunch of guys who've mostly only hit against fasts/curves and are going to be out there winging it for the first time if it turns out the opponent team has many solid knuckleball pitchers." (Sorry if this is bad baseball, I don't actually follow baseball)
bonsaii
4mo ago
Suppose surgery X is only needed by P patients per year per hospital, but surgical residents on average need to do at least C cases under supervision to reach competency. If residency is Y years long and you have R residency spots per hospital, then R is limited to C > Y P R.
bonsaii
4mo ago
Suppose surgery X is only needed by P patients per year per hospital, but surgical residents require C cases to reach competency. If residency is Y years long and you have R residency spots per hospital, then R is limited to C > Y P R.
You'd have to do this exercise for every type of surgery that a competent surgeon should know. Gallbladder is one of the most common (hence, one of the first to come off the top of my head), but you still need your local surgeon to be able to do the less known things as well. If I'm betting my life on a baseball player hitting a home run off a knuckleball pitcher, I want him to have at least gone up against a lot of knuckleballs in his life instead of a guy who's mostly only hit against fastball and curveballs and is going to be out there winging it for the first time.
bonsaii
4mo ago
I have many friends in medicine with whom I talk about these issues fairly often. My understanding based on these conversations is that you can't just go out and increase residency positions because the whole point of residency is to get sufficient exposure to cases. A surgical resident needs to do X gallbladder surgeries, Y appendix surgeries, etc. to reach competence and be able to perform independently. There are only so many patients who actually need those surgeries per year. Also, there are only so many teaching surgeons willing to supervise residents (teaching is almost universally a pay cut in medicine). Freeing the cap on residencies would mean a lot of doctors-in-training who waste time sitting on their hands and come out underprepared.
bonsaii
4mo ago
Do you think most C-suite executives are over, under, or appropriately paid relative to the market value of their labor?
Japan had a 20 year modernization head-start over South Korea, which in turn had a 20 year head-start over mainland China. Korea only very recently entered mainstream Western consciousness (only 2 decades ago Hank Hill's "so are you Chinese or Japanese?" was a pretty accurate depiction of the median American conception of East Asia) and mainland China is widely considered an authoritarian enemy-state.
Japan's hold is largely a function of it having been the first, and for a long period of time only, "developed" but "non-Western" place in the world. So it planted its flag as the premiere "exotic" destination that still had all of the first world comforts.
I'd agree that today Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and certain parts of mainland China all have comparable tourist options to offer Western visitors with incredible safety, transportation, and other conveniences to boot. I often work with videos like this in the background on a second screen and it makes me want to quit my job and spend a year or two just traveling China in particular. But the power of having been the first is a lot to overcome, so I doubt we'll see a "place, China" effect take anywhere as deep of a root.
Personally, I never found it much of an inconvenience. There are trash cans at every place you can buy food and most train stations. Convenience stores have seating and even microwaves to eat when you buy. Vending machines have attached bins for bottle/cans. The only time you'd need to carry your trash around is if you were eating in the middle of walking, which isn't something I personally do much and is culturally frowned upon. I don't think it's a big QoL hit, but others may disagree.
As for restaurant prices, the economies of scale effect certainly contributes. One of the interesting things about many East Asian cities is that it's often cheaper to eat out than to cook at home. Even so, many of these restaurants are almost certainly not maximizing their profit margins in the face of their demand.
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