Russell Roberts's Blog, page 1494

Those nice bright colors

Here is a poignant and fascinating story on the death of Kodachrome. Creative destruction is sad and wonderful. I loved my Olympus OM-10. But what I can do with a digital camera and even my iPhone makes my heart sing. All the world's still a sunny day and more people can enjoy it than ever before.

7 billion and counting

Pietro Poggi-Corradini sent me this video from National Geographic. I enjoyed despite what I took to be the apparent intentions of the creator(s). Notice the vaguely ominous tone of the music. I think population growth is good so if you replace the sound track with a more cheerful one, I think you'll get the right idea.

Robin Hanson on the technological singularity

This week's EconTalk is Robin Hanson talking about the technological singularity–the possibility that a new era of technological improvement is around the corner that will make the current level of growth look primitive. At current rates of growth, world output doubles about every 15 years. Robin imagines the possibility that it could double every two weeks.

My conversation with Robin was mind-boggling, frustrating, humbling, mind-expanding, and ultimately very thought-provoking. It was also very long. Robin is full of fascinating ideas. He thinks the singularity is likely and one possible route is to port human consciousness into computers. Literally. Our brains and their processes would be replicated in machine-form allowing machines to replicate human thought processes and intelligence.

I disputed the likelihood of this and struggled to understand the implications. In Robin's view, this will lead enormous wealth but a world where our labor will become nearly worthless. So the road to enjoying the expanded wealth is through owning real estate, intellectual property related to the porting/computing process or other scarce resources. I struggled with the idea that these machines/humans (it is hard to know what to call them) would simply be substitutes for biological humans rather than complements.

We left out two of the most interesting and important aspects of this process were it to ever happen. Lauren Landsburg who edits the EconLib site and does the wonderfully detailed highlights for each podcast wondered why Robin and I didn't talk about innovation. Good question. We talked a lot about new computer/humans as workers but failed to mention the incredible potential for increased creativity and innovation. The other aspect we neglected was that Robin was really talking about the potential for immortality. If I can port my brain to a machine, don't I (whatever that is) live forever. We spent a lot of time talking about the potential to make multiple copies and the implication for wages. But the first copy might be the really interesting one.

This may all sound crazy but Robin makes it actually sound plausible. And of course at the end of the podcast he expresses his willingness to bet on it.

A Consequence of Mr. Keynes

Here's a letter to the Washington Post:

Robert Samuelson criticizes departing White House economist Larry Summers for ignoring the "contradiction between the administration's ambitious social and regulatory agenda and the business confidence necessary for hiring and investing" ("Judging Obama's economics," Jan. 3).

Mr. Samuelson is correct that this contradiction exists, and that Mr. Summers ignores it.  But the problem isn't with Mr. Summers per se as with the Keynesian mindset that economists of his ilk bring to their role as policy advisors.  As my GMU colleagues James Buchanan and Richard Wagner warned years ago, an ill-consequence of Keynesianism is that "allocative efficiency" (the achievement of which is severely hampered by Pres. Obama's social and regulatory agenda) is "relegated to a second level of importance by comparison with the 'pure efficiency' that was promised by an increase in the sheer volume of employment itself."*

It's not much of an exaggeration to say that the Keynesian obsession with big aggregates – aggregate demand and its effect on the aggregate level of employment – crowds out concern with understanding the less sexy, but in the end far more important, 'microeconomic' details of how the economy works.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Professor of Economics

* James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner, Democracy in Deficit (New York: Academic Press, 1977), p. 26.

Income, Inequality, Status, and Health

Here's a letter to the New York Times:

Nicholas Kristof too uncritically accepts Richard Wilkinson's and Kate Pickett's conclusion that peoples' health would be improved by greater government efforts to equalize incomes through redistributionist policies  ("Equality, a True Soul Food," Jan. 2).

First, the fact that low-status macaque monkeys suffer more health problems than do their high-status fellows is dubious evidence for the desirability of income-redistribution among humans: macaque monkeys have no income.  So clearly the size of a primate's financial portfolio isn't the only source of status.  Is Mr. Kristof confident that some other, non-pecuniary – and more dangerous – measure of social rank wouldn't increase in importance among humans if monetary wealth is forcibly made more equal?

Second, according to research reported in 2006 by Nobel economist Daniel McFadden, "both behavioral observation and brain studies indicate that organisms seem to be on a hedonic treadmill, quickly habituating to homeostasis, and experiencing pleasure from gains and pain from losses relative to the reference point that homeostasis defines."  That is, a person's subjective well-being is reckoned relative to his or her own accustomed state rather than relative to the material standard of living enjoyed by other people.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

And see also here.

Teasley on Packaging

Retired Coca-Cola executive Harry Teasley is my favorite expert on packaging - and you'll see why if you read this recent speech of his.

Valedictory

Here's a letter to the editor of USA Today:

You quote the parting words of several "retiring" or fired U.S. Senators ("Retiring members of Congress bid adieu," Dec. 31).  Each is too verbose.  The most appropriate parting message goes something like this: "For years I've spent other people's money and butted into other people's business.  I return now to spending only my own money and minding my own business."

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Alas, too many of these self-important clowns will become highly paid human corridors to the new gaggle of self-important clowns officially officed on Capitol Hill…..

Packaging Insanity

Here's a letter to the New York Times:

Applauding British legislation "allowing citizens to sue companies for excess packaging," Scott Cassel declares that "the United States is far behind" (Letters, Dec. 31).

A nation is hardly "far behind" by refusing to create a cause of action based upon nebulous damages (How will courts measure such harm?) and upon an even more nebulous 'offense' (What, exactly, is "excess" packaging – and how on God's green earth is a court to make such a determination for each of the countless different products available on the market?).

Moreover, producers already have strong incentives to avoid excess packaging.  Not only do packaging materials cost producers money, heavier packaging means higher shipping costs.  That businesses respond positively to these incentives to find ever-better ways to keep packaging optimal is revealed in the data; as reported earlier this year by economist Daniel Benjamin, "Over the past 25 years, the weights of individual packages have been reduced by amounts ranging from 30 percent (2-liter soft drink bottles) to 70 percent (plastic grocery sacks and trash bags)" [available here].

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Some Links

Congrats to our GMU colleagues Bryan Caplan, Tyler Cowen, and Alex Tabarrok (and to our adjunct colleague Arnold Kling) for receiving high praise from the Wall Street Journal on their blogging.  Much deserved!

My friend Maxim Lott highlights eight eco-catastrophe predictions gone wrong – giving us yet further reason to be skeptical of predictions of ecological doom.

George Selgin's comments at Marginal Revolution are especially worthwhile reading.  (George should start blogging.  Hint, hint.)

Ross Kaminsky weighs in on the question of whether or not health care is a right.

My GMU colleague Walter Williams explains that free trade is fair trade.

In today's Financial Times, our colleague Tom Hazlett pays a lovely tribute to the late Alfred Kahn.

Perry, Tierney, Simon… and Krugman

So – is humanity destined to suffer from ever-tighter resource constraints?

Here's New York Times science reporter John Tierney championing the Julian Simon insight.  And here's my former GMU grad assistant Mark Perry doing the same.

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has a different perspective.