Could you please give examples? I'm not in the mood and to fucking lazy to work through centuries of human history.

To quote myself from post 88:
"And like myself, you're most likely taking explanations that supports your bias which is just human."

Just food for thought: According to the graph, prices for food or Care, etc. rises while prices for TVs, Software, toys, etc. falls. What goods are in your opinion more import to live than other goods? How often do one buy food or clothes in contrast to TVs or cars?

That's not what I perceive here in Germany: example 1, example 2
Sorry, it's in German but that's what I found in the short time.

If something is scientifically proofed through repeatable experiments and less controversial because it can be even observed by normal people like me and you, then why should it be obscure?

That's exactly the reason why I try to form my own opinion. And just like you am I biased and prefer explanations that makes sense for me and support my bias.

Edit:
Made a mistake with the graph. Prices for clothes didn't rise but fall.

Illegal immigrants and refugees will work for minimum wage and no benefits

which means you can loose your job if you ask for promotion or more benefits.

Employers are apathetic to the needs of native employees.

Do you think the utilization of slave labor in China falls under the rubric of "competitive markets"?

We had such movements in the not-so-distant past. The leaders were killed off and replaced by people whose primary interest was the fat union pension funds.

While I am sure we are closer to AI cutting into peoples jobs then ever before in our history, I still think we are a ways off. All I had to do is look at the state of network security to see that if hackers are seemingly breaking into government and business networks now, why would a business turn jobs over to robots that could be hacked into and turned into little ninja/robot spies in the blink of an eye?

While people are corrupt it takes a lot more effort to turn people into stealing ideas and causing havok than it does to hack into one network and take over all robots a business has working in a factory, etc.

Just my .02

Funny how you see almost no discussion at all of firmware vulnerability. lol

[url=https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf]Trust(1984)[/url]

Back to the topic: I recently read an article about industrial robots reaching the 2nd stage, meaning the emergence of robots which can change their programming themselves if another manufacturing step is needed. Well each program itself needs to be programmed by a human, but the robots can now adapt themselves in the production line when producing goods.

Also there is much going on in the AI department, although the AI hype of the early 2000s has toned down a lot. Agents who program themselves according to their goals in a given environment and learn from their experiences. At the moment those environments are not very complex and computing power is the main problem to advance to more complex environments. One other main problem is semantics, a program has no sense of an object and its semantic in context to a given environment, which is necessary to know what to do and what to use to solve a given problem.

We will have still a lot of years, before we will see robots competing in jobs which need complex problem solving capabilities to accomplish the given tasks in the respective job.

I'll brb to continue this still today. In the interim, I do recall your avatar and have some recollection we might have posted at each other some other time. Do you know if I'm right?


This is easier to address.

For one, if you want to jump into the conversation, it would be more effective to treat your dialogue partner with respect. I might be wrong, but the way you posted is pinging my troll alarms.


For another, please clarify how you define slavery. Do you consider the industrial labor in Industrial Revolution England slavery as well? How about typical historical east european serfdom, is that slavery to you? Or the Ottoman janissaries, were they slaves for the most part?

I ask because the first of those 3 examples is the closest to China's present realities (I'm no expert in Chinese history so maybe you had somethign else in mind).

And only the second example is even close to the central meaning of slavery - you know, of africans in american plantations, or muslim piracy and white slavery, or plain old ancient pre feudal slavery.

In fact I'd say this is a perfect example of the kind of semantical tricks that undermine economic literacy. Shifting definitions of poverty the perfect example.

So, like, maybe rephrase the question? You can be more precise I'm sure.


But here's me being nice:
Competitive markets in my application are non coercive. Slavery is coercive. You can draw the logical conclusion.

Lol :D

From the bottom as I consider your higher points the more relevant ones. (excepting #1, which you echo later and so I answer only once, as my first point)

Regarding bias, and specifically mine. I'd rather keep deeper values out of this for the time being. But it's no secret that I believe in free will. That leads me to privilege human choice. Other stuff follows from that. I formed these beliefs fairly late, and originating in the hard sciences. How it applied or not to human sciences like economy and history was a much later process. How it applied to politics was a happy coincidence in that I had somehow instinctively shifted towards coherent positiions on the basis on valuing political freedom.

Regarding economic obscurity. First, not all hard, repeatable, demonstrable scientific truths are intuitive. Second, there is a large step from the fundamental laws to their application in dynamic circumstances. Thirdly, it relies on numerical literacy, itself a touchy topic. Lastly, there is a large element of willful ignorance - this is an area which if confronted rationally and objectively easily removes certain illusions we like to keep about human values. Or as you put it, there is a barrier to overcome regarding sel-awareness of one's biases and how important we are in the grand scheme of things. Of course none of that is about should. It merely explains why something is.

Regarding your German links, I must apologize for not even opening them. Maybe you can offer a summary of their subject matter? I don't think they will disprove my point though. Specialist media will of course be an exception, which broadly speaking might be split in half between macro and micro topics. But mass media, when concerned with economic matters, will either focus on the human angles, or the national angles. In the first ones, the typical media bias will be to present only the negative - like for example a big story about a factory close, hardly any story about a factory opening. More relevantly, at the national level economy is by definition macro - GDP, interest rates, central bank interventions, currency wars, unemployment rates, demographic change, etc... etc... it's all macro.

Now continuing the deepdive. One important thing about the graph is that it is nominal prices. Given inflation in the period even a nominal rise might not actually be a loss of purchasing power - in other words, the graphic is somewhat alarmist in regards to what is actually more expensive - its illustrative value is the spread depending on the type of "good" being priced. You understand this I trust? A 100$ food basket in 1996 might cost 164$ in 2016, but those 100$ might have been 1 daily wage back then, whereas the 164$ today are not as high as 1.64 days of wage.

Then, as I already mentioned, the quality and diversity of the food basket might also have changed significantly. I happen to recall 1996 and if you can as well I need say nothing about the increase in variety of food products available in comparison. Food quality I guess is much more subjective, but I think we would easily agree that food quality has not worsened. Junk food already existed. Healthy food like vegetables, or plain cereals was and is cheaper than processed foods. And we certainly did not go back to compromised standards of hygiene, almost daily food poisoning, etc...

Now to actually engage your point. Of course I wil agree with you that food and clothing are more basic and fundamental. In fact that is a reason why we find it hard to feel the state's finger on the economic scale: our basic needs are mostly being met. But no one has said - least of all me - that software, toys and electronics are more important than healthcare and education. To the contrary, and hence why I find the graphic quite tragic. I said so ealier already in fact.

Finally, on the crux of the matter. I would hope you find the second observation obvious (competitive markets leading to material welfare) and are only asking for examples regarding price controls? Because the correlations between technological innovation, capitalism, free markets, globalization and the reduction of poverty, the reduction of input labor - despite huge population increases - are not obscure historical realities. However if I am mistaken, I guess here you have a perfect example of truth being obscured by... well, you tell me by what? :)

Wait. Neoliberal propaganda right? :) I guess that might be a clue to what could be blinding you... again, the labels hardly matter - I don't identify as neoliberal, I'm much more classical liberal. But that you might be staring truth in the face, and dismiss it as almost a lie is more worrisome. So, if you are keen to dialogue in earnest and bridge the gaps between us, then please read this, and maybe the links about historical examples, and tell me what exactly you consider propaganda in the causal relations described. And please - don't shift the goalposts. I was careful from the start to speak of material welfare.

Finally, regarding price controls. I read a book specifically on that topic less than two years ago. It was quite dry but for this purpose ideal. I can pick it up and give you numerous examples. However, I suggest a micro economics lesson to get at the same truth. Can you kindly let me know when you last sold something? Or tell me something you are selling, or would like to sell in the near future. I find examples are much more effective if they are nearer to home - so to speak.

PS: Further reading

So is your thesis that only slaves commit suicide?

A bit far from the topic actually under discussion... stop shifting the goalposts with loaded nonsequiturs.

Your density of fallacious argumentation per wordcount is impressive, I'll give you that.

Edit for PS: Dude, I remember reading that article 5 years ago when it came out... and even speed reading now I already found facts that go against the slavery narrative you're trying to push. What are you trying to prove here?

Foxconn is the very best that China has -- It's showpiece. Yet that is where the suicide nets popped up, in response to a spike in suicides due to coerced overtime.

So I ask you, does China meet your criteria for "competitive markets"?

From the article you posted:

"When one jumper left a note explaining that he committed suicide to provide for his family, the program of remuneration for the families of jumpers was canceled."

Funny how ^that^ directly contradicts you... messy reality getting in the way of your dogma.

And what a "spike":

"Out of a million people, 17 suicides isn’t much—indeed, American college students kill themselves at four times that rate."

That's just like, in the first ten paragraphs you linked? Stop trolling.


To throw you another bone however, China is a fascist planned economy - which is mostly irrelevant to the sweatshop / slavery angle you are pushing. You see, that's what I find hilarious about you. You might actually have believed I thought China was somehow an example of ideal capitalism, liberalism, whatever you want to call it. You reached the correct answer - they're far from a paragon of virtue - but your process is all screwed up. You flunk mate.


PS: For the audience's benefit. The Chinese government would rather have much more control over the population displacements brought by labor demand (caused by Foxconn, etc). Also Chinese reality regarding sociopolitics is very difficult to break into, but traditionally the main political tension in China is precisely pitting central planners - whether they are nationalist or communist or both - versus the kind of independent minded (read: risky separatist) warlord / entrepreneurs that are constant in its history. That is why richlind's attempt to paint the picture of an obvious alliance of interest between the chinese state and the Foxconn's of the world is borderline farcical. * Of course I don't actually know if Foxconn management specifically is under control / influence of the Chinese ruling party or some element of the opposition, but the dynamics are all wrong. Chinese politicians are happy with the geopolitical fruits in terms of capital and power brought by globalization, but they are very suspicious of its societal impacts - especially any kind of capital driven empowerment of rival elites, as well of "trickle down" empowerment of the masses. ** They know very well that capitalist economic activity tends to lead to democratic demand - it's no coincidence how political liberal reform followed the Industrial Revolution in England. Which is quite ironic in the context of economic literacy I was talking to viper.

** No surprise they find it very hard to thread the needle of "managed growth" via encouraging internal consumption as an alternative for diminishing international demand.

* I'm being unfair - Richlind's angle if I recall is rather about the world elites aligning to control the people. Unlike a hardcore communist for whom the bourgeousie is seen dogmatically as a conservative united block (at present the lingo would be a privileged united block ofc), he sees the elites dogmatically as a maquiavelian united block (pulling strings, etc... I would be surprised if he is not traditionally anti-semitic). Circling back, that's why I think he finds it so hard to believe I'm being sincere - I also see conflicts between political and economic interests. He only sees collusion.

Well, I guess I've still to learn much about economics. And arguing without thinking and backing up with knowledge and sources.
The propaganda claim was aimed at the source of the article that you linked. As soon as I saw my bias confirmed I pretty much ignored everything else in your post. I want to apologize for my more emotionally and bias guided posts.