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Robotics, sensors, semis, mems, memory, and automation are all feeding demand for each other in an ever accelerating pattern. When one improves, it creates more demand for the others and we now have at least six physical factors feeding this snow ball effect. On top of this we have soft social factors of increasing education/training of ever increasing amounts of people also feeding this change. This extends from the deep ocean mining to using satellites for communications and managing our resources from space. All this has significantly speeded up research of all types creating ever more demand for a variety of products and services that never existed before with new ones almost being created daily in some field or another. This has thrown tradition supply and demand economic and social structures out the window. We have truly entered the age of the "Great Acceleration" where progress picks up speed at an ever increasing rate in ever more areas. It is also broadening out our horizons in what automation can be used for, from autonomous vehicles to vastly increased use of space with both dropping in price dramatically while increasing functionality at the same rate. We are in a totally new paradigm and it's better to embrace it and accept and use it to reach and expand our full potential, rather than try to fight it, which is self defeating and a waste of resources. It will take some effort to get rid of thinking and doing things that have literally worked for centuries and enter this new frontier that is the result of a singularity of forces finally coming together that has never existed before. In short, the world has totally changed, expanded and accelerated, accept it, embrace it and enjoy it.
The US Economy grew just 2.6% in Q4 2017, so I wouldn't use the phrase Great Acceleration. Yes, new products and categories are replacing older, mature products and categories, but it looks very gradual to me.
The US Economy grew just 2.6% in Q4 2017, so I wouldn't use the phrase Great Acceleration. Yes, new products and categories are replacing older, mature products and categories, but it looks very gradual to me.
Dan, I wasn't referring to just the US economy, but the world economy in general. Their are many products that have been greatly improved in versatility and functionality at a lower price. This would actually show up as a shrinkage of the economy, when it is actually increasing value of the real world economy. Increasing value and efficiency is not something being taken into account in dollar terms, but shows up in quality of living. Most of the shrinkage is due to waste caused by resources inefficiently and ineffectively devoted to massive and increasing waste in military, prisons, medical, infrastructure and education due to resources misallocated to an increasing ineffective bureaucracy managing these endeavors. One of the largest taxes has been an ever increasing mountain of regulation that has been a constant drag on what easily should be an accelerating economy. Both the US and China have the same problem, just study the poor efficiency in China's SOEs and excess special interest regulations in the US. To bad the faster, better, cheaper of the tech world doesn't follow through to governments. I have hope that the transparency that is possible with the net can be used to shine a light on how governments function in general. If government finances and contracts were made transparent, I'm sure some programmer could come up with a program that would sift through mountains of data and flag abuses. My father who was an industrial engineer had a saying "Organizations of equal size are equally confused" There is little to no Darwinian threat to governments like there is to private enterprise and until this changes problems will continue to be a drag on the economy. Government management of medical is the worst possible case with the US having by far the highest costs with the some of the lowest quality of any modern country. Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos and Jamie Dimon all realize the government/medical alliance will destroy the economy if not brought under control and have so stated. This is but one huge glaring example of near total government failure of which there are many and the number is increasing.
Arthur, I do agree that with any monopoly (Government) there is no motivation to provide excellence, instead the monopoly tries vigorously to defend its entrenched position.
The new SF bay bridge is an ideal example. Bridge engineers state a simple causeway bridge could have been built in a third the time, at a third the cost. This caused excess traffic for twenty years at a staggering cost to everyone and has given us an inferior bridge with some potentially very serious engineering flaws. We desperately need full transparency in government. People would be shocked at a level of waste, incompetence, self serving, inefficiency and outright fraud. One severe problem is in labor negotiations where both sides sit on the same side of the table. All government contracts, pay, compensation, benefits and work rules should be put online in real time. This would be the fastest, cheapest way to an efficient government. It will never happen, all parties in government like to keep as much as possible in the dark. Excess regulation has been considered a tax as high as 35%. This should be our next goal for the payout would prove the best investment we could make at minimal cost. This could be easily done with the tools the tech world has provided. The only reason it is not done is special interest fear it and won't allow it.
