From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Sun Jan 04 2004 - 17:47:22 MST
Perry,
I've studied economics fairly extensively (although most of my study was 15
years ago; the only part I've kept up with lately is mathematical finance),
and I've read Ayn Rand as well.
I agree with this particular statement of Tommy McCabe. It's obvious that
in future hypothetical scenarios where things like individual self are
thrown out the window, contemporary human-ish economics will likely also be
thrown out the window.
Mathematical economics is nice, but it's all based on assumptions that apply
only erratically even to HUMAN societies ... let alone to transhuman
societies. Modern economic research tries to bend the overly restrictive
assumptions, but this generates very hard computational problems that verge
on AI, see e.g. the work of Tuomas Sandholm (founder of CombineNet, a
company devoted to combinatorial auction technology):
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~sandholm/cv.pdf
-- Ben G
> Tommy McCabe <rocketjet314@yahoo.com> writes:
> > I am suggesting that the human trait of selfishness
> > (ie, goal systems that center around 'I'), which makes
> > capitalism necessary, or at least, vastly preferable,
> > to any society whose individuals have differing goals,
> > is not intristic to minds-in-general, and therefore
> > capitalism is not required for minds-in-general.
>
> In addition to reading a bit about economics, you might want to read a
> bit of Ayn Rand as well, if only to understand the consequences of
> what you are thinking.
>
> --
> Perry E. Metzger perry@piermont.com
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:43 MDT