Americans Would Rather Go Mad Max Than Go Socialist

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At the East Bay Futurist meetup today, we discussed a non-Singularity scenario  similar to the vision in Lights in the Tunnel.  In this scenario, automation eliminates enough jobs that the economy stops functioning.  The idea that automation causes macroeconomic harm is known as the Luddite Fallacy.   Historically automation has lead to short term unemployment, but the resulting lowered cost of goods supposedly created more demand and the displaced workers were able to find jobs in other sectors.

We were discussing this topic last year around this time at the East Bay Futurists.  It may be that the fall brings out these melancholy thoughts.  Maybe the damp and cold produces some malevolent mold or something.  But I am still looking  for an economist who can show that automation is continuing to create jobs.  It looks like the world employment to population ratio has decreased from 62% to 60% between 1991 and 2011.

Blogger Steve Roth offers a couple of reasons why the Luddite Fallacy argument might be running out of steam:

1. The limits of human capabilities (Not everyone can get a PhD in Computer Science and eventurally there may be nothing that machines can’t do.)
2. The declining marginal utility of innovation and consumption. (All the important stuff has been around since the 60’s and really how many more mansions do you need?)

Now supposedly there is some sort of argument that says consumption by the super rich can continue to drive the economy.  But I like how Roth dissects that argument using Marginal Propensity to Consume.  Basically poor people spend a greater portion of their income.  Apparently the third Lamborghini is somewhat less satisfying to the rich than having enough food is to the poor.

Now there is also this idea that we can somehow transition from a work based economy to an asset based economy.  Robin Hanson alludes to this during this discussion with Martin Ford (see 21:20 for the asset argument).  Hanson’s point about machines generating more net wealth may be true.  Poverty is  decreasing, the number of people living below the poverty line worldwide has decrease from 52% to 28% between 1981 and 2008.  How do we transition from adding value through labor to just owning assets?  It’s especially hard for me to understand how this new asset economy works for the poor.  Do they switch from owning goats to owning GoatBots in order to survive?  A lot of people will get left out in the cold in that sort of economy.  Asset management is tricky and the sheep will soon get fleeced of their assets.

So we need to fundamentally restructure our economy in the face of accelerating automation.  Is it still possible to salvage the work model by finding ways to monetize what people do with their hearts and minds as Lanier suggests?  Or should we just give everyone $25,000 a year to drive consumption as Marshall Brain has suggested?

A lot of people seem to think that some sort of stipend will be required to keep the economy flowing.  However, I am fairly skeptical that this will come about.  Look how the EU is pushing austerity.  Here in the US, half the population demands freedom FROM health care.  I honestly think that us Americans will choose to go Mad Max before we turn (more) socialist.  But I could be wrong.  The Great Depression brought about a bunch of social programs.  Maybe something like that will happen again.

But, Lanier’s argument is interesting:monetize heart and minds, etc.  As I said before, Vinge thinks that the only thing humans can do which machines won’t be able to do is want things.  How do you monetize that?  And even if the SuperRich did suddenly decide to get all loving and start handing out stipends, what about well being?  I think of the youth rioting in England in 2011.  Those kids had the dole, but they weren’t happy.

Seligman’s PERMA (Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) model of well being comes to mind.  We can hand people money and then what?  Star Fleet won’t be recruiting for a while yet. Where does accomplishment come from?  Games?  The arts?  But still this is all premised on a bunch of meglomaniacal sociopaths handing over a bunch of money.  I’m not holding my breathe.  I am just saving as much money as I can in the hopes of affording an adequate KillBot(tm) once ThunderDome time comes.

Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient

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I recently completed a couple of 23andMe research surveys that measure your Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient.  Empathizing–systemizing theory  was developed by Borat actor Sasha Baron-Cohen’s cousin, Simon Baron-Cohen as a way to understand autism.  According to this theory, people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have a below average ability to empathize and and an above average ability to systemize. They are more interested in systems than people.

Note that E-S theory differentiates between cognitive and affective empathy.  So ASD folks have trouble determining how others are feeling (cognitive empathy) but can empathize when they do understand the state of mind of others (they have affective empathy).  They are contrasted with psychopaths who know how you are feeling and don’t care and will use that to hurt or manipulate or run major corporations.

Gut Flora and Cognition

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You may already know this, but I was surprised to hear that the microbes living in an on our bodies outnumber our own cells 10 to 1 and collectively contain orders of magnitude more genetic information.  I guess that’s not necessarily saying much since the common potato has almost twice as many genes as a human.  There is actually a huge effort in the EU to sequence the DNA of the human microbiome called MetaHIT.

MetaHIT discovered that there are 3, err 2  distinct microbiome population types callled enterotypes.  One enterotype is dominated by the Bacteroides genus of microbes and is related to high fat or protein diets. This the one a lot of fat people have.  The Prevotella enterotype is characterized by high carb diets and I assume is related to better metabolic health.

Gut flora have been implicated in everything from  mood regulation to diabetes.  The fecal transplant stories are pretty freaky too.  This is a treatment for bacterial infections (primarily Clostridium difficile?) that involves transferring fecal matter from a healthy relative into the colon of a person desperately ill with a bacterial infection.  Once the gut flora is fixed, it takes care of the other bad bugs hanging around.  Some people also think there might be a connection between autism and gut flora problems.

I don’t want to get all Larry Smarr about it, but I am interested in getting my gut flora sequenced.  So I joined this study on the Genomera citizen science platform organized by the smart and cool Melanie Swan: Microbiome Profiling Response to Probiotic in a Healthy Cohort.  Here is the description:

Critical to digestive health, the microbiome is a newly available personal health data stream. Join this first-ever participant-organized citizen science microbiome project! Second Genome will provide microbiome sequencing to analyze potential shifts in the gut microbiome before and after 4 weeks of a daily dose of an OTC probiotic such asCulterelle® (Lactobacillus GG). A personalized report will be provided to each participant with the global shift in microbiome bacterial abundance by individual and study group, and a personalized profile of ratios pre and post intervention of Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Helicobacter pylori, and the most abundant 10-15 bacterial taxa at the phylogenetic family level (DRAFT of sample report). Human genetic SNPs related to Ulcerative Colitis andCrohn’s Disease are optionally requested to see if they may have a connection with microbiome profiles.

It’s $800 for the sequencing from Second Genome (which I hear is a good price) and I encourage anyone interested to join up.  We need more people to join before we can begin the study, so spread the word.  Check out Melanie’s blog when you get a chance, she covers a lot of QS, Futurist, and other modern topics.

Sorry, I know the title is Gut Flora and Cognition, but I don’t have much to say on that since the data isn’t in yet.  I suspect he work on mood or autism might pan out.  Those are cognitive things.  Also, I intend to recommend people track their cognitive performance with Quantified Mind during the probiotic study to see if this gut intervention makes you smarter or stupider.  Though I think that this article makes a good point when the author questions “the ability of a single strain of bacteria to impact on the vast inner ecosystem of the human gut.”  So a tiny dose of just a few strains of bacteria taken orally seems unlikely to have much impact.  Still, we shall see, we shall see.