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David Sasaki's avatar

I assume the associations with job cuts are too strong, and any rebrand would be treated like Orwellian corporate speak. Which is too bad because I agree that it’s one of the most important long-term indicators.

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Winkler Weinberg's avatar

“Productivity” alone is not too far off!

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yegg's avatar

Yeah, that's an interesting idea to just shorten it. I struggle with productivity in particular, mostly since I think it has a negative connotation (and increasingly so because of AI).

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Winkler Weinberg's avatar

Agree — Peak productivity implies creating Morlocks.

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Lee's avatar

It is 100% true that TFP is critically important to - let's call it - "global" long-term progress for global standards of living, etc. The problem is that exploiting cheap labor and global violence offers an easy way to disproportionately boost one's own tribe's standard of living at the expense of "others." I struggle with economic gauges that measure a goal that's, thus far, unrealistic: you don't have to increase labor productivity for the many if the beneficiaries are few and hold power.

That said, it would be a beautiful thing if our economic engine focused more on boosting labor productivity—in all aspects, including the health and welfare of labor, not just maximized production per unit time. I think "people in power" (soft description, I know) are trying to solve the optimization problem of "level of pain people are willing to absorb" versus the amount of power and wealth they can amass. In my estimation, AI will need to be the boon for the "common person" that it's being sold as.

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