Re:Why you, personally, should want a larger human population
by lo_zamoyski on Monday February 26, 2024 @12:45PM
(#39514396)
> we're no longer bound by labour intensive solutions.
You're committing the same kind of error as the Malthusians. They assume conditions, technology, and accessible resources are fixed. You assume that the labor to be done is fixed.
By your reasoning, the invention of the dishwasher should have led to a permanent increase of unemployment, putting all the dishwashers out of work. But that didn't happen. Instead, it created an industry, a supply chain, a whole market around the dishwasher. Labor-saving tech creates new forms of labor, but you won't notice that if you assume a fixed state of the world and focus only on the immediate effects of a technology.
You're committing the same kind of error as the Malthusians. They assume conditions, technology, and accessible resources are fixed. You assume that the labor to be done is fixed.
By your reasoning, the invention of the dishwasher should have led to a permanent increase of unemployment, putting all the dishwashers out of work. But that didn't happen. Instead, it created an industry, a supply chain, a whole market around the dishwasher. Labor-saving tech creates new forms of labor, but you won't notice that if you assume a fixed state of the world and focus only on the immediate effects of a technology.