Where are the starving people in capitalist countries?
The US health care system is pretty much run by the government. It is not a result of free markets.
A large part of profit maximization (i.e. optimizing) usually means reducing the amount of material needed. Isn't that a good thing?
The people who "rough it" in the wilderness still seem to be backpacking in hi tech equipment. I read about the kit that Lewis & Clark carried. No thanks. (Even on that "Alone" show, they bring hi tech equipment.)
Is that free market?
> Where are the starving people in capitalist countries?
The first example from the top of my head is Argentina.
> A large part of profit maximization (i.e. optimizing) usually means reducing the amount of material needed. Isn't that a good thing?
This very much depends on the industry. In software, for instance, it's exactly the opposite.
> The people who "rough it" in the wilderness still seem to be backpacking in hi tech equipment. I read about the kit that Lewis & Clark carried. No thanks. (Even on that "Alone" show, they bring hi tech equipment.)
No idea what you're talking about.
Argentina is hardly a free market country - https://borgenproject.org/hunger-in-argentina/
> In software, for instance, it's exactly the opposite.
??
> No idea what you're talking about.
Watch "Alone". I think it's on Netflix. Compare it with the kit of Lewis and Clark.
>
> ??
During the last 30+ years, the trend has always been to increase hardware use to save on development/thinking time. AI is the latest and most extreme version of it.
> Argentina is hardly a free market country - https://borgenproject.org/hunger-in-argentina/
Are you by any chance moving the goalposts?
On the one side, it has succeeded at reducing costs, which has indeed given rich societies unprecedented access to consumer goods.
On the other, it has outsourced from us both jobs and knowledge, which has resulted in higher unemployment and dissatisfaction, with as consequences the political dominoes we see falling internationally. That and the shoddy US health system (which the rest of the world seems to have decided to follow, for some reason).
And there is the small fact that we're in the process of optimizing the planet to death, and that not-so-rich countries (as well as formerly-rich ones) have starved to death for this high standard of living.
So, let's appreciate our standard of living, but not assume that it's necessarily a good thing in the grand scheme of things.