DAK, thermodynamics is NOT to do with everything. It is to do with temperature, enthalpy, entropy and entropy does NOT mean the cliched "disorder".
You will not find dollars mentioned in thermodynamics [other than in the cost of the fuel to drive the various thermodynamic cycles, or in the cost of the textbook explaining thermodynamics].
This from somebody who is happy to use wild analogies!! In this case, your analogy doesn't fit the reality of what happens.
Okay, I stretched the humans reverting to 'normal' a bit too far to be intelligible. Try this. Humans never did revert to the "normal" state of being illiterate [which they nearly all were up until 100 years ago]. Computers never did revert to the 'normal' state of Pentium 286 ASICs and 20 megabytes of memory.
It is simply not true that things return to "normal" unless that "normal" has a basic equilibrium about it which drives things back to that range.
P:Es have a "normal" range because they reflect expectations people have. If we are guaranteed to live one million years, then a 1% return on investment would see us retired for nearly one million years if we deferred spending for only about the first 100 years. If we just spent all our money when getting it, we'd have to work the whole million years. Which would dishearten a lot of people. The longer the expected lifespan and the more secure the ownership of property, the lower the return on investment for which it makes sense to defer spending.
There is very little "normal" about the state of humanity or economics in the first year of the 21st century.
We are off on an adventure. We don't know where we're going, but we're on our way.
Mqurice
PS: For interest [WARNING, large document for those with low bandwidth] kurzweilai.net <...The Double Exponential Growth of the Economy During the 1990s Was Not a Bubble
Yet another manifestation of the law of accelerating returns as it rushes toward the Singularity can be found in the world of economics, a world vital to both the genesis of the law of accelerating returns, and to its implications. It is the economic imperative of a competitive marketplace that is driving technology forward and fueling the law of accelerating returns. In turn, the law of accelerating returns, particularly as it approaches the Singularity, is transforming economic relationships.
Virtually all of the economic models taught in economics classes, used by the Federal Reserve Board to set monetary policy, by Government agencies to set economic policy, and by economic forecasters of all kinds are fundamentally flawed because they are based on the intuitive linear view of history rather than the historically based exponential view. The reason that these linear models appear to work for a while is for the same reason that most people adopt the intuitive linear view in the first place: exponential trends appear to be linear when viewed (and experienced) for a brief period of time, particularly in the early stages of an exponential trend when not much is happening. But once the "knee of the curve" is achieved and the exponential growth explodes, the linear models break down. The exponential trends underlying productivity growth are just beginning this explosive phase.
The economy (viewed either in total or per capita) has been growing exponentially throughout this century:... contd...> |
