From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 08 1999 - 14:42:39 MST
Robert Bradbury wrote:
> > I'm not sure I understand you, but it seems that you are saying that
> > future economies will have less demand for intelligent labor, such as
> > humans and uploads can provide. I think this is pretty unlikely.
>
>Robin, this raises some very interesting questions. Have economists
>considered the parallels between "economies" and "ecosystems"?
>What are the similarities and differences between the two?
To the extent that the agents in an economy replicate, an economy
*is* an ecosystem. There are many big differences between human
economies and most animal ecosystems. Humans are a lot smarter,
and can therefore base their strategy a lot more on fine details
of situations. Humans have more foresight than most animals, and
so don't have to just do local hill climbing. Humans have
organized far more sophisticated institutions of cooperation,
including property and trading. Finally, the memetic
co-evolving system is a lot stronger in the human ecology.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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