if things get crazy you want your capital to grow rapidly.
Why (if by “crazy” you mean “world output increasing rapidly”)? Isn’t investing to try to have much more money in case world output is very high somewhat like buying insurance to pay the cost of a taxi to the lottery office in case you win the lottery? Your net worth is positively correlated with world GDP, so worlds in which world GDP is higher are worlds in which you have more money, and thus worlds in which money has a lower marginal utility to you. People do tend to value being richer than others in addition to merely being rich, but perhaps not enough to generate the numbers you need to make those investments be the obviously best choice.
In an automation scenario, is your net worth correlated with world GDP? (Was the net worth of horses correlated with world GDP growth during the Industrial Revolution? Or chimpanzees during all human history? In an em scenario, who do the gains flow to—is it humans who own no capital and who earn income through labor?)
Thanks for pointing this out; you’re right that your net worth wouldn’t necessarily be correlated with world GDP in many plausible scenarios of how takeoff could happen. I suppose the viability of things like taxation and redistribution of wealth by governments as well as trade involving humans during and after a takeoff could be the main determinants of whether the correlation between the two would be as strong as it is today or closer to zero. I wonder what I should expect the correlation to be.
ETA: After all, governments don’t redistribute human wealth to either horses or chimpanzees, and humans don’t engage in trade with them.
Why (if by “crazy” you mean “world output increasing rapidly”)? Isn’t investing to try to have much more money in case world output is very high somewhat like buying insurance to pay the cost of a taxi to the lottery office in case you win the lottery? Your net worth is positively correlated with world GDP, so worlds in which world GDP is higher are worlds in which you have more money, and thus worlds in which money has a lower marginal utility to you. People do tend to value being richer than others in addition to merely being rich, but perhaps not enough to generate the numbers you need to make those investments be the obviously best choice.
(h/t to Avraham Eisenberg for this point)
In an automation scenario, is your net worth correlated with world GDP? (Was the net worth of horses correlated with world GDP growth during the Industrial Revolution? Or chimpanzees during all human history? In an em scenario, who do the gains flow to—is it humans who own no capital and who earn income through labor?)
Thanks for pointing this out; you’re right that your net worth wouldn’t necessarily be correlated with world GDP in many plausible scenarios of how takeoff could happen. I suppose the viability of things like taxation and redistribution of wealth by governments as well as trade involving humans during and after a takeoff could be the main determinants of whether the correlation between the two would be as strong as it is today or closer to zero. I wonder what I should expect the correlation to be.
ETA: After all, governments don’t redistribute human wealth to either horses or chimpanzees, and humans don’t engage in trade with them.