From: Byrne Hobart (bhobart@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Apr 21 2008 - 13:46:41 MDT
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/16leonhardt.html?bl&ex=1208750400&en=13a3b992e95c0982&ei=5087hat maximizes U(x) then you are content. If you discover it is a local
> Interesting. Perhaps the change in the results is because in modern times
> people are more aware of how the rich live in other countries. American
> movies, TV and culture are seen all over the world. If you believe you
> found
> x that maximizes U(x) then you are content. If you discover it is a local
> maximum (because somebody else has a higher U(x)), then you are less
> happy.
>
Quite a theory! I wonder countries that have powerful, market-sympathetic
governments (e.g Dubai, Singapore, some parts of China) will try or have
tried to broadcast lots of imagery of Western prosperity to make their
workers more productive. It could also lead benevolent governments to censor
these things, or even to push the media to portray rich people as worse off
than they really are. The Pro-Hedonist Censor AI is not a scenario I've
considered before.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:01:02 MDT