I really appreciate this post, it points out something I consider extremely important. It's obviously aligned with gradual disempowerment/intelligence curse type discussion, however I'm not sure if I can say if I've ever seen this specific thing discussed elsewhere.
I would like to mention a 5th type, though perhaps not the type discussed in your post since it likely doesn't apply to those who actually do rigorously study economics, this is more so a roadblock I hit regarding the layman's understanding of Econ. To summarize it in three words, the idea that "consumerism is important".
Examples of this sort of misconception:
Corporations will go out of business/fail if there are no consumers to buy their products (false, profit doesn't require consumers, for example a self reproducing robot factory)
Corporations will always produce products that consumers want (false, via falsification of assertion 1 they have no incentive to do so)
Corporations need money to do anything. The only way they can get money is by interacting with the economy/selling products. (false, they can barter with other companies or do things themselves)
Even if corporations can do all this, why should they? There will be nothing to do with all their money if everyone else is broke! (same reason bacteria grow exponentially, no reason, but because they can)
I'm sure I've not worded this particularly eloquently but I hope you understand what I mean. I cannot emphasize enough how frequently, when discussing AGI with others, I get pushed back using these arguments. I struggle countering them because people seemingly have this deeply baked in idea of "consumerism is what drives the economy". If I could reach some kind of intuitive explanation as to why these arguments are wrong, it would be extremely useful.
I really appreciate this post, it points out something I consider extremely important. It's obviously aligned with gradual disempowerment/intelligence curse type discussion, however I'm not sure if I can say if I've ever seen this specific thing discussed elsewhere.
I would like to mention a 5th type, though perhaps not the type discussed in your post since it likely doesn't apply to those who actually do rigorously study economics, this is more so a roadblock I hit regarding the layman's understanding of Econ. To summarize it in three words, the idea that "consumerism is important".
Examples of this sort of misconception:
I'm sure I've not worded this particularly eloquently but I hope you understand what I mean. I cannot emphasize enough how frequently, when discussing AGI with others, I get pushed back using these arguments. I struggle countering them because people seemingly have this deeply baked in idea of "consumerism is what drives the economy". If I could reach some kind of intuitive explanation as to why these arguments are wrong, it would be extremely useful.