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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2837 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 12, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'm saying that there's a reason artisanal mining is limited to the worst places in the world, and it's not because the Congolese have a comparative advantage in digging holes.

and it's not because the Congolese have a comparative advantage in digging holes.

The hell it's not! If they didn't have a comparative advantage there, they wouldn't be able to sell their cobalt.

Nevertheless, there's comparatively few resources produced by artisanal mining. Your argument would suggest that all resources should be mined artisanally, since apparently a guy with a shovel is comparatively better at mining than highly industrialized mining operations.

I'm not sure how that's implied. My point was addressing the idea of AI causing technological unemployment, or the more optimistic scenario of AI freeing us to do commit to higher intellectual pursuits. I've made no claim about the ratios of resources mined with manual human labor vs automated AI labor.

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