Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution talks about how the information age may change what it may mean to be 'educated.' Definitely read his post (he's much smarter than I), but I don't think he's gone far enough.
An article on the knowledge based economy may help explain.
Also, I started typing this a month ago, and it got really long. So I've slimmed it down and started an essay that you can read at Google Docs.
Also, I started typing this a month ago, and it got really long. So I've slimmed it down and started an essay that you can read at Google Docs.
Economics: The study of how people use their scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants.
People have some wants that are really important like love, food, shelter, and clothes. So those are the first wants that get met in some way, but after that there's all sorts of things that people want, and different people want different things. So all the different types of economic activity happen to start meeting those needs.
After a point though, peoples basic needs get met so well that they have more time. That extra time means that they can think about better ways to manipulate resources. That thinking creates ideas which get changed and exchanged, creating markets and requiring property rules. As wealth increases, more time is available for thinking, and more ideas are produced and those idea markets expand.
These days, almost all of our time is spent thinking and only a small amount of our time is spent manipulating physical resources.
Professor Cowen's point is that the simple tasks of idea management can now be mechanized by computers, and that (if I read it right) the demand is shifting to idea creation (research) and idea usage (judgement & entrepreneurship).
People have some wants that are really important like love, food, shelter, and clothes. So those are the first wants that get met in some way, but after that there's all sorts of things that people want, and different people want different things. So all the different types of economic activity happen to start meeting those needs.
After a point though, peoples basic needs get met so well that they have more time. That extra time means that they can think about better ways to manipulate resources. That thinking creates ideas which get changed and exchanged, creating markets and requiring property rules. As wealth increases, more time is available for thinking, and more ideas are produced and those idea markets expand.
These days, almost all of our time is spent thinking and only a small amount of our time is spent manipulating physical resources.
Professor Cowen's point is that the simple tasks of idea management can now be mechanized by computers, and that (if I read it right) the demand is shifting to idea creation (research) and idea usage (judgement & entrepreneurship).
