How Moore's law stabbed us in the back

John Hall
Thu, 3 Jan 2002 13:56:07 -0800

You can rest assured that the trend in the price of atoms has always
been down, or at least down for western civilization.  Doesn't matter
whether the atoms involved are wheat or silicon.

Interstingly enough, however, the trend in the price of human beings is
another constant.  It goes up over time.

The startling observation by Julian Simon was that the naysayers had it
exactly backwards.  Stuff keeps getting cheaper.  People keep getting
more expensive.

It is useful to think of an economic system where production costs are
zero and the only cost is search costs and service.

> Now, if what your selling is going down in price, your 
> supplies better be dropping to. Since the only variable cost 
> in the tech industry (moore controls the cost of atoms) is 
> human labor... guess what.