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by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 2457 days ago
> Economics 101 says just the opposite, that you create inefficiencies when you don’t specialize.

That's simply bullshit. If you specialize on only installing tires on cars, but not removing them, you have specialized more than a business that swaps your tires, but you have created massive inefficiency by requiring your customers to somehow move around vehicles without tires for you to install tires for them.

There are particular circumstances where specialization increases efficiency, and there are (obviously) other circumstances where specialization decreases efficiency, so it's nonsensical to just say that specializing is always the more efficient choice, which is why all your analogies fail: You use an example where specialization (arguably) increases efficiency, then you completely fail to explain how computer skills fall into the same category as that example, and then you conclude that therefore it is in the same category.
1 comments
scarface74 2457 days ago
And you left out the part where I said “and there is a demand”. There is no demand for someone who can remove a tire but not install it....

Every specialization is about knowing the level of integration and specialization.

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zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 2457 days ago
> And you left out the part where I said “and there is a demand”. There is no demand for someone who can remove a tire but not install it....

Well, then that's simply the claim that markets solve all problems optimally ... which is equally bullshit?

> Every specialization is about knowing the level of integration and specialization.

So ... specialization is always better, except when it's not? Yeah, duh!? How exactly does that help us with determining what the right level of integration and specialization is?

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scarface74 2457 days ago
On a personal level, the “right level” depends on your disposable income and your talents. I have the disposable income to throw money at a lot of things that I don’t want to do - not bragging almost any software engineer in the US should be at the top quintile of earners for their local market.

On a broader scale that’s the entire idea of the value chain.

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