Milton Friedman - I, Pencil

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Recommends hiAndrewQuinn · 2025-07 · on “We're not innovating, we're just forgetting slower”

Milton Friedman put it best, in "I, Pencil". Everything around you is the result of hundreds to thousands of economic actors, loosely but robustly coordinated in a way to get you what you actually want at as low of a price as you can get away with. The complexity of the supply chain is the price of admission to the game. [this video]

Cites eddieh · 2019-12 · on “Adam Smith and the Pin Factory”

It should remind you of I, Pencil since it is essentially the modern telling of Smith's pin factory. Milton Friedman described the pencil in his Free to Choose series: [this video] And in 2012 CEI made a movie version: [LINK] I know the rules here are such that we don't talk about voting up/down, but I have no idea why you were voted down. Your post is on-topic and informative. I didn't know their was a book version or the CEI movie version, I had only watched the Free to Choose series. Thanks for sharing.

Cites TedDoesntTalk · 2020-09 · on “Google says its carbon footprint is now zero”

Reminds me of “I, Pencil”. Here’s Milton Friedman’s 2 minute video about it: [this video] The sheer number of vendors google has makes it nearly impossible to be 100% carbon neutral.

Cites zer00eyz · 2024-01 · on “Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI”

The show "The Walking Dead" always bothered me. Where do they keep finding gas that will still run a car? It wont last forever in tanks, and most gas is just in time delivery (Stations get daily delivery) -- And someone noted on the show that the grass was always mowed. I feel like the AI safety folks are spinning an amazing narrative, the AI is gonna get us like the zombies!!! The retort to the ai getting out of the box is how long is the extortion cord from the data center? Lets get a refresher on complexity: I, Pencil [this video] The reality is that we're a solar flair away from a dead electrical grid. Without linesman the grid breaks down pretty quickly and AI's run on power. It takes one AI

Cites samstave · 2024-01 · on “Automatic class sorting with Prettier (2022)”

Sure, we can simplify it as such.... Deploy it to what? How? Via what? Who is managing it? Who is paying for it? Who physically installed the server, and setup your ability to DrawTheRestOfTheHTML? Personally - while we want abstraction in our deployment understandings to smooth ramp understanding - its important to see all the supporting inputs that made your SFTP of an .html possible. >>I once saw him teach a philosophy lesson about a pencil. A Fuckin' Pencil! [this video]

Cites CTDOCodebases · 2024-03 · on “Ask HN: Do you also marvel at the complexity of everyday objects?”

Thanks for posting this. I saw a video[0] with Milton Friedman in it that quoted this essay but didn't understand it's origin. [this video]

Cites jcarrano · 2024-03 · on “Ask HN: Do you also marvel at the complexity of everyday objects?”

Leonard Read had the same feeling when he wrote "I, Pencil". Here [1] you have it narrated by Milton Friedman. [1] [this video]

Cites smitty1e · 2025-01 · on “Be Aware of the Makefile Effect”

What is the counter-example? We recycle known good stuff to avoid getting bogged down and introducing fresh flaws. The admonition to know what we're doing and act deliberately applies to so much in life, but flies in the face of Milton Friedman's point in "I, Pencil" => [this video]