Machines are fungible: Difference between revisions

}}[[Machines are fungible]]: you can engineer the same machine and get the same results anywhere in the world. The difference in operating cost between the same piece of machinery here and there — essentially the difference in real estate and energy inputs — is an opportunity for [[arbitrage]].<Ref>Though it might be blown out by transport costs and material qualities, not to mention variability in the [[meatware]].</ref> Machines ''are'' totally fungible. The [[meatware]] which operates it is ''not''. To be sure one can ''generalise'' about people — it is [[Unconscious bias|hard not to]] — these are [[heuristic]]s — rules of thumb, top be used provisionally and in the absence of better intelligence — and if we treat them as immutable rules on which we may rely we are asking for trouble.