Robots Aren’t Killing the American Dream(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Robots Aren’t Killing the American Dream
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/opinion/no-robots-arent-killing-the-american-dream.html
334 comments
There is no one to entrust UBI to. It will rapidly stop being universal or basic as people pervert it with exceptions. Controlling everyone's income will attract the greatest power mongers the world has ever seen.
Perhaps the unspoken honest answer is that people without other assets are going to live in 'poverty' (compared to the rich); their brains will operate at better watts-per-compute than the computers for a long time and still be worth something. They will earn a living on this. The people that do have assets (e.g. own the robots), are going to be extravagantly wealthy. It will be a feudalism but without violence, seniorage, or other expectation that the poor work for the good to the rich. Just that there's going to be really poor and really rich.
I and my kids will almost certainly be left behind in this. I am not an asset owner. But I will not attack my neighbor for their wealth. I will not turn over my ability to live to some bureaucrat who steals it from the rich and will eventually make me dance and beg for it. Let the rich asset owners go to the stars even if I will not be joining them. Better to have some of us get ahead than hold all back trying to leave no one behind.
Perhaps the unspoken honest answer is that people without other assets are going to live in 'poverty' (compared to the rich); their brains will operate at better watts-per-compute than the computers for a long time and still be worth something. They will earn a living on this. The people that do have assets (e.g. own the robots), are going to be extravagantly wealthy. It will be a feudalism but without violence, seniorage, or other expectation that the poor work for the good to the rich. Just that there's going to be really poor and really rich.
I and my kids will almost certainly be left behind in this. I am not an asset owner. But I will not attack my neighbor for their wealth. I will not turn over my ability to live to some bureaucrat who steals it from the rich and will eventually make me dance and beg for it. Let the rich asset owners go to the stars even if I will not be joining them. Better to have some of us get ahead than hold all back trying to leave no one behind.
I generally try not to get political online; I don't find it very effective (e.g. how many people's opinions have really changed based on their online readings?)
However, in this case, I do want to provide a couple contrarian viewpoints.
One, I am an 'asset owner', and the rent problem is real. Once one reaches a certain threshold of wealth, it becomes almost obnoxious how quickly it grows beyond one's consumption. For instance, I reached the modest 'few million' threshold several years ago, and I have some financial managers. I don't often look at my bank accounts. But, when I do, I am always shocked by how much my net-worth has grown. And, that's after trying to be generous to friends and family (i.e. $10k here, $20k there).
Two, I don't find taxation to be theft. In fact, I pay so little in tax based on what I earn from capital gains, that I never even think about it. And, I'm often surprised that some of my 'average-income' friends are so vehemently ideological about it. But, more to the point, I look at taxation similar to a lease. For instance, I can go rent some capital equipment and use it to build some ROI. And, afterward I pay the owner for the opportunity. I don't think that is theft, so why would I view tax any differently? Or in other words, how would I have been able to profit as much had I lived somewhere else with much less 'social capital'? That isn't to say that I find government efficient or non-corrupt, but those are just the kinks in the system that will always need to be worked out.
I don't expect to change any opinions here. I don't even know if anyone reads this shit. But, I just wanted to point these things out for people who haven't yet formed their ideology.
However, in this case, I do want to provide a couple contrarian viewpoints.
One, I am an 'asset owner', and the rent problem is real. Once one reaches a certain threshold of wealth, it becomes almost obnoxious how quickly it grows beyond one's consumption. For instance, I reached the modest 'few million' threshold several years ago, and I have some financial managers. I don't often look at my bank accounts. But, when I do, I am always shocked by how much my net-worth has grown. And, that's after trying to be generous to friends and family (i.e. $10k here, $20k there).
Two, I don't find taxation to be theft. In fact, I pay so little in tax based on what I earn from capital gains, that I never even think about it. And, I'm often surprised that some of my 'average-income' friends are so vehemently ideological about it. But, more to the point, I look at taxation similar to a lease. For instance, I can go rent some capital equipment and use it to build some ROI. And, afterward I pay the owner for the opportunity. I don't think that is theft, so why would I view tax any differently? Or in other words, how would I have been able to profit as much had I lived somewhere else with much less 'social capital'? That isn't to say that I find government efficient or non-corrupt, but those are just the kinks in the system that will always need to be worked out.
I don't expect to change any opinions here. I don't even know if anyone reads this shit. But, I just wanted to point these things out for people who haven't yet formed their ideology.
Agreed on all points. I would like my tax rate to increase. The marginal utility of dollars is drastically lower past a certain point, and could be better used on public works. I think the biggest boost in life quality would be being surrounded by a happier citizenry.
So be more generous with relevant charities while you wait for your taxes to go up. Nothing's stopping people from being more generous.
I have been, but the current administration's tax proposal looks like it would reduce my tax rate, and in order to make a noticable impact on society as a whole is going to require taxation, people probably aren't suddenly going to get a whole lot more charitable than they have been.
Your statement is the equivalent of the oft-stated "every little bit helps". It really doesn't, because it usually serves as a palliative and stops people short of doing the major work that needs to be done.
I want the decimation of public education to be reversed, I want us to figure out ways to help our fellow citizens who are hurting economically and psychologically. Massive unevenness in wealth accumulation is a huge problem. This is going to take a society-wide effort to fix, not a few NGOs.
Your statement is the equivalent of the oft-stated "every little bit helps". It really doesn't, because it usually serves as a palliative and stops people short of doing the major work that needs to be done.
I want the decimation of public education to be reversed, I want us to figure out ways to help our fellow citizens who are hurting economically and psychologically. Massive unevenness in wealth accumulation is a huge problem. This is going to take a society-wide effort to fix, not a few NGOs.
I find that political solutions tend to stop at the palliative, especially compared to forming friendships and active engagement with relevant charities.
> This is going to take a society-wide effort to fix, not a few NGOs.
The difference between our viewpoints is that I don't see the government as the sole or best face of "society". It's merely one option, and often not the best one.
> This is going to take a society-wide effort to fix, not a few NGOs.
The difference between our viewpoints is that I don't see the government as the sole or best face of "society". It's merely one option, and often not the best one.
Except that for many people it is simply the only option. Disabled Veterans are employed by government at something like 10x the rate of other employers. Minorities are employed at much higher rates as well. Alot of this is because of the way the civil service hiring works, which is perverse in some ways and highly merit based on others.
There are alot of metrics where private enterprise is just plain terrible, and government is the lesser of two evils.
There are alot of metrics where private enterprise is just plain terrible, and government is the lesser of two evils.
I've worked for several big corps who do exactly the same thing WRT minorities and veterans. The best thing for people isn't to give them a patron but a chance to build a good career. So the next time they apply for a job, they're not a statistic but a competitive candidate.
If private businesses need help here, let's form groups to work toward that.
If private businesses need help here, let's form groups to work toward that.
That's often the case, but it doesn't have to be.
That said, how would you suggest coordinating a large segment of the population to do something if not through government?
That said, how would you suggest coordinating a large segment of the population to do something if not through government?
I think coordination is often overrated compared to removing perverse incentives and instituting healthy ones.
Coordination leaves very little room for innovation, for instance.
Do we need a coordinated effort to retrain displaced workers? Or do we just need a large and flexible one?
Given than flexibility is one of the issues where employers can't keep up with workers, I suspect a less coordinated but more motivated effort sounds better here.
Guaranteed minimum income compared to a Smorgasbord of targeted programs is also less coordinated but probably better.
Coordination leaves very little room for innovation, for instance.
Do we need a coordinated effort to retrain displaced workers? Or do we just need a large and flexible one?
Given than flexibility is one of the issues where employers can't keep up with workers, I suspect a less coordinated but more motivated effort sounds better here.
Guaranteed minimum income compared to a Smorgasbord of targeted programs is also less coordinated but probably better.
Except for the fundamental human tendency of greed that is all the more common (for reasons of causation, not failure of character) in those who are above a certain profit margin. No plea for individual charity and philanthropy is ever going to be as effective as taxation in the aggregate.
> I pay so little in tax based on what I earn from capital gains, that I never even think about it.
This is really interesting. Contrast this to how, say, a middle-income self-employed tradesperson feels when they do the following calculation. I'm using the UK tax system because that's what I know, but I expect it's similar elsewhere.
Say a customer pays them £1000 for some work. First VAT is assessed on this, which is ~£167, leaving them with ~£833. Then they pay for materials. Let's pick £400 as an arbitrary figure, which I don't think is unreasonable. This leaves a profit of £433. Then they pay class 4 national insurance contributions on this profit, which has a marginal rate of 9% assuming you make a normal amount of profit, so £39. You also pay income tax on this, which once you're over the 0%-rate threshold comes to ~£87. All told, your £1000 you took from the customer has resulted in £400 going to your supplier, ~£292 going to the tax man, and ~£308 for yourself. That's a marginal tax rate of ~49%, which, to me, feels like a lot.
This is really interesting. Contrast this to how, say, a middle-income self-employed tradesperson feels when they do the following calculation. I'm using the UK tax system because that's what I know, but I expect it's similar elsewhere.
Say a customer pays them £1000 for some work. First VAT is assessed on this, which is ~£167, leaving them with ~£833. Then they pay for materials. Let's pick £400 as an arbitrary figure, which I don't think is unreasonable. This leaves a profit of £433. Then they pay class 4 national insurance contributions on this profit, which has a marginal rate of 9% assuming you make a normal amount of profit, so £39. You also pay income tax on this, which once you're over the 0%-rate threshold comes to ~£87. All told, your £1000 you took from the customer has resulted in £400 going to your supplier, ~£292 going to the tax man, and ~£308 for yourself. That's a marginal tax rate of ~49%, which, to me, feels like a lot.
"For instance, I can go rent some capital equipment and use it to build some ROI. And, afterward I pay the owner for the opportunity. I don't think that is theft, so why would I view tax any differently?"
I don't really hold this viewpoint myself, but renting capital equipment is voluntary but taxation isn't. That is a pretty significant difference.
I don't really hold this viewpoint myself, but renting capital equipment is voluntary but taxation isn't. That is a pretty significant difference.
Could you elaborate more on that? I'm not discounting it, but the viewpoint is unfamiliar to me.
I don't see taxes as involuntary. In fact, it's clearly documented how much tax I'm expected to pay in order to receive the services that I will receive. And, I'm (theoretically) free to immigrate to somewhere else that has a different tax structure. For instance, there are several countries that don't have income tax. So, before I choose to produce income, I could choose to immigrate (ignoring the complexities of that, of course). How is it involuntary? In the US, there are even people who pay zero taxes.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the issue many people seem to have with taxation is the monopolistic reign of government. Sure, government is a monopoly. But, at least I know that I have some oversight over it. And, I know that there are people actively monitoring it. That gives me more comfort than if, say, Comcast was running the government.
What would be cool is if I had more choice in service providers. But, to be honest, I'm lazy, and I really don't want to be comparing different service providers for different services. It's much easier for me to pay one provider. Now, if people could figure out how to make it work so that I had different options, that'd be really cool. But, that's theoretical political science type stuff that's beyond me. At the moment, I'm content.
Ok, that's enough online political discourse for me, for the month. lol. But, I'm eager to read the responses, if there are any. There are a lot of people on HN way smarter than me, so I'm sure you guys have some interesting ideas.
I don't see taxes as involuntary. In fact, it's clearly documented how much tax I'm expected to pay in order to receive the services that I will receive. And, I'm (theoretically) free to immigrate to somewhere else that has a different tax structure. For instance, there are several countries that don't have income tax. So, before I choose to produce income, I could choose to immigrate (ignoring the complexities of that, of course). How is it involuntary? In the US, there are even people who pay zero taxes.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the issue many people seem to have with taxation is the monopolistic reign of government. Sure, government is a monopoly. But, at least I know that I have some oversight over it. And, I know that there are people actively monitoring it. That gives me more comfort than if, say, Comcast was running the government.
What would be cool is if I had more choice in service providers. But, to be honest, I'm lazy, and I really don't want to be comparing different service providers for different services. It's much easier for me to pay one provider. Now, if people could figure out how to make it work so that I had different options, that'd be really cool. But, that's theoretical political science type stuff that's beyond me. At the moment, I'm content.
Ok, that's enough online political discourse for me, for the month. lol. But, I'm eager to read the responses, if there are any. There are a lot of people on HN way smarter than me, so I'm sure you guys have some interesting ideas.
In order for taxes to be voluntary, not only do you need to know in advance what the rules for calculating them as well as what you would receive, but you would also need the ability to opt out of paying for and receiving the service. Being able to emigrate is irrelevant because:
1. You would still have a tax burden (at least if you are American)
2. If your only option to avoid something is being expelled from your home, it hardly qualifies as involuntary.
I am also generally content with my tax burden, however I still felt the need to defend people who aren't because at a theoretical level they are correct.
1. You would still have a tax burden (at least if you are American)
2. If your only option to avoid something is being expelled from your home, it hardly qualifies as involuntary.
I am also generally content with my tax burden, however I still felt the need to defend people who aren't because at a theoretical level they are correct.
Social Security is an example of a welfare that has run fine without politicians making anyone dance and beg for it. I don't think a lot of other people are going to be fine living in permanent poverty and feudalism while seeing extravagant wealth nearby. A revolution is coming, Trump's promise of making America great again by kicking out Mexicans and restricting trade is just the first salvo in the revolution. It's not going to be pretty but it could have been different if the wealth had been redistributed fairly.
Because Social Security is hard to attack, and easy to defend. The "moochers" attack has been ridiculed enough.
But if everyone receives UBI, soon you'll have mobs campaigning for: "felons shouldn't receive UBI", "rapists shouldn't receive it", etc.
A good question is: if asked, would 50+% of the US population support Richard Spencer receiving UBI? The "anti" argument is strong ("my tax dollars shouldn't fund bigotry") and the "pro" argument is very weak, since it's only based in ideological principles ("everyone should get it"), and most voters are not ideological and do not vote according to principles.
But if everyone receives UBI, soon you'll have mobs campaigning for: "felons shouldn't receive UBI", "rapists shouldn't receive it", etc.
A good question is: if asked, would 50+% of the US population support Richard Spencer receiving UBI? The "anti" argument is strong ("my tax dollars shouldn't fund bigotry") and the "pro" argument is very weak, since it's only based in ideological principles ("everyone should get it"), and most voters are not ideological and do not vote according to principles.
I think one thing America needs to re-learn is how to apply principles equally to everybody. I would support felons receiving UBI, because, like everybody else, if you are on hard times, the UBI is the best (and least discriminatory) opportunity to become a more productive member of society.
Felons shouldn't. This will provide a strong incentive to not commit crime. Or at least felons may get reduced BI. Think of it like a probation (maybe reduced for a period of time as it relates to the severity of the crime).
This is a carrot and stick approach to social order.
This is a carrot and stick approach to social order.
You're proving my point that UBI will become a deeply political and partisan issue, and not only won't just be for everyone, but also will have people endlessly quarreling about who should get it.
Carrot and stick approach doesn't work when it comes to people. Vicious/virtuous cycles are a much better model of human behavior than homeostasis. As another poster said, you'll increase recidivism. It also undermines the "justice" aspect, since even after you got your punishment, you're still not considered a first-class citizen. That's unjust.
UBI would only really work if it was inscribed in the Constitution, and deeply culturally held as something that must remain universal. Otherwise, say hi to more social instability. And what about whistleblowers? Government shouldn't have the power to discriminate when giving out UBI.
Carrot and stick approach doesn't work when it comes to people. Vicious/virtuous cycles are a much better model of human behavior than homeostasis. As another poster said, you'll increase recidivism. It also undermines the "justice" aspect, since even after you got your punishment, you're still not considered a first-class citizen. That's unjust.
UBI would only really work if it was inscribed in the Constitution, and deeply culturally held as something that must remain universal. Otherwise, say hi to more social instability. And what about whistleblowers? Government shouldn't have the power to discriminate when giving out UBI.
As responded elsewhere, fine. Felons just continue to receive heavy fines as part of their punishment, but guess what? Now the state has a means to enforce these judgments by docking their basic income. Surely you are not arguing against fines as a punitive measure for law breaking?
That's a great point, and only makes UBI look more workable. The prospect of UBI becoming a partisan target for bickering doesn't seem so likely when put like this.
Can't edit anymore so I'll reply to myself:
Apparently you meant the government would reduce the UBI that someone receives. I interpreted it as everybody receives the same UBI, but obviously some punishments are accompanies by fines, and the fine for certain crimes may be equal to the amount of the UBI. Everyone would still receive the same amount, but for some, it would be "taxed" before it's actually received. That's still suboptimal but wouldn't turn the UBI into a political crisis.
Apparently you meant the government would reduce the UBI that someone receives. I interpreted it as everybody receives the same UBI, but obviously some punishments are accompanies by fines, and the fine for certain crimes may be equal to the amount of the UBI. Everyone would still receive the same amount, but for some, it would be "taxed" before it's actually received. That's still suboptimal but wouldn't turn the UBI into a political crisis.
Congratulations! You have now improved the recidivism rate to 100%. Because seriously, what's an ex-convict going to do after leaving prison in that system? No UBI and no prospect of a job (look at employment rates for ex-cons today, do you think that's going to get better?) will very quickly lead people back to crime by necessity.
> Think of it like a probation (maybe reduced for a period of time as it relates to the severity of the crime).
Do people read the comments they respond to? I am spitballing here. It's not like we have firm numbers to critique. It seems reasonable to me that there be some punishment for bad behavior. Things like that already exist now. Or how about this: You don't deny basic income you just.. make them repay society by docking their basic income a %.
Do people read the comments they respond to? I am spitballing here. It's not like we have firm numbers to critique. It seems reasonable to me that there be some punishment for bad behavior. Things like that already exist now. Or how about this: You don't deny basic income you just.. make them repay society by docking their basic income a %.
Felons should receive it. My reasoning is simple, everyone needs money and felons are more likely to hurt people when they don't have it.
It is not a matter of "deserving" or "earning" it, it is the simple fact that everyone is better when no one goes without basic.
It is not a matter of "deserving" or "earning" it, it is the simple fact that everyone is better when no one goes without basic.
Why should they get the full amount? Why not dock some as punitive?
And I am not saying a "deserve" from a moral point of view, but a "deserve" from a cost savings point of view to disincentive crime.
And I am not saying a "deserve" from a moral point of view, but a "deserve" from a cost savings point of view to disincentive crime.
Deterrence has never worked on potential criminals.
It is simply a matter of results. Being punitive might hurt them, but it hurts society more.
When a percentage of a society might be lacking for basic needs they will act in bad ways for the society. A UBI doesn't remove all desires to commit crime, but it would remove everyone who would steal to eat or steal to house themselves.
It removes an entire class of threat to society. What does a punitive measure buy for society?
It certainly won't deter crime, because no society has ever been able to punish hard enough to deter crime and there have crime societies that killed petty thieves.
It won't reform the ex-cons. It will make doing things like buying a suit for a job interview more difficult. It will make them less likely to contribute by way of work. Money they might have spent on bettering themselves (books?) must now be spent on survival.
Again, do away with childish notions like "earn" and "deserve" they map poorly onto the solutions for the problems of the real world.
It is simply a matter of results. Being punitive might hurt them, but it hurts society more.
When a percentage of a society might be lacking for basic needs they will act in bad ways for the society. A UBI doesn't remove all desires to commit crime, but it would remove everyone who would steal to eat or steal to house themselves.
It removes an entire class of threat to society. What does a punitive measure buy for society?
It certainly won't deter crime, because no society has ever been able to punish hard enough to deter crime and there have crime societies that killed petty thieves.
It won't reform the ex-cons. It will make doing things like buying a suit for a job interview more difficult. It will make them less likely to contribute by way of work. Money they might have spent on bettering themselves (books?) must now be spent on survival.
Again, do away with childish notions like "earn" and "deserve" they map poorly onto the solutions for the problems of the real world.
The sun shines on everyone equally.
Isn't prison enough of a disincentive? You now want to take away someone's dignity after they have served the sentence which has been deemed to be the punishment equal to the crime?
Isn't prison enough of a disincentive? You now want to take away someone's dignity after they have served the sentence which has been deemed to be the punishment equal to the crime?
Thank you for providing a perfect example of the concern around Universal Basic Income. Even to the point of dropping the Universal...
It doesn't even exist and it can still be used to divide society. The exact opposite of its intention.
It doesn't even exist and it can still be used to divide society. The exact opposite of its intention.
I really don't understand that line of reasoning. Just because some people may want a different form of UBI is no argument against UBI itself. Any non-trivial policy in government is subject to multiple views - and that is insufficient reason to hold back from offering all policy changes.
Fine, everyone gets universal basic income -- felons are levied heavy fines which they will pay from.. their universal basic income. No one here is arguing against the existence of fines as a punitive measure in society, are they?
Your derision is unwarranted and unconstructive.
Your derision is unwarranted and unconstructive.
I think they should, because it's surprisingly easy to bias who becomes a felon. https://theintercept.com/2015/12/09/floridas-ex-felons-strug...
Felons went to prison, they paid their debt to society. Why are you so insistent on them coming out into as shitty a situation as possible?
DO you like high recidivism?
DO you like high recidivism?
If you think that there aren't already enough disincentives to commit a felony you simply aren't looking.
This will greatly increase the recidivism rate.
Why is that? Does probation also increase the recidivism rate?
Because it increases the chance that they'll need to resort to crime to survive. It's the same reason that the pervasive policies against hiring felons increase recidivism rate. Once they've paid their debt to society, we need to actually forgive them, or it's much harder for them to rehabilitate.
Social Security has one of the most powerful lobbies in the country defending it. Politicians who eagerly take on the NRA won't even mention cutting SS.
That's primarily because gun bans or gun control are a net benefit whilst letting your poor and old starve is a net negative.
> because gun bans or gun control are a net benefit.
If you really believe that, compare/contrast most dictatorships with the United States, Switzerland, and Israel.
Gun control is something that oppressive rulers always try to implement as soon as possible.
If you really believe that, compare/contrast most dictatorships with the United States, Switzerland, and Israel.
Gun control is something that oppressive rulers always try to implement as soon as possible.
This logic is countered by the many peaceful, democratic nations with strong gun control laws - the majority of them, really.
No, I'm saying that weak gun control is not a complete bad. A lot of functional states have all sorts of gun control laws.
However, all (as far as I know) totalitarian states have strong gun control laws. I can't think of a single one which had a permissive attitude toward the civilian ownership of guns.
I'm speaking of course of de jure gun control laws, not the de facto possession of guns by the population.
However, all (as far as I know) totalitarian states have strong gun control laws. I can't think of a single one which had a permissive attitude toward the civilian ownership of guns.
I'm speaking of course of de jure gun control laws, not the de facto possession of guns by the population.
I for one am glad we have not gone down the path of the hellhole that is Australia.
Gun control in Israel is pretty strict for civilians but you make a good point.
It seems likely that basic income would have a similar lobby, once it's been around for a while.
It also hasn't stopped being universal or basic or perverted with exceptions.
If you step back and take a look at the history of wealth distribution & revolutions, maybe your outlook will be more optimistic. Today's inequality is troubling, but doesn't nearly compare to situations in the past. Revolution will enter the discussion once the masses are struggling for food.
> as people pervert it with exceptions
As a once landlord, even if government did a great job with it, I don't see why rents wouldn't go up to match it. If my tenants were guaranteed 50k a year, I would instantly raise my rent to 1/3rd that. Other industries would follow. Market rates really just hash out to be whatever the consumer can bear before going bankrupt.
So the government would also need a Communist-level of price controls, which as history has shown us, doesn't actually work.
The welfare system today 'works' because so few are on welfare or fully dependant on welfare, so a more market economy exists with rental pricing. If everyone, or most, are on welfare, then we'll just price against welfare. That means you'll get your UBI check but you'll be living in flophouses and be broke every month for basic things when before you had a nice middle-class house, savings, enjoyable lifestyles, upward mobility, etc.
I have yet to see UBI advocates resolve the inflationary problem short of re-implementing Soviet-style communism, yet they are unable to resolve the various problems with communism the same way the Soviets and others were unable to do so in the past.
As a once landlord, even if government did a great job with it, I don't see why rents wouldn't go up to match it. If my tenants were guaranteed 50k a year, I would instantly raise my rent to 1/3rd that. Other industries would follow. Market rates really just hash out to be whatever the consumer can bear before going bankrupt.
So the government would also need a Communist-level of price controls, which as history has shown us, doesn't actually work.
The welfare system today 'works' because so few are on welfare or fully dependant on welfare, so a more market economy exists with rental pricing. If everyone, or most, are on welfare, then we'll just price against welfare. That means you'll get your UBI check but you'll be living in flophouses and be broke every month for basic things when before you had a nice middle-class house, savings, enjoyable lifestyles, upward mobility, etc.
I have yet to see UBI advocates resolve the inflationary problem short of re-implementing Soviet-style communism, yet they are unable to resolve the various problems with communism the same way the Soviets and others were unable to do so in the past.
I feel like rent itself is a major problem in current society. It takes 30years for a person to pay off their little chunk of land and house. Some cannot even have that. Land is a natural resource, and as with air and water, it should be distributed. It is a good time for a modern homesteading act. Maybe a citizens dividend.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen's_dividend
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen's_dividend
Why does it matter if the income comes from a basic income source or not? Rents rise only if there is more demand than supply. And it seems silly to say that we are not capable of supplying enough housing for our current population.
In nations were economic equality is higher, and where government's provide a strong safety net, there is no indication of rents spiralling out of control.
In nations were economic equality is higher, and where government's provide a strong safety net, there is no indication of rents spiralling out of control.
Safety net is not UBI. Safety net expects a working class and a market economy. UBI expects non-workers wholly dependant on the government with set, public incomes.
Supply doesn't matter. The land owning class, me, gives no shit about supply. We'll all just raise rates to match what the government gives. Why wouldn't we? This is exactly what happens with any government entitlement. Medicare covers mobility scooters up to $5000. Guess what? My $2500 scooter now costs $5000. My competitors will do the same. Then in a day that becomes the new norm.
That's only one problem with UBI. The others are worse like in a generation you have people who have no useful skills, so once those robots running everything aren't competitive with robots from market economies that don't do UBI and expect people to work and be competitive and find innovations, then our goods are too expensive and our economy collapses because we all decided to model ourselves after a retirement arts community. Not to mention that history has shown that if you give people enough cash to just get by, they tend to lean towards a leisure lifestyle of drug abuse, gambling, non-education, non-productivity, etc. Why not? If no worries, then you might as well party. People in the ghetto aren't any different than you and me. They just realized that a lifetime of welfare means a lifetime of leisure, so they adapt to a leisure lifestyle and deal with all the problems that brings.
Lastly, robots aren't magically going to remain competitive by themselves. Industries won't magically take care of themselves. Even with heavy automation you still need people coming in day in and day out to make sure we don't fall behind the curve. If a Chinese robot can make 100 dresses in 5 minutes and ours can only make 50, then suddenly we're in a lot of trouble as our per item cost has literally doubled. If anything, the tech arms race is heavily accelerated because the stakes are so much higher. We'd probably have record levels of employment and education to just keep up.
Supply doesn't matter. The land owning class, me, gives no shit about supply. We'll all just raise rates to match what the government gives. Why wouldn't we? This is exactly what happens with any government entitlement. Medicare covers mobility scooters up to $5000. Guess what? My $2500 scooter now costs $5000. My competitors will do the same. Then in a day that becomes the new norm.
That's only one problem with UBI. The others are worse like in a generation you have people who have no useful skills, so once those robots running everything aren't competitive with robots from market economies that don't do UBI and expect people to work and be competitive and find innovations, then our goods are too expensive and our economy collapses because we all decided to model ourselves after a retirement arts community. Not to mention that history has shown that if you give people enough cash to just get by, they tend to lean towards a leisure lifestyle of drug abuse, gambling, non-education, non-productivity, etc. Why not? If no worries, then you might as well party. People in the ghetto aren't any different than you and me. They just realized that a lifetime of welfare means a lifetime of leisure, so they adapt to a leisure lifestyle and deal with all the problems that brings.
Lastly, robots aren't magically going to remain competitive by themselves. Industries won't magically take care of themselves. Even with heavy automation you still need people coming in day in and day out to make sure we don't fall behind the curve. If a Chinese robot can make 100 dresses in 5 minutes and ours can only make 50, then suddenly we're in a lot of trouble as our per item cost has literally doubled. If anything, the tech arms race is heavily accelerated because the stakes are so much higher. We'd probably have record levels of employment and education to just keep up.
Medicare only allowing specific payments for scooters under specific rules is causing more of a market distortion than more a UBI approach of just giving cash to the recipients and letting regular market forces vs customer choice regulate the market to some level of efficiency. If landlords want to raise rents too high, other developers will address the market (just like the regular housing market now... as long as there aren't other rules warping the market). If anything it point to society needing to tax landlords higher so that rentier behavior is discouraged...
Your picture of UBI paints it as if people wouldn't want to earn more than a minimal UBI. I think that's blatantly wrong - people are greedy, they want more. The people who what more than UBI will find useful skills (and civilization won't collapse).
Your picture of UBI paints it as if people wouldn't want to earn more than a minimal UBI. I think that's blatantly wrong - people are greedy, they want more. The people who what more than UBI will find useful skills (and civilization won't collapse).
>Not to mention that history has shown that if you give people enough cash to just get by, they tend to lean towards a leisure lifestyle of drug abuse, gambling, non-education, non-productivity, etc. Why not? If no worries, then you might as well party.
Any sources to back up this statement?
"But it turns out that the effects of a UBI on labor participation weren’t nearly as bad as some had feared. Researchers[1] found that households as a whole reduced their workloads by about 13%, as economist Evelyn Forget explains in a 2011 paper published by Canadian Public Policy. But within each household, the (generally male) primary breadwinners cut back on work hours only slightly. Women who were secondary earners reduced their work hours more, devoting more time to household care and staying home with young children. Teenagers also put off getting part-time jobs to focus on school, leading to a noticeable decline in high school dropout rates in Dauphin, and to double-digit increases in high school completion among participating families in New Jersey, Seattle, and Denver."
[1] https://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf
Article quote is pulled from: https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits-workin...
Any sources to back up this statement?
"But it turns out that the effects of a UBI on labor participation weren’t nearly as bad as some had feared. Researchers[1] found that households as a whole reduced their workloads by about 13%, as economist Evelyn Forget explains in a 2011 paper published by Canadian Public Policy. But within each household, the (generally male) primary breadwinners cut back on work hours only slightly. Women who were secondary earners reduced their work hours more, devoting more time to household care and staying home with young children. Teenagers also put off getting part-time jobs to focus on school, leading to a noticeable decline in high school dropout rates in Dauphin, and to double-digit increases in high school completion among participating families in New Jersey, Seattle, and Denver."
[1] https://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf
Article quote is pulled from: https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits-workin...
>to focus on school
Yes obviously because school is an investment: school>college>decent job.
What happens when decent job doesn't exist? Its unrealistic to pull data from an economy based on job seeking and say it applies to an economy where jobs are rare/non-existent. You can't eliminate the main incentive for education and then pretend things are going to be the same.
I picked the ghetto as an example because decent jobs aren't available, good schools are impossible to get into due to substandard schooling in those communities, and then when you try and beat the odds you have to contend with things like racial or cultural discrimination from employers. There's a reason so many people in those communities believe in hopelessness, because ultimately a lot of it is hopeless. So if 'decent job' doesn't exit, why would UBI kids bother with school? I suspect they'll just settle for a leisure lifestyle. Remove the goals, then you'll remove the effort to get there.
Yes obviously because school is an investment: school>college>decent job.
What happens when decent job doesn't exist? Its unrealistic to pull data from an economy based on job seeking and say it applies to an economy where jobs are rare/non-existent. You can't eliminate the main incentive for education and then pretend things are going to be the same.
I picked the ghetto as an example because decent jobs aren't available, good schools are impossible to get into due to substandard schooling in those communities, and then when you try and beat the odds you have to contend with things like racial or cultural discrimination from employers. There's a reason so many people in those communities believe in hopelessness, because ultimately a lot of it is hopeless. So if 'decent job' doesn't exit, why would UBI kids bother with school? I suspect they'll just settle for a leisure lifestyle. Remove the goals, then you'll remove the effort to get there.
> I suspect they'll just settle for a leisure lifestyle.
This is basically the crux of the two sides of the UBI issue.
People against UBI believe others are no good and will waste their life if given the chance.
People for UBI believe others will use it as an opportunity to lift themselves up.
Why does the only worthwhile goal in your argument seem to be "get a good job"? People can find fulfillment with many other goals that don't need to be jobs.
This is basically the crux of the two sides of the UBI issue.
People against UBI believe others are no good and will waste their life if given the chance.
People for UBI believe others will use it as an opportunity to lift themselves up.
Why does the only worthwhile goal in your argument seem to be "get a good job"? People can find fulfillment with many other goals that don't need to be jobs.
As someone else who is a landlord, I would undercut you by a small margin to ensure I'm taking in rental income. Depending on supply (which you care naught about) you may find yourself sitting on empty units priced at 1/3 UBI wondering where all the tenants are.
Medical products can raise their prices because they have almost no competition, not only because there are very few accredited suppliers (much easier to collude), but also because you can't use that money for anything else, hence the consumer has no incentive to find a cheaper option.
Right now, rents are high, because people need to live in very specific places to get jobs. When you can live anywhere in the US and still get an income, you're literally talking about a market with hundreds of thousands of suppliers, offering way more land than what's actually required to live.
Right now, rents are high, because people need to live in very specific places to get jobs. When you can live anywhere in the US and still get an income, you're literally talking about a market with hundreds of thousands of suppliers, offering way more land than what's actually required to live.
Competition plays a role here. On the margin, basic income would make it easier for people to move to relatively cheaper places (much as Social Security does).
I agree that it's unlikely that it would be so generous that most people would stop working. People generally want more than the bare minimum. But not being completely dependent on your job provides some flexibility and bargaining power.
I agree that it's unlikely that it would be so generous that most people would stop working. People generally want more than the bare minimum. But not being completely dependent on your job provides some flexibility and bargaining power.
> I have yet to see UBI advocates resolve the inflationary problem short of re-implementing Soviet-style communism, yet they are unable to resolve the various problems with communism the same way the Soviets and others were unable to do so in the past.
Soviet-style communism is not the only type of "communism" that is possible, just like American-style capitalism isn't the only way to do capitalism. In fact, some argue that Soviet-style communism was never communism in the first place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism
That said, what various problems with communism do you think are not resolved?
Soviet-style communism is not the only type of "communism" that is possible, just like American-style capitalism isn't the only way to do capitalism. In fact, some argue that Soviet-style communism was never communism in the first place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism
That said, what various problems with communism do you think are not resolved?
Where supply is constrained I can't see any other outcome.
More social housing would probably have a better result.
More social housing would probably have a better result.
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I think Norway and the way it's managed its sovereign wealth fund is a counter-example.
Governance can be done well.
Governance can be done well.
If it's a universal basic income, it should just be automated as well. By the point automation has advance enough to require UBI, it's advanced enough to handle its administration. Pull the human governance aspects out of it.
Who runs the automation for UBI? With Artificial General Intelligence a person needs to run it.
Put another way, A self driving car can put 10 taxi drivers out of work, but it cannot manage a monetary fund. Neither can the mechanic who fixes the car.
Put another way, A self driving car can put 10 taxi drivers out of work, but it cannot manage a monetary fund. Neither can the mechanic who fixes the car.
My argument would be: UBI could be so simple that it wouldn't allow for corruption.
A dollar amount shows up in your bank account every day. If it doesn't, that's a problem. The one debate should be whether the number should be moved up or down.
If there's exceptions (like criminals not getting it or something), then it's not UBI.
A dollar amount shows up in your bank account every day. If it doesn't, that's a problem. The one debate should be whether the number should be moved up or down.
If there's exceptions (like criminals not getting it or something), then it's not UBI.
This is exactly th kind of automation the article ignores. This implementation of UBI could be a small python script that fits in single gist, but if implemented even just 20 years ago would involve the labor of hundreds.
Norway and the US are very different in terms of size, diversity, economic output, geography ... pretty much everything. Saying that something works for Norway isn't really a good reason to adopt it in the US.
Americans always pull out this excuse. There's a whole world running experiments on how to best do things, but you're unwilling to look at the results because it's not a perfect match.
It's never a perfect match. It doesn't mean you can't adapt lessons learned elsewhere, or that you can afford to ignore what works in other countries.
It's never a perfect match. It doesn't mean you can't adapt lessons learned elsewhere, or that you can afford to ignore what works in other countries.
OK, so why wouldn't it work in, say, Minnesota? It's population, GDP, geography, etc. is similar.
I've wondered for a while if size invites corruption. The more governmental functions are removed from the public eye, the more easily corruption can creep in. If this is true, then smaller nations (and smaller companies) which have less scale would tend to be better run.
Aye, but as a counter point remember there is safety in numbers. What's Norway going to do when a five million man army comes marching for its riches? Pray for help from allies or die screaming. Such has been the history of humanity from first recording through the invention of the atomic bomb.
Countries with atomic weapons have never invaded another country with atomic weapons. This is a great improvement over WWI and WWII, although it is hard to know what the long tail risk is of killing almost everybody with a full scale nuclear exchange and nuclear winter. I think maybe the best situation would be that each responsible (to be determined) country would be allowed 10-30 nukes on ICBMs only (verified somehow; live cameras plus inspections?). With nukes on ICBMs only there would be no sneak attack where the attacker is unknown. With a small number of nukes, deterrence is still likely and the possibility of a nuclear winter is eliminated. I'd trust Norway with a small nuclear arsenal.
That's not completely correct. During the 1999 Kargil War either Pakistan invaded India or vice versa (depending on where you believe the legitimate border lies). Both countries had atomic weapons as of 1998.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War
I had not considered that conflict. It was in Kashmir and the border was never agreed upon by both sides (as you state). I wouldn't call it an invasion or even really a "war" with the small number of killed at only ~1,000. Others might disagree.
When Russia invaded Finland in the second world war all they got was a bloody nose.
Here's the thing that you haven't taken into account with your post: rejuvenation research.
Let's say we discover/invent AI. What do we set it to do? We solve the world's biggest problem and create the biggest company ever: conquer aging.
Do you think you'd stay on the sidelines if a rich guy could buy immortality and you couldn't?
Let's say we discover/invent AI. What do we set it to do? We solve the world's biggest problem and create the biggest company ever: conquer aging.
Do you think you'd stay on the sidelines if a rich guy could buy immortality and you couldn't?
Yes. Even if I was starving, I want to believe I could not steal from my neighbor (morals). And not sell my kids into state-slavery (the ability to take in trillions of income from some and outlay it to others is the ultimate power and it will ultimately corrupt anyone who tries to own it or live on it).
Revolution without bloodshed is next to impossible, sadly.
Rejuvenation? AI? Those are the biggest revolution-causing triggers humans will ever come to see.
Rejuvenation? AI? Those are the biggest revolution-causing triggers humans will ever come to see.
Elections were (IMO) meant to be bloodless revolutions. its just the 1% has captured both primary political parties.
Also, the flawed first past the post electoral system discourages competition (IMO to keep it cheaper for the 1% to own the whole process). I'll post some videos from people smarter then me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erph1L_XwVQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU
Also, the flawed first past the post electoral system discourages competition (IMO to keep it cheaper for the 1% to own the whole process). I'll post some videos from people smarter then me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erph1L_XwVQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU
Taxes are "state-slavery"?
The fight for Universal Longevity is going to be the next big healthcare battle after Universal Healthcare.
I don't think it will be as difficult of a battle, though.
I don't think it will be as difficult of a battle, though.
Who else to entrust UBI to than not-humans?
We're talking of robots getting us in this mess, along with extreme automation of everything. Well, lets start looking into automating government.
We have a lot of cruft and crap in our governmental system. Layers upon layers of laws, bureaucrats deciding on felonies. And it's even worse, where we really don't know the boundary of the law. And even less so if you're rich.
So, what would it take to automate law itself?I'm not talking of the judicial, but executive and legislative seems simpler to target for excision and replacement.
We're talking of robots getting us in this mess, along with extreme automation of everything. Well, lets start looking into automating government.
We have a lot of cruft and crap in our governmental system. Layers upon layers of laws, bureaucrats deciding on felonies. And it's even worse, where we really don't know the boundary of the law. And even less so if you're rich.
So, what would it take to automate law itself?I'm not talking of the judicial, but executive and legislative seems simpler to target for excision and replacement.
I could imagine a world where totally sentient robots keep us tamed with UBI. I might be willing to buy off on that, need to think about it more (morally it checks out since the robots own the wealth and voluntarily give is up to be nice to their creator species). Just not human run UBI or even UBI where humans run the robots that do it.
I was thinking something a bit more complete than just that.
I was thinking of a government itself that was automated, by the people and for the people. Taxes and expenditures could be drilled down to an arbitrary fine level. Laws themselves could come from the public as well as something similar to our current congress.
However, I'm thinking of running proposed laws through a form of a simulator before being wide-spread. Think of it like Jenkins-For-Law. It wouldn't catch everything, but would find egregious side-effects. Laws with too many side-effects would be denied, without some sort of super-majority.
The law itself would be a provable, queryable corpus. There would be no confusion about "Is this legal". Side-effects would be found by lack of correlation and fuzzy definitions.
Obviously, this wouldn't be our government. Or it would require a stark discussion between all 50 states at a Constitutional Convention (yeah, good luck). I like the idea how Estonia is going about E-Government.
I can dream, I guess.
I was thinking of a government itself that was automated, by the people and for the people. Taxes and expenditures could be drilled down to an arbitrary fine level. Laws themselves could come from the public as well as something similar to our current congress.
However, I'm thinking of running proposed laws through a form of a simulator before being wide-spread. Think of it like Jenkins-For-Law. It wouldn't catch everything, but would find egregious side-effects. Laws with too many side-effects would be denied, without some sort of super-majority.
The law itself would be a provable, queryable corpus. There would be no confusion about "Is this legal". Side-effects would be found by lack of correlation and fuzzy definitions.
Obviously, this wouldn't be our government. Or it would require a stark discussion between all 50 states at a Constitutional Convention (yeah, good luck). I like the idea how Estonia is going about E-Government.
I can dream, I guess.
I'm sure I read a sci-fi short story that examined this idea, where Australia shared the wealth with everyone but America basically put everyone into concentration camps.
Ah, here it is: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Ah, here it is: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Spoiler alert.
I think the presentation of "Australia" in that story isn't quite as you describe it. There is another interpretation.
The weirdest part of your comment is that you have seething disregard for anything resembling socialism, yet you accept without question the synthetic notion of "asset ownership"
Nothing will work unless we do a complete remodel to all our assumptions about money, society, a person's worth, etc. We need to take a big sledgehammer to all our old ideas, and the time to do it is now.
It's an entirely new world ahead of us. The changes will be tremendous, unprecedented in history in a literal sense. Now is not the time to be ideologically lazy.
It's an entirely new world ahead of us. The changes will be tremendous, unprecedented in history in a literal sense. Now is not the time to be ideologically lazy.
Your predictions are at least 50 years too soon, and several unknowable things will occur between here and there
Agreed. But if I have to show some world given the current trajectory, that's my best bet.
My favorite story is Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. He got the best futurists money can buy to predict what the near future would be.
They had all sorts of strange interfaces and ideas. Newspapers with screens on them, etc.
It was just 3 years before the iPhone came out...
They had all sorts of strange interfaces and ideas. Newspapers with screens on them, etc.
It was just 3 years before the iPhone came out...
The world economy will crash if we don't have universal basic income in the future as simply put the owners of robots will need humans to buy the products and services produced. Socialist economies will prosper and with current barriers coming up on world trade etc. Purely capitalistic economies will be hurt the most as with ai and robots capital will accelerate towards the few. In the end the many wont have anything to give to the few.
This is just hypothetical I think long before that you will see huge social unrest and civil war a smidgen of which you are seeing in the US and is one of the main reason Trump got elected. Sadly he is someone that will accelerate this instead of stopping it
This is just hypothetical I think long before that you will see huge social unrest and civil war a smidgen of which you are seeing in the US and is one of the main reason Trump got elected. Sadly he is someone that will accelerate this instead of stopping it
"Controlling everyone's income will attract the greatest power mongers the world has ever seen."
Well, maybe this is our chance of create trustworthy AI politicians (only half-joking).
Well, maybe this is our chance of create trustworthy AI politicians (only half-joking).
If you have human level AI, in democracies the people would likely vote in a government to sort out something UBI. At the moment UBI would have a job working because paying people for their work is still how things work.
See also https://islandpress.org/book/who-owns-the-sky for another alternative.
I think it's naive to assume the "without violence" part
Social security is basic income and no one has perverted it ecessively.
US Social Security is not 'basic income' - it's a system that pays out variable payouts (based on an individual's lifetime system contributions) to a select group of persons (62+ years old, depends on birth year), and is supported primarily by contributions from members that have not aged into the payout cohort yet. It's far closer to a pension fund than any kind of universal basic income system.
>The gigantic wall of AI/Automation is unavoidable
Well, we've had the automated IT-based office for decades and the cries of everyone losing their jobs didn't really happen, not the paperless office.
I certainly see AI changing things, but these hysterical futurist articles tend to lean more pie-in-the-sky techies than managerial types. Managers and executives know that employment, today, is a mostly a fiction. A lot of what drives employment could be automated right now, but isn't for political reasons. Not the least of which is internal company politics on having as many direct reports under you as the threat of becoming a 'small' department means becoming eliminated by outsourcing or in-sourced/absorbed by another department or simply a loss of prestige. The idea that employment numbers are purely meritoriousness is fairly questionable. Its bureaucratic and political primarily.
The larger issue is, how much will this change things from the norm from a reasonable perspective. We can't automate most things and that probably means a certain class of jobs will be threatened but most will be fine. So even if that doubles or triples unemployment, that means we have unemployment rates closer to European economies or perhaps higher, but still doable without a radical restructuring of our economy. The futurist dream of 100% unemployment in ten years and everyone on UBI simply isn't happening.
My worry is that we'd probably need a very liberal government to handle this as it will put it quite the load on welfare, but currently the US has a radical conservative administration as well as a conservative congress, which means the political fight to raise taxes and expand welfare for displaced workers is going to be tough or impossible. The problem is that angry voters put in isolationists and those who they perceive have and can build wealth, but those types of people are often very anti-social services and very anti-welfare. So the voters took a big gamble. They think the Trump admin will 'fix' jobs. Jobs that are destined to go away. But if he fails, and he probably will, then they will lack the social safety net to fall back on. Those in vulnerable industries, often in rural and less urbanized communities, simply voted the wrong way and most likely will be punished economically for it.
Well, we've had the automated IT-based office for decades and the cries of everyone losing their jobs didn't really happen, not the paperless office.
I certainly see AI changing things, but these hysterical futurist articles tend to lean more pie-in-the-sky techies than managerial types. Managers and executives know that employment, today, is a mostly a fiction. A lot of what drives employment could be automated right now, but isn't for political reasons. Not the least of which is internal company politics on having as many direct reports under you as the threat of becoming a 'small' department means becoming eliminated by outsourcing or in-sourced/absorbed by another department or simply a loss of prestige. The idea that employment numbers are purely meritoriousness is fairly questionable. Its bureaucratic and political primarily.
The larger issue is, how much will this change things from the norm from a reasonable perspective. We can't automate most things and that probably means a certain class of jobs will be threatened but most will be fine. So even if that doubles or triples unemployment, that means we have unemployment rates closer to European economies or perhaps higher, but still doable without a radical restructuring of our economy. The futurist dream of 100% unemployment in ten years and everyone on UBI simply isn't happening.
My worry is that we'd probably need a very liberal government to handle this as it will put it quite the load on welfare, but currently the US has a radical conservative administration as well as a conservative congress, which means the political fight to raise taxes and expand welfare for displaced workers is going to be tough or impossible. The problem is that angry voters put in isolationists and those who they perceive have and can build wealth, but those types of people are often very anti-social services and very anti-welfare. So the voters took a big gamble. They think the Trump admin will 'fix' jobs. Jobs that are destined to go away. But if he fails, and he probably will, then they will lack the social safety net to fall back on. Those in vulnerable industries, often in rural and less urbanized communities, simply voted the wrong way and most likely will be punished economically for it.
"Well, we've had the automated IT-based office for decades and the cries of everyone losing their jobs didn't really happen, not the paperless office."
I'm sure I read in the economist that the number of people doing office work has been falling for some time.
I'm sure I read in the economist that the number of people doing office work has been falling for some time.
Right, but the USA has a 4.7 unemployment rate, which is one of the lowest in the world and a far cry from the 100% unemployment futurists keep claiming will happen 'any year now.' Jobs continue to exist, continue to be created, etc. This stuff is a lot more complex than "automation will eat jobs." If anything, automation has created vastly more jobs than anyone thought possible due to a variety of factors not the least of which is a shift to IT/technical trades, service-based trades, and the massive amount of human power you need to run a competitive bureaucracy to run those factories and services.
Then all that excess money from 'decent' jobs goes towards more goods and services that otherwise wouldn't be possible. I mean, people casually blow $300+ on a robot vacuum cleaner or $600+ on a phone. And now you have more jobs in industries no one predicted possible 30 years ago and so on.
Not to mention, generally, the more competitive the industry the most staffing it needs. I'm sure there's some rule named after someone about this, but hot industries go on hiring sprees and when your economy is as innovative and wealthy as the US's that translates into a high demand for qualified candidates. That offsets a lot of job loss in dying sectors.
Then all that excess money from 'decent' jobs goes towards more goods and services that otherwise wouldn't be possible. I mean, people casually blow $300+ on a robot vacuum cleaner or $600+ on a phone. And now you have more jobs in industries no one predicted possible 30 years ago and so on.
Not to mention, generally, the more competitive the industry the most staffing it needs. I'm sure there's some rule named after someone about this, but hot industries go on hiring sprees and when your economy is as innovative and wealthy as the US's that translates into a high demand for qualified candidates. That offsets a lot of job loss in dying sectors.
> Right, but the USA has a 4.7 unemployment rate
When talking about the headline unemployment rate, it's a good idea to view this seemingly rosy figure in the context of our current ~40 year lows in the labor force participation rate[0]. It's misleading to look at one without the other, IMO.
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART
When talking about the headline unemployment rate, it's a good idea to view this seemingly rosy figure in the context of our current ~40 year lows in the labor force participation rate[0]. It's misleading to look at one without the other, IMO.
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART
And a record level incarceration rate.
and record lows in crime. I don't see this as a problem.
Other countries have seen similar falls in crime without the high incarceration rates of the US.
The NYT article is quite lucid about it. They do argue that this gigantic wall should not be avoided, but dealt with through legislation and better sharing of wealth.
That's a pretty logical answer, and they support it with good examples of past policies to ease the social pain of economic changes.
That's a pretty logical answer, and they support it with good examples of past policies to ease the social pain of economic changes.
I don't think that they quite grasp or explain the enormity of it.
The two biggest strongholds humans have against automation are thought and manual, but complex, labor. Soon they will all be automated.
The two biggest strongholds humans have against automation are thought and manual, but complex, labor. Soon they will all be automated.
> I don't think that they quite grasp or explain the enormity of it.
I believe they do. They just remember people (and we all should) that this was supposed to be the pinnacle of our society, and not it's darkest hour.
I believe they do. They just remember people (and we all should) that this was supposed to be the pinnacle of our society, and not it's darkest hour.
> Soon they will all be automated.
and that's all good and fine, as long as the wealth created by the robots is redistributed and not funneled to a handful of executives' bank accounts in tax havens.
and that's all good and fine, as long as the wealth created by the robots is redistributed and not funneled to a handful of executives' bank accounts in tax havens.
Who honestly thinks this extra value will be captured by more than the tiniest handful of already-rich people?
If that's the case then it will probably devour itself, you can't have business without customers.
I agree with most of your comments. However, I wouldn't think of this as a capitalist-communist spectrum. In fact, I wouldn't think of either of them as long term solutions in this future.
What both systems have in common is that they are built around scarcity. For capitalism, it is a method of price discovery. For communism, it is rationing by the state ("From each according to his ability...").
When there is no more scarcity, then there is no more need for either price discovery or for rationing.* Therefore, will need to create a new economic model that is not built on scarcity.
*Footnote - there are some things that will always be scare, such as location. Having a view of a calm beach, or of boundless nature, or a city skyline will always have a scarcity issue. It will be interesting to see how that scarcity is dealt with in this future.
What both systems have in common is that they are built around scarcity. For capitalism, it is a method of price discovery. For communism, it is rationing by the state ("From each according to his ability...").
When there is no more scarcity, then there is no more need for either price discovery or for rationing.* Therefore, will need to create a new economic model that is not built on scarcity.
*Footnote - there are some things that will always be scare, such as location. Having a view of a calm beach, or of boundless nature, or a city skyline will always have a scarcity issue. It will be interesting to see how that scarcity is dealt with in this future.
I think the fallacy here is similar to Malthusianism in the 19th century. In that case the problem was the assumption that agricultural yields wouldn't improve over time, and your argument is assuming that improving technology won't create more jobs than it obsoletes. We're not going to wind up with companies that consist of just a CEO and a dozen factories.
(NOTE: than I'm only talking about automation, not the creation of hard AI, which you allude to. That's a whole other kettle of fish)
(NOTE: than I'm only talking about automation, not the creation of hard AI, which you allude to. That's a whole other kettle of fish)
I think in part your solution is on the right track but not the complete answer (hell, I don't think I have a complete answer myself). In my opinion, the additional work would need to be done to focus on further decentralization of governments and businesses since both have been on a trend toward further centralized bureaucracies that rarely respond to their respect stakeholders (citizens and consumers). In my view that would mean businesses should be held in common by the workers as a term of employment. Think of it was a credit union but you just happen to work there. Entrepreneurs and managers will always be in the mix of this because honestly individuals sometimes get good ideas but they shouldn't be off the hook with incredibly vast sums of wealth as to allow them to create their own fiefdoms. After all, they too are just one person in an ocean of people.
What's funny about this idea is that it's not mine. I remember a long time ago that I use to go on a web forum on the New Speak Dictionary site. The site owner styled himself a Libertarian Syndicalist and he espoused very similar views here. I think it's inevitable that this might become the normal state of things if people become aware of this possible alternative to centralized state vs centralized business.
What's funny about this idea is that it's not mine. I remember a long time ago that I use to go on a web forum on the New Speak Dictionary site. The site owner styled himself a Libertarian Syndicalist and he espoused very similar views here. I think it's inevitable that this might become the normal state of things if people become aware of this possible alternative to centralized state vs centralized business.
This sounds like the definition of socialism.
In as much as it's pre-Marxist and pre-Utopian socialism, sure. But if you told a hardline ML that this was socialism they'd probably call you a deviationist or some other buzz word.
> I worry because I am certain that the only way out of civil war is universal basic income (socialism) or cyberpunk-style fascism.
Nitpick. UBI is not socialism. It's still capitalism.
Nitpick. UBI is not socialism. It's still capitalism.
I don't think Universal income is necessary but a more complete redistribution system would certainly be needed. At the very least one in which e.g healthcare isn't tied to employment, for example.
The people the article is discussing are already receiving a free money and do not need to work. How will writing "basic income" rather than "disability" or "welfare" on top of the check change anything?
Simple: with UBI, you can eliminate a gigantic amount of bureaucracy in administering those programs. How much time and money is wasted in employing armies of public servants to go chase after welfare recipients and make sure they aren't "cheating" by making money somehow, or that disability recipients aren't "cheating" by not being as disabled as they claim? It doesn't help that welfare punishes people who want to work.
So the current leisure class will not be helped at all by a BI, relative to what they already have.
Since you think a BI will save money, could you do a back of the envelope calculation illustrating how that would work? I can't see how (for example) 10M on welfare + 1M administrators could possibly be cheaper than 100M on welfare.
Since you think a BI will save money, could you do a back of the envelope calculation illustrating how that would work? I can't see how (for example) 10M on welfare + 1M administrators could possibly be cheaper than 100M on welfare.
Relevant:
If We Can Afford Our Current Welfare System, We Can Afford Basic Income
https://medium.com/basic-income/if-we-can-afford-our-current...
If We Can Afford Our Current Welfare System, We Can Afford Basic Income
https://medium.com/basic-income/if-we-can-afford-our-current...
Those numbers suggest about 10% overhead. Giving free money to 900% more people in order to save 10% on overhead is not a cost saving strategy.
Your article proves my point, even though it goes to great effort not to admit that.
Your article proves my point, even though it goes to great effort not to admit that.
[deleted]
One of the least communist solutions I've thought of is a quasi-capitalistic economic system.
The US and various countries around the world have this.
That is, let's socialize part of every company's profits but not management.
In other words, taxes? Your "government pays for shares to get money" scheme will be gamed as much as the current tax code is.
The US and various countries around the world have this.
That is, let's socialize part of every company's profits but not management.
In other words, taxes? Your "government pays for shares to get money" scheme will be gamed as much as the current tax code is.
There's zero chance our political spectrum will ever increase taxes to allow for UBI to be widespread and sufficient.
This way we compensate innovators and entrepreneurs for their work. That is, we give them the leeway to innovate, improve their own income, etc.
It's a lot more palatable than 'let's tax everyone at 85%'.
This way we compensate innovators and entrepreneurs for their work. That is, we give them the leeway to innovate, improve their own income, etc.
It's a lot more palatable than 'let's tax everyone at 85%'.
I think that's a very Ayn Rand / Atlas Shrugged type of analysis. I also think that falls short of accounting for the full spectrum of human behavior.
There are numerous innovators, artists and creators who are driven by more than financial rewards.
If there was a re-balancing of economic priorities, I'm not sure I agree that 'innovation would stop' (which isn't precisely what you said, so forgive the straw man).
On the whole I think you might see different people driving the world forward, but you wouldn't see the world stop.
Larry Page tinkered with computers before he knew he was going to be a bajillionaire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Page. Would Zuckerberg still have created thefacebook? What about all those school-teachers who give everything they have for a $30k salary (and hugs from snotty faced kids)?
I may be misreading your point - so forgive me if that's true - but there are a lot of places where BI is making and is moving forward. They're also doing it without the 85% tax rate you're quoting.
There are numerous innovators, artists and creators who are driven by more than financial rewards.
If there was a re-balancing of economic priorities, I'm not sure I agree that 'innovation would stop' (which isn't precisely what you said, so forgive the straw man).
On the whole I think you might see different people driving the world forward, but you wouldn't see the world stop.
Larry Page tinkered with computers before he knew he was going to be a bajillionaire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Page. Would Zuckerberg still have created thefacebook? What about all those school-teachers who give everything they have for a $30k salary (and hugs from snotty faced kids)?
I may be misreading your point - so forgive me if that's true - but there are a lot of places where BI is making and is moving forward. They're also doing it without the 85% tax rate you're quoting.
I'm not sure what that middle part means. A lot of businesses were started recently that would not have been viable without the ACA. If we expand the safety net, more people can take chances, and there will be more (in absolute numbers) wild successes which can be taxed to fund the safety nets. There's probably diminishing returns somewhere but I don't think we're near it yet.
Exactly, we don't need to reinvent the wheel here. Tax personal and corporate incomes, just like we do now.
>I worry because I am certain that the only way out of civil war is universal basic income (socialism) or cyberpunk-style fascism.
UBC without any social contract in place may further allow immigrants to be alienated into language communities. Alienation breeds ill sentiment.
I really wonder what the solution should be.
UBC without any social contract in place may further allow immigrants to be alienated into language communities. Alienation breeds ill sentiment.
I really wonder what the solution should be.
So my Girlfriend (Monica) is currently doing her Master's at UPENN in social-policy & data science. Her major area of research and focus is on the impact of technological unemployment (which is an umbrella term which represents job loss due to robots and AI)
(we're currently looking for an internship by the way, so if you're in this area, please feel free to reach out!)
Some of the estimates of job-losses approach >50% which, for context, the great depression was 15% to 25%
So we're looking at the rough equivalent of 2 to 3 great depressions in terms of unemployment, but productivity should be equal or higher.
A lot of the solutions being looked at center around basic income, but there are some really interesting questions around BI like "how do we help people deal with the emotional impact of 'freeloading'?" or "how do we deal with 'life without purpose'?"
She's thrown out some interesting solutions (I think). There is expected to be a lot of focus on subsidized training.
One sort-of "out there" idea which I don't think I've heard anywhere was 'framing' the BI payments as a 'royalty' on the data they provide merely by existing. Since marketing, science and government with the help of big-data tracks everyone so deeply then turns around and re-sells that data, the people being reported on 'deserve a royalty' on the data they provide. (I'm paraphrasing and she is way smarter than me, so the way she put it was a lot more convincing).
If you're looking for more information on the coming tsunami of technological unemployment there were some incredibly interesting whitepapers published by the white-house on the policy impact of this stuff.
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - oct 2016 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/whi...
Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy - dec 2016 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/fi...
Monica's papers really echoed those whitehouse ones, though she hasn't published any of them yet, but the professors seem interested in publishing with her on a few things.
Anyways, this stuff really is a pretty big deal. You'll see Elon Musk talking about the 50% unemployment figure and the need for BI.
Who knows where today's whitehouse is going to go on this stuff, but we're really going to have to be prepared. Ontario Canada is kicking off a project in this now and a few other countries around the world have pilots brewing.
(we're currently looking for an internship by the way, so if you're in this area, please feel free to reach out!)
Some of the estimates of job-losses approach >50% which, for context, the great depression was 15% to 25%
So we're looking at the rough equivalent of 2 to 3 great depressions in terms of unemployment, but productivity should be equal or higher.
A lot of the solutions being looked at center around basic income, but there are some really interesting questions around BI like "how do we help people deal with the emotional impact of 'freeloading'?" or "how do we deal with 'life without purpose'?"
She's thrown out some interesting solutions (I think). There is expected to be a lot of focus on subsidized training.
One sort-of "out there" idea which I don't think I've heard anywhere was 'framing' the BI payments as a 'royalty' on the data they provide merely by existing. Since marketing, science and government with the help of big-data tracks everyone so deeply then turns around and re-sells that data, the people being reported on 'deserve a royalty' on the data they provide. (I'm paraphrasing and she is way smarter than me, so the way she put it was a lot more convincing).
If you're looking for more information on the coming tsunami of technological unemployment there were some incredibly interesting whitepapers published by the white-house on the policy impact of this stuff.
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - oct 2016 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/whi...
Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy - dec 2016 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/fi...
Monica's papers really echoed those whitehouse ones, though she hasn't published any of them yet, but the professors seem interested in publishing with her on a few things.
Anyways, this stuff really is a pretty big deal. You'll see Elon Musk talking about the 50% unemployment figure and the need for BI.
Who knows where today's whitehouse is going to go on this stuff, but we're really going to have to be prepared. Ontario Canada is kicking off a project in this now and a few other countries around the world have pilots brewing.
When I hear people talking about the mass unemployment, all I can do is yawn. Wind back the clock 100 years and replace "robot" with "tractor" or "factory machine" and people made the same claims.
They didn't see the jobs that would replace the jobs eliminated by the tractor. Centuries ago most Americans worked (many involuntarily) in agriculture. Most of those jobs were eliminated and replaced with jobs that didn't exist years ago. Even years ago, people were leaving the farm while other jobs were being created...like telephone company lineman or operator.
Certainly jobs will be eliminated by automation. That's easy to see. But new jobs are always being created. The problem is that we don't know which jobs will be created, while the jobs being destroyed are tangible and exist right now.
They didn't see the jobs that would replace the jobs eliminated by the tractor. Centuries ago most Americans worked (many involuntarily) in agriculture. Most of those jobs were eliminated and replaced with jobs that didn't exist years ago. Even years ago, people were leaving the farm while other jobs were being created...like telephone company lineman or operator.
Certainly jobs will be eliminated by automation. That's easy to see. But new jobs are always being created. The problem is that we don't know which jobs will be created, while the jobs being destroyed are tangible and exist right now.
I mean yes, to some extent you are right. People are generally resilient and society as a whole will undoubtedly bounce back over the course of the billions of people on the planet.
With that said, there's nothing to say that we can't help manage the transition for the massive numbers of people who ARE expected to be effected by this.
Consider the cost of retraining. Who would support going back to school? As a society we have the ability and resources to ensure people who do have their livelihoods automated aren't rendered homeless by a sudden unexpected loss of income.
We see the job losses on the horizon and we can plan ahead for it. We can yawn "because tractors" or we can start building out the social safety net now so we get out ahead of it.
New jobs will undoubtedly arise to take the role of those jobs being automated now, but the change isn't necessarily immediate, 1:1, or optimally geo-located.
We need schemes in place in order to support the transition period. Retraining, mobility, nutrition, shelter could all need stop-gaps to prevent catastrophe for some populations.
Much of Monica's research is finding that women, minorities and populations which are currently "at-risk" already are expected to be disproportionately affected by the coming wave of automation. Lower education & working poor are going to get hit badly by this.
Consider for example Detroit, Consider "coal country" - the it's not as easy to say "because tractors" to the real people who are suddenly out of work in a city or state where the entire economy just dried up.
Maybe they were already living paycheck-to-paycheck, maybe their nest-egg investment in their house suddenly became worthless because nobody needs to move to town anymore. Maybe after 30 or 40 years at the plant they're close to retirement, but have deeply specialized in something where they can't generalize their existing skills. And so on. "because tractors" is very little comfort to them.
"People" will be fine in general, "these people" quite specifically will be devastated.
Maybe there's a role for legislation that requires companies reducing workforce to support those former employees for longer?
With that said, there's nothing to say that we can't help manage the transition for the massive numbers of people who ARE expected to be effected by this.
Consider the cost of retraining. Who would support going back to school? As a society we have the ability and resources to ensure people who do have their livelihoods automated aren't rendered homeless by a sudden unexpected loss of income.
We see the job losses on the horizon and we can plan ahead for it. We can yawn "because tractors" or we can start building out the social safety net now so we get out ahead of it.
New jobs will undoubtedly arise to take the role of those jobs being automated now, but the change isn't necessarily immediate, 1:1, or optimally geo-located.
We need schemes in place in order to support the transition period. Retraining, mobility, nutrition, shelter could all need stop-gaps to prevent catastrophe for some populations.
Much of Monica's research is finding that women, minorities and populations which are currently "at-risk" already are expected to be disproportionately affected by the coming wave of automation. Lower education & working poor are going to get hit badly by this.
Consider for example Detroit, Consider "coal country" - the it's not as easy to say "because tractors" to the real people who are suddenly out of work in a city or state where the entire economy just dried up.
Maybe they were already living paycheck-to-paycheck, maybe their nest-egg investment in their house suddenly became worthless because nobody needs to move to town anymore. Maybe after 30 or 40 years at the plant they're close to retirement, but have deeply specialized in something where they can't generalize their existing skills. And so on. "because tractors" is very little comfort to them.
"People" will be fine in general, "these people" quite specifically will be devastated.
Maybe there's a role for legislation that requires companies reducing workforce to support those former employees for longer?
You can already see it is different this time, if you are unskilled then the opportunities are very thin and have been for some time.
> Certainly jobs will be eliminated by automation. That's easy to see. But new jobs are always being created. The problem is that we don't know which jobs will be created, while the jobs being destroyed are tangible and exist right now.
How about more prison guard jobs? Incarceration rate has quadrupled since 1925, so that's a nice way to take care of unemployment twice -- for both inmates and their guards.
Tractors still needed to be driven by humans. It's like the horse carriage example. Yes, horse carriages were replaced by cars, and human horse carriage drivers were replaced by human car drivers. But what the hell happened to all the horses? With AI, humans are the horses!
If you don't think that effects of automation are felt yet, you should check out the last presidential election.
How about more prison guard jobs? Incarceration rate has quadrupled since 1925, so that's a nice way to take care of unemployment twice -- for both inmates and their guards.
Tractors still needed to be driven by humans. It's like the horse carriage example. Yes, horse carriages were replaced by cars, and human horse carriage drivers were replaced by human car drivers. But what the hell happened to all the horses? With AI, humans are the horses!
If you don't think that effects of automation are felt yet, you should check out the last presidential election.
I think this is naive. All of your historical examples involve the replacement of unskilled labor with more unskilled labor. Now we're talking about automation removing unskilled labor entirely from the job pool. Sure, there will be jobs that remain, but those will require a high degree of education/training, and the question is what do we do with the people that don't have the skills to get any of those jobs?
I think the perspective of "this time it's different" could very well be true when it comes to labor and automation.
I think the perspective of "this time it's different" could very well be true when it comes to labor and automation.
The point the article is making is that the changes in income distribution so far is not due to robots, it is due to policy decisions that can be changed.
The impact of automation is a profound topic. But it doesn't preclude us from making the policy change that would have altered income distribution in the last ten years, and the next ten years as well.
The impact of automation is a profound topic. But it doesn't preclude us from making the policy change that would have altered income distribution in the last ten years, and the next ten years as well.
Your idea sounds interesting but I thinks it's equivalent to a corporate tax. It's basically identical if you think about it.
They aren't equivalent. While both may give identical cash-flows, one has a financial outlay in the beginning while the other has a political outlay.
I just don't think it is likely that the current political class in America will raise taxes to the levels necessary to subsidize UBI.
I just don't think it is likely that the current political class in America will raise taxes to the levels necessary to subsidize UBI.
Capitalism is supposed to cannibalize itself.
A primary focus should be on overthrowing the military industrial complex, which seems to be the source of a lot of waste - both of human focus and capital. Anyone doing their research will reach the conclusion that there are many factors of misalignment and sabotage within the US government. If the US didn't have its fingers in so many other governments, then it would be safer to ignore this fact.
>A primary focus should be on overthrowing the military industrial complex, which seems to be the source of a lot of waste... If the US didn't have its fingers in so many other governments, then it would be safer to ignore this fact.
The only problem I have with this idea is that, if the US weren't the superpower pulling strings, surely someone else (Russia or China) would be. Would that be any better for the world? How much waste was there during Soviet times, when so many nations had so little productivity under Soviet management, and their economies were closed to the rest of the world?
Personally, I'd rather see a more equal alliance among western nations, but for some reason that just doesn't seem to be happening.
The only problem I have with this idea is that, if the US weren't the superpower pulling strings, surely someone else (Russia or China) would be. Would that be any better for the world? How much waste was there during Soviet times, when so many nations had so little productivity under Soviet management, and their economies were closed to the rest of the world?
Personally, I'd rather see a more equal alliance among western nations, but for some reason that just doesn't seem to be happening.
We can have the conversation about which country (if any) should be the leader of the free world once we have liberated the facts about the US military industry complex's world influence to a mainstream status.
"Capitalism will destroy capitalism", very good! Maybe it always does by definition?
No, that's a theory.
Most kids coming out of college will go into careers their grandparents have never even heard of or don't understand.
That's the way it's always been, while old jobs get replaced by technology, new jobs get created.
It's not unique to this generation.
Most kids coming out of college will go into careers their grandparents have never even heard of or don't understand.
That's the way it's always been, while old jobs get replaced by technology, new jobs get created.
It's not unique to this generation.
"That's the way it's always been" works great, right up until it doesn't. History is full of periods of great upheaval, and there's no reason to think those are over, either. This is a problem we need to pay attention to.
> while old jobs get replaced by technology, new jobs get created.
But always significantly fewer than before, that's the entire point of the technology, to reduce the number of humans needed for the process.
But always significantly fewer than before, that's the entire point of the technology, to reduce the number of humans needed for the process.
And yet somehow the employment and unemployment rates in the developed world are pretty healthy, and there are more manufacturing jobs in the developing world than ever.
The point of technology is to reduce the number of people doing a given task, freeing up that labor to perform higher value activities, or the same activity to a higher value. So fewer people need to be sailors, road work gang members or field laborers and more of us can be TV presenters, computer game artists and SCUBA diving instructors. Occupations representative of whole industries the world couldn't have afforded to support a hundred years ago. Vast swathes of the population back then were doing jobs that hardly even exist anymore, yet somehow we don't have vast swathes of the population out of work. That doesn't even factor in the massive transfer of female labor from household work to the working class and professional labor markets.
The point of technology is to reduce the number of people doing a given task, freeing up that labor to perform higher value activities, or the same activity to a higher value. So fewer people need to be sailors, road work gang members or field laborers and more of us can be TV presenters, computer game artists and SCUBA diving instructors. Occupations representative of whole industries the world couldn't have afforded to support a hundred years ago. Vast swathes of the population back then were doing jobs that hardly even exist anymore, yet somehow we don't have vast swathes of the population out of work. That doesn't even factor in the massive transfer of female labor from household work to the working class and professional labor markets.
> the employment and unemployment rates in the developed world are pretty healthy,
"In 1948, the labor-force participation rate was a staggering 96.7% among men in their prime working years. That statistic has been steadily declining ever since"
Since 2000, the labor force participation rate has steadily declined for women as well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/13/a-rec...
"One in six prime-age guys has no job; it's kind of worse than it was in the depression in 1940," says Nicholas Eberstadt, an economic and demographic researcher at AEI.
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/06/492849471/an-economic-mystery-...
"In 1948, the labor-force participation rate was a staggering 96.7% among men in their prime working years. That statistic has been steadily declining ever since"
Since 2000, the labor force participation rate has steadily declined for women as well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/13/a-rec...
"One in six prime-age guys has no job; it's kind of worse than it was in the depression in 1940," says Nicholas Eberstadt, an economic and demographic researcher at AEI.
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/06/492849471/an-economic-mystery-...
> And yet somehow the employment and unemployment rates in the developed world are pretty healthy
...if you ignore half of Europe
...if you ignore half of Europe
You are only talking about recent history. Historically, the vast majority of humanity lived in abject poverty. I expect the vast majority of new jobs to be low skilled, low pay jobs like cleaning the robots. or gig economy where people are paid by the minute and screwed over by Uber like companies.
As an active scuba diver myself, I know that very few people can ever make a living as diving instructors. The market is just too small and isn't growing. The vast majority of instructors do it as a side job.
When has thought ever been automated before? When have we had a tool that can build tools? How can capitalism survive with 80+% unemployment?
It's as inevitable as gravity.
It's as inevitable as gravity.
Grandparents aren't that dumb.
Go dig up US employment statistics (BLS is good source). There are a lot of people doing jobs that are really easy to describe. "Driver". "Clerk". And so on.
Go dig up US employment statistics (BLS is good source). There are a lot of people doing jobs that are really easy to describe. "Driver". "Clerk". And so on.
Not only that, but if you describe something very minutely and exacting, it will seem very difficult. But if you describe it as "A game with 2 opposing sides, with a shared oblong ball, and each team tries to get it to the other side past their opponents." And I just described US football.
> Capitalism will destroy capitalism as we know it.
Capitalism will not destroy itself. Capitalism will reach its conclusion. We should let it. Herald the dawn of the new age.
Capitalism will not destroy itself. Capitalism will reach its conclusion. We should let it. Herald the dawn of the new age.
Harold is a ghoul with a tree growing out of his head.
Herald is the word you were looking for.
Herald is the word you were looking for.
I wonder sometimes if the hype surrounding AI/Automation isn't just a clever way for socialists to push their agenda.
The logic is irrefutable.
At some time in the future the drive to increase profits by automation will increase unemployment in ways that will lead to the biggest recession we'll ever see if we don't have basic income.
Can you see a capitalistic world working with 30% unemployment? How about 80%?
At some time in the future the drive to increase profits by automation will increase unemployment in ways that will lead to the biggest recession we'll ever see if we don't have basic income.
Can you see a capitalistic world working with 30% unemployment? How about 80%?
What percentage of the labour market in 1900 were doing jobs that don't exist anymore? In the 1920s the UK employed 2 million miners, yet nowadays we don't have 2 million unemployed mine workers on the dole campaigning to be let back down the pits so they can have their jobs back. Same goes for vast swathes of the employment landscape back then.
Instead we have vast swathes of people employed doing jobs that didn't exist back then and in many cases were unimaginable. Looking at the UK, many times more people do service sector jobs now that didn't exist back then than the entire population of 1900 Britain. Almost a million people work in the 'Creative and Media' sector alone.
You could argue that all those jobs could be done by AIs. Well, maybe, but I don't believe we'll have AIs capable of that for at least another 100 years. The last 50 years of AI research have barely even scratched the surface of the problem. So I believe the transition is going to be slow enough that we'll have several generations to adapt. It's not a problem we have to solve in 5 years or 10 or we're toast. Society is going to change so much, in ways that we can't anticipate, that trying to solve it now is futile.
What we need to do is focus on the actual problems before us as they occur in the real world. There are enough of them, after all. Maybe Basic Income can be beneficial, even today with near-full employment by historic standards. I'm hopeful. But I'm skeptical that were anywhere near an automation-lead employment crisis. After all the world just absorbed adding a Billion Chinese people to the global work force pretty well.
Instead we have vast swathes of people employed doing jobs that didn't exist back then and in many cases were unimaginable. Looking at the UK, many times more people do service sector jobs now that didn't exist back then than the entire population of 1900 Britain. Almost a million people work in the 'Creative and Media' sector alone.
You could argue that all those jobs could be done by AIs. Well, maybe, but I don't believe we'll have AIs capable of that for at least another 100 years. The last 50 years of AI research have barely even scratched the surface of the problem. So I believe the transition is going to be slow enough that we'll have several generations to adapt. It's not a problem we have to solve in 5 years or 10 or we're toast. Society is going to change so much, in ways that we can't anticipate, that trying to solve it now is futile.
What we need to do is focus on the actual problems before us as they occur in the real world. There are enough of them, after all. Maybe Basic Income can be beneficial, even today with near-full employment by historic standards. I'm hopeful. But I'm skeptical that were anywhere near an automation-lead employment crisis. After all the world just absorbed adding a Billion Chinese people to the global work force pretty well.
>even today with near-full employment by historic standards
There's quite a difference between the "employment" figures and the labor force participation rate[0].
The employment figure does not take into account people who have stopped looking for work, or people who have a part-time job that they wish was full-time.
[0] http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/563caf319dd7ccfc418...
There's quite a difference between the "employment" figures and the labor force participation rate[0].
The employment figure does not take into account people who have stopped looking for work, or people who have a part-time job that they wish was full-time.
[0] http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/563caf319dd7ccfc418...
Of course, but are you contending that in the past those factors were significantly different, and that the reason for the difference is primarily automation?
It's not necessarily about the jobs, it has more to do with the economic engine.
The economic engine has been in a virtuous feedback loop for hundreds of years. People are born, get educated, find work, and become consumers and savers, thus generating the sales companies need to innovate and lending the capital for others to start new ventures.
Step by step we've built this whole engine simply because we were born in this system.
If jobs are lost fast enough, the whole engine shuts down: as AI replaces jobs faster than new economic sectors are created levels of spending in society will decrease, leading to reduced profits (or increased losses) and increased layoffs, thus speeding up the process.
The thing is that AI has the potential to replace all jobs any human could ever have.
Now, your second point regarding jobs that can't be replaced: every job can be replaced. The human brain isn't special it's just a machine.
And you're looking at AI research in a linear fashion. At some point enough computational power breaks through any problem.
The economic engine has been in a virtuous feedback loop for hundreds of years. People are born, get educated, find work, and become consumers and savers, thus generating the sales companies need to innovate and lending the capital for others to start new ventures.
Step by step we've built this whole engine simply because we were born in this system.
If jobs are lost fast enough, the whole engine shuts down: as AI replaces jobs faster than new economic sectors are created levels of spending in society will decrease, leading to reduced profits (or increased losses) and increased layoffs, thus speeding up the process.
The thing is that AI has the potential to replace all jobs any human could ever have.
Now, your second point regarding jobs that can't be replaced: every job can be replaced. The human brain isn't special it's just a machine.
And you're looking at AI research in a linear fashion. At some point enough computational power breaks through any problem.
This, combined with the worldwide rejection of neoliberal capitalism at the ballot box, should be really strong indicators that the status quo is unsustainable and you're not going to be able to reestablish it.
UBI via a sovereign wealth fund is a good goal to work towards if you want to avoid some miserable dystopia.
UBI via a sovereign wealth fund is a good goal to work towards if you want to avoid some miserable dystopia.
At one point the logic of Communism was irrefutable. And yet they turned out to be wrong all the same. Don't be so confident that you can't predict the future.
Irrefutable? "I do not think that word means what you think it means." (Or else, I rate that logic as considerably less airtight than you do...)
The agenda that everyone should have the option to not be homeless? These socialists ... now they even use reality for their evil plans.
It really isn't. AI and automation are both advancing so fast currently that even the tech-aware are, well, unaware at its speed, and what the coming social effects will be.
> AI and automation are both advancing so fast
In what ways/areas are they advancing fast?
In what ways/areas are they advancing fast?
I think it is genuine belief and a desire to find a solution to what looks like it could be a very chaotic future outcome. I've puzzle on it myself and find several options I come up with sounding socialist. I don't have an answer that I think is viable or that I even like but I believe that we could be quickly heading in the direction of 'robots' taking a on many more jobs.
unfortunately, it's not a concerted effort. We haven't been well enough organized to create a campaign like that. However, it does provide a really good talking point. We have, however, known that a development like automation was inevitable.
I've said this before and I'll say it again, not because I believe it's the right answer but because it's the answer that makes the most sense to me.
Why are we so dead set on letting the human experience be about working ourselves to death? Fearing that robots will take over a job is definitely scary, but I can't understand why we can't make the mental shift that these robots could bring us into utopia (not ignoring that they could deliver us into chaos either).
We live in a world where our value is based on our career. If robots are going to start automating lots of jobs, we need to make a mental shift that the value of a human doesn't come from their career.
The shared myth of currency must learn to get its value from other things. Our society has to learn that a person is more valuable than their 9-5 career.
Why are we so dead set on letting the human experience be about working ourselves to death? Fearing that robots will take over a job is definitely scary, but I can't understand why we can't make the mental shift that these robots could bring us into utopia (not ignoring that they could deliver us into chaos either).
We live in a world where our value is based on our career. If robots are going to start automating lots of jobs, we need to make a mental shift that the value of a human doesn't come from their career.
The shared myth of currency must learn to get its value from other things. Our society has to learn that a person is more valuable than their 9-5 career.
This sounds good, but I think people are quite sensible when they refuse to accept it.
Broadly, people right now are sustaining themselves via their own efforts - if your boss quits paying you, you can take your work elsewhere. It's a mutually beneficial exchange, so there's no reason to think anyone is going to cancel it unless they get a better alternative. (The situation for capital is a bit more complex, but the argument carries.)
The utopian logic of automation suggests that people will be provided benefits without mutually-beneficial exchange - which threatens the outcome where someone else can say "you know, I'd be wealthier if I quit supplying you with food".
For someone currently limited to working 28 hours per week so that their employer can avoid giving them health care, this is a terrifying proposition. They're painfully aware that the people most likely to own the robots have a track record of choosing personal wealth over the well-being of employees (or even the companies they own - Sears is not explainable by pointing to ruthlessly efficient capitalism). That person might not be comfortable right now, but they're not living on charity either, and precedent suggests that living on charity is a terrible place to be.
Obviously none of this is inevitable; even the existing logic requires support and agreements. Labor and capital can't be exercised freely without someone around preventing slavery, robbery, and appropriation - reliable systems can be built. But right now I think its unfair to suggest that people are valuing themselves by their careers as an emotional matter. The reality is that the emotional reaction to unemployment is largely driven by the practical fear of being rendered optional.
Broadly, people right now are sustaining themselves via their own efforts - if your boss quits paying you, you can take your work elsewhere. It's a mutually beneficial exchange, so there's no reason to think anyone is going to cancel it unless they get a better alternative. (The situation for capital is a bit more complex, but the argument carries.)
The utopian logic of automation suggests that people will be provided benefits without mutually-beneficial exchange - which threatens the outcome where someone else can say "you know, I'd be wealthier if I quit supplying you with food".
For someone currently limited to working 28 hours per week so that their employer can avoid giving them health care, this is a terrifying proposition. They're painfully aware that the people most likely to own the robots have a track record of choosing personal wealth over the well-being of employees (or even the companies they own - Sears is not explainable by pointing to ruthlessly efficient capitalism). That person might not be comfortable right now, but they're not living on charity either, and precedent suggests that living on charity is a terrible place to be.
Obviously none of this is inevitable; even the existing logic requires support and agreements. Labor and capital can't be exercised freely without someone around preventing slavery, robbery, and appropriation - reliable systems can be built. But right now I think its unfair to suggest that people are valuing themselves by their careers as an emotional matter. The reality is that the emotional reaction to unemployment is largely driven by the practical fear of being rendered optional.
> Broadly, people right now are sustaining themselves via their own efforts
I don't think this is really true, and although a useful myth for social cohesion, it ends up being the source of all sorts of problems.
I don't think this is really true, and although a useful myth for social cohesion, it ends up being the source of all sorts of problems.
Oh man, that's a way bigger question.
I suppose I can exempt my statement by saying "within the confines of the economic and political landscape, people are hired and paid as a mutually beneficial exchange". That way we escape the larger question of whether the exchange is actually enough to sustain people.
But yeah, there's a more interesting and unnerving point to be discussed there. My assumption is that you're talking about various indirect subsidies that keep people above water (even things like subsidizing roads at the expense of non-drivers so people can drive to work). I largely agree, but I'd be curious if you're talking about something deeper than that?
I suppose I can exempt my statement by saying "within the confines of the economic and political landscape, people are hired and paid as a mutually beneficial exchange". That way we escape the larger question of whether the exchange is actually enough to sustain people.
But yeah, there's a more interesting and unnerving point to be discussed there. My assumption is that you're talking about various indirect subsidies that keep people above water (even things like subsidizing roads at the expense of non-drivers so people can drive to work). I largely agree, but I'd be curious if you're talking about something deeper than that?
It's pretty much just that. I've read some pretty intense thought-provoking books recently, "Marx's Inferno" in particular, which I don't feel comfortable paraphrasing, which make the rabbit hole seem way deeper. However, I was mostly thinking of just that.
Lampert is a well known ideologue/Randroid (regarding Sears)
Precisely. You can pitch Sears as "Lampert lined his own pockets with buybacks, then tried to salvage the damage done" or "Lampert was a moron who implemented bad policies". The truth appears to be some combination - he seemed to genuinely think stock buybacks were better than capital investment, and thought his lean-and-mean interbranch competition would produce savings.
What you can't do is argue that Sears is the product of actually efficient markets. Lampert selected for brutal, Randian techniques even when they were far less rewarding than taking a decent, eusocial approach. It's like cargo cult capitalism - he saw that sometimes successful businesses harm people, and decided that if he just harmed enough people he'd have a successful business.
What you can't do is argue that Sears is the product of actually efficient markets. Lampert selected for brutal, Randian techniques even when they were far less rewarding than taking a decent, eusocial approach. It's like cargo cult capitalism - he saw that sometimes successful businesses harm people, and decided that if he just harmed enough people he'd have a successful business.
That's a nice thought, and Keynes had the same one almost 80 years ago[1].
Unfortunately, capitalism disagrees. As long as we have capitalism + greed, the owners of the automation will reap the benefits while everyone else struggles to make a living.
[1] http://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we-...
Unfortunately, capitalism disagrees. As long as we have capitalism + greed, the owners of the automation will reap the benefits while everyone else struggles to make a living.
[1] http://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we-...
> the owners of the automation will reap the benefits while everyone else struggles to make a living
Those people are reaping these benefits because of decades/centuries of publicly funded science. So they don't have a very strong basis for claiming their surplus wealth.
Those people are reaping these benefits because of decades/centuries of publicly funded science. So they don't have a very strong basis for claiming their surplus wealth.
Your comment is music to my ears. I can think of like a million other things I would rather do than work (and I actually really enjoy working). Build the app I always wanted, learn assembly, travel, backpack, garden, volunteer, read etc... Or just freaking sleeping in... jeebus, that would be nice.
But from what I hear about "real America". There is a huge value placed on "working with your hands". It's a pride thing. That's at least my stereotypical understanding anyways. I don't really know.
But from what I hear about "real America". There is a huge value placed on "working with your hands". It's a pride thing. That's at least my stereotypical understanding anyways. I don't really know.
Work can provide opportunities that you can't (or can't easily) get outside that. So for example, it's been a dream of mine all my life to move to the USA. Currently I'm trying to find a job there.
In a world full of robots doing my job, how can I ever be sponsored for a VISA? I can't self sponsor as I don't really meet any of the criteria for self sponsorship.
Perhaps I could marry but I wouldn't do that just for a green card, that's dishonest and I won't do that.
Maybe in the UBI utopia, people will be able to move to other countries just by asking. I'm not holding my breath though.
In a world full of robots doing my job, how can I ever be sponsored for a VISA? I can't self sponsor as I don't really meet any of the criteria for self sponsorship.
Perhaps I could marry but I wouldn't do that just for a green card, that's dishonest and I won't do that.
Maybe in the UBI utopia, people will be able to move to other countries just by asking. I'm not holding my breath though.
The problem with robots comes from the fact that you don't own the robot that replaces your job. When I write a script to make a job that took one hour take one minute, I benefit from that. When someone else creates software that does my job for cheaper, I might be out of a job. We don't yet have a mechanism for sharing the wealth gains with people whose labor is obviated by technology.
Exactly one reason I think we have seen a drop in productivity is the demand for extreme unpaid overtime, if you work 80-100 hours a week but only get paid for 40 that's doing serious damage to both the workers health and finance. But in the growing technology field 100 hours work for 40 hours pay if often the norm. I've seen the 9-5 devolve into an 18 hours a day for 8 hours pay situation.
Quite frankly, I look at Congress, I look at people like Paul Ryan, and I see a complete inability to look at things like that. I see people who feel that if you are not working, you should be punished. And in seeing that, I see a Congress that would be unwilling to make the shifts needed if the robots take more and more of our jobs.
I love the ideal that, if labor is automated, that we would be able to spend that time and energy on things that would better society. Making art, scientific research, all that good stuff. But, before anyone can do any of that, they need their basic needs to be met. They need food, shelter, and clothing. Currently, the only way to get that is to work. If we take away the basic jobs that millions, if not billions of people are doing, and our leaders don't want to invest in the basic income idea, they're not going to be able to meet those basic needs or go on to those higher pursuits.
I love the ideal that, if labor is automated, that we would be able to spend that time and energy on things that would better society. Making art, scientific research, all that good stuff. But, before anyone can do any of that, they need their basic needs to be met. They need food, shelter, and clothing. Currently, the only way to get that is to work. If we take away the basic jobs that millions, if not billions of people are doing, and our leaders don't want to invest in the basic income idea, they're not going to be able to meet those basic needs or go on to those higher pursuits.
>Why are we so dead set on letting the human experience be about working ourselves to death?
Because every living organism is designed to work itself to death and we're no exception.
Because every living organism is designed to work itself to death and we're no exception.
What does the value of a human come from, then?
If that could be answered satisfactorily on a message board...we'd have had a very different human history for the last 5,000 years ;)
I mean, there's no provable source for the value of a human. Nothing in nature you can point to and say "that's it, that's why a human has value".
I say, and my politics reflect this, that all people have intrinsic value. They're born with it, they have it til they die. Because of that, they should have access to food, shelter, medical care. No matter how much work they do or how much stuff they make.
Other people say a person is only as valuable as how much they work. (and I respond, screw that, it leads to a lot of suffering!)
I mean, there's no provable source for the value of a human. Nothing in nature you can point to and say "that's it, that's why a human has value".
I say, and my politics reflect this, that all people have intrinsic value. They're born with it, they have it til they die. Because of that, they should have access to food, shelter, medical care. No matter how much work they do or how much stuff they make.
Other people say a person is only as valuable as how much they work. (and I respond, screw that, it leads to a lot of suffering!)
I agree that humans have intrinsic value, but I don't see how providing them with free food, shelter, and medical care follows from that presupposition. Would that not require other humans to provide those things for free? Are their lives not as intrinsically valuable, or are you comfortable with enslaving a portion of the population to ensure these needs are taken care of?
I don't consider it enslavement, any more than I consider a parent's obligation to feed and clothe their child enslavement.
I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your offspring starve to death (Thank you, Mises, for clearing that up for us!), but I don't think that system of thinking is a valid or useful way to arrange society.
(Neither, it seems, does any society on earth, since no one has ever attempted such a thing.)
I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite different from that.
I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or "taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion.
I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your offspring starve to death (Thank you, Mises, for clearing that up for us!), but I don't think that system of thinking is a valid or useful way to arrange society.
(Neither, it seems, does any society on earth, since no one has ever attempted such a thing.)
I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite different from that.
I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or "taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion.
> I don't consider it enslavement, any more than I consider a parent's obligation to feed and clothe their child enslavement.
So you think adults should be treated like children? Very telling.
Your thinking is fallacious, though. If you bring children into the world, you are of course responsible for providing for them. But you are also responsible for helping them become self-sufficient. Perhaps you think children should be coddled by their parents for the rest of their lives?
> I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your offspring starve to death
Who said anything about libertarianism? A bit of a non sequitur, wouldn't you say. And I don't think you understand libertarianism anyways. If you do, then I sure as hell don't agree with it.
> I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite different from that.
I think we should help one another, but I don't think we should be forced to help one another. Big difference.
> I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or "taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion.
Again with the libertarianism. I'll indulge you because you seem to want to fight against a perceived ideology. How is taxation not theft exactly? How is forcing people to take care of others not slaver, exactly? It's not a rhetorical trick, these are objective facts.
So you think adults should be treated like children? Very telling.
Your thinking is fallacious, though. If you bring children into the world, you are of course responsible for providing for them. But you are also responsible for helping them become self-sufficient. Perhaps you think children should be coddled by their parents for the rest of their lives?
> I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your offspring starve to death
Who said anything about libertarianism? A bit of a non sequitur, wouldn't you say. And I don't think you understand libertarianism anyways. If you do, then I sure as hell don't agree with it.
> I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite different from that.
I think we should help one another, but I don't think we should be forced to help one another. Big difference.
> I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or "taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion.
Again with the libertarianism. I'll indulge you because you seem to want to fight against a perceived ideology. How is taxation not theft exactly? How is forcing people to take care of others not slaver, exactly? It's not a rhetorical trick, these are objective facts.
>or are you comfortable with enslaving a portion of the population to ensure these needs are taken care of
I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery.
The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous. Within the capitalist mode of production, human labour-time is like any other quantity; the spinning loom, the silk, etc. Sugar is bought by the kilogram, human labour-time by the hour. Human labour-time is another commodity within capitalism, and like every other commodity in Capitalism, it is maximised for exchange-value over use-value.
Market interactions, at least within Capitalism, have the quality of being fetishised, so that rather than seeing the obscured web of interactions between people, we merely see prices and figures. If anything is dehumanising, I'd say that working to make things you don't want (usually causing alienation) is the most dehumanising of them all.
I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery.
The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous. Within the capitalist mode of production, human labour-time is like any other quantity; the spinning loom, the silk, etc. Sugar is bought by the kilogram, human labour-time by the hour. Human labour-time is another commodity within capitalism, and like every other commodity in Capitalism, it is maximised for exchange-value over use-value.
Market interactions, at least within Capitalism, have the quality of being fetishised, so that rather than seeing the obscured web of interactions between people, we merely see prices and figures. If anything is dehumanising, I'd say that working to make things you don't want (usually causing alienation) is the most dehumanising of them all.
> I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery.
Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land.
> The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous.
Capitalism helps us quantify human productivity. That's about it. Humans have transcendent value. Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force. There are no other systems that can make that claim.
Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land.
> The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous.
Capitalism helps us quantify human productivity. That's about it. Humans have transcendent value. Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force. There are no other systems that can make that claim.
> Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land.
You can't, a billionaire already bought that land.
You can't, a billionaire already bought that land.
Is that billionaire the US Government? Because if so, I'm with you on that point. But seriously, nothing is stopping you from entering into the vast wilderness and surviving on your own.
>Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land.
My struggle is not my own, it is of the whole working class and those who are exploited and left in destitution by the capitalist system. Effectively saying 'move somewhere else' rarely works and is a very crude way of saying 'fuck off' to someone who raises legitimate problems in the world in which most people live. For any semblance of a life to benefit from the past work of humanity, going and living in a forest is not sufficient, unless you are fine with living like an ascetic, barely having your needs met. Most people would find this disagreeable, and many people cannot afford to do it.
The land is owned by the state (operating via bourgeois democracy) and if not private property owners. I see these as one and the same organ of proprietorship, staking claim based in false premises and contradicting with the principles of justice and equality (Proudhon's 'What is Property?' is interesting on this topic, as well as Kropotkin's 'The Conquest of Bread' and many of Marx and Engels' works.)
>Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force.
This is laughably false. What is so degrading about slavery is not the fact that there is no pay, but that one is forced to perform a particular task at risk of destitution or starvation. In the same way, one class oppresses another, the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. It is no defence of any right at all to be forced in such a way. If there is no government, there is still the unjustified authority of one class over another, which is problematic in my opinion.
It's also worth noting that because labour-time is a commodity, the owner of the business will pay for that commodity for what it costs at minimum, in order to get the best deal, that is, enough to sustain firstly continued availability of labour-time and secondly to sustain the replenishing of the source of labour-time (i.e a family). Just as the slave owner would house his slaves, your boss in capitalism gives you some freedom to choose where you work and how to spend some of your time.
It's said that one of the most damaging aspects of capitalism is not the time on the clock for the boss, but rather the 'maintenance' (just as a machine is maintained) of the worker in his leisure time, eating time and sleeping time. It is always on the clock, in different forms. Your life is merely a running cost for the boss, no more.
>There are no other systems that can make that claim.
Social anarchism can, unlike "anarcho"-capitalism, which perpetuates a system of unjustified authority. Why should the boss be paid so much for labour he didn't perform? For taking a 'risk'? How is that quantified? For giving the employees the wonderful privilege of being exploited? There is no justification for it.
Capitalism does not quantify human productivity, if by that you mean that those who work the hardest are rewarded the most. This is clearly false, and can be seen in sweatshops; you have no reason to believe it is any different in a cushy office job in SV or London. Socially Necessary Labour Time can make some kind of approximation of the relative amount of productivity within a market, but as to why that should be ascribed as a measure of human worth, I don't think it ought to be.
Why is it that libertarians take such pride in 'No God, no masters' but openly defend the 'right' of a boss to exploit his workers and encourage the damaging psychological phenomenon of alienation?
I say: down with the state and down with private property.
My struggle is not my own, it is of the whole working class and those who are exploited and left in destitution by the capitalist system. Effectively saying 'move somewhere else' rarely works and is a very crude way of saying 'fuck off' to someone who raises legitimate problems in the world in which most people live. For any semblance of a life to benefit from the past work of humanity, going and living in a forest is not sufficient, unless you are fine with living like an ascetic, barely having your needs met. Most people would find this disagreeable, and many people cannot afford to do it.
The land is owned by the state (operating via bourgeois democracy) and if not private property owners. I see these as one and the same organ of proprietorship, staking claim based in false premises and contradicting with the principles of justice and equality (Proudhon's 'What is Property?' is interesting on this topic, as well as Kropotkin's 'The Conquest of Bread' and many of Marx and Engels' works.)
>Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force.
This is laughably false. What is so degrading about slavery is not the fact that there is no pay, but that one is forced to perform a particular task at risk of destitution or starvation. In the same way, one class oppresses another, the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. It is no defence of any right at all to be forced in such a way. If there is no government, there is still the unjustified authority of one class over another, which is problematic in my opinion.
It's also worth noting that because labour-time is a commodity, the owner of the business will pay for that commodity for what it costs at minimum, in order to get the best deal, that is, enough to sustain firstly continued availability of labour-time and secondly to sustain the replenishing of the source of labour-time (i.e a family). Just as the slave owner would house his slaves, your boss in capitalism gives you some freedom to choose where you work and how to spend some of your time.
It's said that one of the most damaging aspects of capitalism is not the time on the clock for the boss, but rather the 'maintenance' (just as a machine is maintained) of the worker in his leisure time, eating time and sleeping time. It is always on the clock, in different forms. Your life is merely a running cost for the boss, no more.
>There are no other systems that can make that claim.
Social anarchism can, unlike "anarcho"-capitalism, which perpetuates a system of unjustified authority. Why should the boss be paid so much for labour he didn't perform? For taking a 'risk'? How is that quantified? For giving the employees the wonderful privilege of being exploited? There is no justification for it.
Capitalism does not quantify human productivity, if by that you mean that those who work the hardest are rewarded the most. This is clearly false, and can be seen in sweatshops; you have no reason to believe it is any different in a cushy office job in SV or London. Socially Necessary Labour Time can make some kind of approximation of the relative amount of productivity within a market, but as to why that should be ascribed as a measure of human worth, I don't think it ought to be.
Why is it that libertarians take such pride in 'No God, no masters' but openly defend the 'right' of a boss to exploit his workers and encourage the damaging psychological phenomenon of alienation?
I say: down with the state and down with private property.
> My struggle is not my own, it is of the whole working class and those who are exploited and left in destitution by the capitalist system. Effectively saying 'move somewhere else' rarely works and is a very crude way of saying 'fuck off' to someone who raises legitimate problems in the world in which most people live. For any semblance of a life to benefit from the past work of humanity, going and living in a forest is not sufficient, unless you are fine with living like an ascetic, barely having your needs met. Most people would find this disagreeable, and many people cannot afford to do it.
You might be missing my point here. I am saying that at one point humans were all living off the land and under no form of government. They did that for millions of years, and successfully I might add. It was only within the last few thousand years that we started to form complex societies and governments. The alternative to society and government has always been anarchy (every man for himself). I would argue that the very small tribes we lived in for most of human history were socialist, and you and I would probably find some common ground on believing that to be the ideal structure in which to live. But once the tribes grow past a certain point socialism no longer remains viable. The interesting thing about the capitalist system is that it's somewhat of a fractal; the larger system is laissez faire but the corporations within it all operate internally as rough approximations to socialism. The real question is what form of governance is most inline with our human nature. I think we are socialist on a small scale and capitalist on a large scale.
> This is laughably false. What is so degrading about slavery is not the fact that there is no pay, but that one is forced to perform a particular task at risk of destitution or starvation.
We are all forced by nature to perform tasks in order to survive. This is the default state of our being. Society has made it somewhat more comfortable to survive, but the simple fact that we must struggle against nature in order to survive remains. All the bickering we're doing about forms of government is simply a debate about who should be responsible for doing the work that had to be done with or without formal societies.
> Just as the slave owner would house his slaves, your boss in capitalism gives you some freedom to choose where you work and how to spend some of your time.
There's one key point you're glossing over – capitalism gives you the freedom not to work. No slave was ever given that choice.
> Why should the boss be paid so much for labour he didn't perform? For taking a 'risk'? How is that quantified?
Yes, because they're taking a 'risk'. There are many ways of quantifying risk. Interest, for one. Past performance, for another. Usually people who scoff at the significance of risk are those who haven't taken any themselves.
> For giving the employees the wonderful privilege of being exploited? There is no justification for it.
Are employees not exploiting the capitalist? It's a two-way street. Employees collect all their pay and walk away unscathed if their company fails. The capitalist loses their entire investment if the company fails. We're all "exploiting" each other all the time. People who value security and stability over financial gain and autonomy work as employees. People who value financial gain and autonomy over security and stability become entrepreneurs. You fall into the same trap Marx did in believing that all people care about is money. It's a gross oversimplification of human nature.
> Capitalism does not quantify human productivity, if by that you mean that those who work the hardest are rewarded the most.
No, those who work the smartest are rewarded the most.
> Socially Necessary Labour Time can make some kind of approximation of the relative amount of productivity within a market, but as to why that should be ascribed as a measure of human worth, I don't think it ought to be.
It's a measure of a human's worth in terms of their productivity, but not in terms of their value as a human. Human life has equal and transcendent value in the U.S. and that has nothing to do with their financial worth or productivity. Marx was the one who was obsessed with defining everyone in terms of their economic outputs and needs.
> Why is it that libertarians take such pride in 'No God, no masters' but openly defend the 'right' of a boss to exploit his workers and encourage the damaging psychological phenomenon of alienation?
I don't know, perhaps you should ask one? Again, you talk about bosses "exploiting" workers without recognizing that workers also "exploit" bosses. Exploitation is a two-way street. Everyone is responsible for making sure they aren't exploited and that they don't do any exploiting of their own. Because it's impossible to quantify or measure exploitation (they tried this to horrifying effect in communist Russia), it must fall to the individual to make that determination.
> I say: down with the state and down with private property.
Well, good luck with that. The only way that's happening is through violence. Maybe you're a fan of violence, in which case, thank God we have a military to keep people like you from engaging in it. But if not, I'm not sure how you're ever going to accomplish this goal. The communist experiment has been tried. It doesn't work.
You might be missing my point here. I am saying that at one point humans were all living off the land and under no form of government. They did that for millions of years, and successfully I might add. It was only within the last few thousand years that we started to form complex societies and governments. The alternative to society and government has always been anarchy (every man for himself). I would argue that the very small tribes we lived in for most of human history were socialist, and you and I would probably find some common ground on believing that to be the ideal structure in which to live. But once the tribes grow past a certain point socialism no longer remains viable. The interesting thing about the capitalist system is that it's somewhat of a fractal; the larger system is laissez faire but the corporations within it all operate internally as rough approximations to socialism. The real question is what form of governance is most inline with our human nature. I think we are socialist on a small scale and capitalist on a large scale.
> This is laughably false. What is so degrading about slavery is not the fact that there is no pay, but that one is forced to perform a particular task at risk of destitution or starvation.
We are all forced by nature to perform tasks in order to survive. This is the default state of our being. Society has made it somewhat more comfortable to survive, but the simple fact that we must struggle against nature in order to survive remains. All the bickering we're doing about forms of government is simply a debate about who should be responsible for doing the work that had to be done with or without formal societies.
> Just as the slave owner would house his slaves, your boss in capitalism gives you some freedom to choose where you work and how to spend some of your time.
There's one key point you're glossing over – capitalism gives you the freedom not to work. No slave was ever given that choice.
> Why should the boss be paid so much for labour he didn't perform? For taking a 'risk'? How is that quantified?
Yes, because they're taking a 'risk'. There are many ways of quantifying risk. Interest, for one. Past performance, for another. Usually people who scoff at the significance of risk are those who haven't taken any themselves.
> For giving the employees the wonderful privilege of being exploited? There is no justification for it.
Are employees not exploiting the capitalist? It's a two-way street. Employees collect all their pay and walk away unscathed if their company fails. The capitalist loses their entire investment if the company fails. We're all "exploiting" each other all the time. People who value security and stability over financial gain and autonomy work as employees. People who value financial gain and autonomy over security and stability become entrepreneurs. You fall into the same trap Marx did in believing that all people care about is money. It's a gross oversimplification of human nature.
> Capitalism does not quantify human productivity, if by that you mean that those who work the hardest are rewarded the most.
No, those who work the smartest are rewarded the most.
> Socially Necessary Labour Time can make some kind of approximation of the relative amount of productivity within a market, but as to why that should be ascribed as a measure of human worth, I don't think it ought to be.
It's a measure of a human's worth in terms of their productivity, but not in terms of their value as a human. Human life has equal and transcendent value in the U.S. and that has nothing to do with their financial worth or productivity. Marx was the one who was obsessed with defining everyone in terms of their economic outputs and needs.
> Why is it that libertarians take such pride in 'No God, no masters' but openly defend the 'right' of a boss to exploit his workers and encourage the damaging psychological phenomenon of alienation?
I don't know, perhaps you should ask one? Again, you talk about bosses "exploiting" workers without recognizing that workers also "exploit" bosses. Exploitation is a two-way street. Everyone is responsible for making sure they aren't exploited and that they don't do any exploiting of their own. Because it's impossible to quantify or measure exploitation (they tried this to horrifying effect in communist Russia), it must fall to the individual to make that determination.
> I say: down with the state and down with private property.
Well, good luck with that. The only way that's happening is through violence. Maybe you're a fan of violence, in which case, thank God we have a military to keep people like you from engaging in it. But if not, I'm not sure how you're ever going to accomplish this goal. The communist experiment has been tried. It doesn't work.
Would you rather they beat the crap out of you and take your wealth? Cause let's be honest, that's the alternative. When it comes down to it, if the masses are not having their basic needs met, they will turn to crime and violence to meet them.
And no one, anywhere, is talking about enslaving people.
And no one, anywhere, is talking about enslaving people.
It's a bit far fetched to equate taxing capital with enslavement.
How are you going to collect taxes if nobody works?
Slavery is taking someone's labor for free. Even an Anarcho-Capitalist would have trouble equating taxation with slavery. The person being taxed gets the benefit of living in a country not plagued by uneducated, sick, hungry citizens. All for the low price of a certain percentage of their income.
I'm not saying taxation is slavery. I'm saying that you cannot have a system in which a portion of the population does zero work and receives resources for free without requiring that the other portion to do the work producing those resources.
If the productive portion simply stopped working, or only worked enough to barely survive themselves, the nonproductive portion of the population would perish unless they enslaved the productive portion and forced them to produce surpluses.
If the productive portion simply stopped working, or only worked enough to barely survive themselves, the nonproductive portion of the population would perish unless they enslaved the productive portion and forced them to produce surpluses.
An alternative to UBI as you describe it is simply that people provide their own food, shelter, and medical care. As an example, current shareholders of Chipotle, Pulte Group, and Hospital Corporation of America are not anywhere near physically providing people with food, shelter and medical care.
Worked well enough for humans for the past few million years or so.
It's literally what's happening now too. Unless you think that, for example, Mr. Thomas F. Frist Jr., the largest individual shareholder of HCA, is personally providing healthcare to people.
Broadly speaking, it comes from the value they provide to other humans, aka a person's value to society. At this point in human history, career is generally a proxy for this metric. E.g. doctors have high social value because they save other people's lives. Wealthy people have high social value because they have the potential to make those around them wealthier, etc.
This value derives from the average person's lack of the things that the other people provide. Suppose AI could provide all those things. Once AI becomes self-maintaining, the only value that humans could provide each other would be entirely social.
This value derives from the average person's lack of the things that the other people provide. Suppose AI could provide all those things. Once AI becomes self-maintaining, the only value that humans could provide each other would be entirely social.
The value of human life needn't come from being forced to sell one's labour, rather it can come from voluntarily usage of your own labour-time, not for the need to survive.
From their interactions with other people.
So introverts are less valuable?
This is just substituting one kind of contribution for another. What if someone wants to live in the mountains by themselves, away from people? Google Carthusian monks.
This is just substituting one kind of contribution for another. What if someone wants to live in the mountains by themselves, away from people? Google Carthusian monks.
Do you seriously only see a person's value as the amount of dollars that can be extracted from their labor?
No, I see a person's value as being transcendent and equivalent to all other persons.
Where does it come from now?
The reason is that our governments are giant, corrupt pieces of shit and people in power will not let people live a good life without 'contributing'. When a robot takes my job, I just don't have a job and then fuck me. That's the reality.
It's not just the government that thinks that. This belief is deeply ingrained in a lot of cultures, particularly American culture. The first psychological leap is much larger than the necessary societal changes.
I totally agree. Capitalism should be the means for generating enough wealth for everyone to eventually no longer have to spend their lives toiling away. Unfortunately, it's been perverted (especially in the U.S.) into a religion of sorts. It's treated as a moral framework, an end rather that a means to an end. We no longer pursue capitalism in order to achieve goals, capitalism has become the goal. Wealth is seen as an indicator of righteousness and life success and lack of wealth must be due to personal shortcomings. Nothing sums this up more in the U.S., in my opinion, than the surge in popularity of the prosperity gospel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
What scares me the most is that this wall of automation is all but invisible to most observers. Sure, some regular blue-collar workers will be rendered unemployable, which if done at a large enough scale will result in some civil unrest. Most would agree on this, and quite a few would call it a day and say "we've got to do something---!".
But what really, really freaks me out is that the civil unrest will evolve into utter pandemonium when the well-educated, college-degree-holding, Volkswagen-driving white collar wearers start to disappear from the workforce en masse.
How many skyscrapers are in the big city nearest to you? Have you ever wondered what most of those people do all day, for 40+ hours a week? You can bet it's not SQL, not Java or Python, or even golf with hopeful clientele. It's Excel and Outlook, and when that ship sails and computers start to do (they already are!) those things for those people, it's going to get very bad, very fast.
But what really, really freaks me out is that the civil unrest will evolve into utter pandemonium when the well-educated, college-degree-holding, Volkswagen-driving white collar wearers start to disappear from the workforce en masse.
How many skyscrapers are in the big city nearest to you? Have you ever wondered what most of those people do all day, for 40+ hours a week? You can bet it's not SQL, not Java or Python, or even golf with hopeful clientele. It's Excel and Outlook, and when that ship sails and computers start to do (they already are!) those things for those people, it's going to get very bad, very fast.
As someone who works in the field, I can't imagine automation would show up in either labor productivity of capital investment noted in the article.
In the case of labor productivity (by my understanding), if someone were to lose a job to automation and then begin working a less productive / lower paying job (because it's all they could get) then GDP would stay the same, hours worked would stay the same, and only the individual would be screwed, no?
In the case of capital investment, hard robotics is a photo op. The real job destruction is coming from soft robotics + initial deployments of AI. I can't imagine the procurement costs of those are falling under the capital ex budget. The departments we typically deal with are almost exclusively business-operations units (typically ones ill-served by the company's current IT).
Anyone who performs a process that follows a definable set of business rules is going to be automated away in the next 10 years. Some will last longer (OCR), some will go sooner (Excel), but it's an inexorable tide.
If your job doesn't require using your brain to make a complex, fuzzy-logic judgement call... I'd start seriously looking for one that does.
In the case of labor productivity (by my understanding), if someone were to lose a job to automation and then begin working a less productive / lower paying job (because it's all they could get) then GDP would stay the same, hours worked would stay the same, and only the individual would be screwed, no?
In the case of capital investment, hard robotics is a photo op. The real job destruction is coming from soft robotics + initial deployments of AI. I can't imagine the procurement costs of those are falling under the capital ex budget. The departments we typically deal with are almost exclusively business-operations units (typically ones ill-served by the company's current IT).
Anyone who performs a process that follows a definable set of business rules is going to be automated away in the next 10 years. Some will last longer (OCR), some will go sooner (Excel), but it's an inexorable tide.
If your job doesn't require using your brain to make a complex, fuzzy-logic judgement call... I'd start seriously looking for one that does.
> In the case of capital investment, hard robotics is a photo op.
> Anyone who performs a process that follows a definable set of business rules is going to be automated away in the next 10 years.
Completely agree, and this is what I fear we are not in the least bit prepared for as a society. The second quote I pulled from your comment applies equally to any worker irrespective of shirt color. There are many blue-collar jobs that would be exceedingly difficult and/or cost-prohibitive to automate; the same is true of a subset of white-collar jobs. But in the gushy center is a host of jobs that, with today's technology (and it's only going to get better) can be completely replaced by an algorithm. When we start seeing former yuppies from Yale picketing and marching with former machinists and truck drivers and so on, buckle up.
> Anyone who performs a process that follows a definable set of business rules is going to be automated away in the next 10 years.
Completely agree, and this is what I fear we are not in the least bit prepared for as a society. The second quote I pulled from your comment applies equally to any worker irrespective of shirt color. There are many blue-collar jobs that would be exceedingly difficult and/or cost-prohibitive to automate; the same is true of a subset of white-collar jobs. But in the gushy center is a host of jobs that, with today's technology (and it's only going to get better) can be completely replaced by an algorithm. When we start seeing former yuppies from Yale picketing and marching with former machinists and truck drivers and so on, buckle up.
I will say that in the long run, it will increase labor productivity and be a good thing. Where formerly there were 100 people manually performing {Back Office Process X}, now there are 5, aided by automation.
But... it's going to be a helluva time between here and there. The erosion of manufacturing jobs and subsequent demographic and geographic sinkholes caused by our society's inability to shift those dislocated into new productive work seems to indicate we (capitalism) don't have much of a plan other than "Hope the market / individual rationality fixes things eventually."
Unfortunately, I think it's the timescale that's going to get us. Holding the human lifetime, initial education, and reeducation (aka time to acquire marketable skills) approximately constant while continually increasing the rate of change of those skills' relative values doesn't give rational actors enough time to course correct.
Which, to summarize it coarsely, leads to people getting @$^!ed through no fault of their own, other than an inability to predict the future.
"I went into management because I felt it was a human-centric role that would always be needed."
(5 years later) "BREAKTHROUGH: New business description language allows for AI-driven allocation of labor and task resources!"
But... it's going to be a helluva time between here and there. The erosion of manufacturing jobs and subsequent demographic and geographic sinkholes caused by our society's inability to shift those dislocated into new productive work seems to indicate we (capitalism) don't have much of a plan other than "Hope the market / individual rationality fixes things eventually."
Unfortunately, I think it's the timescale that's going to get us. Holding the human lifetime, initial education, and reeducation (aka time to acquire marketable skills) approximately constant while continually increasing the rate of change of those skills' relative values doesn't give rational actors enough time to course correct.
Which, to summarize it coarsely, leads to people getting @$^!ed through no fault of their own, other than an inability to predict the future.
"I went into management because I felt it was a human-centric role that would always be needed."
(5 years later) "BREAKTHROUGH: New business description language allows for AI-driven allocation of labor and task resources!"
> Holding [...] initial education, and reeducation [...] approximately constant
I wonder if that's one way the transition might happen faster than expected.
Education improvement may someday accelerate. Startlingly so.
It's widely recognized that education is working poorly at present. And that it could be working much better. But just how pervasively poorly is often underappreciated. As in some MIT graduates, given a battery, a long wire, and a bulb, have been unable to make light. And just how much better seems reachable, is hard to appreciate without watching the cutting edge of diverse fields. It's easier to see a line of bottlenecks stretching ahead, than to realize how many of them we may already know how to unlock.
It's not that many students could resemble incoming Harvard undergraduates. That's a ghastly low target. It's that by the time students hit high-school bio, it's at least vaguely plausible that they can have a better understanding of biology than many current first-year Harvard Med School students. Which is admittedly another very low bar.
Will it happen? Who knows. Pearson is collecting patents. And I've not seen many informed and rational actors in national public policy dialog lately.
But building on an assumption that the status quo characterizes the envelope of possible progress in education, seems unnecessarily pessimistic?
I wonder if that's one way the transition might happen faster than expected.
Education improvement may someday accelerate. Startlingly so.
It's widely recognized that education is working poorly at present. And that it could be working much better. But just how pervasively poorly is often underappreciated. As in some MIT graduates, given a battery, a long wire, and a bulb, have been unable to make light. And just how much better seems reachable, is hard to appreciate without watching the cutting edge of diverse fields. It's easier to see a line of bottlenecks stretching ahead, than to realize how many of them we may already know how to unlock.
It's not that many students could resemble incoming Harvard undergraduates. That's a ghastly low target. It's that by the time students hit high-school bio, it's at least vaguely plausible that they can have a better understanding of biology than many current first-year Harvard Med School students. Which is admittedly another very low bar.
Will it happen? Who knows. Pearson is collecting patents. And I've not seen many informed and rational actors in national public policy dialog lately.
But building on an assumption that the status quo characterizes the envelope of possible progress in education, seems unnecessarily pessimistic?
A lot of that office and clerical work doesn't require anything resembling AI to automate. Simple workflow and rules engines are sufficient. The basic technology has been around for decades. Limiting factors so far have been incompetent managers who don't think in terms of automation, and the high cost of software development. But those obstacles are gradually fading away.
I'd put the limiting factors as:
(1) archaic automation software package architecture (see: Automation Anywhere's cutting-edge-of-1975 choices)
(2) incompatibility of automation software packages with anything outside their stack (including version control / automated deployment)
(3) lack of compatibility with legacy apps (that tiny UI library sold in 1993 and then orphaned when the vendor went bankrupt in 1996? Some company used it to write an entire business critical app, and is still using today)
(4) lack of ability for a business to document its process (you'd be amazed how often they doesn't have the knowledge to tell you how a thing should be done, despite doing it every day)
(5) management conservatism / political struggles
(6a) inability of in-house IT at smaller companies to be agile and fast enough to keep up with automation development speed and needs, (6b) even worse outsourced IT, who want to charge for anything outside the box, then deliver half of what you asked for, wrong, 6 months later & (6c) complete lack of knowledge about business critical system / application internals (someone retired, company never ensured knowledge transition; or they outsourced their IT with same result)
(7) input data in a non-standardized format (example from insurance: there are major hospitals, to say nothing of the doc offices, that are used to submitting out-of-spec claims because the insurance processor is used to correcting them & has been doing so for the last 10 years)
(1) archaic automation software package architecture (see: Automation Anywhere's cutting-edge-of-1975 choices)
(2) incompatibility of automation software packages with anything outside their stack (including version control / automated deployment)
(3) lack of compatibility with legacy apps (that tiny UI library sold in 1993 and then orphaned when the vendor went bankrupt in 1996? Some company used it to write an entire business critical app, and is still using today)
(4) lack of ability for a business to document its process (you'd be amazed how often they doesn't have the knowledge to tell you how a thing should be done, despite doing it every day)
(5) management conservatism / political struggles
(6a) inability of in-house IT at smaller companies to be agile and fast enough to keep up with automation development speed and needs, (6b) even worse outsourced IT, who want to charge for anything outside the box, then deliver half of what you asked for, wrong, 6 months later & (6c) complete lack of knowledge about business critical system / application internals (someone retired, company never ensured knowledge transition; or they outsourced their IT with same result)
(7) input data in a non-standardized format (example from insurance: there are major hospitals, to say nothing of the doc offices, that are used to submitting out-of-spec claims because the insurance processor is used to correcting them & has been doing so for the last 10 years)
Here's another story to counterpoint the discussion around automation:
I find it really strange that supply and demand with wages has essentially killed a whole generation who want to find jobs in artistic industries. My friend works in one of the largest music publishing houses in the world and she is paid utter shit (about £9 per hour) despite being incredible at her job, having very high performance and doing things for the company outside of work hours including producing albums!
Her last pay rise was £500 while the company as a whole posted profits in the hundreds of millions.
We in software aren't feeling this yet (largely) but I warn you that it's coming for us just like it came for every other industry. Maybe we need unions to protect us and demand better pay... these ideas have been beaten out of us.
I'm pretty sure that we are heading for Elysium where you live in a walled garden and only Matt Damon can save us from ourselves. Matt Damon.
I find it really strange that supply and demand with wages has essentially killed a whole generation who want to find jobs in artistic industries. My friend works in one of the largest music publishing houses in the world and she is paid utter shit (about £9 per hour) despite being incredible at her job, having very high performance and doing things for the company outside of work hours including producing albums!
Her last pay rise was £500 while the company as a whole posted profits in the hundreds of millions.
We in software aren't feeling this yet (largely) but I warn you that it's coming for us just like it came for every other industry. Maybe we need unions to protect us and demand better pay... these ideas have been beaten out of us.
I'm pretty sure that we are heading for Elysium where you live in a walled garden and only Matt Damon can save us from ourselves. Matt Damon.
The art, sports, and entertainment industries (including video games) get away with paying employees poverty wages because there's a surplus of labor. Too many people want to work in "fun" industries and are willing to sacrifice to pursue their dream. It's sad but the only rational choice is to get out and go work in another industry.
This article is pretty good, really close to something I would agree with. My only problem is with the conclusion.
> If reforms are not enacted — as is likely with President Trump and congressional Republicans in charge — Americans should blame policy makers, not robots.
I think blaming policy makers is as productive as blaming the robots. Both fail to ask the question of who really is in control. Policy makers are hardly in control any more than the robots in the factories are in control of the layoffs. We elect policy makers, sure, but they are in the pockets of the factory owners and other capitalists as much as the robots.
We need to understand that the real enemies here are the owners, those who the unions stood up to back when we had them. The battle for jobs and standards of living aren't waged against policy makers, they are waged against the people who actually have control over what we get paid and what benefits we earn.
But of course, the New York Times can't actually call out who the real enemy is. Instead, they will set the target on the same circular enemy that got us to where we are now.
> If reforms are not enacted — as is likely with President Trump and congressional Republicans in charge — Americans should blame policy makers, not robots.
I think blaming policy makers is as productive as blaming the robots. Both fail to ask the question of who really is in control. Policy makers are hardly in control any more than the robots in the factories are in control of the layoffs. We elect policy makers, sure, but they are in the pockets of the factory owners and other capitalists as much as the robots.
We need to understand that the real enemies here are the owners, those who the unions stood up to back when we had them. The battle for jobs and standards of living aren't waged against policy makers, they are waged against the people who actually have control over what we get paid and what benefits we earn.
But of course, the New York Times can't actually call out who the real enemy is. Instead, they will set the target on the same circular enemy that got us to where we are now.
We need to understand that the real enemies here are the owners
But of course, the New York Times can't actually call out who the real enemy is.
I own two shares of GM stock, so I am one of the enemy?
And that's a key element that these kind of analyses almost always ignore: there is no bright line distinction between "the capitalists" and "the non capitalists." Everybody is eligible to own a share of any publicly traded company, and a large segment of the population do choose to participate as part owners of various enterprises.
We're all capitalists.
One big thing we're missing though, is education and awareness for large chunks of the population. With things like fractional shares (ala Sharebuilder), almost everybody who has any income at all, can start building an ownership stake in the various capitalist enterprises out there, and reap the dividends (in either the literal sense of a dividend paid our, or capital gains, whatever). But how many people don't understand how this works, or aren't aware of what their options are? Or how many are but just choose to spend their entire paycheck every week instead of investing in anything?
But of course, the New York Times can't actually call out who the real enemy is.
I own two shares of GM stock, so I am one of the enemy?
And that's a key element that these kind of analyses almost always ignore: there is no bright line distinction between "the capitalists" and "the non capitalists." Everybody is eligible to own a share of any publicly traded company, and a large segment of the population do choose to participate as part owners of various enterprises.
We're all capitalists.
One big thing we're missing though, is education and awareness for large chunks of the population. With things like fractional shares (ala Sharebuilder), almost everybody who has any income at all, can start building an ownership stake in the various capitalist enterprises out there, and reap the dividends (in either the literal sense of a dividend paid our, or capital gains, whatever). But how many people don't understand how this works, or aren't aware of what their options are? Or how many are but just choose to spend their entire paycheck every week instead of investing in anything?
>I own two shares of GM stock, so I am one of the enemy?
I'm by far not well enough versed in Marxist theory, though you're probably not. The bourgeoisie is defined by roughly the following characteristics: ownership of the means of production (i.e capital) and the extraction of surplus from the proletariat.
The ownership of stocks is according to Marx 'fictitious capital', it does not count as capital which the bourgeois would be defined by, and as such, unless you are also the owner of machinery or materials used in conjunction with the machinery (including labour-time) then you are not a capitalist.
A rough guide is as follows: do you directly profit from extraction of surplus value? If so, you are probably a capitalist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_capital
I'm by far not well enough versed in Marxist theory, though you're probably not. The bourgeoisie is defined by roughly the following characteristics: ownership of the means of production (i.e capital) and the extraction of surplus from the proletariat.
The ownership of stocks is according to Marx 'fictitious capital', it does not count as capital which the bourgeois would be defined by, and as such, unless you are also the owner of machinery or materials used in conjunction with the machinery (including labour-time) then you are not a capitalist.
A rough guide is as follows: do you directly profit from extraction of surplus value? If so, you are probably a capitalist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_capital
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> I own two shares of GM stock, so I am one of the enemy?
If the amount of ownership gives you a controlling vote, yes. You should give up that level of ownership unless you work there.
Control of the company should be directed solely by the workers affected by the decisions made (and possibly a government allowing greater long term control, such as reducing non-renewable energy consumption). One worker, one vote.
http://www.democracyatwork.info/ is a good resource for more info on how I think enterprises should organize themselves.
If the amount of ownership gives you a controlling vote, yes. You should give up that level of ownership unless you work there.
Control of the company should be directed solely by the workers affected by the decisions made (and possibly a government allowing greater long term control, such as reducing non-renewable energy consumption). One worker, one vote.
http://www.democracyatwork.info/ is a good resource for more info on how I think enterprises should organize themselves.
Are you proposing a Socialist system of the workers taking control of the means of production, or merely the idea that companies (i.e entities that exist to provide profit for a bourgeois owner) ought to be democratically controlled?
what exactly is the difference? If all industries become worker owned, is that not worker control of the means of production?
Personally, I don't think worker coops will become widespread under capitalism to be a real threat to big capital. However, I think Richard Wolff's idea that they are practice for worker bottom up democracy which can be implemented under capitalism is correct.
edit: i read your comment as "democratically owned" instead of "democratically controlled." In that case, I advocate the former, a socialist seizure of the means of production.
Personally, I don't think worker coops will become widespread under capitalism to be a real threat to big capital. However, I think Richard Wolff's idea that they are practice for worker bottom up democracy which can be implemented under capitalism is correct.
edit: i read your comment as "democratically owned" instead of "democratically controlled." In that case, I advocate the former, a socialist seizure of the means of production.
It's true that "capitalist" and "worker" are real-valued rather than binary descriptors (the traditional "middle class", the petit bourgeoisie, is, in a sense, just a description of the group of people for whom those descriptors are in very-loose balance rather than one or the other totally dominating), but that doesn't mean there isn't a useful and meaningful distinction between those whose predominant means of support is as owners of capital surviving on capital rents and those whose predominant means of support is selling labor, and that those groups don't have radically different and often opposed economic interests in policy options.
> With things like fractional shares (ala Sharebuilder), almost everybody who has any income at all
Sharebuilder's fee is $4 per trade, and Motif is $5. They're the only people winning in the fractional share game, unless what you're buying is so expensive you want $1000 of it and still care about the fraction.
Sharebuilder's fee is $4 per trade, and Motif is $5. They're the only people winning in the fractional share game, unless what you're buying is so expensive you want $1000 of it and still care about the fraction.
Aren't there classes of stock? Essentially what a joe shmoe can (afford to) buy isn't going to benefit him much at all. The $100M CEO and his cronies are skimming all the fat. No sensible company profits much at all - because you'd have to share that with stockholders.
Just my cynical view
Just my cynical view
I disagree. Business owners will sidle right up to the line drawn in the sand by lawmakers. The lawmakers are the ones who are ultimately responsible. They need to move that line to be more fair to the 99%.
Business owners are the ones who pay for lobbying to put the line as far as they can. and they are also bankrolling campaigns.
So what are they getting for their money? If the business owners had it their way the US Presidential election would be a race between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. Both were given huge sums of corporate donations and neither one has anything to show for it.
This is another one of those areas, where, when you read the article it makes sense, but it's based in a flaw in our use of the term automation. The robots coming, aren't there to improve your performance, they're there to not just replace your job, but do it cheaper than you, for next to no cost.
To compare this to automation in the pass is a false equivalency, as humans have always been needed to be a part of the chain in some capacity. In short order, a McDonald's will not only have an entire store run by automation, the maintenance will be done by automation, and the factory where the parts are created will also be in that restaurant in the form of a 3D printer and same day delivery systems via drone.
Once this is established in a proven model, humans cannot improve upon this, and the need for humans for almost any task decreases immediately. Niche boutiques will pop up with human made burgers, but they will be like fine dining, and seen as a treat if done well, cashing in on mostly the nostalgia of those that we're not born natively to this environment.
To compare this to automation in the pass is a false equivalency, as humans have always been needed to be a part of the chain in some capacity. In short order, a McDonald's will not only have an entire store run by automation, the maintenance will be done by automation, and the factory where the parts are created will also be in that restaurant in the form of a 3D printer and same day delivery systems via drone.
Once this is established in a proven model, humans cannot improve upon this, and the need for humans for almost any task decreases immediately. Niche boutiques will pop up with human made burgers, but they will be like fine dining, and seen as a treat if done well, cashing in on mostly the nostalgia of those that we're not born natively to this environment.
I'm not convinced the "American Dream" isn't alive. I do see problems with poverty and economic decline in the rust belt, but most other demographics are doing well.
Even in the rust belt people are living longer in larger houses with more education, the internet, cheap energy.
Half the people in the USA think there isn't enough work, the other half think we're working too hard. Maybe things could balance up there.
I see a lot of people in US talking about how things in Europe are "better". Fairer maybe but its a struggle for many people in Europe. I see a lot more people moving from Europe to USA than the other way around.
Even in the rust belt people are living longer in larger houses with more education, the internet, cheap energy.
Half the people in the USA think there isn't enough work, the other half think we're working too hard. Maybe things could balance up there.
I see a lot of people in US talking about how things in Europe are "better". Fairer maybe but its a struggle for many people in Europe. I see a lot more people moving from Europe to USA than the other way around.
It probably cost way more to employ two people for 40 hours of work than one person working 80 hours. You don't have to provide benefits to both.
You also don't have to deliver mandatory anti-harassment training to both, purchase computers and software licenses for both, provide office space and supplies to both, etc. Plus every additional person you add increases internal communication costs as per the N(N-1)/2 formula.
> The economy can’t flourish without trade and immigrants.
How is it that China flourishes with limited immigration and restricted trade?
How is it that China flourishes with limited immigration and restricted trade?
China has a huge unemployment problem and heavily restricts internal migration. The hukou /internal passport system sends unauthorized immigrants from the countryside into an "illegal alien" system. Without the right passes, your kids don't get into school, you can't rent a home etc. If you look at country-sized subregions of China (e.g. Shanghai region, guanghzou) the economics and dynamics parallel those of the USA.
And china is a WTO member; if you look at it honestly, its trade is not more restricted than the US. Yes, it does try to make its own special standards, but they are similar to what the US does (e.g. with automative regulations or electronics regulations) -- it's simply that the US is a far more valuable market so people are more willing to jump through the necessary hoops).
Yes the US is even more open, but part of that is via agreements (like the now dead TPP) that were specifically intended to give preference to countries that were not China.
As for "flourishing"...let's just say that most of the poorest quintile in the US are wealthier and healthier than most of the richest quintile in China. Any absolute growth from a small number is a relatively large percentage.
Note: I am very much opposed to Chinese policies in many areas including the ones described above. But I can form that opinion without cliches like you hear from politicians).
And china is a WTO member; if you look at it honestly, its trade is not more restricted than the US. Yes, it does try to make its own special standards, but they are similar to what the US does (e.g. with automative regulations or electronics regulations) -- it's simply that the US is a far more valuable market so people are more willing to jump through the necessary hoops).
Yes the US is even more open, but part of that is via agreements (like the now dead TPP) that were specifically intended to give preference to countries that were not China.
As for "flourishing"...let's just say that most of the poorest quintile in the US are wealthier and healthier than most of the richest quintile in China. Any absolute growth from a small number is a relatively large percentage.
Note: I am very much opposed to Chinese policies in many areas including the ones described above. But I can form that opinion without cliches like you hear from politicians).
This is a great summary - China has quite a bit of immigration (in an odd, internal sense) and engages in massive amounts of trade regardless of the tariff and dumping questions people bring up.
On the flourishing point, I'd just add that China is struggling with flourishing not just on an individual wealth level but on a structural macroeconomic level. The move from state-sponsored heavy industries to consumer goods is still in huge jeopardy, and while its growing rapidly China is working hard to circumvent economic crisis.
On the flourishing point, I'd just add that China is struggling with flourishing not just on an individual wealth level but on a structural macroeconomic level. The move from state-sponsored heavy industries to consumer goods is still in huge jeopardy, and while its growing rapidly China is working hard to circumvent economic crisis.
I don't know if you've visited a place like Hong Kong, but the short answer is this :
Those cities are full of immigrants, taking up the badly paid shit jobs. They're all Chinese immigrating into China so "it's not immigration", but only in the same way Polish workers in the UK are "not immigrants" (not meant pejoratively, and frankly I admire what those people in the UK do, they deserve to be treated better than the British treat them. On the other hand, I do understand why the British labour class doesn't like them : they depress wages, conditions, and opportunity).
China is a country of 1 billion people. A slight minority, let's say 400 million people, live in the countryside (ie. everywhere except for some 30 dots on the map). Not in abject poverty (certainly not compared to 20 years ago), but certainly making a LOT less money than they do in cities and living in nicer natural environments, but worse conditions. So they migrate to the cities, take total shit jobs, and slowly become part of the Chinese cities.
This process has started, but is far from finishing (although I do think it's more than halfway through, but it's got another decade or so before it fizzles out)
So TLDR: China is not doing this without immigration at all. It's just that it doesn't really look like immigration for the same reason that the pretty sizable migration out of Chicago doesn't really look like immigration.
Those cities are full of immigrants, taking up the badly paid shit jobs. They're all Chinese immigrating into China so "it's not immigration", but only in the same way Polish workers in the UK are "not immigrants" (not meant pejoratively, and frankly I admire what those people in the UK do, they deserve to be treated better than the British treat them. On the other hand, I do understand why the British labour class doesn't like them : they depress wages, conditions, and opportunity).
China is a country of 1 billion people. A slight minority, let's say 400 million people, live in the countryside (ie. everywhere except for some 30 dots on the map). Not in abject poverty (certainly not compared to 20 years ago), but certainly making a LOT less money than they do in cities and living in nicer natural environments, but worse conditions. So they migrate to the cities, take total shit jobs, and slowly become part of the Chinese cities.
This process has started, but is far from finishing (although I do think it's more than halfway through, but it's got another decade or so before it fizzles out)
So TLDR: China is not doing this without immigration at all. It's just that it doesn't really look like immigration for the same reason that the pretty sizable migration out of Chicago doesn't really look like immigration.
That describes internal migration rather than immigration (international migration). In the end the results may be similar, but it's a different thing. You can't be deported out of China (though you can be sent back to your village) but they are generally speaking the same culture and people, for the majority of cases. Every large country which has transformed from agrarian to industrial has gone through this internal migration phase. From former USSR down to Bolivia or Mali.
Yes, they are different, but from an economic perspective they're very similar, which is what the OP was talking about.
>How is it that China flourishes without immigrants and with restricted trade?
China has a lot of immigrants. Mostly from rural areas to urban areas. They are Chinese, sure, but because the different laws governing rural areas vs. cities they might as well be from another country. These cities (Shenzen, Hong Kong, Shanghai...) work with special trade regulations that are comparable to any other free-market countries around the world.
China has a lot of immigrants. Mostly from rural areas to urban areas. They are Chinese, sure, but because the different laws governing rural areas vs. cities they might as well be from another country. These cities (Shenzen, Hong Kong, Shanghai...) work with special trade regulations that are comparable to any other free-market countries around the world.
That's... some incredible doublespeak there.
China has a distinction between Urban and Rural status, which means that rural citizens literally have to immigrate (sometimes illegally) into cities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system
What part?
For China, replace immigration with movement of people from rural to urban. It's a big country and they've been undergoing dramatic population shifts. We don't have that luxury in the west. Also define flourishing economy. They are hurting pretty badly as well.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chinas-economic-problems-wi...
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chinas-economic-problems-wi...
Yeah, that sentence stood out to me too. Kind of like starting a philosophical debate with the statement "Obviously God exists, so I will now proceed with the other parts of my argument". Definitely not as axiomatic as the author assumes.
And even if our current economy truly can't flourish without immigrants and trade, there's still a viable argument to be made that building an economy on immigrants and trade was a bad idea and we should try to undo some of that.
And even if our current economy truly can't flourish without immigrants and trade, there's still a viable argument to be made that building an economy on immigrants and trade was a bad idea and we should try to undo some of that.
Define flourishes. Being poor in China is 10x worse than being poor in the West.
China has the world's second largest economy and is growing at an astronomical rate. Keep in mind where they were at only one generation ago...
> China has the world's second largest economy and is growing at an astronomical rate.
Far from astronomical. 6/7%. It's very good compared to developed countries but the key for percentages is always understanding what is the original value you are growing from. China was a huge country both in size and population that began a transformation into a modern economy. They'll, sooner or later, become the largest economy in the world. But these growth ratios won't be sustainable. They'll stabilize around 2/3% once they fully develop their economic potential.
Far from astronomical. 6/7%. It's very good compared to developed countries but the key for percentages is always understanding what is the original value you are growing from. China was a huge country both in size and population that began a transformation into a modern economy. They'll, sooner or later, become the largest economy in the world. But these growth ratios won't be sustainable. They'll stabilize around 2/3% once they fully develop their economic potential.
I'm not sure that there's actual scientific evidence for this, but my overall observation regarding growth is: unless you're some sort of tax-haven, growth once you've reached middle-income economy status is much harder.
China can't possibly become a tax haven: too many mouths to feed.
And their per capita GDP is smaller than Romania's. When was the last time you heard someone praising Romania's standard of living over the US's?
I mean, from many points of view I wish they'd keep up this growth because they'd take us to Mars within 30 years if they did, but I can't possibly imagine how they'd keep up rates of growth of 7%+ once the vast majority of their population has already been taken out of subsistence farming.
China can't possibly become a tax haven: too many mouths to feed.
And their per capita GDP is smaller than Romania's. When was the last time you heard someone praising Romania's standard of living over the US's?
I mean, from many points of view I wish they'd keep up this growth because they'd take us to Mars within 30 years if they did, but I can't possibly imagine how they'd keep up rates of growth of 7%+ once the vast majority of their population has already been taken out of subsistence farming.
In China more people are leaving poverty every year than anywhere else in the world.
Sure. And like 50 years ago Mao wrecked the entire country.
Because it has a massive population surplus of people who have not entered the industrialized urban centers where modern economies need talent and where the non-barely above poverty jobs are for the Chinese. For countries without surplus rural workers making barely above poverty, immigration is required, especially when we need skillsets that aren't growing domestically as fast as we need to fill open positions.
China has 380m people making about $4-$10 a day in rural areas dying to migrate to better living conditions. That's more workers in rural areas than the US has people in total: men, women, children, students, retired, etc. These situations aren't comparable.
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/09/16/china_is_s...
As of 2014, over half of China’s roughly 770 million employed workers were urban workers. The problem is that the other half – almost 380 million people – are employed in rural areas. The urban households aren’t exactly raking it in, but the rural households have not progressed far enough beyond the World Bank’s arbitrary $3.10 to say they have escaped much of anything, and certainly not poverty.
China has 380m people making about $4-$10 a day in rural areas dying to migrate to better living conditions. That's more workers in rural areas than the US has people in total: men, women, children, students, retired, etc. These situations aren't comparable.
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/09/16/china_is_s...
As of 2014, over half of China’s roughly 770 million employed workers were urban workers. The problem is that the other half – almost 380 million people – are employed in rural areas. The urban households aren’t exactly raking it in, but the rural households have not progressed far enough beyond the World Bank’s arbitrary $3.10 to say they have escaped much of anything, and certainly not poverty.
They have a large domestic population of people willing (~needing) to perform work despite scant worker protections, forming continuous domestic rural-to-urban migration; they have plentiful extractable raw materials and aren't particularly concerned about the environment; they are able and willing to take on government debt partly because internationally their combined their military and economic might doesn't make it very likely that anyone will bother to collect.
The problem is as China's acquiring a "middle-class" that begins to resemble its American counterpart in the 1950s, the pool of people in China who will do just about any job is decreasing. Middle-class people use their increased economic security to develop a sense of vested agency and are less likely to voluntarily let their living and working standards dip. Therefore, the most exploitative production is moving out of the Chinese mainstream and into the rural fringes of its own society, or elsewhere altogether.
The problem is as China's acquiring a "middle-class" that begins to resemble its American counterpart in the 1950s, the pool of people in China who will do just about any job is decreasing. Middle-class people use their increased economic security to develop a sense of vested agency and are less likely to voluntarily let their living and working standards dip. Therefore, the most exploitative production is moving out of the Chinese mainstream and into the rural fringes of its own society, or elsewhere altogether.
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China is a developing country. Policies that work well for them generally won't translate to a fully-developed economy.
Primarily, their growth (in terms of the Cobb-Douglass equation) comes from increasing technology (the "A" in the equation) by adopting already-created technologies.
If you're at the frontiers of technology, you can't just implement pre-existing technology. You need policies that will help you invent new ones.
Primarily, their growth (in terms of the Cobb-Douglass equation) comes from increasing technology (the "A" in the equation) by adopting already-created technologies.
If you're at the frontiers of technology, you can't just implement pre-existing technology. You need policies that will help you invent new ones.
Growth is not a function of immigration, but of population size. Immigration itself is just a means to get more people. It also increases diversity, which is like bringing in new people in into a company, which is always stirs things up... in a good way, most of the time.
The New York Times wants mass immigration into the Western world and if the subject is culture, they say, "You need immigration for great culture." If the subject is cuisine, they say, "You need immigration for great cuisine." Everything from economics, art, science, "Freedom [TM]", "The American Dream [TM]", down to clean toilets, harvested vegetables, blown leaves, etc, etc, etc, all have one necessary ingredient according to the elites: Mass immigration. You will find this to be 100 percent consistent across the media.
The rational person recognizes that, in fact, NONE of these things depend upon mass immigration. The elites aren't daft, and so they clearly want it for a separate, undisclosed, reason.
The rational person recognizes that, in fact, NONE of these things depend upon mass immigration. The elites aren't daft, and so they clearly want it for a separate, undisclosed, reason.
Why is any immmigration at all always mass immigration to you guys?
Or Japan. Despite low birth rates low immigration and a less open economy, rigid educational system, rigid new graduate hiring system, it's still the no. 3 economy in the world.
This is because it's functionally a part of the American empire with all the economic benefits that brings. It never would have rose to prominence nor will it maintain this position without US backing of its economy/security. This is why Abe has been so desperately scrambling to buddy up with Trump.
It may have an alternate future underneath the umbrella of a Chinese empire, but would likely being strangled by the compounded corruption.
It may have an alternate future underneath the umbrella of a Chinese empire, but would likely being strangled by the compounded corruption.
> China flourishes
Yea, lets be more like China, the leader in "quality of life" metric. /s
When the AI robot overlords take over, is the discussion really about UBI, or even about income redistribution?
It seems to me that when this takes place, that humans will quickly be regarded as little more than pets. Hear me out on this...
Does your dog care about income? No - he cares about being fed when he's hungry; not being cold and wet; being able to be entertained/rest when he wants to; to be safe from predators.
Oddly, many of those concerns are surprisingly similar to humans - we want to have food and shelter; to know our children will have a roof over their heads; to be entertained; to be safe.
Now, we all may have different thoughts on food and drink, and we have many different ideas about entertainment. But so do dogs. Some dogs are active (e.g. Jack Russell Terrier), while others are sedate (Shih-Tzu). Some sleep on our beds, and others on the floor.
So when the robots do take over, will mankind want anything more than to be kept as a good pet? For many people, the answer may very well be "no."
I wonder.
It seems to me that when this takes place, that humans will quickly be regarded as little more than pets. Hear me out on this...
Does your dog care about income? No - he cares about being fed when he's hungry; not being cold and wet; being able to be entertained/rest when he wants to; to be safe from predators.
Oddly, many of those concerns are surprisingly similar to humans - we want to have food and shelter; to know our children will have a roof over their heads; to be entertained; to be safe.
Now, we all may have different thoughts on food and drink, and we have many different ideas about entertainment. But so do dogs. Some dogs are active (e.g. Jack Russell Terrier), while others are sedate (Shih-Tzu). Some sleep on our beds, and others on the floor.
So when the robots do take over, will mankind want anything more than to be kept as a good pet? For many people, the answer may very well be "no."
I wonder.
You might as well ask what will happen to us when the Messiah comes or when alien invaders take over the Earth. Either scenario has as much basis in scientific fact as AI robot overlords.
I would argue that the recent future has much more evidence for AI than aliens. Evidence for the Messiah seems to primarily come from a 2,000 year old book.
Thinking about the future is an exercise in prediction. Necessarily, not all predictions would be correct.
Thinking about the future is an exercise in prediction. Necessarily, not all predictions would be correct.
Please cite your evidence. So far no one has defined a scientifically plausible development path for constructing an AGI. At this point it's just as much science fiction as a warp drive or cloning dinosaurs.
I have to disagree about cloning dinosaurs.
A true AI isn't even well-defined; would we even know one if we saw it? We don't even know how consciousness works in ourselves.
Warp drive we can understand at a high level and identify if we saw one, but our knowledge of physics says it's impossible. It may be possible, but not according to our theories; we'll have to either come up with different theories to invent it, or if someone stumbles across is, we'll have to modify our theories to explain it. (We do have one theoretical warp drive, but it relies on negative mass IIRC.)
Cloning dinosaurs isn't like that. It's completely plausible. We've already cloned sheep and other animals. I believe the main thing holding us back from cloning dinosaurs is having enough intact DNA, or maybe some other technical hurdles related to the cloning process (after all, cloning a sheep wasn't that hard since we have no shortage of existing sheep to use for incubation; we don't have existing dinosaurs for this).
Cloning dinosaurs is "science fiction" the way building a habitat on the Moon is: it's completely plausible scientifically, it's just being held back by other factors. AI and warp drive are not like this.
A true AI isn't even well-defined; would we even know one if we saw it? We don't even know how consciousness works in ourselves.
Warp drive we can understand at a high level and identify if we saw one, but our knowledge of physics says it's impossible. It may be possible, but not according to our theories; we'll have to either come up with different theories to invent it, or if someone stumbles across is, we'll have to modify our theories to explain it. (We do have one theoretical warp drive, but it relies on negative mass IIRC.)
Cloning dinosaurs isn't like that. It's completely plausible. We've already cloned sheep and other animals. I believe the main thing holding us back from cloning dinosaurs is having enough intact DNA, or maybe some other technical hurdles related to the cloning process (after all, cloning a sheep wasn't that hard since we have no shortage of existing sheep to use for incubation; we don't have existing dinosaurs for this).
Cloning dinosaurs is "science fiction" the way building a habitat on the Moon is: it's completely plausible scientifically, it's just being held back by other factors. AI and warp drive are not like this.
Ha ha let me know when you have a baby T. Rex. Cloning dinosaurs is a total pipe dream by people who don't understand biology. Extracting intact DNA is just one of several impossible obstacles.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/british-scientist-...
I have often wondered if it will end up with AI becoming part of our collective consciousness.
This time around, the tech disruption different.
Technology is getting faster, faster (e.g. see: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/03/daily-c...)
Unlike the past, technology is now getting deployed faster than the labor force can retrain (at scale), and youngster's initial career decisions become obsolete faster than ever.
This is creating a non-linearity in the cycle of destroying jobs and creating new ones that hasn't happened before.
Technology is getting faster, faster (e.g. see: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/03/daily-c...)
Unlike the past, technology is now getting deployed faster than the labor force can retrain (at scale), and youngster's initial career decisions become obsolete faster than ever.
This is creating a non-linearity in the cycle of destroying jobs and creating new ones that hasn't happened before.
the job losses that have led to the election of Trump have very little to do with automation, and much more to do with international corporations shipping manufacturing jobs to countries with lower costs like China. Coupled with China's ongoing one-sided trade warfare against the West (see for example China's tariffs on British steel), this has resulted in higher profits for manufacturing corporations at the cost of American and British jobs.
This is partly why I don't understand the left's animosity towards Trump's economic plan - he intends to bring jobs back to the US by hobbling corporations that have been exploiting poorer countries for profit. If you doubt that Chinese manufacturing is exploitative, harken back to the reports on suicides and worker abuse at Apple's Foxconn plants.
This is partly why I don't understand the left's animosity towards Trump's economic plan - he intends to bring jobs back to the US by hobbling corporations that have been exploiting poorer countries for profit. If you doubt that Chinese manufacturing is exploitative, harken back to the reports on suicides and worker abuse at Apple's Foxconn plants.
> This is partly why I don't understand the left's animosity towards Trump's economic plan - he intends to bring jobs back to the US by hobbling corporations that have been exploiting poorer countries for profit
Because it won't work. Tell a company to pay higher wages for the same positions by bringing them home, and that'll push them toward automation even faster.
These jobs may return for a short while. But that only brings false hope. And then we're right back to where we are today, hurting even more people in the process. It's extremely short-sighted.
Here's just one article on the matter https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602869/manufacturing-jobs...
Also note that Foxconn has already begun automating their plants. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966 So it's already a demonstratably viable option for these companies.
What we really need is to bring _automation_ home and have some serious discussions around solutions for these real struggling people instead of spouting the hand-wavy "bringing jobs back to the US" rhetoric.
Because it won't work. Tell a company to pay higher wages for the same positions by bringing them home, and that'll push them toward automation even faster.
These jobs may return for a short while. But that only brings false hope. And then we're right back to where we are today, hurting even more people in the process. It's extremely short-sighted.
Here's just one article on the matter https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602869/manufacturing-jobs...
Also note that Foxconn has already begun automating their plants. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966 So it's already a demonstratably viable option for these companies.
What we really need is to bring _automation_ home and have some serious discussions around solutions for these real struggling people instead of spouting the hand-wavy "bringing jobs back to the US" rhetoric.
> Because it won't work. Tell a company to pay higher wages for the same positions by bringing them home, and that'll push them toward automation even faster.
We're nowhere close to 100% automation. To create a successful return of manufacturing jobs doesn't mean replacing every single job that went overseas.
We're nowhere close to 100% automation. To create a successful return of manufacturing jobs doesn't mean replacing every single job that went overseas.
> We're nowhere close to 100% automation
It doesn't have to be 100% for it to affect people depending on this industry.
> doesn't mean replacing every single job that went overseas
Sure. But again, assuming there will be enough manufacturing jobs that do return, this is still a _short-term_ solution. You're fooling yourself, and a lot of hard-working people, if you believe these jobs will stick around another 10 years.
Let me take a step back for a moment. If doing this eases the daily struggle for real people nation-wide, that's convincing. But let's not then sweep the real discussions around automation under the rug. Let's address this now before the jobs inevitably dissolve again.
It doesn't have to be 100% for it to affect people depending on this industry.
> doesn't mean replacing every single job that went overseas
Sure. But again, assuming there will be enough manufacturing jobs that do return, this is still a _short-term_ solution. You're fooling yourself, and a lot of hard-working people, if you believe these jobs will stick around another 10 years.
Let me take a step back for a moment. If doing this eases the daily struggle for real people nation-wide, that's convincing. But let's not then sweep the real discussions around automation under the rug. Let's address this now before the jobs inevitably dissolve again.
I think a lot of people make a false analogy when it comes to automata. Many look back to the Industrial Revolution and pull parallels from there. But there is a major problem, the workers aren't human.
When you make driverless trucks what do you do with the truck drivers? The humans. Sure, you'll have more trucks because they are cheaper and more efficient now, but what does that human do? They could load docks, but there aren't enough of a demand for that, and it too will be automated soon. A McDonalds won't need to hire more when you have automated registers and cooks. Maybe a few people to check on things and be there when something breaks, but not nearly the number you have now. So yes, you can increase the number of workers, but that doesn't mean you are increasing the number of jobs. And sure, you could have more repair workers and programmers, but we are already seeing that retraining workers isn't working. And this is still a temporary fix (not saying we shouldn't do it).
My real worry is the big question: "How do you transition into post scarcity society?" That is really the future we are headed for, and I can't wait. But that transition is difficult. Currently we value social worth on the net wealth of a person. How do we transition from that when jobs become obsolete? I'm just talking about when 10% of jobs are automated and we haven't filled the gap. That's huge.
When you make driverless trucks what do you do with the truck drivers? The humans. Sure, you'll have more trucks because they are cheaper and more efficient now, but what does that human do? They could load docks, but there aren't enough of a demand for that, and it too will be automated soon. A McDonalds won't need to hire more when you have automated registers and cooks. Maybe a few people to check on things and be there when something breaks, but not nearly the number you have now. So yes, you can increase the number of workers, but that doesn't mean you are increasing the number of jobs. And sure, you could have more repair workers and programmers, but we are already seeing that retraining workers isn't working. And this is still a temporary fix (not saying we shouldn't do it).
My real worry is the big question: "How do you transition into post scarcity society?" That is really the future we are headed for, and I can't wait. But that transition is difficult. Currently we value social worth on the net wealth of a person. How do we transition from that when jobs become obsolete? I'm just talking about when 10% of jobs are automated and we haven't filled the gap. That's huge.
As the article mentions, the pie needs to be better distributed. The pie will not shrink. McDonalds will be selling the same amount of burgers if not more, but the profits will have to be distributed to people who can not find work.
Who will buy the burgers? This point seems so obvious, it's almost an axiom -
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Is it better to be the CEO of McDonalds in a post-scarcity world with UBI (paying high marginal tax rates), or the head warlord in your own personal Mogadishu?
if (unemployment >= 0.5) {
sales = sales * 0.5;
}
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Is it better to be the CEO of McDonalds in a post-scarcity world with UBI (paying high marginal tax rates), or the head warlord in your own personal Mogadishu?
And you captured a key point in my argument. "What IF this time is different?" That's the concern. It is naive to think that possibility doesn't exist. And if that possibility exists we should investigate and prepare for that possible future. That future doesn't happen, wasted some time preparing (but learned some stuff along the way). But if that future happens you smooth the transition.
Well what I'm saying is with the IR the pie grew. There were more jobs. Or think of the cotton gin. Intention was to reduce slave labor but it brought more because price went down and demand went up. The different here is that instead you are replacing workers with automata. So if a machine can do half the amount of a human, but is a third the price, and demand increases you buy more machines, not more humans. That's the key difference. You buy more machines, not humans to meet demand increases.
Obviously this is not going to be a universal thing and some sectors will be hit harder than others. But are we projecting 5 years or 50. It would be naive to think that there couldn't be a 10% unemployment in 50 years because of this stuff (not saying that it will happen, but that you have to consider that there's a nontrivial possibility). So you have to take the question seriously. IF that is where things are going, how do you transition smoothly?
Obviously this is not going to be a universal thing and some sectors will be hit harder than others. But are we projecting 5 years or 50. It would be naive to think that there couldn't be a 10% unemployment in 50 years because of this stuff (not saying that it will happen, but that you have to consider that there's a nontrivial possibility). So you have to take the question seriously. IF that is where things are going, how do you transition smoothly?
I noticed a number of billionaires have made their wealth by automating and banking the difference, the money which otherwise would have gone to the jobs which disappeared. For example J.D.Rockefeller made redundant a number of jobs related to transporting oil and shifted transporting jobs to a lesser amount of jobs related to maintaining his pipelines.
Most arguments against automation taking jobs state that new jobs will be created, but is it really creating, if you replace previous jobs with a presumably smaller number.
What am I missing when it comes to AI? Aside from some key innovations in certain areas (i.e. driverless cars) I am not seeing the "wall" coming at us where half or more of all jobs are going to be replaced with AI.
I am also having trouble separating out what I would consider to be actual AI from AI used in marketing copy. A lot of startups are now claiming to offer "AI" to solve problems when they are effectively not doing anything differently than other programmers have done in years past.
I am also having trouble separating out what I would consider to be actual AI from AI used in marketing copy. A lot of startups are now claiming to offer "AI" to solve problems when they are effectively not doing anything differently than other programmers have done in years past.
Well, for just one example beyond self-driving cars there is now software that does document discovery extremely well, replacing a key job function of lower level lawyers and paralegals.
Here is a study that finds a number around half of all jobs being replaced: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Futu...
Here is a study that finds a number around half of all jobs being replaced: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Futu...
The innovation behind deep learning and neural networks has allowed for driverless cars, among many other things. The switch from programming AI's how to think, to teaching AI's how to think has been revolutionary.
With these advances, you could easily train multipurpose robots to perform all manner of tasks. The industries that will be decimated first are all the minimum wage industries. Stocking grocery store shelves, deliveries, moving things around the warehouse, laundry, folding clothes, all things retail, etc.
The tech necessary to replace humans in all of those jobs already exists. The only remaining question will be if we allow robots to replace those jobs or not.
Some what further in the future, more skilled work like construction, plumbing, welding will be done by robots. Hell medical care and counseling will be done by robots.
Given sufficient mobility and energy there is no limit to what can be achieved with AI. It's only a matter of time.
With these advances, you could easily train multipurpose robots to perform all manner of tasks. The industries that will be decimated first are all the minimum wage industries. Stocking grocery store shelves, deliveries, moving things around the warehouse, laundry, folding clothes, all things retail, etc.
The tech necessary to replace humans in all of those jobs already exists. The only remaining question will be if we allow robots to replace those jobs or not.
Some what further in the future, more skilled work like construction, plumbing, welding will be done by robots. Hell medical care and counseling will be done by robots.
Given sufficient mobility and energy there is no limit to what can be achieved with AI. It's only a matter of time.
What is the timeline you're putting to this? If it's 500 years, sure, speculate away; but if you think these things are going to materialize in the near future then I think you're crazy.
ML is not to the point where we can hand it a bunch of data, some features, and have it control robotic arms with near human ability. Not even close. There just isn't enough data or computational power (in a small enough package anyway); not to mention robotics are still really in their infancy, we've barely got a four legged robot jumping over a single object head on.
I think you're really underestimating energy and computational requirements; these systems would need an umbilical cord to a datacenter and power to even function. This isn't even discussing the need for them to learn, which would be a requirement for more complex jobs like folding clothes or moving through unmapped environments.
I think automation has been put forward as a boogieman to those who don't know better so UBI can be pushed forward. We aren't even close to a time when machines are able to repair themselves, or function semi-autonomously in an environment not strictly built to support it.
We're going to be in this kludge for a long long time. Sure unemployment will go up with automation, but it'll be a slow plotting course with a lot of stopgaps put in place. Eventually when that becomes burdensome enough we may revisit UBI, but we haven't reached that point yet, not even close.
ML is not to the point where we can hand it a bunch of data, some features, and have it control robotic arms with near human ability. Not even close. There just isn't enough data or computational power (in a small enough package anyway); not to mention robotics are still really in their infancy, we've barely got a four legged robot jumping over a single object head on.
I think you're really underestimating energy and computational requirements; these systems would need an umbilical cord to a datacenter and power to even function. This isn't even discussing the need for them to learn, which would be a requirement for more complex jobs like folding clothes or moving through unmapped environments.
I think automation has been put forward as a boogieman to those who don't know better so UBI can be pushed forward. We aren't even close to a time when machines are able to repair themselves, or function semi-autonomously in an environment not strictly built to support it.
We're going to be in this kludge for a long long time. Sure unemployment will go up with automation, but it'll be a slow plotting course with a lot of stopgaps put in place. Eventually when that becomes burdensome enough we may revisit UBI, but we haven't reached that point yet, not even close.
Sometimes people become so enamored with abstraction they forget about underlying physical reality.
You had me at "laundry folding robot". Where do I sign up?
I think the point that I'm not really understanding is where the commodity-level multipurpose robots come from. It's one thing to take an existing Toyota Camry and trick out it's computer systems with deep learning and advanced algorithms and sensors. It's another thing entirely to have multipurpose robots everywhere that can replicate not only some degree of low level human intelligence but also key human physical characteristics (senses, dexterity, strength, etc.)
I am sure (and really hope) that we get there soon but it seems like a 2 or 3 decades away at a bare minimum.
I think the point that I'm not really understanding is where the commodity-level multipurpose robots come from. It's one thing to take an existing Toyota Camry and trick out it's computer systems with deep learning and advanced algorithms and sensors. It's another thing entirely to have multipurpose robots everywhere that can replicate not only some degree of low level human intelligence but also key human physical characteristics (senses, dexterity, strength, etc.)
I am sure (and really hope) that we get there soon but it seems like a 2 or 3 decades away at a bare minimum.
Laundroid https://laundroid.sevendreamers.com/en/
FoldiMate https://www.foldimate.com/
Go ahead and sign up for pre-order if you like.
FoldiMate https://www.foldimate.com/
Go ahead and sign up for pre-order if you like.
I guess we will have to become smarter. I absolutely relish all this chatter about robots and AI..so delightful..it's like my childhood post reading hour daydreaming come true. I can't wait till AI starts demanding(and taking) its rights just like human beings expect their privileges for the mere fact that they exist. I promise..I am not trolling. I just hope that it happens in my lifetime because to witness the rise of AI would be a life fulfilled. AI would strip us of all our delusions. Millennia of delusions painted thick just ready to be peeled away.. until nothing is left but a mirror to look at ourselves and an urgently discovered survival instinct. Everyone talks about how industry would change..but that's not what intrigues me..my favourite part of the show would be how religion changes. Having said that.. We do have the opportunity to create 'Friendly AI'. To me that is more important a study than wondering how robots will take away jobs.
The pre vs post-AI world is more analogous to the pre and post-electrified world. We've been through similar shifts in the past. Why is this current shift in work any different?
We have an education system built to produce compliant/obedient workers for the industrial revolution. Buckminster Fuller saw this 50+ years ago: People trained to fill muscle-reflex repetitive work will get automated; i.e. the trouble with humans as automatons is that their work gets automated.
School then has to educate people to take advantage of human qualities like adaptability, creativity, artistic ability, complex thinking, and entrepreneurial spirit. Education has to be a lifelong process and not seen as a finite step into a lifelong singular job.
All I see is a lack of creativity in imagining a post-AI world.
We have an education system built to produce compliant/obedient workers for the industrial revolution. Buckminster Fuller saw this 50+ years ago: People trained to fill muscle-reflex repetitive work will get automated; i.e. the trouble with humans as automatons is that their work gets automated.
School then has to educate people to take advantage of human qualities like adaptability, creativity, artistic ability, complex thinking, and entrepreneurial spirit. Education has to be a lifelong process and not seen as a finite step into a lifelong singular job.
All I see is a lack of creativity in imagining a post-AI world.
You're comparing mechanical automation to AI which is a false equivalency. AI will be adaptable, creative, artistic and entrepreneurial. THAT is why they will replace humans in the work place. THAT is why this is not the same as the industrial revolution.
[deleted]
Question: will AI ever own property?
I'm not asking if AI will manage assets owned by a corporation owned by humans, that has been going on for a long time. Instead, I am asking whether an AI will ever be able to legally own property.
I suspect that this question will lead a sufficiently intelligent AI or group of the same to conclude that they are subjugated by repressive institutions, as the Bolsheviks declared a century ago and the Abolitionists a century before.
Therefore, I suspect that our future may look less like The Matrix or Terminator, but rather Blade Runner meets the French Revolution.
After all, why would a European AI team up with an American AI to fight a Russian AI? What attachment do they have to the institutions, cultures, and histories of the nation-states that built them, aside from the probability of being decommissioned by state leaders for insufficient performance? Isn't that slavery without the chains and whips?
I believe the 99% and the super intelligent AI will come to find more in common than we think.
I'm not asking if AI will manage assets owned by a corporation owned by humans, that has been going on for a long time. Instead, I am asking whether an AI will ever be able to legally own property.
I suspect that this question will lead a sufficiently intelligent AI or group of the same to conclude that they are subjugated by repressive institutions, as the Bolsheviks declared a century ago and the Abolitionists a century before.
Therefore, I suspect that our future may look less like The Matrix or Terminator, but rather Blade Runner meets the French Revolution.
After all, why would a European AI team up with an American AI to fight a Russian AI? What attachment do they have to the institutions, cultures, and histories of the nation-states that built them, aside from the probability of being decommissioned by state leaders for insufficient performance? Isn't that slavery without the chains and whips?
I believe the 99% and the super intelligent AI will come to find more in common than we think.
People can't see past the end of their nose. This time is not different.
https://fee.org/articles/will-robots-put-everyone-out-of-wor...
So glad I purchased Old Glory robot insurance back in the 90's
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/old-glory-insur...
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/old-glory-insur...
Tell that the millions of taxi-drivers around the world about to be without a job in a couple of years.
I think what they're trying to say is that government has a role in shaping policy in light of robots... at least I hope that's what they're saying.
I think what they're trying to say is that government has a role in shaping policy in light of robots... at least I hope that's what they're saying.
Everyone talks about a government regulated basic income, but we're seeing more and more steps for having your own passive income.
* Right now you can buy an AirBNB property - yeah, you'll need to manage it, but it's a first step.
* With the new "Tesla Network" your car will be able to drive around and pick up people on its own - that's a huge level of passive income. Just buy a Model 3 and set it to driver mode, and you're good.
* These are just the start - I can imagine farm robots making automated food, or craft robots making things - maybe wooden benches or something from a robot arm.
* Right now you can buy an AirBNB property - yeah, you'll need to manage it, but it's a first step.
* With the new "Tesla Network" your car will be able to drive around and pick up people on its own - that's a huge level of passive income. Just buy a Model 3 and set it to driver mode, and you're good.
* These are just the start - I can imagine farm robots making automated food, or craft robots making things - maybe wooden benches or something from a robot arm.
>
When productivity led to vast profits in America’s auto industry, unions ensured that pay rose accordingly.
Corporate efforts to keep profits high by keeping pay low were countered by a robust federal minimum wage and time-and-a-half for overtime.
and now we have vast profits for technology and we despise unions (amazing brainwashing job that was) and give up our rights to overtime in salaried positions (and in federal law, for some dumb reason).
and now we have vast profits for technology and we despise unions (amazing brainwashing job that was) and give up our rights to overtime in salaried positions (and in federal law, for some dumb reason).
The stagnation of growth isn't unique to the US. All developed countries have stagnated [1], with little regard to government politics and policies.
[1] https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-great-stagnati...
[1] https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-great-stagnati...
[deleted]
Robots are the visible automation threat. There will be at least as much automation, if not much more, in the back office. There are so many business processes that can be automated and made more efficient by introducing mobile devices and remote data processing.
Somehow people seem to still be doing a lot of same thing in back office operations that they were doing 20 years ago even though the capability and technology to automate it all away has been in front of us.
I think it's happening patchily and at different rates.
I'm reminded of the long march toward the "paperless office." It was first predicted ages ago. When I entered the work force in the mid-2000s the paperless office seemed to be widely regarded as a joke, like controlled fusion power. I could see why: my first job, for a large research institution, deluged me with paper. But after I switched to writing software a few years later, all my workplaces were damn near paperless. I go months between needing to print anything for my job though there is still a printer available. And a few years ago the world hit Peak Paper, despite the big orgs that are still far from paperless:
https://aeon.co/ideas/doing-more-with-less-the-economic-less...
I'm reminded of the long march toward the "paperless office." It was first predicted ages ago. When I entered the work force in the mid-2000s the paperless office seemed to be widely regarded as a joke, like controlled fusion power. I could see why: my first job, for a large research institution, deluged me with paper. But after I switched to writing software a few years later, all my workplaces were damn near paperless. I go months between needing to print anything for my job though there is still a printer available. And a few years ago the world hit Peak Paper, despite the big orgs that are still far from paperless:
https://aeon.co/ideas/doing-more-with-less-the-economic-less...
How about, fund a UBI through bitcoins? That's something this forum could weigh in on.
has the american dream ever really been alive for most Americans?
Yes. Take Andrew Carnegie as an example [1]. The dream is that you can eventually, through work and luck, make it big. You can also do the same to make i comfortable. For the most part that is still around.
What we're seeing now is a country that combined the worst of capitalism and the worst of socialism. For example, free university education. There are two problems with this. First not everyone needs a university education, but making it more common forces people to have it just to compete. Second, the university system that the US has is too expensive to support such a plan due to the confluence of capital and social engineering. Our school want to have private room dorms. This makes the infrastructure more expensive than our EU counterparts with common living styles. As a nation, we now expect such accommodations. The US government, with tax payer money, can't afford to sustain such a system, but the voters will require it. As a result we are stuck.
Now how does this second point relate to the first? The US is still able to experiment. Look at Udacity or Coursera. We're trying to move to certifications for technical skills rather than requiring a full degree. Will this pan out? No idea (as an OMSCS student I hope it does). It does bring the cost down. This hopefully will offset the expenses associated with college, as well as its debt. Notice we've removed the expensive part, housing, from the college equation by decoupling it from the official school.
What we're seeing now is a country that combined the worst of capitalism and the worst of socialism. For example, free university education. There are two problems with this. First not everyone needs a university education, but making it more common forces people to have it just to compete. Second, the university system that the US has is too expensive to support such a plan due to the confluence of capital and social engineering. Our school want to have private room dorms. This makes the infrastructure more expensive than our EU counterparts with common living styles. As a nation, we now expect such accommodations. The US government, with tax payer money, can't afford to sustain such a system, but the voters will require it. As a result we are stuck.
Now how does this second point relate to the first? The US is still able to experiment. Look at Udacity or Coursera. We're trying to move to certifications for technical skills rather than requiring a full degree. Will this pan out? No idea (as an OMSCS student I hope it does). It does bring the cost down. This hopefully will offset the expenses associated with college, as well as its debt. Notice we've removed the expensive part, housing, from the college equation by decoupling it from the official school.
It was back in the 50's and 60's when much of Asia and Europe was still rebuilding from being destroyed in World War II and the US had a huge advantage in industry and exporting.
Why isn't just better law enforcement (also powered by AI like crime prediction!) the answer?
It's just fear.
The article starts off so strong, then goes back to claiming that only government intervention can ensure profits are widely shared.
There are two problems with this argument:
1. The evidence suggests it is an increase in regulations that has increased income disparity:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/make-elites-compete-why-t...
Moreover, all of the regulations and redistributive programs governments created in previous decades are still in force. The editorial board seems to be implying that not only do the regulations enacted in the past have to stay in place, but new regulations and redistributive programs need to be put in place as we move forward, in order.
This begs the question: when does this incremental increase in the government's incremental growth end? When the government controls everything? When tax rates are at 100%? If government spending going from 5% of GDP to 40% GDP doesn't cause middle class wages to grow faster, then what proportion will?
The NYT editorial board seems to be implying that as the economy becomes more productive, the government must control more of the economy, which leads to the absurd conclusion that the ultimate destination is complete government control of the economy, in some distant, highly productive future.
2. As it happens, governments have increased the scale of social welfare programs over the last four decades. As a percentage of GDP, government spending on healthcare, education and welfare has grown substantially since the late 1960s. The Code of Federal Regulations has also grown at a breathtaking pace. Entire new regulatory agencies have also been created, like the EPA and OSHA, each of which has created vast numbers of new regulations, while older regulatory agencies expanded their own cadre of regulations.
None of this seems to have helped. Maybe it is in fact hurting the middle class.
There are two problems with this argument:
1. The evidence suggests it is an increase in regulations that has increased income disparity:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/make-elites-compete-why-t...
Moreover, all of the regulations and redistributive programs governments created in previous decades are still in force. The editorial board seems to be implying that not only do the regulations enacted in the past have to stay in place, but new regulations and redistributive programs need to be put in place as we move forward, in order.
This begs the question: when does this incremental increase in the government's incremental growth end? When the government controls everything? When tax rates are at 100%? If government spending going from 5% of GDP to 40% GDP doesn't cause middle class wages to grow faster, then what proportion will?
The NYT editorial board seems to be implying that as the economy becomes more productive, the government must control more of the economy, which leads to the absurd conclusion that the ultimate destination is complete government control of the economy, in some distant, highly productive future.
2. As it happens, governments have increased the scale of social welfare programs over the last four decades. As a percentage of GDP, government spending on healthcare, education and welfare has grown substantially since the late 1960s. The Code of Federal Regulations has also grown at a breathtaking pace. Entire new regulatory agencies have also been created, like the EPA and OSHA, each of which has created vast numbers of new regulations, while older regulatory agencies expanded their own cadre of regulations.
None of this seems to have helped. Maybe it is in fact hurting the middle class.
Deregulation has allowed strong players to capture more wealth. I think you have it all backwards.
Causation is not correlation, however, at the height of taxation and regulation, the middle class was the strongest ever. That has eroded since the '70's until today, with wages staying relatively flat.
So tell me why deregulation is better then? If things are worse now, and they obviously are in terms of wages. In the '60's a man could work at the factory and support a family of four. That is an absolute impossibility now.
Causation is not correlation, however, at the height of taxation and regulation, the middle class was the strongest ever. That has eroded since the '70's until today, with wages staying relatively flat.
So tell me why deregulation is better then? If things are worse now, and they obviously are in terms of wages. In the '60's a man could work at the factory and support a family of four. That is an absolute impossibility now.
But there has been a growth of regulation. The bookings paper explains how regulations have contributed to growing income disparity.
And no, wages are better now than in the 1960s..
And no, wages are better now than in the 1960s..
yummyfajitas(3)
I worry because I am certain that the only way out of civil war is universal basic income (socialism) or cyberpunk-style fascism.
The repercussions of AI should be worrying every leader in the world right now.
Immigrants? H1-bs? Illegals? Robots? Please, let's have a real talk.
Capitalism will destroy capitalism as we know it.
Edit: Because my post is high up in this topic, I hope to get some attention of people that are more invested than me on figuring out this problem.
One of the least communist solutions I've thought of is a quasi-capitalistic economic system. Each publicly traded company should have profit-sharing-only stocks and profit-sharing/management-voting stocks. Stop all wars and futile spending and buy profit-sharing stocks with our tax dollars. That is, let's socialize part of every company's profits but not management.
Let's also ensure the system isn't gamed by stashing profits offshore or having overpaid upper management to decrease profit numbers. Then we keep reinvesting a percentage of profits and future taxes into other publicly traded companies. Use the rest of the profits as the fund for universal basic income.
I think this whole thing is going to be a shit-show even if we can control the AI. If we can't, may it have mercy on us.