There is a particular class of problems of a 'machine economy' where machines produce products for machines, the machines can use the economic product more efficiently (at making the capital owners more profit), and humans are cut out of the loop.
The last chapter of the essay points out the issue, not that machines take jobs, that machines can and will evolve faster than their human counterparts can causes issues with employment certainty, something that is very dangerous for economies.
Or, as the SSC poetically puts it[0]:
I broke my back lifting Moloch to Heaven, and all I got was this lousy Disneyland with no children.
The post quotes Bostrom considering exactly this scenario, where in the end the economy, having optimized humans out of the loop, keeps running and generating wealth, with no conscious mind to enjoy it.
[0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Right now we have a people taking the most (much of it through rentier activity) and the rest are given make-work too keep from idle-hands.
If we had land value tax we'd be getting somewhere.
> A negative right is a right not to be subjected to an action of another person or group; negative rights permit or oblige inaction. A positive right is a right to be subjected to an action or another person or group; positive rights permit or oblige action.
You may believe in positive rights, like I have a right to food, shelter, etc. Others may believe in only negative rights, like I have the right to not provide you food, shelter etc. It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea.
Not really, it's an irrelevant distinction. If you have the right deprive me of food, shelter, etc. then I have the right to kill you in order to take those things for myself.
This is starting to sound like Fallout. Or maybe we should get onto welding spikes all over our vehicles and wearing hockey masks and assless chaps and go for a more Mad Max vibe.
This distinction falls apart when you include the notion of privately owned land. If you are born into a world where all land is owned by someone else, what choice do you have but to either work for your food or steal it? What if nobody permits you to work for them?
I only support property "rights" because I think they lead to better overall welfare in the world-that-is. If in some future state of the world they turn out to be harmful on net, then I have no qualms with saying that we should scrap them.
These terms have plenty of meaning in the abstract but no direct real world applicability. Their main use seems to be rhetorical: specifically by ideologues who support the status quo while denying a status quo bias.
Preventing someone from making use of food and shelter that exists is actively depriving them of it. If there is a (negative) right to freedom from interference with the acquisition of food/shelter/etc., it conflicts with the (positive) right to exercise exclusive dominion over particular items as "property".
This is a ludicrous hypothetical in response to a very simple question: do you or do you not believe all people have a right to the basics of survival and some element of dignity?
I was arrested once, way too fucked up, in someones car. They eventually lended me sandals because I had no shoes or socks.
I am, of course, far more understanding of those in ridiculous situations, having been in many myself. I've calmed down a lot, but unless someone is threatening to kill me, I'll treat a person as someone who has had decades of experiences I have not had.
One day, I hope we can all do that for eachother. We're all human beings. We're all animals. We all deserve to be able to eat, sleep, and have social contact.
I think the names are poorly chosen, though. A "negative" right is one for which a specific "violater" can always be identified. If you are stolen from, then someone stole from you. A "positive" right is one in which the only identifiable culprit is "everyone" or "society". If you don't have enough to eat, it's because society didn't provide a way for you to feed yourself; it's not that specific person's fault because they didn't hand over their sandwich.
This seems to be the main point of disagreement between us. You seem to be saying that if someone doesn't have enough to eat, then it is everyone else's fault individually. My point of view is that it's possible for someone to go hungry without it being anyone's fault in particular; it's just the result of a bad system. Maybe you're morally obligated to try to improve the system, but you're not morally obligated to give away everything you have to anyone who asks.
That property rights -- which are the state-protected privilege to exercise exclusive control of some abstract or concrete thing and restrict others freedom of action with regard to that abstract or concrete thing -- are often cast as a negative right is a perfect illustration of the fact that the distinction between "positive" and "negative" rights is far less fundamental than many people try to portray it, and is in many cases purely an artifact of the language chosen in a particular description of the right.
> If you don't have enough to eat, it's because society didn't provide a way for you to feed yourself; it's not that specific person's fault because they didn't hand over their sandwich.
Conversely, if I have a right to acquire the necessities of survival, I can identify a specific violator: whoever it is that actively prevented me from acquiring the existing thing that was necessary.
The positive/negative right distinction, even recast as a "specific identifiable violator" distinction, isn't really all that useful: you still have to define which rights exist (even if you've decided which classes of descriptions of rights are acceptable, whether its "only negative" or "only those with specific identifiable violators"), and you still have to deal with the fact whichever rights you decide should exist are likely going to conflict.
> This seems to be the main point of disagreement between us. You seem to be saying that if someone doesn't have enough to eat, then it is everyone else's fault individually. My point of view is that it's possible for someone to go hungry without it being anyone's fault in particular; it's just the result of a bad system.
Unless there doesn't exist enough food to eat, the only reason somebody doesn't have enough to eat is because someone else -- either individually or collectively -- has actively taken steps that deny that person access to the food that exists.
In what way? Suppose a piece of land is unowned. How am I to obtain this land without the positive right to do so? If I decide to obtain this land and the local population ignores my decision (and attempts at enforcement) and continues making use of the land (for hunting, fishing, exploration), who is the "violator": Me or society?
The distinction between positive rights and negative rights is a lot less clear than is often presented. Sure, the right to food, shelter, etc. is framed in the language of positive right, but the right to not be obstructed in the pursuit of food, shelter, etc., is a framed in the language of negative rights.
Simply dividing things into positive and negative rights and saying that (as is one common argument) only "negative" rights are valid resolves nothing, even then there is considerable debate about which negative rights exist and, when they conflict, how you determine which has priority.
You remind me of some career advice I got as a kid:
"All negatives can be stated as a positive."
Most of the budget goes to defense, social security, and medicare. None of these primarily provide food, shelter or medical care to the unemployed.
A large portion of the budget goes to provide these things to the elderly but a very small portion of the budget goes to provide these things for the unemployed.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...
Large parts of those segments representing health care and social security represent money that is paid out to people who are working -- that is, it's a direct subsidy to employers who don't feel like paying their workers enough to cover their grocery and housing bills.
I get 51% from that.
I think society puts too much focus on capturing value and not enough on creating value. Innovation is all about value creation and this is not being rewarded by society. The way things work now is a lottery.
Inequity is the result of math. The rich get richer. Without progressive income redistribution, increasing inequity is inevitable.
This is why game shows have bonus rounds, mooting the first 1/2, so that people continue watching.
Further, creation of the middle class is a deliberate, explicit policy decision. Not the natural outcome of Freedom Markets (tm). The USA has previously chosen to nurture a middle class on three separate occasions. We're overdue for a 4th restructuring, say by 20 years.
Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich
http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Political-History-Ame...
-- Judge Clarence Thomas
"if your job can be done more cheaply without you, and the only reason you have it is because people would feel sorry for you if you didn’t, so the government forces your company to keep you on – well then, it’s not a job. It’s a welfare program that requires you to work 9 to 5 before seeing your welfare check."
'With all these advantages of “Simple Check”, what exactly is the “Sneaky Job” condition good for that makes it so popular? As far as I can tell, it is good for fooling people. People do not like paying welfare.'
> People do not like paying welfare.
We should work on fighting this perception. Welfare is actually good.
There was a time in the past ('30s-'70s) when welfare wasn't a bad word. People liked the idea of welfare. It was a positive idea.
That we're still all talking like this, like welfare is a handout to worthless losers, etc is a testament to the success of Reaganite conservative politics. We all talk like Gordon Gekko now.
We should rehabilitate the word and the idea.
Say it with me:
WELFARE IS GOOD AND COOL.
[1] http://wol.iza.org/articles/unemployment-and-happiness.pdf
It's worth reading the paper past the initial TL;DR bullet points. It goes into interesting discussion about what exactly it is about unemployment that makes people unhappy. Some quotes from the middle of the article:
"There is plenty of evidence in support of the hypothesis that the evaluative component of well-being depends on how much one conforms to or deviates from the norms of the social group one associates with. For unemployment, this means that the harmful effect of unemployment on life satisfaction is larger the stronger the prevailing norm toward work is. (...)
There is additional evidence in support of the importance of social norms to the degree of life satisfaction of people who are unemployed. A German study finds that unemployed people report a substantial increase in life satisfaction when they retire, although other life circumstances remain largely unchanged [10]. The study interprets retirement as a switch in the social group with which one identifies, from the working-age population to retirees, and thus to a change in the social work norm. Once an individual has retired, not working no longer violates the social work norm, and life satisfaction consequently increases. (...)
The potential felt scarcities and worries associated with unemployment are manifold. They include fewer social contacts, less social recognition, less money, a less structured day, less control of one’s life, and less certainty about what the future will bring. Indeed, although the effect on happiness of temporary income reductions during unemployment is not very large, people who are unemployed worry about their future economic uncertainty."
--
I think it's still possible that unemployeds' unhappiness is caused by the work-centric culture and economy. Being shoveled money at is problematic, because you're getting for free what society expects you to get by work. Consider the ultimate welfare we all get - sunlight, breathable air. No one feels inadequate or sad because they're receiving it for free. It's part of the environment. We assume air and sun are always there, will always be there, and are available to everyone without having to work for it. I think food and shelter are things we should actually try and push to the environmental level, i.e. have it available for free and to everyone, unconditionally.
Yes, this is critical. There is much stigmatization of nonwork. As we automate away more jobs, (as we should!) there will be less and less work to go around, and eventually not enough work for everybody who wants it. We might already be there.
I agree that people get more out of work than money, but that's not really the question (and also what if your job sucks? I'd rather have money and no job than money and a terrible job). The question is what do we do about the people for whom there is no job? Right now what happens? There's always roaming around San Francisco panhandling I guess. Or crime. It's not a coincidence that societies with robust welfare states have far lower crime and low or no homeless.
I'm all for people working if they want, but "Get a job" isn't a real solution for a destitute person, or even for the working poor who already have a couple of jobs and are still broke. Or even really for somebody with a job he'd rather quit.
There have been some good discussions on HN around basic income, too. I think that would be an even better solution, really.
Anecdote: I've used welfare before and although having "cash shoveled at me" didn't automatically make me happier, it did make it much easier to pay for food while I was in school with a garbage side job. I certainly wouldn't have been happier without it.
One of the 3 main goals of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 is to achieve maximum employment. This is why politicians harangue on "putting country x back to work". The idea that "the devil finds work for idle hands to do" is deeply ingrained in the fundamental assumptions of political economy.
Not until such time that people don't need a job to survive. As is, a job is currently required to pay rent and buy food.
"If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential."
So how do you plan on housing and feeding all of the people who's jobs are displaced through technology?
People need an income to survive. Most people get incomes through jobs, some get them through capital holdings, a few get them through other means.
> So how do you plan on housing and feeding all of the people who's jobs are displaced through technology?
Jobs being displaced through technology means output is produced more effectively without the job than it would be with the job, and someone is capturing the value of that output.
The issue becomes one of distributing the value of the output.
Exactly, which makes any quibbling to my statement nothing but worthless pedantry.
"Jobs being displaced through technology means output is produced more effectively without the job than it would be with the job, and someone is capturing the value of that output."
Which has absolutely nothing to do with my question.
"The issue becomes one of distributing the value of the output."
Which is just rephrasing my question.
No, it doesn't. The job is not the need, its just the most common way of satisfying the need.
The need is the income.
Automation of jobs because automation is more efficient means that the economy becomes better at producing output which can be distributed through other existing means of providing income, notably, tax-funded social benefit programs.
Or, as the 'nostromo once wrote,
"No job is the goal. No money is the problem."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8987073
(I do actually have it on a t-shirt now.)
Intel would never be possible in a world with 1mm people; their fab centers are spectacularly expensive fixed costs.
So no, we wouldn't need 2x the Google employees, but there would be a need for employees in a market that doesn't exist now.
I think that's an interesting point that's the continuation of OP's line of thinking + Ford's original thinking. Facebook/etc (to return to the pure-digital companies) would not be possible in a world without X people with disposable income. It's tough to make money on people who can't afford things. How's MySpace doing vs Facebook?
Which imho is a rebuttal the opinion that these kinds of "pure tech" jobs do scale -- true, but only in relation to the number of other jobs people are already earning income from. You can't squeeze blood (revenue) from an (unemployed) stone.
Anyway re: your original thought experiment I'd say no. If you look at the rapid growth phases of those companies, I don't think the employee growth rate was as fast as the customer growth rate. I think that's what people mean when they call something a scalable business.
I recall that in the expansion between worlds people with skills like medical training, agriculture and craftsmanship were valuable to settlement parties. In contrast, Helen Green's programmer father had to retrain in something like farming to be a viable member of a settlement party.
IF on-par everything that each GOOG and FB need, then OK - sure... but assume GOOG and FB are mutually exclusive to each planet?
If all services equal? THEN yes
Are all resources and land masses in the same spot? Then you would need to regulate how any new natural discoveries are made -- and exploited... you dont want carlyle group plundering BOTH Earth-A AND Earth-B...
Actually one should be depopulated and maintained as a plentary-level-nature reserve.
When we worry about the economy, we're worried about a lot more than present consumption, or else we could just eat the seed corn and call it a day.
For example, creative writing communities can always use more manpower, to churn ideas, to work on stories, and to experiment, and to edit.
Not every story niches or original ideas is filled or explored.
I mean, I'm not suggesting that we should stop innovating and continue employing people for jobs that can be automated, but at some point we do have to realize that we will replace humans with machines.