Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Athens had an extremely high slave to citizen ratio. I've read that the average citizen (a more exclusive category then than now but still) owned 7 slaves. The result of this was that most privileged Athenians didn't really have to work. Their days consisted of haggling and gossiping in the market, working out in the gymnasium, attending lectures and getting drunk with friends at symposiums (house parties). It's what they were used to.
Now, will the average citizen enjoy such a life in a fully automated world or will they just live in perpetual poverty buffered only by barely sufficient handouts of food and other basic goods needed for survival? That's a more pressing question.
Things like going through 500.000 cases containing multiple documents and sorting them correctly can be done with Azure services in 5 hours after a 14 month algorithm training period. It takes 5 people working 37 hours a week 3-5 months to achieve the same result and they will have a larger margin of error than the machine. I know this, because we did the same process as a competition between man and machine.
Getting back to the point, however, everyone loves my department. Part of this is because people aren't really fired due to automation, we solve the freed up resources by not hiring people when someone retires, but the main reason is because we automate boring stuff.
Nobody wants to sort through 500.000 cases manually, so you're absolutely correct, automation can free up humanity.
Some people will spend their time being productive, but the truth is you don't have to. That is, if we manage to take back ownership from companies.
Today western society is build around income tax, and as long as that doesn't change, we're not heading for freedom but for oblivion.
If we define technology as doing more with less, automation then because the greatest technological feat of humanity.
> Today western society is build around income tax, and as long as that doesn't change, we're not heading for freedom but for oblivion.
Nailed it!
I don't understand. Ownership of what do you want us to take back and who is us?
It took 14 days to train the algorithm to recognize these forms, and maybe 1,5 months to learn how to use the algorithm and the Azure cloud.
I can't give you the exact technical details because I'm not the CS guy, but I can tel you that we used Googles OCR and a common tree algorithm suggested by "the internet" for machine learning.
The machine vastly outperformed humans in most cases, especially with 50+ page compilations, but got beat when documents had been scanned extremely poorly.
I don't think it's all gloom and doom ahead, but I do think we're going to need to substantially up the intelligence of the average human if we want to exist in a future that doesn't look like constant monster truck shows and house parties.
Philosophy question: does adversity build character? In my personal experience, and looking at all the people I've encountered in life, for the most part it's quite difficult to self-actualize. If you had given me a million dollars as a 20-year-old, you could have come back a month later and I would have a bunch of crap I didn't need and would be a worse person for it, not a better person.
They killed Socrates. And they killed him because he didn't fit in. He was actually thinking for himself and asking difficult questions. One of the reasons the word "democracy" had such a bad reputation over the centuries was all the examples of the Greeks acting like mindless morons.
The Greeks were conquered. And their conquerors, the Romans, were quite concerned for many decades that the Greek influence was destroying their way of life. You can read Romans complaining that other Romans were growing soft and decadent by doing things like sleeping on a bed (instead of the ground). Once a sufficiently violent and organized group of people came along, Greek society was absorbed and diffused throughout western civilization. Greece was no more. It was Rome -- with a Greek influence.
Living in a world of leisure, thought, and self-actualization is a noble goal, but it's not a goal without a lot of danger attached to it. We need to tread carefully here and avoid at all cost making simplistic arguments.
Not that I disagree, but there is the other side of the coin that we don't hear frequently: does adversity destroy character?
Because I'm sure we can all think of more than one example.
How about this formulation: is stress, whether internal or external, required for learning?
My answer is yes. With no stress there is no desire for change. The best case is the self-actualized person, where they form their own goals and provide internal stress in order to learn more and reach them.
But even then, I think we can all think of folks with so much internal drive that they distorted their personality.
I agree that the human (all animals actually) trend is to conserve energy and minimize risks. So you need some kind of pressure to go out and change.
But I was thinking in how people get trapped by bad conditions, environmental circumstances where they are born and that are going to be with them all their life.
This "problems create character" thing suffer a little from surviving bias, in my opinion.
I'm thinking that perhaps there are some core life skills that can be taught so that people are able to positively handle more external stress and provide themselves the correct amount of internal stress.
At least I hope so. It would be depressing to contemplate a large section of humanity unable to self-actualize without chemical dependency or other problems. Not only is that bad for those folks, it brings up the insane question of whether or not such a condition is a disability.
That was the point of the argument: Will people be the winners and robots the "slaves", or will there be only a few capital owners owning (the fruits of the labors of) not a handful of slaves each, but millions of those modern "slaves" and most people none?
http://www.businessinsider.com/poverty-effect-on-intelligenc...
Neighborhood Effects on the Long-Term Well-Being of Low-Income Adults (2012) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491569/
On the psychology of poverty (2014) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262582311_On_the_ps...
Most of the research I found seemed focused on childhood poverty specifically, e.g.:
Childhood poverty and recruitment of adult emotion regulatory neurocircuitry https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/10/11/1596/1644154/Chi...
School Readiness and Self-Regulation: A Developmental Psychobiological Approach http://annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-01081...
How Poverty Affects Classroom Engagement http://reading4all.com/entries/page/1156
In parts of the ancient world that had mass slavery, slaveholders needed their slaves to produce their wealth, so no matter how they oppressed them, there was a motivation to keep them alive.
In the feudal system, lords needed their peasants to produce their wealth, so no matter how they oppressed them, there was a motivation to keep them alive, strong and in growing numbers.
In the industrial age, capitalists needed their workers to produce their wealth, so no matter how they tried to oppress them, there was a motivation to keep them from striking and even more so, actively consuming to stimulate the rest of economy.
In the new age, whoever (or whatever) is at the top won't need most of humans in any way whatsoever.
And for those with an inclination to create, what better than all the time in the world to pursue a talent and bask in the talent of others?
For the vast majority of people, work provides a means, not a meaning. A world without cubicles ought to reduce rather than increase nihilism levels worldwide, so I imagine self-actualization won't be the primary concern.
Health and basic income will be our major challenges ahead.
So it seems, but I really doubt it. They are not really happy doing it, they just kind of gave up on success in the real world, and go for the cheap distraction/virtual success. And I think a good percentage of them would start become really productive, once they don't feel forced to be "productive" in a way and place they actually hate and unfortunately started to hate "being productive"..
Do you have facts to back this opinion up?
It seems like other factors e.g. not dying in a war, not being persecuted for various reasons, not having the opportunity to make money with your skills are today (and have been historically) primary drivers of immigration.
So why do you think "social welfare state" rather than "rule-of-law-based liberal capitalism" is the bigger draw? Is it because it's something you already want rid of?
My significant other works part time and would have to move back home, basically, to afford basic shelter and food. And it's not like the productivity gains are going to leave management--literally a laughable concept.
Finally, over 50% of retirees retired earlier than expected (which is not to say they dipped into retirement early; I have no idea about that stat, but IIRC it's even a higher rate). You can't not plan for retirement and be rational.
Retirement itself is a modern concept to encourage older workers to leave their jobs to younger workers. It's a 20th century invention. Humans have, for the vast majority of existence, worked until death.
Are people ready to stop pursuing their passions? No, and I don't think they ever will.
i dont think we will ever have a time where _no_ humans work, but for 99% of the population, welfare will be decoupled from occupation.
The only way your analysis makes even a little sense is to view the slaves as non human. Which conveniently ignores the entire thing everyone is actually afraid of, which is concentration of ownership of productive capital.
I'm guessing it's going to be extremely difficult to be happy when you're struggling to afford food or keep a roof over your family's head.
If your job is to follow a script 60 times an hour without deviation is your job one that humans should be permitted to do? Or is it an abuse?
If your job is to ignore circumstances and human empathy is it a job humans should be permitted to do? Or is it an abuse?
If an abuse is what permits survival should it be embraced or scorned?
I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think at the very least there's a clear way to look on things with human eyes and a human perspective.
Many jobs "don't respect their capacities" precisely because it needs doing, but nobody wants to do it - the only way to get it done is to pay someone accordingly. Following a script may be boring as he11, but may currently be the only way to build widgets which bring joy and/or give life to others. Of late, when visiting the pharmacist I wonder how much joy they really get out of filling little bottles with precise numbers of little pills, this after many years of studying pharmaceuticals at a intellectually high and stimulating level - and I thank them for doing such a mind-numbing job, precisely because it keeps me alive for decades (vs dead within weeks of a stroke). Scrubbing toilets isn't exactly rewarding either, but keeps our society sanitary & healthy. In neither case is anyone forced to do so, but does need to for there to be food on the table and a roof overhead.
I have been mulling over "bottom line" sustenance vs minimum wage, poverty lines, guaranteed income, etc. Of late I note that one's "fair share" amounts to 8 acres of generally workable land, plenty for sustenance farming and then some. That's the baseline scenario for what work is expected of an individual: elicit your own food, shelter, clothing out of your fair share of land; from there, you can barter your way up to better living. It is fair, in terms of what our species has been given / ended up with, to consider that where to begin such questions (and not to start with a luxurious society where doing nothing can net you $30,000/yr).
Ah, yes, the "freedom" thing again.
When you're on a salary that barely keeps you afloat, that you cannot really afford to lose, suddenly you start reading different meanings into that word.
Imagine yourself back in a time where a flood or some random "act of god" could destroy your harvest and make it so you and your whole family died of hunger through no fault of your own (or anyone else's).
Today, thanks to centuries of improvements, one doesn't have to know how to build a house or even how to acquire food or clean water.
These things are given even to people who do nothing but drink and play video games all day on government dime.
Do you realize? We live in a time and place where not being basically given food, water, sanitation and shelter, even for contributing absolutely nothing of value is seen as shocking.
And then, some of the people from that time and place go on this crazy thing that allows them to communicate with half the population of the world in realtime and complain about "barely keeping afloat"!
The very notion would have been laughable 100 years ago. Hell, it's disconnected from the reality of even a large part of the world TODAY.
Actually our society has decided that that is not the case.
>These things are given even to people who do nothing but drink and play video games all day on government dime.
When will this welfare queen myth end?? This is not most people.
>Do you realize? We live in a time and place where not being basically given food, water, sanitation and shelter, even for contributing absolutely nothing of value is seen as shocking.
I don't see the problem.
>And then, some of the people from that time and place go on this crazy thing that allows them to communicate with half the population of the world in realtime and complain about "barely keeping afloat"!
I don't see the problem.
Yet society could easily have decided the other way around. I bet you wouldn't be calling the majority rule moral at that point. The argument of "social morality" is only used here because it is convenient for you and aligns with your own values. Just think about those "societies that decided on policies that you disagree with". Those are the ones you would call immoral. Saudi Arabia, Iran, N.K. and Afghanistan comes to mind (?)
> When will this welfare queen myth end?? This is not most people.
True. It's not most people. But then again, it's not about the number of people. It's about the idea that I owe you something simply because you breath.
> I don't see the problem.
That's the problem.
> I don't see the problem.
Again, that's the problem.
Our society is set up to allow your success. Your success is also highly correlated with the circumstances of your birth. Society takes from some of your success to give others the same chance at success. There's no problem with that.
Ever stopped to think about that? I get that you believe that society's role is to take from X and give to Y. But what IF that belief is wrong? aren't you then responsible for all the pain and suffering that is to take place due to your beliefs?
I'd still love to see it.
>but then I remembered that when a person uses their feelings to argue, you cannot counter-argue them with logic.
My last post listed facts... and you didn't exactly address them. Also there is nothing more frustrating when arguing with libertarians, neo-reactionaries, republicans, etc. than when they bust out the "stupid liberal emotions" trope. Try to be honest with your argumentation, you don't believe what you believe because you're more honest or smarter or more logical than I am. It's just your belief. You may have facts to back them up but I do as well, why we find those facts comes from our belief system.
>what if you are wrong? what then? what if the morality you speak of here is actually injustice and evil itself disguised as goodness and justice? what remedy do I have against your tyranny?
You mean to ask do I take responsibility for being an evil tyrant if I am secretly an evil tyrant? I suppose I do but reject the premise.
>Ever stopped to think about that? I get that you believe that society's role is to take from X and give to Y. But what IF that belief is wrong? aren't you then responsible for all the pain and suffering that is to take place due to your beliefs?
I openly advocate for redistribution and if redistribution is "wrong" and causes all sorts of pain and suffering then sure I'll take my share of responsibility. Once again though, I reject the premise.
*
Now that I've answered that let me pose the same to you. What if you are wrong? If redistribution is a vital tool in order to give people a fair shot at life, do you take responsibility for depriving them of that? What if your beliefs are evil and used by powerful interests to entrench the already powerful?
That view is completely antithetical to the core belief system of progressive liberals and it's not something you can really have a discussion about. It's like arguing over whether God exists.
Charity should be the social value, achieving redistribution by encouraging people to voluntarily give to whom & how they see fit.
8 acres is your fair share of Earth. Here's a $20 bag of assorted nutritious seeds. (If you're really uptight about this, I'll throw in a $40 sack of rice as enough to get you to first harvest.) There we have the stark reality of "barely keeps you afloat" and "cannot really afford to lose": subsistence farming. Harsh as it sounds, that's the real-world baseline.
Capitalism gives you the option of doing something other than self-sufficient farming. You can put in the same effort, with the equivalent "cannot really afford to lose" work-or-starve option, and leverage the available contract - or not. The notion that you're somehow not "free" to accept or reject the contract (if living at that bare edge of survival) is practically no different than subsistence farming.
I acknowledge that "freedom" seems rather moot at that level, but so long as the effort required is little different from the effort for subsistence farming, that's the hard reality of being a human living on Earth. If you're accepting the contract because of "work or starve" in the context of effort I'm harping on, and you have the liberty to pick between whatever contracts are available ("start digging & planting" always being one) then yes that's "freedom". If you're compelled under threat of abuse/injury/death to work for a disproportionately meager return, and/or literally confined with no options, then that is an immoral denial of the "freedom" I'm referring to.
To wit: the natural law of "produce or starve" is not to be confused with, nor equated to, compulsory hard labor within incarceration sustained with a scant moldy loaf.
(I'm writing this much about the subject because I'm trying to sort thru & refine ideas, bouncing 'em off HN for insight.)
Therefore, I would say society owes all of us at least the land and the education—real hands on education and family-style support—before anyone can start saying wage "slavery" is a choice.
As for "hands on" and "family style support", you're demanding luxuries that many settlers didn't have. I'm reading the Foxfire books, they're all you'll need for a good fair start.
1. Every 8-acre plot of land is suitable for sustaining a person
2. Every person is legally free and able to relocate to an 8-acre plot of land
Rough estimate is one typically needs 1-3 acres to grow enough food for one person. 8 acres should be more than enough, enough so to generate quite a surplus. Multiplying that by # of family members leverages productivity further, giving a simple family of 4 some 32 acres to work with, and into 50-100 acres for a larger family (leveraging another HNer's calculations, that can push a half-million $ revenue).
2. Most people are legally free; those who aren't are either incarcerated (and subject to equivalent subsistence by the state), or are the subject of criminal abuse (and freeing them is a major purpose of the state). Wasn't all that long ago that the USA was first settled by people who literally picked up what little they had and walked (or rode a mundane covered wagon) hundreds or thousands of miles across unpaved terrain to reach their settlement.
I just looked on zillow.com for land in the 8 acre range. There is enough available for well under $10,000 (with just a few seconds' search effort) to make the thought experiment viable. "Able to relocate" is little more than picking up a briefcase and hitching a ride no more than halfway across the state.
And it is a thought experiment. It is not a comprehensive analysis of encyclopedic depth and peer-reviewed correctness; it is a back-of-the napkin sanity check of what would roughly constitute a bottom-line standard, bracketing the discussion skewed by "soak the rich" redistributive thinking. Insofar as there will be complications: yes, there will be complications; figure it out, yes you may have to break ties (we're talking survival here), yes it will require effort (we're talking survival here), no it may not be pleasant (we're talking survival here).
There's a recurring discrepancy I see on the subject: - some people expect "functional poverty" be achievable with virtually zero effort by the individual, all resources & energy supplied by others - some people expect "functional poverty" requires an all-out effort by the individual, with virtually zero resources & effort supplied by others. My great-grandparents having hauled themselves into Central Nowhere, Utah and elicited a decent living from the dirt there, without prolific & compulsory government welfare programs to do so, I'm rather firmly in the latter group.
Bottom line is: one is expected to work AT LEAST as hard is required for subsistence farming on an average 8-acre lot. Whether the reality is actually farming an 8-acre lot, or working a mundane job in a factory, or writing apps on a borrowed MacBook, it is not unreasonable to expect/require an individual to produce at least that much in exchange for basic sustenance. This notion that the capable idle should be sustained, thru the confiscation of at least that much productivity from others, for the mere act of breathing is preposterous. Survival isn't free; you're expected to work at least that hard.
I do appreciate the thought exercise aspect of your proposed model, as well as the usefulness of finding a model that can be used to find rational social minimums.
Are you proposing then that every person should start from that baseline, say from age 18, and any wealth accumulated by their parents not made available to them?
> This notion that the capable idle should be sustained, thru the confiscation of at least that much productivity from others, for the mere act of breathing is preposterous.
Are you describing idle rich here as well?
Relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/61zjqf...
In no way do I contend everyone should, compulsorily, start from that exact baseline. If someone wishes to share the fruit of their productivity with you, fine - that's basically a contract between the two of you, and none of anyone else's business.
The "idle rich" are plainly not what I meant. They achieved (and exceeded) baseline productivity somehow; again, so long as it's either the direct result of their efforts, or otherwise the fruit of a mutually-agreed contract, they've done their part to not be an unnecessary burden on others.
The "capable idle" are those who could work and sustain themselves, but opt not to because they leverage a system of coercive redistribution based on police power of the state.
I do think if you're going to have a government-mandated education system, it should prepare every child to be capable of starting from that baseline, should ill circumstance befall them.
Contending that "freedom" somehow requires others to associate with you, or requires an effort-free poverty-line income, is to grossly misunderstand the nature of "freedom". Your "freedom" starts with the bottom-line obligation to work hard enough to sustain yourself, by whatever means morally available without compelling others to comply or supply.
If someone does not possess the means of independent subsistence, there is no such thing for them as "freedom" to enter into an employment contract.
I'm working out the baseline effort required for "here's your fair share of Earth, and a bag of assorted seeds - fend for yourself." The notion that you should be able to exist indefinitely without effort is preposterous. Either you put in that basic effort (which I'm trying to quantify), or that effort is taken under threat from someone else and redistributed to you. Finding the latter morally abhorrent, I have to conclude that "freedom" is predicated on the axiom that one must produce enough to sustain oneself.
From there we can return to your assertion.
If someone does not possess the means of independent subsistence, then it is not unreasonable to expect that someone to at least generate equivalent productivity under whatever circumstances are available, trading it for equivalent subsistence. "Produce 730,000 consumable kcals annually or starve" being a practical law of nature, it is not "unfair" nor "un-free" to enter into an employment contract trading productivity for sustenance. Your "freedom" is, however repulsive the choices, to either expire or produce enough to survive - and that either thru independent subsistence farming, or an equivalent effort traded for equivalent nourishment etc.
It's not unfair to expect a baseline productivity of someone, and whether it's complete self-sufficiency or capitalistic contract to work makes little difference. (Whether someone takes "unfair" advantage of that arrangement is a different discussion.) Fair work for fair pay exchangeable for fair sustenance is fair.
Some of this is due to my job. A lot of it is due to the fact that my family could afford tuition, so I graduated debt free, and when my grandfather passed away, the inheritence allowed me to buy a house at the bottom of the market.
The reality is that the overwhelming majority of wealth exists in the hands of people who did not create equitable value for society.
Actually there are many cases in which people accrue wealth by generating negative value for society, because they are allowed to (or used their exiting influence to lobby for laws that) externalize many of their costs.
I can see how a reasonable person could find taxation (and in particular progressive taxation) morally wrong.
Can you really not see how a reasonable person could find it morally worse to create a world in which some people to have a high chance of starving due to being born into poverty, while others born into wealthy families have a near zero chance of that happening?
My thought experiment addresses those who seem to think no effort should be required for survival. If you are at all capable of that minimum level of productivity, it is expected of you; if you truly aren't capable, I'll choose to help you out.
This is a really silly phrase: achieving idleness and ease is the very purpose of work.
Of course it's unreasonable. Why should you be able to take the stuff I needed to fend for myself, blame it on me, and then "negotiate" from the profoundly advantageous position that I'll starve and you won't if I walk away?
Aside from outright theft, you now have established you have all the stuff you need to fend for yourself. Put in that aforementioned basic effort, and you won't starve. You may have to relocate, you may have to enter a mutually-beneficial contract, but point is (assuming you're competent & able-bodied) you're obligated to exert at least that basic effort to expect survival.
That's an interesting thing to say, since current governments largely exist precisely to effect and enforce the creation of a landless working class who are forced to sell labor-power for wages.[1]
But at least we can now agree: property is theft.
[1] -- http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/yasha-levine-recovere...
Go to zillow.com, enter a very low price range as search criteria, and select whatever state you like. Land is absolutely available to anyone who wants it. Should you buy land, the government exists in major part to precisely identify what land is yours, to defend it, and to provide at least minimal infrastructure (roads, mail) to facilitate it.
You are in no way forced to sell labor-power for wages, it's just a whole lot easier & more convenient & productive than tilling the soil the hard way. Capitalism succeeds precisely because mutually-beneficial contracts let people voluntarily leverage each other for greater mutual productivity.
I'm not sure how you construe "taking [property] is theft" into "property is theft". Polar opposites to me.
You're landless? you don't want to sell your labor-power for wages? For just $8000 (obtainable via gov't welfare or your own productivity) I can put you on 20 acres next week, with a comprehensive multi-thousand-page manual on how to live off it.
If you punch in a max price of $1, interestingly enough, you find foreclosure auctions on other people's urban and suburban houses. Nothing that would allow you to leave the capitalist market and live self-sufficiently, though.
>You are in no way forced to sell labor-power for wages,
Well yes, I am. I will die of starvation if I don't, while also homeless, because all available means of subsistence on this continent are monopolized by private owners (including, in many places, the state).
>You're landless? you don't want to sell your labor-power for wages? For just $8000 (obtainable via gov't welfare or your own productivity) I can put you on 20 acres next week, with a comprehensive multi-thousand-page manual on how to live off it.
First of all, I know of no welfare program which will simply give me $8000 to go live off the land. Secondly, if unused land costs anything at all (rather than being available by usage), then, as previously established, you're forcing people to work for wages.
You then have the next problem, that even if unused land was just given away for free, for instance under Homestead Acts, that land was of course forcibly stolen from its native inhabitants if it's in the Western Hemisphere or Australasia.
Every single scheme of capital or real property ever established in the world was established by violence. You can't get away from that. Half the time, it was done deliberately to dispossess self-sufficient peasant societies and create, artificially, a cheap labor force.
I believe social mobility comes from opportunity - and we live in a society with more opportunity than ever. The failure to leverage that opportunity will not be meaningfully improved by redistribution, as both require personal initiative - if that initiative is lacking for one, it's lacking for the other.
Actually social mobility is on the decline in America. It's also lower than in a lot of more redistributive states like the nordic countries, france, canada, etc. Is opportunity on the decline in America? Maybe if we did welfare like those states it would go back up.
>The failure to leverage that opportunity will not be meaningfully improved by redistribution
This is just not true.
Could you please read this short blogpost? It distills some economic research down and should give you a better understanding of why I believe what I believe.
http://glineq.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-schumpeter-hotel-inco...
If you work, you get rich. If you don't work, you stay poor.
Basically, there is no need for anyone to starve to make the system "fair". Why do you insist on killing people? Why do you think death is the right penalty for not working? Is a death of a person better than forcing another person to share a bit of their wealth? If so, why?
I don't understand at all, but then I was born in Europe and live in EU, so I guess that's expected...
Forcing another person to share a bit of their wealth IS a death threat. Why do you think death is the right penalty for not sharing a bit of wealth?
Well, yeah, but this is why we form a society: to make ourselves immune to what's natural (as in "what animals do"). There's no need for society rules to emulate a savannah we all come from, is there?
> Forcing another person to share a bit of their wealth IS a death threat.
? I don't understand?
Of course, but it goes the other way around, too. I say, "I'll take some fruit off this tree". You say, "die trespasser!" and shoot at me. You have now shot at me.
You no doubt have an ideological justification: that property titles magically justify shooting at nonviolent people in a way that nothing else does. You equate alternative management schemes for natural resources with physical violence against a human being, which is why your scheme inevitably breaks down into you finding elaborate ways to say "fuck you and die" to everyone around you while spraying machine-gun fire everywhere.
So, at 8 acres we'd assume a basic income of somewhere between $7,200 - 48,000 per year.
Crunching your numbers brings us decently around the US poverty line of ~$17,000/person (less for larger families). That's a connection I was looking for and hadn't gotten to yet.
...and, oddly, you touch on the reason illegal hard liquor was popular to produce in my region: you could get a lot more money out of a bushel of corn if you fermented & distilled it first, using pretty primitive equipment. Easier to transport, too. Eventually moonshining collided with automotive technology, leading to NASCAR (powerful engines & skilled drivers outrunning police). But I digress...
Do you really believe that employees are on equal footing with employers and a third party (let's call it government) is not required to enforce fairness?
I believe a small amount of governance is needed to address systemic abuses unto criminality. I believe most employees have far more alternatives than they believe they do, limiting their options by their choice of value prioritization - which they are free to do, and for which there are natural consequences. I am not a anarcho-capitalist (contracts only, no government), but am a conservative libertarian (minimal government facilitating contracts with moral limits).
whether it's moral or abusive for people to perform jobs that don't respect their capacities as a human being.
Very few utilitarians would define it as happiness.
It seemed grandparent was trying to allude at some outside measure - suppose if these people didn't get "pain" from doing these jobs - as if there's some value outside of utility for respecting someone's human capacity. And Kant does believe in this.
It's not like slave labor or something, in theory they could quit, get more education or whatever, and find a different job. Hard to see at-will employment as an abuse by the employer.
You'd be hard-pressed to find such "can't" cases. Turning on a TV (colloquially speaking) at all is a disqualifying factor. There's a free lending library, there's free Internet access, there's free job-placement services. Suck it up & make it happen, or quit complaining. Never before in history has so much job opportunity been so available to so many so easily; it's not trivial mind you, but the alternative for most who ever lived was to start digging & planting.
I've been following David Hines on Twitter as he documents people & regions you're referring to. A recurring takeaway (which he doesn't intend) is your assertion, which is people choosing to stay in such circumstances because they choose family & familiarity over prosperity. The USA was founded & settled by people who took the "move" imperative seriously; when doing so now takes just a few days' pay and a few hours comfortable transport instead of months of hard covered-wagon travel which was long the norm, I find it hard to sympathize.
Cultures which value status quo over productivity improvement can't thrive.
Did you leave behind a spouse and children? Then no, you don't have a clue about it.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find such "can't" cases."
No, I wouldn't be. A single parent who is working 2 minimum wage jobs to feed their family. An extremely common example.
"Turning on a TV (colloquially speaking) at all is a disqualifying factor."
Wrong.
" There's a free lending library"
Which you have to be able to get to in between your two jobs and making sure your children get to school.
"there's free Internet access"
Only in some places, that may or may not be open during your minuscule amount of free time.
"there's free job-placement services"
Which are worth about as much as they cost.
"Suck it up & make it happen"
Said the guy who's never had to experience any of that.
But nobody forced her or him to make a child and then split up, right?
So you can argue, they had a choice of taking care for safe income first and a stable relationship, before making babys and then complaining it is hard to feed them, without proper qualification and then demanding society has to help them ...
So, I indeed think that society should help those in need, but I don't think it MUST. Because it means in the end, forcing other people to work for other peoples mistakes. (in general, there are exceptions obviously)
But others (in general) are still not responsible for a family going down, out of their bad planning/judgement whatever. (Main point is still income btw.) But (for the 3. time) society still can and should help, because it is nice to be nice, but not if the niceness is demanded.
If it's a true aberration, others should be willing to help out. If it's normalized social behavior, something is systemically wrong with the culture.
The cases of high education/low pay I know of, are in liberal arts.
Tell me about today, and I'll believe your prediction for the future.
There are about 4 million truckers in the US whose jobs will be axed the minute self driving trucks become reality on a mass scale (i.e. in the next +5 years when the tech is ready and the final bill passes).
In the meanwhile, how many teachers and artists and therapists do you think there will be (or are needed for)?
I just gave a counterexample to "What job category is increasing in demand today, and with no foreseeable threat from robots in the near future?"
But in general, there are allways so much things needed to be done, but dont because society dont pay for it, and the people cant afford in their free time. So I see zero problems with having too little work in the future. Just with the thing, for what people get money for. Not an easy thing to solve ...
Personally, I doubt it. If I'm being honest with myself, I'd have to say there is nothing I can do that a machine couldn't do better.
IMO instead of lament automation taking jobs (at least those that we would not want our own kids to do) we should improve the learning and training options to make those affected employable elsewhere. Not BS 1-day clinics "how to write your resume", but longer full time technical or human skills classes and workshops to improve on skills in demand today.
And maybe beef up the safety net, especially on the medical side. Do not fight progress, leverage it for good causes.
1) Not everyone has the aptitude, desire, or willingness to get a highly technical job. Those people should not suffer.
2) The pay of all positions are based off of supply and demand. If everyone has a degree in radiology, the pay for being a radiologist would drop a lot. This can be seen in tech. Tech support positions in rural areas require bachelors degrees, yet pay less and less per year($12/hr in my city).
All of my experience, every success of outreach programs bringing new people to tech, everything we know about the distribution of IQ suggests that it's not the case. There is plenty of room in the future economy for more knowledge workers and we shouldn't be making the assumption that people should let their mind rot doing work better suited for machines.
Maybe not. About half of new US college graduates take jobs that don't require a college degree.
We may need fewer "knowledge workers" as AI picks up. We need far fewer paper-pushers and middle managers than were needed in the 1970s. Sales once seemed safe, but consider Amazon and Esurance. That's what the decline of the middle class is all about.
All of your experience and every success? What about the failures? What about coding bootcamps that result in failures?
You're going to need to cite at least some sources when you say that it's possible to teach _everyone_ a highly technical skill.
Maybe. But maybe not, and the effects of the more qualified people retraining into those 'in demand' skills en masse isn't going to be that pretty in terms of its effects on wages and employment of those areas either... and this doesn't even reflect the fact that there will be a 'continued crisis' of automation in other areas, so you might retrain into the wrong area and find that job has gone before you even get started (spilling even more qualified people into the hunt for the next viable job category).
I think you have some good points, but I think the tone of optimism is probably misguided.
This fantasy advocated by globalization advocates has never actually panned out in the real world in any affected region even once. Yet it keeps on getting wheeled out in these discussions without any evidence supporting it.
The problem with software engineers advocating 'overall efficiencies', hand waving away other's jobs and 'temporary pain' in this dis-passioned view makes itself scarce when it comes to H1B and outsourcing.
How many software engineers are advocating removing H1B caps, increasing outsourcing and retraining affected engineers to be therapists, teachers, nurses in the interests of efficiency and societal benefit?
It all seems a bit too self serving and self absorbed.
I think that is a mistake in thinking. It may not be a popular view, but I believe there are a large percentage of the population that don't want to do "thinking labor". They express their utility with their hands — they get a sense of satisfaction and self-worth from manual labor.
You are not going to "train" these people. Their being resists it. Rather, perhaps like Germany, the U.S. should keep enough manufacturing jobs to employ these people in construction or other manual labor jobs.
For hands-on, as an example, there is a big unmet need for people to do home improvement projects. Good contractors are fully booked for months out at least where I live. The real problem, IMO, is guarantees: uneven income and no benefits as a home improvement contractor is a major roadblock for many people. It is great as a side project, but not as primary occupation. Providing safety net, at least in health care, can help with this.
A happy employee came to check if I needed any help with the new technology. Knowing the robot I just interacted with was going to replace their employment was sobering. I couldn't figure out what to say.
The robots are coming to services.
They protect this with a big advertising budget more than really necessary for most users spent on development and when all else fails design patent lawsuit.
Most markets are not this dysfunctional, if you have decent competition and new technology reduces the cost to provide the goods / service then either the price goes down or you discover you have a dysfunctional market.
This isn't a zero sum game.
People are losing their jobs in the name of efficiency through automation. But that isn't being passed onto the buyers.
It's all cheap garbage, inflated and marked up.
You're more than welcome to use a Palm Pilot if you really think its better than a Pilot 1000 (Retail Price: $299). I think most people would prefer a modern Moto G5 Plus however.
Or any other consumer electronics item really... Gameboy vs Modern "New 3DS". Both cost the same historically. (Well, I got a $99 deal on the 3DS. But the 2DS has been like $79 even when not on sale)
> HVAC systems
As far as I can tell, they've got a lot cheaper and more efficient in the last 20 years.
> Wireless routers
I'm pretty sure that the Asus routers around $100 are better than the $100 Linksys routers from 10 years ago.
Not just in technology (Modern ASUS routers have 802.11ac), but just... they are easier to work with and seem to have significantly better antennas.
And all of these numbers don't even account for inflation!
When the barrier to entry is high, there's no reason to lower prices.
Most of the parts - if not all - are available. All one really needs is the knowledge (internet), the tools ($$$), and the space ($$$$) to build.
I have a friend whose father is in his 70s, who builds custom VW vehicles; one of his last vehicles used a shortened chassis and the cab from an old electric truck (might've been a Cushman). He finished that one, and is moving on to another.
Plenty of people fabricate rally cars and sand rails using tubular steel and fairly simple tools (tube bender, a notcher, mig welder, grinder, plasma cutter or torch, etc). In many cases one can do this all in their garage (but it is better to have a more dedicated space). Engines tend toward the VW end of things, but nothing says you have to use such an engine; there are plenty of new and used engines and sub-frames to work from.
I've considered building something similar to this flatpack truck:
http://oxgvt.com/the-ox-all-terrain-vehicle/
I figure that the parts from an old VW Vanagon could provide most of it; that or use some front-wheel drive vehicle, then build the cab-over part.
The only real compromise on all of this would be the safety aspect; pretty much any home-brew vehicle is going to be a likely death trap in a real accident, but that is outside the argument of being able build one. There's also the issue of registration and insurance, but this too can be overcome (at least here in the United States - other countries may be more or less lenient/easy to do this).
The information is out there to build a vehicle, and fairly cheap too. You just have to be willing to get your hands dirty (and suffer some injuries - it seems any kind of automotive work requires a blood sacrifice, not unlike PC repair).
These gains in technology and automation don't appear to be reflected in car manufacturing.
Also the car I bought 10 years ago was $15k. Fuel efficiency hasn't changed that much, safety standards either. But now, to make the price appear appealing I'm expected to make 60 (5 years) payments rather than 38 (3 years).
CAFE essentially puts a ceiling on fuel economy, so instead of getting a more efficient car of the same size, fuel economy is held constant and the size of the car (or its performance) increases.
As for safety, MY2008+ vehicles are required to have TPMS. Next year backup cameras will be required by the NHTSA. It's not a legal requirement, but electronic stability control is available on many more current models than 10 years ago.
You cannot just look at the bottom line price and make conclusions that cars are getting more expensive and automation is just adding profits to the manufacturers.
And a lot of that turned out to be crap. The efficiency seems to be improving, but it's not at a particularly impressive rate. Pretty match every other aspect of cars seems to have improved more. My personal favourite is the button that raises windows right up or right down at an extra hard press. I'm happy with that feature, so form opinions with that in mind.
It might be worth looking at delivery vans instead though even there I've noticed a weird thing recently where traditional auto makers have outright refused to build hybrid or EV trucks, and large organisations have just built their own instead and managed to do so cheaper and better than dedicated manufacturers just by putting together off-the-shelf parts. That seems odd to me, maybe the automakers are distorted by their consumer market?
EDIT: also in US in recent years, C-level people had income increases of around 1000%, and mid-level execs of 475%... so lots of money ended in their pockets, many companies that make no profits make no profits because most of what could been profits were used to pay outrageous amounts of money to a small handful of people.
Historically this has led to soldiers shooting down their fellow countrymen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre
But I guess once it's automated that's going to increase the likelihood.
Who's behind it, and who benefits? UBI proponents?
UBI discussions and increasing proponents are an outcome of this, not the other way around.