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Comment by everdrive | Hacker News Reader

Of course, but then why would I be excited about automation? I can imagine that the executives and shareholders could be excited for automation, but I'm not sure that it benefits me whatsoever.

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Automation reduces cost of goods sold, so in a market with multiple sellers, it leads to lower prices.

Also, almost everyone is a shareholder, directly or indirectly by being a taxpayer and shouldering the cost of pensions, which are invested in businesses.

The only advantage is that if the company is more efficient they'll be less likely to fire you because the business is failing. They'll just be firing you to eliminate a cost.

When a buyer shops at a lower priced store, they are also eliminating a cost. No one seems to bemoan that, but for some reason a buyer of labor qualified as “employee” eliminating costs is different than a buyer of say, a new roof shopping around or going to Costco to spend less than the full service grocery business.

people complain all the time that Walmart and dollar tree drive local groceries out of business though

I get that they're connected, but it isn't hard to see why people bemoan classifying humans as a cost and eliminating their ability to receive food and shelter.

The person shopping at Costco or choosing a cheaper roof installer who can work more efficiently with fewer humans is doing the same thing - “classifying humans as a cost”.

Choosing to clean your own house instead of hiring a house cleaner, cooking your own food, doing your own landscaping, driving your own car, all of these are “classifying humans as a cost”.

I probably could afford a maid and landscaper, but I don’t because I would rather keep the money. When an employer does that, it is somehow different.

Distilling everything to pure numbers in a spreadsheet is one of the problems of this type of economy.

The executives and shareholders will only be excited about the first order effects of widespread automation like this.

They will be less excited about the second order - a steady loss of revenue as whole professions are automated and people can't find a well paying job.

The third order will be even worse when no one has a job or money to buy anything.

People always point to the industrial revolution. But that created millions of jobs before it obsoleted millions of jobs - you needed workers to create tractors. This wave seems to be shaping up much more like what happened to the rust belt in the late 20th century, regions which still haven't recovered. However this time it'll hit pretty much everyone, everywhere.

Good luck with that capitalism.

I concur capitalism has it's problems but if this means we move back to feudalism I think we can safely say that will be worse.

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