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Comment by adisbladis | Hacker News Reader

A thousand times yes! Automating away a lot of jobs as the economic system is now be disastrous, just think of Detroit at a very large scale.

"Wouldn't that be perfect if she could actually pursue her hobby?" is a very ignorant statement if you start to consider the implications of industry automation for all of the workers who have been automated away.

I believe that if we don't fundamentally change the economy through reform this will eventually lead to the next large revolution.

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Yeah. Not a lot of laid-off auto workers doing backflips with joy because now they can devote more time their stamp collection.

The "hobbies" line is also infuriating because it practically drips with condescension. "I'm sure you have a hobby, don't you, dear? Of course you do! Why don't you go and spend some time on that while the grown-ups do the important work." All it's missing is a little pat on the head at the end.

I think you are missing the point that people don't usually want to work doing these menial, easily automated jobs. They do it because they have to, to support themselves and their families.

If they could still support themselves or get paid, but not have to spend their day working, wouldn't they be better off?

Wouldn't they be doing that now if they could? How does losing their jobs make their "hobbies" suddenly profitable?

I think the argument about "hobbies" is a long term one, not one that applies to people who just got laid off. If there was no automation and everyone had to farm, nobody can pursue their "hobbies", because everyone has to work to meet their needs. At present, because of automation, less people have to farm. Because of that, people with a "hobby" of filmmaking can go make films, and other people with a "hobby" of watching films are able to spend their time (and money) watching those films. The argument is that automation eventually frees up society into doing less essential things and increases overall happiness.

Also hobbies is definitely not the right word here.

>I think the argument about "hobbies" is a long term one, not one that applies to people who just got laid off.

I think that's the reality, but I am not sure that people like White from the article really acknowledge this. That is, he trivializes it by kind of offhandedly suggesting that it is good for people to have these new options open up as a result of losing their jobs.

But, in fact, what is required is a radical restructuring of our economy and society at large (including our ideas about work) in order to arrive at what he suggests. This is not a point that can simply be glossed over or assumed if he is being earnest or even remotely serious about addressing the automation issue.

Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts. Step one is the automation of workers. Step three is this perfect utopian society, wherein we all just pursue our "hobbies".

We would need something like a basic income or some other way for people to support themselves without working. It's not reasonable for everyone to survive only by the value of their labor. Especially if automation makes it nearly worthless.

Something like a basic income or other provision of basic needs will be unavoidable at some point. Automation is coming for virtually all of us, and we simply won't require nearly the number of people to produce what the world needs.

We have to some degree offset this with rabid consumerism, debt, and globalization. The latter in the sense of both opening new markets and the appeal of low wage workers usurping the appeal/cost of automation. But as the wages in these countries rise and technology continues to evolve while growing ever cheaper, even this can't stem the tide forever.

When you replace someone with a machine, the cost of creating whatever object or service they worked to create goes down.

Either the customer gets a better deal (and has more money), the shareholders get more profit, or some combination of the two.

Either way, the customer buys more stuff or passes the benefits onto their customers, and the shareholders buy more stuff. All of a sudden, there is more demand for labor, and over time, the displaced humans get hired again.

You are invoking the luddite fallacy.

This is a fantasy. There has to be diminishing returns at some point--there has to be a tipping a point where the Luddites are actually correct... it just wasn't 1811.

The Luddites were correct in recognizing that there was a problem to be addressed, but they weren't correct about how to deal with that problem. Halting technological progress and forgoing the economic prosperity it enables will never be the right answer for society as a whole - it's only a selfish and shortsighted response that gets triggered because our current society is unable to put that new prosperity to good use and instead leaves people out in the cold.

Yeah, I agree with you -- the part I was saying the Luddites were right about is that at some point, technology obviates the need for everyone to be employed. I think that's a great thing, and I welcome it despite the enormously painful process it'll be to transition the economy.

The problem is that technology accelerating at a pace far greater than 1811, even though that was in the midst of the industrial revolution. Now, it makes perfect economic sense that automation of jobs on the cheap follows on to improving the economy, globally. However, this progress is associated with period of painful social adaptation.

The fear is not that demand for labor will decrease, but that the speed at which the labor force is upskilled will be outpaced by the progress of technology. So your factory and warehouse workers (who are already in a perilous financial situation) are unemployed, but more than that, their skills are no longer relevant. Increased demand for labor will not readily mesh with the skills of the existing workforce.

In the past, the gap has closed. But what if jobs are shed faster than their workers can transition to new ones? A scary, and not unrealistic prospect.

Why would people even be necessary in your view of the future?

People are not necessary, of course. People simply exist.

It is human physicality and desire that creates necessity. When humans are freed from servitude under other humans, their own passions are able to flourish.

Detroit collapsed because of the 1967 African insurrection, not automation. The engineers and executives fled to less lethal cities, where their automated car factories are thriving just fine.

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