your "progress of technology" is based off of the exploitation of the lower class. I'd much rather our resources be allocated in a way that doesn't force people to work 3 jobs.
(1) Most services automated away, and those who don't have the skills or abilities to earn money are supported by taxing those who do
(2) technological progress is actively hindered in order to ensure that everyone has the skills to hold a job that pays enough to live on, or
(3) most services are automated away, and those who don't have the skills or abilities to earn enough to live are left to live in poverty (or starve)
And as technologists, which world should we push for? Ethics is not given nearly enough consideration among technologists, and this is one prime example.
Maybe I should just move to Denmark.
Let's exclude those who cannot learn enough to function in society. If anybody wants these people to starve, I haven't met them.
Suppose you graduate from college with a degree in repairing fax machines. Fax machines are quickly disappearing. Should you:
1) Continue to learn about fax machines while the rest of society pays for your food, shelter, and health care. After all, it's not for us to judge what you do with your life.
2) Expect fax machines to be mandated by law so that you and the other fax machine experts can have a job, or
3) Expect things to change. Try to match your own skills and desires with whatever most people want. That is, try to fit yourself into the society and world you find yourself in and not expect the world to change for you. (Whether or not the rest of us support you during this time is irrelevant, except in terms of whether it helps or hinders the change you need to make)
I believe this is the same set of alternatives you have offered, only looking at it from the individual level instead of as some hypothetical external observer.
4) is what is actually happening now. The "bar" is constantly being raised.
Now I'm not saying this is inherently a bad thing. When technology and automation improves to the point where laborers are made obsolete, could society potentially adopt an egalitarian system where through taxation, society can afford to let the laborers live in complacency with a satisfying slice of the pie, while the more ambitious (those who continue to push through with scientific and technological advancements) are rewarded with an even bigger piece of the pie? With increasing advancements, will society reach a point where there's more than enough pie for everyone?
This seems to be the one "fact" that makes all the difference in the entire debate. My question is, how come all of history shows man's drive to explore, build, conquer, discover, organize, etc...yet you conclude the "safe" bet is the oppisite?
Ignoring them is not the same as taking their life.
I know it seems like I'm doing my best to assert your rudeness or heartlessness, but I'm just trying to raise the point that one's monetary value is not wholly representative of their value in society.
I was relating to the parent's point that some people cannot learn to function in society. These people couldn't offer things such as community service and some of them might be so separated from society from their handicap as to not have any one caring for them except the government agencies in charge of them.
Or should we go back to horse-drawn carriages in consideration of the unemployed buggy drivers?
> The drivers need to unionize and break Uber's back before Uber replaces them all with self-driving cars
Of course, the landowning classes will never allow this. We haven't really moved on since the middle ages.