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Typo posted:The manufacturing jobs of the 1950s-1970s that everyone seems to be longing nostalgically for were largely replaced by automation, so trying to deny that it's a huge problem seems overly optimistic. It's only a "huge problem" if you view low-skill employment as a human necessity. And the solution to it is simple anyway: increase taxes on the class of people who benefits most from that automation and hire people to do things that automation can't do yet. The actual problem is that people need money to live, so the actual solution is to just give them money directly. But we're not at the point where automation has killed every low-skill job so we may as well employ all of those people *queue the same people arguing against a minimum wage increase now arguing against a tax increase* None of these problems have a solution that involves doing nothing. In the short-term, we can increase the minimum wage to a living wage, in the long term we'll gather support for a GMI and then abolish the minimum wage afterwards.
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May 13, 2015 19:22
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ElCondemn posted:I believe increasing the cost of labor will accelerate automation. My job is literally automation (surprisingly, that paper mentions by name one of the projects I'm working on), as an operations engineer my goal is to take the most error prone and common tasks and automate them. I think this is a good thing. Someday I hope automation makes me redundant too, and I'm pretty sure it will. Because everything in life must be earned. If there's a man starving but not working and a surplus of food, it's better to destroy the food and let the man starve than to give him food. Giving him food when he can theoretically earn it is a moral crime. It's better to let the deserving go without aid than to give aid to the undeserving. If you've worked all you can, then you're deserving of aid if you still can't afford necessities. Bullshit jobs allow people to feel like they've earned their right to exist.
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May 13, 2015 19:26
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ElCondemn posted:I believe increasing the cost of labor will accelerate automation. My job is literally automation (surprisingly, that paper mentions by name one of the projects I'm working on), as an operations engineer my goal is to take the most error prone and common tasks and automate them. I think this is a good thing. Someday I hope automation makes me redundant too, and I'm pretty sure it will. Edit because being serious. If you were dealing with a sim where the relationships between all your variables are designed, then probably not but in theory sure. The world is a lot messier and not amenable to this kind of tinkering.
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May 13, 2015 19:28
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Essentinally, post-scarcity economics is an inevitability.TwoQuestions posted:Because everything in life must be earned. Says who?
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May 13, 2015 19:28
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Chalets the Baka posted:Essentinally, post-scarcity economics is an inevitability. Self proclaimed believers in Capitalism who don't understand the purpose of Capitalism.
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May 13, 2015 19:42
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[quote="Ghost of Reagan Past" post=""445282778"] I'd rather get paid a living wage now and be out of a job because of automation in 10 years than get paid a lovely wage now and be out of a job because of automation in 20 years. This is because people need help now. [/quote] And they'll need help in a decade, too. There has never been an instant in human history where poverty has not been an urgent concern. It does not follow that in each moment of time we're obligated to support lovely compromise policies which will not make any long term impact on poverty. If we acknowledge the minimum wage will increase unemployment, there is no guarantee that it will help the poor, overall, even in the short term. Automation is throwing down a gauntlet--we need to decouple social welfare from work. We see here the minimum wage would only shorten the limited time we have to achieve that policy outcome.
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May 13, 2015 20:16
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JeffersonClay posted:
Breeding will also increase unemployment, so clearly the answer is mandatory sterilization.
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May 13, 2015 20:17
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JeffersonClay posted:If we acknowledge the minimum wage will increase unemployment, there is no guarantee that it will help the poor, overall, even in the short term. There is a guarantee it will help a large amount of people in the short term, increases in minimum wage will affect roughly half of households in the US. We know this because roughly half of households make $15/h or less right now, it will have an effect for these workers. JeffersonClay posted:Automation is throwing down a gauntlet--we need to decouple social welfare from work. We see here the minimum wage would only shorten the limited time we have to achieve that policy outcome. Limited time to do what? stave off automation? just to keep people working? It does not help anyone to create an underemployed populace regardless of what might happen in the future. Waiting until the perfect solution comes along does not work, that's just preserving the status quo. Change comes when it has to, if people are being laid off left and right because it's too expensive to hire humans it will lead to quicker change, the alternative is letting people toil for decades earning less than they need to survive.
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May 13, 2015 20:32
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JeffersonClay posted:And they'll need help in a decade, too. There has never been an instant in human history where poverty has not been an urgent concern. It does not follow that in each moment of time we're obligated to support lovely compromise policies which will not make any long term impact on poverty.
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May 13, 2015 20:36
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computer parts posted:Breeding will also increase unemployment, so clearly the answer is mandatory sterilization. I actually support policies that would encourage sustainable population growth! ElCondemn posted:There is a guarantee it will help a large amount of people in the short term, increases in minimum wage will affect roughly half of households in the US. We know this because roughly half of households make $15/h or less right now, it will have an effect for these workers. It will help the people who keep their jobs. It will harm those who lose their jobs and those who have no job to start with. Depending on the extent of job losses, a minimum wage increase could actually reduce total wages collected by the poor. quote:Limited time to do what? stave off automation? just to keep people working? It does not help anyone to create an underemployed populace regardless of what might happen in the future. Waiting until the perfect solution comes along does not work, that's just preserving the status quo. Change comes when it has to, if people are being laid off left and right because it's too expensive to hire humans it will lead to quicker change, the alternative is letting people toil for decades earning less than they need to survive. Limited time to create a robust welfare state that provides benefits regardless of employment. I'm not really keen on supporting the minimum wage if the arguments have boiled down to accelerationism. Maybe intentionally creating a massive unemployment crisis is not the best way to create change.
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May 13, 2015 20:42
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:There's a starving person in front of you. You can give her half your sandwich and she will live. You know that giving her the sandwich will help her immediately and that everyone deserves to have a sandwich. You decline, however, because there's never been an instant in human history where poverty has not been an urgent concern, and your action won't make any long-term impact on poverty. If the sandwich somehow made it much harder for this woman to ever get a job I probably wouldn't give it to her. Also note that destitute, starving people are unlikely to be employed and would only be harmed by inflation. The minimum wage does not help the poorest of the poor.
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May 13, 2015 20:49
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JeffersonClay posted:The minimum wage does not help the poorest of the poor. No, it doesn't because the minimum wage is not meant to be a panacea for all types of poverty. It specifically addresses the working poor; the argument is that people who are working - especially those full-time and more - should not be destitute. There are significant negative consequences to having people devote the majority of their waking life to working yet still be unable to make ends meet.
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May 13, 2015 20:59
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JeffersonClay posted:It will help the people who keep their jobs. It will harm those who lose their jobs and those who have no job to start with. Depending on the extent of job losses, a minimum wage increase could actually reduce total wages collected by the poor. If you can provide proof that this is a reasonable concern I'd definitely consider it, but I haven't seen any information that makes me believe that the majority (or even a large minority) of the poor will be negatively impacted. Certainly some poor may be negatively impacted, but the vast majority of people affected by the change will see positive results. JeffersonClay posted:Limited time to create a robust welfare state that provides benefits regardless of employment. I'm not really keen on supporting the minimum wage if the arguments have boiled down to accelerationism. Maybe intentionally creating a massive unemployment crisis is not the best way to create change. So what you're saying is "wait until we have a perfect system, we just need 20 years to do it instead of 10"?
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May 13, 2015 21:09
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JeffersonClay posted:If the sandwich somehow made it much harder for this woman to ever get a job I probably wouldn't give it to her. Also note that destitute, starving people are unlikely to be employed and would only be harmed by inflation. The minimum wage does not help the poorest of the poor.
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May 13, 2015 21:10
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JeffersonClay posted:If the sandwich somehow made it much harder for this woman to ever get a job I probably wouldn't give it to her. Also note that destitute, starving people are unlikely to be employed and would only be harmed by inflation. The minimum wage does not help the poorest of the poor. Quesiton: Would you support a Basic Income over a living wage? It seems to address literally all of the concerns you've raised in this thread.
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May 13, 2015 21:16
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The cruelest irony of them all is the divergence in short and long term strategy if you're a poor person without good skills. In the short term, learning technical skills is likely your best bet. In the long term, social and creative skills are your best bet. It's pretty hosed.
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May 13, 2015 21:19
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GlyphGryph posted:Quesiton: Would you support a Basic Income over a living wage? I think that's exactly what he's suggesting, he just thinks we should do nothing until utopia happens naturally.
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May 13, 2015 21:20
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ElCondemn posted:I think that's exactly what he's suggesting, he just thinks we should do nothing until utopia happens naturally. Just trying to confirm where the actual points of disagreement are.
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May 13, 2015 21:28
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VideoTapir posted:Self proclaimed believers in Capitalism who don't understand the purpose of Capitalism. The purpose of Capitalism is to produce as much as possible for the deserving, while making sure the undeserving have as little as possible.
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May 13, 2015 21:28
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GlyphGryph posted:Quesiton: Would you support a Basic Income over a living wage? Yes, of course I would. When I write things like we need to create a robust welfare state that provides benefits regardless of employment, that's what I mean. ElCondemn posted:If you can provide proof that this is a reasonable concern I'd definitely consider it, but I haven't seen any information that makes me believe that the majority (or even a large minority) of the poor will be negatively impacted. Certainly some poor may be negatively impacted, but the vast majority of people affected by the change will see positive results. quote:So what you're saying is "wait until we have a perfect system, we just need 20 years to do it instead of 10"? No I'm saying I'd rather have 20 years to create substantial economic policy change than 10.
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May 13, 2015 21:55
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A lot of people seem to be making confused arguments. If we want people employed: don't raise minimum wage If we want to slow automation: don't raise minimum wage If automation is coming anyway: don't raise minimum wage and start divorcing welfare from employment now. Lol to the idea put out earlier that if jobs are disappearing anyway we should just accelerate it and expect people to save for the upcoming robot apocalypse. A significant minimum wage increase only makes sense if you're truly not worried about unemployment or automation/outsourcing which personally I think is somewhat foolish.
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May 13, 2015 22:09
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JeffersonClay posted:No I'm saying I'd rather have 20 years to create substantial economic policy change than 10. Ok, so who's proposing basic income in the government right now? What are these policies that are being worked on that will come to fruition in 20 years? What is the actual plan? I'm on board, I just don't see any movement that seems worth waiting for. I need to see movement before I'm willing to sit back and say "it'll work itself out given enough time". Whether we have 10 or 20 years we can't pretend like we're on the verge of a solution, we have to make changes that will have the largest amount of positive impact today. Also the automation discussion didn't tell us 10 years, you said 10. I think we're seeing exponential growth with automation, but I do this poo poo every day, I'm sure I'm a bit biased. It could be 50 years before it becomes a serious problem. Waiting for the perfect policy because sometime in the next 100 years automation will put us all out of work doesn't make sense. Hell, maybe the service industry will never be automated away, the human touch just might be preferable. Avoiding increases to minimum wage because it will have an impact in 100 years is stupid. asdf32 posted:A significant minimum wage increase only makes sense if you're truly not worried about unemployment or automation/outsourcing which personally I think is somewhat foolish. I'm not worried that in 10 years robots will replace all human workers. I'm not even sure that in 100 years that will be the outcome. A significant wage increase only makes sense if you believe in making changes that have the most impact today. ElCondemn fucked around with this message at 22:13 on May 13, 2015 |
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May 13, 2015 22:09
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asdf32 posted:don't raise minimum wage and start divorcing welfare from employment now. i think you'll find everyone here agrees
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May 13, 2015 22:19
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asdf32 posted:A lot of people seem to be making confused arguments. The minimum wage will cause unemployment. How? By accelerating automation. Who cares? That means the minimum wage might not even help the poor in the short term, and it will reduce the amount of time we have to create a genuine solution to the looming employment crisis. ElCondemn posted:Ok, so who's proposing basic income in the government right now? What are these policies that are being worked on that will come to fruition in 20 years? What is the actual plan? I'm on board, I just don't see any movement that seems worth waiting for. I need to see movement before I'm willing to sit back and say "it'll work itself out given enough time". Whether we have 10 or 20 years we can't pretend like we're on the verge of a solution, we have to make changes that will have the largest amount of positive impact today. If we need to create a movement from scratch then more time is preferable to less. quote:Also the automation discussion didn't tell us 10 years, you said 10. I think we're seeing exponential growth with automation, but I do this poo poo every day, I'm sure I'm a bit biased. It could be 50 years before it becomes a serious problem. Waiting for the perfect policy because sometime in the next 100 years automation will put us all out of work doesn't make sense. Hell, maybe the service industry will never be automated away, the human touch just might be preferable. Avoiding increases to minimum wage because it will have an impact in 100 years is stupid. quote:I'm not worried that in 10 years robots will replace all human workers. I'm not even sure that in 100 years that will be the outcome. A significant wage increase only makes sense if you believe in making changes that have the most impact today. I'm not worried about all workers, I'm worried about the low wage, low education workers the study says will be most impacted. You know, the poor.
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May 13, 2015 22:25
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TwoQuestions posted:The purpose of Capitalism is to produce as much as possible for the deserving, while making sure the undeserving have as little as possible. I can see the problem. That is the outcome of Capitalism. Purposes and outcomes are different. Edit- and do keep in mind that deserving and undeserving are pretty squishy terms that we may well be using differently.
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May 13, 2015 22:31
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JeffersonClay posted:The minimum wage will cause unemployment. Your argument could have been made 30 years ago when minimum wage was only $3/h. Are you saying the poor would be better off now had the minimum wage remained the same for 30 years? Or maybe we should have started thinking of the future 60 years ago, certainly automation, outsourcing and efficiency have put people out of work in that time due to wage increases, no? Your argument does not hold water, the poor are better off because of increases in the minimum wage. Your ideology helps keep people working, that's all it does. Of course if everyone worked for nothing everyone would have a job and automation would never put anyone out of work. But work is not the goal, the goal is to help the most people possible. JeffersonClay posted:I'm not worried about all workers, I'm worried about the low wage, low education workers the study says will be most impacted. You know, the poor. You're seriously saying we should not help a large group of people, who are barely earning more than the poorest, because it might not help the poorest of the poor? What kind of ideology is that? "Nobody can have any food because there wont be enough to feed the last 3 guys in the door"? does that make sense to you?
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May 13, 2015 22:46
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Let's say you see a starving woman and give her a sandwich so she doesn't die. Would you snatch the sandwich out of her mouth and give it to some people who are probably pretty hungry?
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May 13, 2015 22:58
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JeffersonClay posted:Let's say you see a starving woman and give her a sandwich so she doesn't die. Would you snatch the sandwich out of her mouth and give it to some people who are probably pretty hungry? In your scenario you're not giving sandwiches to anyone, where is this magic sandwich coming from that you're stealing from the poor?
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May 13, 2015 23:00
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So it is better to have no sandwiches at all? Throw it in the dumpster, it was going to spoil anyway.
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May 13, 2015 23:01
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This sandwich metaphor is pretty useless and has been stretched to the breaking point. Stop talking about sandwiches.
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May 13, 2015 23:21
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Ratoslov posted:This sandwich metaphor is pretty useless and has been stretched to the breaking point. Stop talking about sandwiches. It is about as nonsense as everything else in this thread.
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May 13, 2015 23:40
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So is everyone just going to dance around the fact that asdf32 and JeffersonClay are offering up spirited arguments to cut the minimum wage?
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May 13, 2015 23:41
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Effectronica posted:So is everyone just going to dance around the fact that asdf32 and JeffersonClay are offering up spirited arguments to cut the minimum wage? Both $15/hour and cutting minimum wage are highly unlikely. Lucky if $10 becomes a thing.
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May 13, 2015 23:42
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Effectronica posted:So is everyone just going to dance around the fact that asdf32 and JeffersonClay are offering up spirited arguments to cut the minimum wage? Am I now? Plz quote.
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May 13, 2015 23:53
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JeffersonClay posted:Am I now? Plz quote. You are arguing that increasing the minimum wage will increase unemployment, because of increasing the price of labor. You are offering nothing to suggest that we couldn't increase employment simply by cutting the minimum wage, and so it is a completely logical extension of your argument.
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May 13, 2015 23:56
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Effectronica posted:So is everyone just going to dance around the fact that asdf32 and JeffersonClay are offering up spirited arguments to cut the minimum wage? I don't think that's what JeffersonClay is saying, he just seems to think that making changes to help people today will be pointless because utopia is just around the corner. The jobless poor just need to make their trust funds last another 20 years and it'll get better for them.
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May 13, 2015 23:59
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Guys there's no point in raising the minimum wage because the heat death of the universe is right around the corner anyway so why even bother?
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May 14, 2015 00:03
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JeffersonClay posted:Am I now? Plz quote. Well if you're really so concerned about the loss of jobs due to automation, and if dropping the minimum wage would slow that process, then surely you would be in favor of a minimum wage decrease. If not, why not?
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May 14, 2015 00:06
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Effectronica posted:You are arguing that increasing the minimum wage will increase unemployment, because of increasing the price of labor. You are offering nothing to suggest that we couldn't increase employment simply by cutting the minimum wage, and so it is a completely logical extension of your argument. I think we probably could increase employment by eliminating minimum wage but not much. Given that like 5% of workers earn minimum wage it's clear wages wouldn't drop much anyway. So I see zero reason to push for it and think raising it is probably a good idea for a few reasons (mostly non-economic ones).
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May 14, 2015 00:08
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If we pay people zero we could push the threat of automation even farther out. What's the point of a wage?
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May 14, 2015 00:19
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