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Owlofcreamcheese posted:I think this has come up before but is the 2010s the ideal peak of human society or is there any automation technologies from earlier times we should have banned/restricted/made illegal? Man imagine how many loving jobs could there be if we employed people to do IP routing.
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Feb 7, 2017 17:06
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Paradoxish posted:This is extremely hosed up, especially given this: Governments use the corporate taxes to pay for the fake workplaces, taxes from high profits despite their smaller workforce.
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Feb 7, 2017 17:09
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Call Me Charlie posted:I brought this up in the last automation talk but it's self-serve gas is illegal in two states and that's been a success story. Jobs that would have gone *poof* were able to be kept around at a minimal cost. And ironically, the small business gas stations that lobbied for it decades ago as a way to prevent them from getting snuffed out are now lobbying to repeal that law since they're having trouble finding people that want to pump gas in the dead of winter for minimum wage. I can see how some progressives might be cool with it because they want gas to be more expensive, but it'd be more intelligent to achieve that with a tax that can fund alternative modes of transportation.
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Feb 7, 2017 17:20
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Doctor Malaver posted:Obviously it isn't awful for the attendants because they would otherwise quit. quote:the small business gas stations that lobbied for it decades ago as a way to prevent them from getting snuffed out are now lobbying to repeal that law since they're having trouble finding people that want to pump gas in the dead of winter for minimum wage. Hmm.
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Feb 7, 2017 17:24
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Well you see that's why minimum wages are too high, there will always be a demand for cheap labor in places like China, Chinese factory replaces 90% of human workers with robots. Production rises by 250%, defects drop by 80%
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Feb 7, 2017 18:16
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I can't find the story talking about the New Jersey owner having trouble finding people to pump gas in the middle of winter but here's a New York Times article explaining the history behind the ban and the people that want to repeal it (surprise surprise proponents of self-service inflate the cost and the politicians want to repeal it so they can raise the gas tax without the public grumbling)Cicero posted:I don't get how it's a success story. It creates a tiny number of McJobs in exchange for making gas a little bit more expensive than necessary. Like the best thing it has going for it is "probably not a big deal either way". Robert Scott III posted:The assumption is that a move to self-serve gasoline would cost jobs, but lower gas prices in the process. Let’s start with the jobs. What’s likely to happen? http://www.app.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/08/09/nj-self-serve-gas/88447178/ 10 to 14 thousand entry level jobs in two states is nothing to scoff at, especially when you look at the alternative of self service stations wiping out full service stations in the rest of the country. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Feb 7, 2017 |
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Feb 7, 2017 18:20
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Jesus Horse posted:Like some kind of Public house? Like a Starbucks?
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Feb 7, 2017 19:48
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Jesus Horse posted:Like some kind of Public house? Public house seems like a long and unwieldy phrase.
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Feb 7, 2017 22:37
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How about just 'pube ho'?
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Feb 7, 2017 23:37
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Maybe shorten it to "PuH"
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Feb 7, 2017 23:44
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Call Me Charlie posted:But what happens to those degree required 'good' jobs once there's a tidal wave of labor hitting those sectors? I'm uncertain as to which college educated jobs are the current flavor of the year, but in the event those who are college educated can't find a job in the relevant field, they can attempt another degree or fall back on basic income. Really, basic income is the only solution that won't lead to more suffering, but it needs to be in tandem with college education so as to increase those labor pools for as long as possible. Yes, it's a tough sell to the average american who basically worship jobs as holy writ, but it shouldn't be too hard to convince corporations that the very people who buy their products need the money to do so.
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Feb 8, 2017 11:11
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Freakazoid_ posted:I'm uncertain as to which college educated jobs are the current flavor of the year, but in the event those who are college educated can't find a job in the relevant field, they can attempt another degree or fall back on basic income. That's about the most unappealing answer you could have posted. If we're suppose to get over the idea of working for a living, can't we also get over the idea that people should continue rolling the dice with years of study in the hopes they can land in a profession before it (inevitably) tanks. We saw it happen with nursing, law and it's coming soon to STEM. The more labor you put into the pool, the more everything that makes those good jobs 'good' disappears. And it seems crazy to me that people think that corporations - that have no problem outsourcing jobs or importing labor or automating jobs or pulling up stakes to whatever region is willing to give them the best sweetheart deal - will suddenly becoming forward thinking and care even in the slightest about the people who buy their products instead of just mindlessly hoovering up any wealth from an area until it's a husk.
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Feb 8, 2017 12:48
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Freakazoid_ posted:I'm uncertain as to which college educated jobs are the current flavor of the year, but in the event those who are college educated can't find a job in the relevant field, they can attempt another degree or fall back on basic income. heh heh, stupid american sheeple, mindlessly worshiping their ability to keep themselves necessary in the face of a hostile elite class, can't they see that begging for handouts to stay in college forever is the only rational way to live A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Feb 8, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 17:23
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The age of the 50-year-old freshman is, of course, merely a transitional stage. I foresee a bright future, a shining utopia: one where all the world is NEET, and the Kochs in their mechanipalaces give us a daily allowance to buy the products of their autofactories, so that we may give their money back to them. Finally a rational, scientific society; one free of the medieval hocus-pocus of an economy based on the exchange of goods and services mediated by currency, where the rich are free to amply reward those who provide nothing in return.
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Feb 8, 2017 17:50
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:heh heh, stupid american sheeple, mindlessly worshiping their ability to keep themselves necessary in the face of a hostile elite class, can't they see that begging for handouts to stay in college forever is the only rational way to live What is it that you actually want? I keep seeing people make the argument that direct redistributions in the form of free college, basic income, etc. are dehumanizing. I agree that creating an underclass that has no path to meaningful societal contributions is a bad thing, but just saying that isn't a solution. The fact is that there are a diminishing number of useful jobs that you can expect to do for the 40 or so years that people are expected to be in the labor force. It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to stay economically relevant throughout their adult lives. If ongoing education and training isn't acceptable, then what is? If you're just raging against a changing social structure then fine, whatever, but it seems like there's something you think should actually be happening.
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Feb 8, 2017 18:46
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I want people to actually have ownership of the means by which they subsist, such that no millionaire or politician bought by millionaires can simply take it from them with the stroke of a pen. We made some reasonable inroads into securing this for workers during the last century, which is what the whole elaborate rigamarole with robots and shipping goods from slave camps halfway across the world is entirely a response to. The state and capital have gone through tremendous, expensive, systematic effort to shift the paradigm away from centralized domestic factories Americans worked in and simply did not get a cut of the profits of, and the brilliant vision of UBI is that since the situation has changed people should simply stop trying to reassert a speaking role in the economy, cede ownership of all wealth to the Kochs and Zuckerbergs and their top hundred shareholders, and in return be offered vassalage which will surely consist of being given a comfortable middle-class living to stay out of the way and play DOTA all day. The most direct approach to actually giving people a sustainable place in a world without labor would be to start nationalizing industry and make everyone in society a shareholder in its wealth, regardless of where it comes from. Which first requires a democratic state that's not beholden to the oligarchs, and that'll take some doing, though it's still more practical than hoping that once they don't need you anymore plutocrats will become your personal Daddy Warbucks. Or you could smash all the robots and sink all the cargo ships and force the developed world back to the economic status quo of the 1950s where most people work and draw a paycheck if you think that's easier, whichever. The point being that the basic conflict between the haves and have-nots hasn't changed substantively just cause the factories moved, only the short-term tactics to address it have, and UBI is just a bait-and-switch con of 'optimized capitalism' to convince exceptionally dumb liberals to throw away everything that actually matters, of the same order as libertarianism. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Feb 8, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 21:00
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So you'd prefer a Citizen's Dividend to UBI? Sounds good, but how do you get from where we are now to that without passing through UBI?
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Feb 8, 2017 21:15
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Guavanaut posted:So you'd prefer a Citizen's Dividend to UBI? Sounds good, but how do you get from where we are now to that without passing through UBI? How do you get to UBI without passing through a citizen's dividend? The reason it's "UBI" and not plain old communism is it entirely skips the step where we address the tiny discrete propertied class that owns most of everything, including the government that'd hypothetically be responsible for this redistribution. Either you have a role in the system comparable to the oligarchs', or you don't, they're not going to magically become generous and uplift everyone who's impoverished now if you just let em take everything and write a petition to change.org. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Feb 8, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 21:17
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:How do you get to UBI without passing through a citizen's dividend? The reason it's "UBI" and not plain old communism is it entirely skips the step where we address the tiny discrete propertied class that owns most of everything, including the government that'd hypothetically be responsible for this redistribution. Either you have a role in the system comparable to the oligarchs', or you don't, they're not going to magically become generous and uplift everyone who's impoverished now if you just let em take everything and write a petition to change.org. You weaken you righteous indignation when you strawman like this. Everything you say smacks strongly of a coddled boojie boy for whom life-threatening poverty is merely an abstraction. Starving and homeless people don't care if their relief is ideologically pure.
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Feb 8, 2017 21:33
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:You weaken you righteous indignation when you strawman like this. Everything you say smacks strongly of a coddled boojie boy for whom life-threatening poverty is merely an abstraction. Starving and homeless people don't care if their relief is ideologically pure.
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Feb 8, 2017 21:47
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Given that the economic status quo of the 1950s included poverty rates nearly twice as high as today and a drastically reduced social safety net, it's gonna be a hard sell arguing that's something we should aspire to.
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Feb 8, 2017 21:47
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A Buttery Pastry posted:They'll care when it gets shut down because no one in power feels the need to even pretend to care anymore. They'll be alive to fight for the next, better step along with the people who support action over ideology while you and goatboy sulk in the corner. You'd rather they be dead so you can impress yourselves with how sensitive you are by claiming them as martyrs.
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Feb 8, 2017 21:59
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yo protip you can pretend your dumb ideas are being persecuted for being "not ideologically pure enough", or you can deny the lived experiences of anyone who thinks your ideas are dumb to make up stories about how they must be secretly personally impure, but you kinda have to pick one or you blow your cover as a petulant internet loon.
A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Feb 8, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 22:05
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:yo protip you can pretend your dumb ideas are being persecuted for being "not ideologically pure enough", or you can deny the lived experiences of anyone who thinks your ideas are dumb to make up stories about how they must be secretly personally impure, but you kinda have to pick one or you blow your cover as a petulant internet loon. Ooh "lived experiences," 4chan learned heself a new phrase. Did you write that in your sailor moon notebook right along "kafka trap" and "virtue signalling"
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Feb 9, 2017 02:52
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A Buttery Pastry posted:They'll care when it gets shut down because no one in power feels the need to even pretend to care anymore. Yeah... that'll show em...
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Feb 9, 2017 03:15
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Nevvy Z posted:Yeah... that'll show em... Sure, if you could leverage one into the other eventually then that's great, but UBI seems more like a delaying action while capital gets ready to completely disengage from the public.
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Feb 9, 2017 06:17
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A Buttery Pastry posted:but UBI seems more like a delaying action while capital gets ready to completely disengage from the public. That's the first I've heard of UBI being framed in such a way. Could you be more specific? Taking the means of production is a harder sell than UBI is, but if we can get a lot more people through college, I could see a citizen's dividend becoming more appealing.
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Feb 9, 2017 08:28
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A Buttery Pastry posted:It has nothing to do with "showing them", it's about how whining about being obsessed with "ideological purity" ignores the fact that we're talking about an incredible meaningful difference in long-term outcomes. This is ivory tower bullshit. People need help now. Mincome is a longshot but at least it's only one policy, which is a lot simpler than rebuilding the entire economic fabric of the country. You don't feel any urgency because the problems of poverty aren't real to you.
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Feb 9, 2017 08:29
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A Buttery Pastry posted:
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Feb 9, 2017 08:44
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9-Volt Assault posted:But where does capital disengage to? Without a public to buy its stuff it can't make more money. I guess you could have a situation where the rich only trade with each other, either with products or on the stock market? That said, UBI keeping the public in the loop does have its advantages for capitalists who derive a greater than average proportion of their wealth from the public, since it would be a subsidy of their way of doing business. Whether they'll have enough power to prevent UBI from being repealed is another question though, and then there's a question of whether they're going to remain interested in maintaining it, or whether their business model changes into one where it suddenly doesn't make much sense anymore. Freakazoid_ posted:That's the first I've heard of UBI being framed in such a way. Could you be more specific? Tiny Brontosaurus posted:This is ivory tower bullshit. People need help now. Mincome is a longshot but at least it's only one policy, which is a lot simpler than rebuilding the entire economic fabric of the country. You don't feel any urgency because the problems of poverty aren't real to you.
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Feb 9, 2017 15:05
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9-Volt Assault posted:But where does capital disengage to? Without a public to buy its stuff it can't make more money. I guess you could have a situation where the rich only trade with each other, either with products or on the stock market? What does 'the public' bring to the table when they don't actually contribute anything of value themselves, just inefficiently shuffle the billionaires' money around for them? Why bother with people if bank transfers alone were the wellspring material wealth came from? The rich could much more efficiently set up a computer to shift money between a few million of their own accounts thousands of times a second and light the products of their factories on fire without bothering loop you in. There's a reason nobody's offering to pay you right now to just consume. The social-democratic welfare state makes sense as a way to maintain a stable workforce when the vast majority of beneficiaries are simply taking a temporary break between periods of producing wealth far in excess of what they ever receive. There's no incentive for the rich man to stay in a system with a million permanently unemployed dependents who bring him nothing beyond the promise of eventually circulating most of his money back to him, versus cutting out everyone not involved in maintaining him in comfort and defending his holdings against the rabble. Let the rest starve and watch 'em from your gated community or Carribean island, pour encourager les autres, and let that hang over anyone thinking of asking for a raise. Like you're literally fantasizing about making the Atlas Shrugged world real, where the nonproductive masses live off the largesse of the tiny cadre of taxpayers who'd be objectively better off without them.
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Feb 9, 2017 18:16
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A Buttery Pastry posted:That's kinda the issue. The balance of power is so massively in favor of capital that they can pretty much offer anything, and people will take it in their desperation, ignoring the fact that it can be taken away again when capital feels it's safe. This has basically been happening since the late 70's, but at least there was still some sort of job market for the majority of people. If UBI is implemented in 2030, then slowly let die from 2060 and forward because it's no longer beneficial to the people in power, then it basically means a complete separation of the economy into two parts. One high-tech, which serves the rich, and one which is based around whatever technologies people can still run and power as they slowly attempt to rebuild an industrial economy. Except this time they'll have to contend with the fact that the world is more populous, there are fewer easily accessible resources, and those resources might already be claimed by a bunch of automated robots. Eventually you could see the majority of society regress into basically a wood-fueled civilization, whose high-point was basically the Napoleonic Era, when the world had a population of around a billion people. Oh boy, let's add Malthus into the mix too, we needed a racist doomsday cultist. Don't make the rookie futurist mistake of assuming the future will be everything the same as now, only more so. Birthrates plummet when people's basic needs are met, and they continue to drop as they attain education and luxury entertainments that compete with sex, like TV and video games. Western birthrates have been falling for years, and are below replacement rates in some places. A well-tended populace will not outnumber ours. That lie has been trotted out as the excuse for why we shouldn't fight poverty and starvation since the birth of the industrial age. It's as vile now as it was then. And I can't fully express how repugnant I find it that you assume a person who has food and shelter will drop out of society and civic engagement. Like a basic livelihood is a drug we shouldn't let the poor indulge themselves in, for their own good. Idiot armchair revolutionaries like you are all accelerationists - you think you have to torture people so they'll be motivated to act. But that's not where activism comes from. There's a sweet spot for revolutions and it pops up after people have their base needs covered. If we make things less than the worst they can possibly be for one generation, they'll grow up with the energy and the optimism to imagine things even better. You are really playing all the classics today. What's next, a eugenics argument? Why don't you go try living in the agony you're so happy to consign everybody else to?
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Feb 9, 2017 18:48
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A Buttery Pastry posted:What does putting them through college help, in the long run? At some point, no amount of college is ever going to let the majority of the population catch up with where technological progress has put their artificial rivals. You're getting awfully close to the technological singularity here. College has a way of educating about more than just the job you're after. College educated voters lean left for a reason. Getting more americans into higher education is going to shift politics so that leftist ideas become a little more realistic. This idea that the rich can disengage itself from the working class sounds far too fantastical to be practical, because that means they need full control of both federal and state governments. It's also impractical to believe they can disengage from all job types, as the people making the machines are still human. Humans who have a college education, by the way.
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Feb 10, 2017 17:41
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Washington DC city council has unanimously approved a test deployment of delivery robots.
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Feb 10, 2017 19:31
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Interesting article about the man behind the @HumanVSMachine twitter feed. https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/02/how-being-replaced-by-a-machine-turned-this-graphic-artist-into-an-activist/
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Feb 11, 2017 22:36
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Oh boy, let's add Malthus into the mix too, we needed a racist doomsday cultist. Don't make the rookie futurist mistake of assuming the future will be everything the same as now, only more so. Birthrates plummet when people's basic needs are met, and they continue to drop as they attain education and luxury entertainments that compete with sex, like TV and video games. Western birthrates have been falling for years, and are below replacement rates in some places. A well-tended populace will not outnumber ours. That lie has been trotted out as the excuse for why we shouldn't fight poverty and starvation since the birth of the industrial age. It's as vile now as it was then. It is really quite amazing how a post about the possible future challenges the working class might have to contend with in the face of increased automation, somehow gets turned into a racist argument in your head though. Tiny Brontosaurus posted:And I can't fully express how repugnant I find it that you assume a person who has food and shelter will drop out of society and civic engagement. Freakazoid_ posted:College has a way of educating about more than just the job you're after. College educated voters lean left for a reason. Getting more americans into higher education is going to shift politics so that leftist ideas become a little more realistic. As for the latter point, are you sure? I'm not saying it will happen right now, but can you honestly say that machines will never be designed by machines, leaving humans out of the loop? Even if a few people do remain in the loop, that could still leave 99% of the population out of the high-tech economy, which is essentially the same scenario as only the super rich being part of it for the majority of the world, unless the majority of that 1% decide to do everyone else a solid by betraying their bosses and creating means of production that directly work to serve the public.
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Feb 11, 2017 23:27
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A Buttery Pastry posted:You say that like a powerful state is a certainty. No one is going to care about having full control of both "federal and state governments", if the state doesn't have the power to tell corporations what to do. Doesn't matter if people "vote left", if corporations just tell the government to gently caress off. Why don't corporations tell the government to gently caress off now, and what do you expect to change that? I think we can solidly say that no, the singularity isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future.
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Feb 11, 2017 23:45
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Main Paineframe posted:Why don't corporations tell the government to gently caress off now, and what do you expect to change that?
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Feb 12, 2017 09:04
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Because I have all that lovely free time on my hands, I've went ahead and created a new sociopolitical/economic ideology centered around automation. Technism. It went through a few names, and some variation of the ideology can describe just about every automation-centric idea thus far (e.g. RBE, basic income, Venus Project).
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Feb 12, 2017 19:31
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Just read up on the foundations of cybernetics. Good lord.
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