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Pingui posted:You're right, I only tested it for small increases. At 30k it averages 195,653,150,680, starting at the number stated and ending at 210,323,855,513. Your math would put it a 30k mincome around 3 Trillion more than a 15k mincome. Military budget in 2010 was 1.2 Trillion, so it won't even cover it. I'm loathe to agree to cutting any spending in an economic downturn, honestly. It's an economic non-starter because even if the mincome ultimately does greater good than the austerity does harm, it is still going to be additional pain for individuals and uncertainty for the economy as a whole. The military is a HUGE demand generator for all sorts of goods and services. Companies will go under overnight if we cut the budget significantly. KillHour fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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KillHour posted:Your math would put it a 30k mincome around 3 Trillion more than a 15k mincome. Military budget in 2010 was 1.2 Trillion, so it won't even cover it. I'm loathe to agree to cutting any spending in an economic downturn, honestly. It's an economic non-starter because even if the mincome ultimately does greater good than the austerity does harm, it is still going to be additional pain for individuals and uncertainty for the economy as a whole. The military is a HUGE demand generator for all sorts of goods and services. Companies will go under overnight if we cut the budget significantly. My point isn't that the military budget could cover the short-fall. My point is that in a mincome scenario, cutting other services (which you proposed) while keeping the military budget a constant (which you are proposing) is silly. Particularly so when you (not me) want to increase the mincome to 30k. As for the economic effects of cutting the military it is small potatoes in a scenario with a 30k mincome (which is what you are proposing), as you are already looking at major economic upheaval with a massive amounts of companies closing and opening. I am not proposing a 30k mincome, and I don't want to defend that stance, I just wanted to help you along at financing your 30k mincome when I mentioned the military budget. I personally think it is a really bad idea to start discussing a 30k mincome, if you actually think there should be a mincome, as you just made mincome pie-in-the-sky right after I demonstrated that the cost is actually possible without real tax increases (which has been the primary contention through-out the thread).
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Dec 18, 2014 22:51
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Quidam Viator posted:That would be my follow-up question, if technology really will continue its march, as all evidence seems to indicate. We are now close enough to a near-complete devaluation of human labor that it's not just some distant science fiction; it's more in the realm of climate change, namely a thing that is inevitable without immense societal change, likely within our lifetimes. I personally believe that no existing economic framework has a valid answer to the question of what happens when labor no longer has value. Both capitalism and communism and all of their variants are founded on the idea that labor is valuable. If this thread is really meant to ask a question about the unbounded future, then we first have to come to some common ground on whether the value of labor will actually continue, or if the rest of these comments have been pure ideological masturbation about whose current worldview will survive, even though none of them will. The idea that human labour will become valueless is nowhere near the realm of climate change and it's absolutely ridiculous of you to put them on the same footing. Most of the naive arguments for technological unemployment are clearly contradicted by the past few centuries of technological progression without massive unemployment. The burden is on you to explain what has changed to put us on the cusp.
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Dec 18, 2014 22:58
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Pingui posted:My point isn't that the military budget could cover the short-fall. My point is that in a mincome scenario, cutting other services (which you proposed) while keeping the military budget a constant (which you are proposing) is silly. Particularly so when you (not me) want to increase the mincome to 30k. I don't necessarily think that mincome should be 30K. I think it absolutely should be as much as we can reasonably support. 30K is just the point at which I feel a single adult with no kids could live comfortably with a mortgage/rent, car payment, spending money, etc. in most of the country. It's basically the minimum that would have to exist for me to feel comfortable quitting my (admittedly much higher-paying) job to start a business and pursue my real dreams. I think that's an essential part of the appeal of a mincome - self fulfillment beyond just actually surviving. That being said, I still think that "who is going to pay for it?" is a red herring. The budget does not have to balance. As long as the growth in GDP is enough to cover interest payments (which it almost certainly will be), there's no real reason to ever completely pay off the debt. Especially considering we indirectly control the interest rate by controlling the inflation rate of the currency the debt is owed in. If cutting military spending isn't going to make the numbers balance, why do it? You're just hurting the economy in other places, at that point. HappyHippo posted:The idea that human labour will become valueless is nowhere near the realm of climate change and it's absolutely ridiculous of you to put them on the same footing. Most of the naive arguments for technological unemployment are clearly contradicted by the past few centuries of technological progression without massive unemployment. The burden is on you to explain what has changed to put us on the cusp. Computers. Since the invention of the first tool, machines have been a force multiplier for labor. One person can now do the job of 'x' number of people. You still needed a person running said machine. In the past, this simply lead to each person being more productive, which in turn led to each person being able to have more stuff on the consumer side. Labor's value has been increasing for thousands of years. With computers, this is no longer the case. Full lights-out chip fabs already exist that have no employees at all. Soon, other manufacturing will follow. This is unprecedented. You will be able to run an entire manufacturing plant with 0 employees. This is fundamentally different. In a scenario like this, labor has no value, as it is completely unnecessary. This isn't even the end of it. Robots don't need management. They don't need human resources or training or food services. They don't need janitors to clean the restrooms (because there are no restrooms). A business owner doesn't need internal affairs lawyers or payroll accountants or recruiters. The electricity to pay for the robots is less than the utilities to pay for lighting or heat or water. Fully automated facilities take up less space - there are no locker rooms or break rooms or parking lots. You don't need a security guard if nobody is supposed to go in the building. You don't need to pay worker's comp or health insurance or a 401k for robots. Payroll taxes, too. Companies that offer all these services go under. We will soon live in a world where anyone with capital to buy a facility and raw materials can pump out products with no human involvement whatsoever. The scalability is limited only by supply and demand constraints. Once you automate supply (not a large stretch to assume we will have automated mines and quarries), goods can literally be made for the price of electricity and transportation. With automated cars coming in the next 5 years, we're going to live in a world where products come to market seemingly by magic. A world where the first time an actual human lays eyes on a television or any of the components or raw materials that went into it is when it gets delivered to their door by an Amazon delivery robot. KillHour fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 23:06
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KillHour posted:That being said, I still think that "who is going to pay for it?" is a red herring. KillHour posted:If cutting military spending isn't going to make the numbers balance, why do it? You're just hurting the economy in other places, at that point.
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Dec 18, 2014 23:30
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KillHour posted:Computers. Since the invention of the first tool, machines have been a force multiplier for labor. One person can now do the job of 'x' number of people. You still needed a person running said machine. In the past, this simply lead to each person being more productive, which in turn led to each person being able to have more stuff on the consumer side. Labor's value has been increasing for thousands of years. With computers, this is no longer the case. Full lights-out chip fabs already exist that have no employees at all. Soon, other manufacturing will follow. This is unprecedented. You will be able to run an entire manufacturing plant with 0 employees. This is fundamentally different. In a scenario like this, labor has no value, as it is completely unnecessary. Who designs it? Who builds it? Who maintains it? Who repairs it when it breaks? Who drives the trucks to bring the raw materials in, and the products out? Who mines the raw materials? Who designs the chips? Who upgrades it when the next product is rolled out and the process changes? Don't handwave this all away with "computers." You've basically shown that one part of the production process can be automated, which is something that's been happening for a few centuries anyway. The only difference is the scale. Computers aren't magic, and we aren't nearly as close to eliminating the labour in manufacturing as you think. And of course manufacturing has been a decreasing part of the labour force anyway. Agriculture was once the primary form of human labour, now in many countries it's something like 2%. KillHour posted:This isn't even the end of it. Robots don't need management. They don't need human resources or training or food services. They don't need janitors to clean the restrooms (because there are no restrooms). A business owner doesn't need internal affairs lawyers or payroll accountants or recruiters. The electricity to pay for the robots is less than the utilities to pay for lighting or heat or water. Fully automated facilities take up less space - there are no locker rooms or break rooms or parking lots. You don't need a security guard if nobody is supposed to go in the building. You don't need to pay worker's comp or health insurance or a 401k for robots. Payroll taxes, too. Companies that offer all these services go under. We will soon live in a world where anyone with capital to buy a facility and raw materials can pump out products with no human involvement whatsoever. The scalability is limited only by supply and demand constraints. Once you automate supply (not a large stretch to assume we will have automated mines and quarries), things can literally be made for the price of electricity. Missed this part. This is the usual hyperbole I get when I ask people to back up this idea, and as usual most of it is based on a science fiction understanding of technological progress. You're discounting the cost of robotics and extrapolating far too much from your example. Advances in computing power may have been exponential over the last few decades (although there are signs that that is slowing down) but not all technology follows that curve: advances in robotics have been much less impressive. We're nowhere close to having a fully automated mine. HappyHippo fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 23:30
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Pingui posted:If you want to convince people mincome is something that should happen, being able to tell them that it could be done within budget will surely go a long way, red herring or not. Hell, in that article I just posted, they found large effects from paying out only as much as 1/3 subsistence. This can be small and still worth doing.
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Dec 18, 2014 23:41
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HappyHippo posted:Who designs it? HappyHippo posted:Who builds it? HappyHippo posted:Who maintains it? HappyHippo posted:Who repairs it when it breaks? HappyHippo posted:Who drives the trucks to bring the raw materials in, and the products out? HappyHippo posted:Who mines the raw materials? HappyHippo posted:Who designs the chips? HappyHippo posted:Who upgrades it when the next product is rolled out and the process changes? HappyHippo posted:Don't handwave this all away with "computers." You've basically shown that one part of the production process can be automated, which is something that's been happening for a few centuries anyway. The only difference is the scale. Computers aren't magic, and we aren't nearly as close to eliminating the labour in manufacturing as you think. And of course manufacturing has been a decreasing part of the labour force anyway. Agriculture was once the primary form of human labour, now in many countries it's something like 2%. Accretionist posted:Hell, in that article I just posted, they found large effects from paying out only as much as 1/3 subsistence. This can be small and still worth doing. HappyHippo posted:Missed this part. This is the usual hyperbole I get when I ask people to back up this idea, and as usual most of it is based on a science fiction understanding of technological progress. You're discounting the cost of robotics and extrapolating far too much from your example. Advances in computing power may have been exponential over the last few decades (although there are signs that that is slowing down) but not all technology follows that curve: advances in robotics have been much less impressive. We're nowhere close to having a fully automated mine. http://www.catminestarsystem.com/ http://www.komatsu.com.au/AboutKomatsu/Technology/Pages/AHS.aspx http://www.asirobots.com/mining/ http://mining.sandvik.com/sandvik/0120/Global/Internet/S003137.nsf/LUSL/SLFrameForm1A770BC5B2A975293C1257965003C974F?OpenDocument KillHour fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 23:48
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HappyHippo posted:Missed this part. This is the usual hyperbole I get when I ask people to back up this idea, and as usual most of it is based on a science fiction understanding of technological progress. You're discounting the cost of robotics and extrapolating far too much from your example. Advances in computing power may have been exponential over the last few decades (although there are signs that that is slowing down) but not all technology follows that curve: advances in robotics have been much less impressive. We're nowhere close to having a fully automated mine. We don't really need to posit science fiction. The last few decades have seen incredible productivity leaps with the owners and the rich sucking up not only the entire amount of gains, but managing to shove compensation even lower and gulp down, vampire-like, some of what labor had received in earlier times.   The crisis is now.
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Dec 19, 2014 01:09
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VitalSigns posted:We don't really need to posit science fiction. The last few decades have seen incredible productivity leaps with the owners and the rich sucking up not only the entire amount of gains, but managing to shove compensation even lower and gulp down, vampire-like, some of what labor had received in earlier times. These are significantly offset if healthcare and taxes are accounted for and correlate to the floodgates of globalization opening up. Not just technology by any means. (Healthcare is literally a societal cancer) I'm on the record agreeing that both technology and globalization pose challenges for the future (though primarily the first world) but HappyHippo is correct. The idea that technology is de-valuing labor, if true, would be a new development. Not a continuation of an existing trend.
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Dec 19, 2014 01:25
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VitalSigns posted:The crisis is now. Fun supplemental: 
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Dec 19, 2014 01:27
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asdf32 posted:These are significantly offset if healthcare and taxes are accounted for and correlate to the floodgates of globalization opening up. Not just technology by any means. (Healthcare is literally a societal cancer) Wait are you saying that healthcare costs...reverse the trend of worker pay stagnating or regressing? Because healthcare costs have been increasing faster than inflation for years.
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Dec 19, 2014 01:27
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VitalSigns posted:Wait are you saying that healthcare costs...reverse the trend of worker pay stagnating or regressing? Because healthcare costs have been increasing faster than inflation for years. Yes because employers deduct healthcare from the wages in that chart.
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Dec 19, 2014 01:29
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asdf32 posted:Yes because employers deduct healthcare from the wages in that chart. Can you provide numbers for your point?
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Dec 19, 2014 01:31
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HappyHippo posted:Who designs it? Who builds it? Who maintains it? Who repairs it when it breaks? Who drives the trucks to bring the raw materials in, and the products out? Who mines the raw materials? Who designs the chips? Who upgrades it when the next product is rolled out and the process changes? I don't think you quite realize just how far automation has come in the last couple decades. There are already the beginnings of software that can design computer chips without human intervention, driverless cars are already here, fully automated shipping warehouses are already here, human-free manufacturing has been here for a while and is getting more robust by the day. There is no handwaving going on here. These technologies already exist and are starting to be implemented on a larger scale. There is no "if" about driverless cars or automated manufacturing or the myriad other automation technologies that will replace human labor, just a "when", and that "when" is knocking down the door. You seem to fixate on manufacturing, saying "of course" it will go down, but it'll be fine because agriculture did too and people still have jobs. But it's not just manufacturing. It's everything. All forms of transportation are on the verge of being turned robotic, clerical work, accounting, legal work, medical work, even engineering work - are in the process of being replaced by computers right now. And I'm not just talking about productivity increases like Autocad or Excel making people work faster. I'm talking about replacement. As in, people not required. You could take this further and say that we'll still need software developers and engineers to design these systems - and you'd be absolutely right, we will need those people (though to an extent they too will be replaced by their own systems. Oh the irony), but the automation they create will replace more people than are required to design it, because this is a symptom of capitalism and its goal is to increase efficiency, so if it didn't save money it wouldn't be done. Computers aren't magic, but this is nothing like the industrial revolution, which brought machines to increase the productivity of labor. This isn't just replacing people doing physical labor, it's replacing people required to do thinking too. If you would like to see an easily digestible overview of how this all is happening and how it is nothing like the slow but steady plodding of machine automation pre-computer, check this video. (It's likely you've seen it, it's a popular video. But it explains the realities of the situation far better than I do) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
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Dec 19, 2014 01:37
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KillHour posted:Software. Literally none of those things works without a human. They aren't making the point you seem to think they are. Just as a machine assists a human in force production, a computer assists with mental work. You're talking a about elimination of all human labor, but none of your examples demonstrates it. As always happens when I ask this, people respond with "but they've automated X" as if that meant anything. They've been automating things for a more than a century, you have to show that its going to be different in kind, not just degree.
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Dec 19, 2014 03:55
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VitalSigns posted:We don't really need to posit science fiction. The last few decades have seen incredible productivity leaps with the owners and the rich sucking up not only the entire amount of gains, but managing to shove compensation even lower and gulp down, vampire-like, some of what labor had received in earlier times.
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Dec 19, 2014 03:58
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Taffer posted:I don't think you quite realize just how far automation has come in the last couple decades. There are already the beginnings of software that can design computer chips without human intervention, driverless cars are already here, fully automated shipping warehouses are already here, human-free manufacturing has been here for a while and is getting more robust by the day. quote:There is no handwaving going on here. These technologies already exist and are starting to be implemented on a larger scale. There is no "if" about driverless cars or automated manufacturing or the myriad other automation technologies that will replace human labor, just a "when", and that "when" is knocking down the door. quote:Computers aren't magic, but this is nothing like the industrial revolution, which brought machines to increase the productivity of labor. This isn't just replacing people doing physical labor, it's replacing people required to do thinking too. Again, no argument as to why things are suddenly different in kind, as opposed to degree. Showing me that jobs X Y and Z have been replaced or automated says nothing, they've been doing that for a century or two. It just frees up labor for other work. What you need to show is that we're on the cusp of something that is different in kind, not degree. (Sorry for multiple replies in a row, lm phone posting)
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Dec 19, 2014 04:22
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HappyHippo posted:Literally none of those things works without a human. They aren't making the point you seem to think they are. Just as a machine assists a human in force production, a computer assists with mental work. You're talking a about elimination of all human labor, but none of your examples demonstrates it. As always happens when I ask this, people respond with "but they've automated X" as if that meant anything. They've been automating things for a more than a century, you have to show that its going to be different in kind, not just degree. Well, the Google cars don't require human operators at all. The only function the human serves is to input a destination, and that itself could easily be automated. In fact, in many of those categories, human operators exist simply to make sure the computer isn't malfunctioning and to do a final QA check. But let's say we want something that is in operation today without any human involvement from start to finish. Not even to give instructions. Well, the best indicator of future technologies is usually found in military applications. What do they have there? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system quote:Goalkeeper is a Dutch close-in weapon system (CIWS) introduced in 1979 and in use as of 2014. It is an autonomous and completely automatic weapon system for short-range defense of ships against highly maneuverable missiles, aircraft and fast maneuvering surface vessels. Once activated the system automatically undertakes the entire air defense process from surveillance and detection to destruction, including selection of the next priority target. Good thing it's only designed to shoot at missiles and not people! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGR-A1 quote:The Intelligent Surveillance and Guard Robot can "identify and shoot a target automatically from over two miles (3.2 km) away." http://robotzeitgeist.com/2006/11/samsung-techwins-sgr-a1-robot-sentry.html quote:The video shows how the robot tracks its target during the day and night and its ability to shoot at targets that do not respond to an initial verbal warning  If robots exist today that are trusted with executing human beings without human oversight, I'm pretty sure I will see ones in my lifetime that can deliver my groceries. HappyHippo posted:Again, no argument as to why things are suddenly different in kind, as opposed to degree. Showing me that jobs X Y and Z have been replaced or automated says nothing, they've been doing that for a century or two. It just frees up labor for other work. What you need to show is that we're on the cusp of something that is different in kind, not degree. Here is why things are suddenly different - once you have a general purpose robot with dexterity even approaching that of a human, you have nowhere for unskilled labor to go. Once you have robots that can learn repetitive tasks as well as a human, you have nowhere for skilled labor to go. Robots will be the first machines to replace humans, not just augment them. KillHour fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 04:27
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HappyHippo posted:Literally none of those things works without a human. They aren't making the point you seem to think they are. Just as a machine assists a human in force production, a computer assists with mental work. You're talking a about elimination of all human labor, but none of your examples demonstrates it. As always happens when I ask this, people respond with "but they've automated X" as if that meant anything. They've been automating things for a more than a century, you have to show that its going to be different in kind, not just degree. So automation reduced the workforce drastically for manual labor and there was a new focus on mental labor. And now we are seeing the dawn of the automation on mental labor. Where do you think a majority of the work force turn as the complexity of the automation grows? Are you arguing that this is not happening or will never happen? Can you explain how more work may open up when you only need a fraction of the workforce to run everything?
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Dec 19, 2014 04:29
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Vira posted:So automation reduced the workforce drastically for manual labor and there was a new focus on mental labor. And now we are seeing the dawn of the automation on mental labor. Where do you think a majority of the work force turn as the complexity of the automation grows? The argument to this is that new jobs will be created to replace the lost jobs, just as they always have. The missing piece to this is that when we create a general purpose machine that can replace humans (not just a specialized one like a printing press, or whatever), there will be nowhere for a human to go that said general purpose machine cannot replace them. Previously, it was a cycle of "Replace specific manual job with machine, that is only good at said job, humans adapt." It's going to be "Replace all manual jobs with flexible machine." Where do humans go after that? The argument now has to be "This won't happen." To that, I reply with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diaZFIUBMBQ KillHour fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 04:35
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Thank you to Killhour and the rest for responding to HappyHippo in a better way than I could. We are at a unique instant in human evolution at this point. For the past two centuries, we have designed machines in our own image to do our dirty work for us. We are now within sight of the time in which our machines MAY proceed along the same curve we have been observing for sixty years, and in some undefinable way, simultaneously match or exceed human capabilities. It is simultaneously an unsurprising and totally predictable possible future for us as a human race, and one that cannot simply be dismissed and handwaved away by the likes of you. We may very well proceed through the next century and never experience the effects of superhuman machine intelligences. However, the trends pointed out by Killhour and others cannot simply be thrown out as pseudoscience any more. Certainly not when we have the likes of Hawking talking about the possible threats of artificial intelligence. We are asking a perfectly rational question here. Namely: What would happen to us as a human species if the value of our labor were reduced to nothing?
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Dec 19, 2014 05:40
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Vira posted:So automation reduced the workforce drastically for manual labor and there was a new focus on mental labor. And now we are seeing the dawn of the automation on mental labor. Where do you think a majority of the work force turn as the complexity of the automation grows? The problem with the argument is that "everything" is a moving target. "Everything" that was being done in 1900 takes only a fraction of the workforce today. But now we have a whole new set of poo poo that the remainder do. Designing a website wasn't even a job until recently. Automating a task, mental or physical, lets people focus on higher level tasks. BTW, automating mental labour isn't new. Its been happening since about the 40s.
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Dec 19, 2014 05:45
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Not everybody is suitable for white collar jobs. There are, and will be people that are a poor fit for the kind of highly-educated office work that cannot be automated. What of those people?
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Dec 19, 2014 05:53
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Sorry, app double posted.
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Dec 19, 2014 05:53
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HappyHippo posted:And you can prove that this is is technologically related? Because I notice the divergence corresponds to the regan/thatcher years and the erosion of unions. Also the sudden entering of women to the work force in large numbers. Oh it's not. What I mean is that the necessity of redistribution isn't some far-off theoretical like what happens if everything is automated and the ultrarich owners of the robots live in luxury while the excess labor starves. The owners of resources and capital are sucking up a larger and larger share of the wealth produced by our modern-day society Today. Right now. Six percent of us today can't find a job and are surplus labor with all of the misery that implies. But instead of taking up the slack by robots, our society just overworks everyone else. We don't need basic income in the future, we need it now and have needed for a long time (as was recognized when we partially implemented it in a little plan called Social Security)
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Dec 19, 2014 05:53
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KillHour posted:The argument to this is that new jobs will be created to replace the lost jobs, just as they always have. The missing piece to this is that when we create a general purpose machine that can replace humans (not just a specialized one like a printing press, or whatever), there will be nowhere for a human to go that said general purpose machine cannot replace them. Sorry I can't watch this video right now (still on my phone). At least you get the idea that its not about automation of this or that, it's about some sort of general purpose automator that automates all takes for now and forever. Thats the only thing that could fulfill the argument that its being attempted and I'm not seeing that on the horizon at all. I'm not speculating about 100 years from now, that's a fool's errand. But in terms of the challenges for this generation its not something that we're facing. Yet I see it brought up all the time as though its just around the corner.
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Dec 19, 2014 05:54
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VitalSigns posted:Oh it's not. What I mean is that the necessity of redistribution isn't some far-off theoretical like what happens if everything is automated and the ultrarich owners of the robots live in luxury while the excess labor starves. Just to be very clear, I'm not trying to touch on the topics of basic income or any other issue. I think those are fine ideas to discuss. I'm just annoyed by the assumption that all labour is about to be made obsolete by machines. I think its a total distraction that keeps being brought up in topics like these.
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Dec 19, 2014 05:57
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Oh well I don't have anything to say about that because I agree with you there. Robots that can take the place of a human and be better at every human task are absurd speculation. They always "seem" 20 years out and have since the 1950's because computers are really really good at computational tasks that we find super difficult like doing logarithms or numerical integration or brute-forcing chess by evaluating thousands of board positions per second several moves deep. But that's because the really super holy-poo poo complicated actually hard stuff we do is all invisible to us and we don't even notice. Like parsing language or recognizing someone's face even if they're wearing drag-queen or harlequin make-up or receiving a set of instructions and then modifying them to deal with a completely unexpected, unanticipated situation.
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Dec 19, 2014 06:03
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HappyHippo posted:Sorry I can't watch this video right now (still on my phone). At least you get the idea that its not about automation of this or that, it's about some sort of general purpose automator that automates all takes for now and forever. Thats the only thing that could fulfill the argument that its being attempted and I'm not seeing that on the horizon at all. I'm not speculating about 100 years from now, that's a fool's errand. But in terms of the challenges for this generation its not something that we're facing. Yet I see it brought up all the time as though its just around the corner. For the first time in history, this type of general purpose machine is the focus of a massive amount of research. That video was of the robot that won the 2014 DARPA challenge, which was to build a robot that could perform 8 tasks designed for humans to do (things like climbing a ladder, driving a car, using power tools, etc.). The winning team was hired by Google. This isn't just science fiction any more. The purpose of these robots is to assist with damage control and recovery in disaster situations where it would be too dangerous to send a human. It is necessary that said robots be able to do nearly anything a human rescuer could to be effective, and massive progress is being made. These robots should be ready for deployment within the decade.
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Dec 19, 2014 06:06
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Labour is not on the verge of being made obsolete by machines. However, automation, outsourcing and the global mobility of capital have massively shifted the balance of power between labour and capital (and this is without even going into political developments that have reinforced this trend). As such the returns to labour are decreasing and the returns to capital are increasing. That leads to greater inequality of wealth and a nasty "winner-take-all" social ethos. To me that alone is more than enough reason to advocate for a basic income (well, that and the fact that it would make a lot of people better off at no significant cost of the majority of society). Also falling returns to labour have sapped away the purchasing power of workers which has reduced demand for goods and services which in turn reduces production and investment. Until recently we were able to ignore that trend by taking on more household debt and by pushing women into the workforce. Going forward, though, we'd be much better off redistributing that money directly. It will probably have the effect of raising aggregate demand and thereby putting idle resources in the economy to work. If we keep relying on a financialized economy to pump up demand, rather than high wages or direct wealth redistribution, then chances are we're going to be stuck with this horrible casino capitalism that we had prior to the 1930s and which has made a big come back since the 1970s. Its a system that produces massive wealth inequality, drains capital out of productive sectors of the economy (why invest long term in a potentially innovative company when you get a faster and better return by making quick trades in stocks and bonds?) and generates devastating asset bubbles.
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Dec 19, 2014 06:07
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HappyHippo posted:Sorry I can't watch this video right now (still on my phone). At least you get the idea that its not about automation of this or that, it's about some sort of general purpose automator that automates all takes for now and forever. Thats the only thing that could fulfill the argument that its being attempted and I'm not seeing that on the horizon at all. I'm not speculating about 100 years from now, that's a fool's errand. But in terms of the challenges for this generation its not something that we're facing. Yet I see it brought up all the time as though its just around the corner. The problem is you keep defining this as an all or nothing thing, when there is actually a transition period where certain automated tasks are phased out before others. Check this out. 47% of all jobs in the united states automated in less than 20 years. Most of them low-skill labor jobs, like transportation (which I believe makes up for over 3 million jobs nation wide). What jobs are there going to be for these people when an automaton becomes cheaper to their bottom line?
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Dec 19, 2014 06:22
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Helsing posted:Also falling returns to labour have sapped away the purchasing power of workers which has reduced demand for goods and services which in turn reduces production and investment. Until recently we were able to ignore that trend by taking on more household debt and by pushing women into the workforce. Going forward, though, we'd be much better off redistributing that money directly. It will probably have the effect of raising aggregate demand and thereby putting idle resources in the economy to work. Even if you made everyone in America rich, you wouldn't increase for example, iPhone sales as much as you would by making even a fraction of China or India a little bit better off.
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Dec 19, 2014 06:22
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One of the best showcases for how quickly the field of robotics is progressing is ASIMO. Here is what he looked like when first revealed in 2000: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESLc26fNAe8 Here is what he is capable of now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a0HnVqh1jU More cool general-purpose robot videos for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KxjVlaLBmk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkBnFPBV3f0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w40e1u0T1yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE-YBaYjbqY This is stuff that was impossible 10 years ago. KillHour fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 06:25
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Helsing posted:Labour is not on the verge of being made obsolete by machines. However, automation, outsourcing and the global mobility of capital have massively shifted the balance of power between labour and capital (and this is without even going into political developments that have reinforced this trend). As such the returns to labour are decreasing and the returns to capital are increasing. That leads to greater inequality of wealth and a nasty "winner-take-all" social ethos. You're essentially advocating wealth redistribution to push the savings rate down further to spur demand. The U.S. for example already has a very very low savings rate. So that's not what's needed.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:08
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asdf32 posted:You're essentially advocating wealth redistribution to push the savings rate down further to spur demand. The U.S. for example already has a very very low savings rate. So that's not what's needed. If the poor and middle-class are getting more money, why would they save less? They could keep their savings rate the same and spend more because they have more money! Oh wait, are you confusing the falling average personal savings rate with the growing dead cash piling up on corporate balance sheets? The Economist posted:Investment has steadily risen since the recession ended, but not as vigorously as profits. In America, for example, nominal capital expenditure this year (on an annualised basis) has risen by 6% compared with 2007; internal cash flow is up by 32%. Companies have been net suppliers, instead of users, of funds to the rest of the economy since 2008. Firms in the S&P 500 held roughly $900 billion of cash at the end of June, according to Thomson Reuters, down a bit from a year earlier but still 40% up on 2008. Hmmm maybe we reduced the corporate savings rate by taxing that properly, and redistributed it to people who would spend it and create demand, companies would have better opportunities in growth and production rather than creating massive pools of cash ripe for financial fuckery in the real estate and commodities markets? E: Saving is only declining if you include government deficits by the way. Personal savings are down, corporate savings are up. 
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 16:18
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Redistributing from people with higher rates of savings to lower rates of savings. That's what Helsing was talking about. It increases aggregate demand by reducing savings rates overall.
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Dec 19, 2014 17:57
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But you objected that the savings rate is very low? Very low in comparison to what? Corporate savings rates have been climbing, and nongovernmental savings have been flat for two decades.
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Dec 19, 2014 18:41
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asdf32 posted:Redistributing from people with higher rates of savings to lower rates of savings. That's what Helsing was talking about. It increases aggregate demand by reducing savings rates overall. Why would you assume that is what Helsing is saying when that doesn't make sense, whereas VitalSigns interpretation does? In either case, do you still have a problem with Helsings proposed solution, should VitalSigns interpretation hold true?
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Dec 19, 2014 18:42
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Basic money is required for Keynesian style playing with interest rates and cash infusions and basically all of this intervention. Well, basic money will be required once the pool of money going to pay labor finishes drying into robo capital and no one is getting paid anymore. It'll be required because otherwise consumer spending will be nearly zero due to no wages. From the point of Basic Income, the only hope is that a combination of culture and technical inheritances prevent the civilization from becoming completely inert and collapsing on itself. Its pretty well established that people around the world receiving basic income do not get up and become inventive nor productive members of society. Basic Income increases the sloth factor and America, as this possible future, society is in big trouble if there's not a culture that somehow drives people who are complacent and ignorant to take action rather than let their time pass away uselessly. Best Regards, RG RichardGamingo fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 18:44
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