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Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

fortune.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#61

Post by guelo »

evanpw wrote: post #27
bko wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often forget that jobs are an expense, not a benefit. We should celebrate that society can do more with less. If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential.

Related slatestarcodex post: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/08/a-something-sort-of-lik... "if your job can be done more cheaply without you, and the only reason you have it is because people would feel sorry for you if you didn’t, so the government forces your company to keep you on – well then, it’s not a job. It’s a welfare program that requires you to work 9 to 5 before seeing your welfare check."

That's only bad if you have a bad conception of "welfare program". If you think society should provide for the welfare of all its members than it's not a bad connotation.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#62

Post by electic »

rattray wrote: post #31

This article doesn't actually seem to provide any evidence to support its claim - the actual factoid at the heart of the article is that Total Factor Productivity (TFP) has fallen since the 90's, which is irrelevant. The only pieces of evidence supporting the "No Jobs Growth" claim are Facebook's employee count from _2013_ (which has since grown by almost 50% to 12000 [0]), and the claim that "in 2010, only 0.5% of t…

You make a valid point. I would also to add that most tech companies that are consumer facing also tend to create a "halo effect" and drive additional job growth in parallel markets. For example, take Ad Tech. The number of jobs that have been created in the advertising sector as a result of tech is large:

http://chiefmartec.com/2013/05/the-very-cool-marketing-techn...

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#63

Post by laotzu »

kapilkale wrote: post #33
hwstar wrote: post #24

Silicon valley doesn't produce much hardware like it did in the past. Instead it creates businesses with questionable customer value such as social networking, personal assistant services, short term house rental services, and other software-as-a-service businesses. There will be an implosion of these SAAS businesses at some point. After the dust clears, it will be interesting to see if Silicon Valley still is able t…

There are so many faulty premises here * silicon valley doesn't produce much hardware (evidence for this being true? obviously we hear a ton about software, but what about tesla, intel, nest, apple, google, etc?) * businesses such as social networking, personal assistance services, short-term house rental services, and other saas have questionable customer value (why?) * there will be an implosion of these saas busin…

>silicon valley doesn't produce much hardware (evidence for this being true? obviously we hear a ton about software, but what about tesla, intel, nest, apple, google, etc?)

Consider the amount of hardware that a modern smart phone replaces such as the calculator, phone, video camera, television, radio, clock...

They are producing less hardware because hardware is becoming increasingly integrated as software:

>The hardware world tends to move into software form at the speed of light.

-Marshall McLuhan

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#64

Post by evanpw »

guelo wrote: post #61
evanpw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related slatestarcodex post: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/08/a-something-sort-of-lik... "if your job can be done more cheaply without you, and the only reason you have it is because people would feel sorry for you if you didn’t, so the government forces your company to keep you on – well then, it’s not a job. It’s a welfare program that requires you to work 9 to 5 before seeing your welfare check."

That's only bad if you have a bad conception of "welfare program". If you think society should provide for the welfare of all its members than it's not a bad connotation.

The post argues that this back-door form of welfare is inferior in just about every way to just cutting people a check, but that we tend to do it this way exactly because "welfare" has negative connotations:

'With all these advantages of “Simple Check”, what exactly is the “Sneaky Job” condition good for that makes it so popular? As far as I can tell, it is good for fooling people. People do not like paying welfare.'

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#65

Post by refurb »

jjoonathan wrote: post #23
bko wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often forget that jobs are an expense, not a benefit. We should celebrate that society can do more with less. If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential.

Our current economic system holds that people don't deserve food, shelter, medical care, or dignity if they don't have a job. If you believe that we should stick with the current system then the proposition "everyone should have a job" follows from "everyone should have food, shelter, medical care, and dignity".

Huh, at least in the US, over 50% of the federal budget provides just those things to people that don't have jobs.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#66

Post by s73v3r »

bko wrote: post #11
augustocallejas wrote: post #3

Here's a though experiment I came up with several years ago: Say one day you created a copy of the Earth and with that copy, it had the same population as the current Earth, and they were connected so you can travel between them easily. I can see that these two worlds would need twice as many barbers as the current world. Would these two new worlds need twice as many Google/Facebook/etc. employees?

People often forget that jobs are an expense, not a benefit. We should celebrate that society can do more with less. If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential.

"People often forget that jobs are an expense, not a benefit. We should celebrate that society can do more with less."

Not until such time that people don't need a job to survive. As is, a job is currently required to pay rent and buy food.

"If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential."

So how do you plan on housing and feeding all of the people who's jobs are displaced through technology?

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#67

Post by pvelagal »

augustocallejas wrote: post #3

Here's a though experiment I came up with several years ago: Say one day you created a copy of the Earth and with that copy, it had the same population as the current Earth, and they were connected so you can travel between them easily. I can see that these two worlds would need twice as many barbers as the current world. Would these two new worlds need twice as many Google/Facebook/etc. employees?

The real problems begin when machines become competent enough to do most of the jobs which currently humans do. The system of job-to-earn-money-to-live wouldn't work. Either money or jobs wouldn't have any significance for humanity for pure survival. Political systems will then change to accommodate human survival. Star trek's model of post scarcity economy would probably be the norm.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#69

Post by dragonwriter »

s73v3r wrote: post #66
bko wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often forget that jobs are an expense, not a benefit. We should celebrate that society can do more with less. If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential.

"People often forget that jobs are an expense, not a benefit. We should celebrate that society can do more with less." Not until such time that people don't need a job to survive. As is, a job is currently required to pay rent and buy food. "If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential."…

> Not until such time that people don't need a job to survive.

People need an income to survive. Most people get incomes through jobs, some get them through capital holdings, a few get them through other means.

> So how do you plan on housing and feeding all of the people who's jobs are displaced through technology?

Jobs being displaced through technology means output is produced more effectively without the job than it would be with the job, and someone is capturing the value of that output.

The issue becomes one of distributing the value of the output.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#70

Post by knieveltech »

bko wrote: post #58
chongli wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea. Not really, it's an irrelevant distinction. If you have the right deprive me of food, shelter, etc. then I have the right to kill you in order to take those things for myself.

I respect your intensity, but if you were to come home one day finding your home has been broken into by a unfortunate soul demanding that you house and feed him, would you oblige? He may see you as depriving him of food and shelter by not opening your home. Would you be willing to bare this burden?

Would you?

This is a ludicrous hypothetical in response to a very simple question: do you or do you not believe all people have a right to the basics of survival and some element of dignity?

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