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Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

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Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#241

Post by jakub_h »

patrickaljord wrote: post #172
Frondo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that business activity can be regulated or controlled by a state governing body is not new, is not controversial, and is also not robbery.

It isn't robbery as defined by the law like the death penalty isn't murder either legally. From a philosophical point of view though, opinions defer. Not saying I agree or not, just saying.

I'm still not comprehending how telling someone not to do something would amount to confiscation of property. State mandated confiscation of property would be comparable to robbery the way that legal death penalty would be comparable to murder, but no confiscation of property seems to be involved in simply telling people that some things are not allowed (I'm avoiding here, of course, the very issue of whether it's wise to do that in the first place, which it probably isn't, at least for the foreseeable future.)

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#242

Post by LunaSea »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #128

I don't want employment, and hell no I definitely don't want full employment, just the opposite. I want us as a species to transition to a leisure society with the ick automated away, and the only jobs humans do being ones humans would love to do for the sheer fun of it. Because a minimum wage has a loophole for "not employed at all", it isn't good enough. A Basic Income has no such loophole, and will allow poor peop…

How do you finance a basic income when a majority of your population has no job and thus no taxable income ?

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#243

Post by LunaSea »

pdkl95 wrote: post #204
gamerDude wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a total leisure society, how do we pay for Basic Income? Where does the government get the money to give out to everyone? I agree with you. But I think its not about Basic Income, but the idea of Basic Utility/Survival where we can supply basic needs for free, via automation etc.

> Where does the government get the money to give out to everyone? The exact same place they get it right now - they pull it out of thin air by fiat. (involving a quasi-government agency ("the fed") as a proxy is optional) Money hasn't been zero sum up since the gold standard. Governments already define most aspects of money, and they can change it as needed, such as when Nixon declared that the dollar was no longer…

Congratulations on writing the most retarded comment I have ever read on HN.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#244

Post by atemerev »

karmacondon wrote: post #88
atemerev wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, every business on the planet wants wages as low as possible. This is, of course, correct. On the other hand, every employee on the planet wants her wage to be as high as possible. This is also obviously true. This creates law of supply and demand. Google can't hire a decent software engineer for, say, $30000/year, because other companies will immediately offer more, and supply of talented software engineers is…

Why do you think minimum wage laws exist? It's because at one point in our nation's history, businesses implicitly colluded to set wages low. They have more power in wage negotiations than workers do, because there are generally people who can afford to do unskilled labor for very small amounts. Businesses got greedy and took that too far, offering people wages far beyond a minimum standard of living. So in response,…

The average McDonalds worker will very soon be a robot.

Already everywhere in Europe, there are order-taking kiosks in McDonalds, each one replacing at least two workers. Fast, convenient, never demanding a raise, never joining a union. Pure win.

The good news is that society already survived this kind of economic transition, no less dramatic: moving from manual labor to automated manufacturing.

The bad news is this transition required a world war and temporary export of working class in China (the latter won't happen this time). There are almost no unemployed at wartime.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#245

Post by reirob »

LunaSea wrote: post #242
JulianMorrison wrote: post #128

I don't want employment, and hell no I definitely don't want full employment, just the opposite. I want us as a species to transition to a leisure society with the ick automated away, and the only jobs humans do being ones humans would love to do for the sheer fun of it. Because a minimum wage has a loophole for "not employed at all", it isn't good enough. A Basic Income has no such loophole, and will allow poor peop…

How do you finance a basic income when a majority of your population has no job and thus no taxable income ?

Make new taxes on automation, robots, AI, Internet business?

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#246

Post by atemerev »

wavefunction wrote: post #136
atemerev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of this little thing called "competition". There will always be new businesses who can live with lower profit margins and drive you out of the market for good. Capitalism 101.

You should check out Capitalism 102 where they discuss barriers to entry.

Less and less industries today have any remaining barriers of entry.

Some still remain, though. Race and gender issues being the most obvious (I find it shameful and outrageous that this is still a problem in 2016, but evidently it is). Another fantastically blatant example is having a non-US non-European citizenship and being unable to relocate to San Francisco Bay Area, wherever this magic wonderland filled with ponies and unicorns is.

Others, like access to education, are disappearing very fast, despite all resistance of the education mafia. Thank you, Wikipedia, I owe you so much.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#247

Post by benashford »

SyneRyder wrote: post #237
karmacondon wrote: post #111

I think the fundamental purpose of a business is to accomplish a task, not to employ people. For example, I don't care how many people are employed to keep hackernews running. I'm thankful for their efforts, but I don't care if it's one person, ten people, or one bot. Or how much any of them get paid. The only thing that consumers and businesses care about is the end result. If a job can be done by a machine, that's…

"Fortunately, fully automating the process of driving or running a restaurant is decades away." It's closer than you think. Dominos Australia is already trialling automated delivery (in Brisbane, I believe?) with their new DRU robots. [1][2] On the pro-human side, Dominos appear to be testing if people will pay extra for a human, under the guise of "For an extra $3, guaranteed delivery in 20 minutes." (The DRU robots…

There was something about that video that makes me think DRU isn't a serious proposition; and even if it were, it isn't yet being used for actual deliveries.

This is a common theme with new technology. The sceptics always claim "it's decades away", the enthusiasts always claim "it's nearly here - look!" But what usually happens is something in between. Essentially both are right, some stepping-stone will launch or be trialled, but it takes decades to be refined to the point where it actually delivers on the hype that was "real soon now" way back when; and by the time that happens, everyone has got used to it so the milestone passes without anyone noticing.

In the case of automatic vehicles I don't know when that clock started ticking, so I don't really know how far along we really are.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#248

Post by T2_t2 »

drodgers wrote: post #129
mangeletti wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hereby give you an honorary 1000 karma. Reading this article disgusted me. I'm not a "republican" or "democrat", or anything else for that matter, but I have some intelligence and sense. Arguing that raising minimum wage will some how lead to more prosperity is the same thing as stating "people with minimum wage jobs currently have prosperity". The minimum is the minimum, no matter how high we raise it. The only th…

Hi, Australian here. Our nominal prices (in AUD) are about the same as in the US (in USD) and our minimum wage is $17.29 an hour (+ 25% for casual employees). People who make minimum wage here aren't struggling to survive like they are in the US; the minimum wage is actually liveable. Prices don't just rise when the minimum wage does. Firstly, people who make minimum wage make up a small proportion of overall income…

Except...

The prices are higher. In NYC, I can get a breakfast for $5, and I got a FRESH BLT at 3am at a deli in Brooklyn... for $3.50. There ain't no WAY I can buy either of those thongs in Sydney, Brisvegas or Radelaide.

Besides, Australia is basically the same demographics coast to coast, where the vast majority of people live in just a few cities, and the popluation is really small. Try to make broad gerneralisations that link San Francisco (7 million people, $63,024 household income), Miami (3,876,380/$38,632) and Los Angeles–Riverside–Orange County, California CMSA (16,373,645/21,170). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest-income_metropolitan_st...

Compare that to the Aussie states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_states_and_...

Australian minimum wages are high for a variety of (historically anomalous?) reasons, that aren't always applicable to countries with much more varied demographic splits.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#249

Post by epalmer »

danjayh wrote: post #212
dragonwriter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, coding boot camps are just capitalizing on the idea that there is a shortcut to the high wages some people earn in the tech industry. It's not "preparing for" anything, it's trying to exploit a present market opportunity.

I teach CS classes at a community college when I have the time. Our CC has a 2 year program; having taught classes in the 1st semester and the 4th semester, I have noticed that the 1st semester classes are larger than the 4th semester classes, much larger. This school offers eight sections of the intro programming class, and not more than one section of any top level class (Java, .net, and C++). The top level class s…

I think access to CS concepts for all ages in schools is a good thing because 1) technology is increasing a part of the fabric of life and 2) it is good have a way to identify early those whose inate abilities could do technology jobs. The same could be said of people that want to become engineers. Some can and some can't.

I think any activity in school or out of school at an early age that exposures students to a set of possible tasks for them to do and to learn from helps people learn about and grow their inate strengths. I am experienced in FIRST Robitcs as one of those out of school programs that does just that. For years I have witnessed students learn what they are good at and get better. Yes some of that is CS, CAD design, fabrication and trouble shooting but for some it is marketing, business planning, fund raising and presentation skills.

I have witinessed this first hand as a mentor and parent of middle school and high school students.

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