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Unnecessariat

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Re: Unnecessariat

#41

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

jraines wrote: post #24

I'm reminded of Jimmy Carter's "Malaise" speech: The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the fut…

You were right until your last sentence. Reagan made the nation feel that its civic and moral fabric was strong. Nevermind that his policies undermined civil society and his religious backing was hypocritical of anything close to Christ's teachings on compassion, it made people feel strong and so it won him the election.

Re: Unnecessariat

#42

Post by ktRolster »

jraines wrote: post #24

I'm reminded of Jimmy Carter's "Malaise" speech: The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the fut…

I'm reminded of Jimmy Carter's "Malaise" speech:

Don't worry, there is someone here who promises to "Make America Great Again"

Re: Unnecessariat

#43

Post by clock_tower »

CodeMage wrote: post #32
DenisM wrote: post #23

I often say to my fellow engineers that software engineering is a profession of destroying jobs. There doesn't seem to be any follow up discussion though, everyone just nods and moves on to the next subject. What can we do? There is no stopping the train of automation.

Of course there's no followup discussion. The fact that software engineering is "destroying jobs" is the wrong problem to focus on, but any discussion that approaches the right problem -- capitalism -- is practically taboo in United States.

Indeed. The world needs to return to feudalism (EDIT: it looks like I said "feudalism" and meant "the current economic model of Europe"...), with elites -- who are more or less permanent and hereditary even in capitalism -- having, and believing and accepting that they do have, clearly-defined obligations towards the common people and towards the collective defense of the realm.

Of course, there'll always be room for islands of capitalism (imagine New York or San Francisco as a free city), and a modern neo-feudal system will allow social mobility more readily than the original; but still.

I'm not trolling, by the way. The usual assumption is "if not capitalism then communism," but there are older, more interesting systems out there.

(There are also younger, scarier systems out there. The far right is getting disconcertingly strong in Europe, and indeed in the US; I think that if we don't explicitly choose some sort of neo-feudalism, we're going to get neo-fascism instead, or possibly just the original kind of fascism.)

(Disclaimer: neo-feudalism does not mean the revival of torture and oppression. One, "revival" implies that they aren't currently with us. Two, I think that a king, who answers only to God, assassins, his own conscience, and his hopes for his heirs, is less likely to turn lawless or pander to bloodthirsty mobs than a president is.)

Re: Unnecessariat

#44

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

unimpressive wrote: post #37
CodeMage wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there's no followup discussion. The fact that software engineering is "destroying jobs" is the wrong problem to focus on, but any discussion that approaches the right problem -- capitalism -- is practically taboo in United States.

But what's the alternative? Removing the incentive gradient of capitalism doesn't create paradise, it just creates a new incentive gradient that can be even more perverse and horrifying than the last. http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/85 http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-plenty/

Broken-clock Ayn Rand did get something right in a scene in Atlas Shrugged where the [malicious and grossly incompetent] government figures toast to the "end of the age of money," and are interrupted by a [flawless and endlessly brilliant] capitalist who warns them that it will only usher in "the age of pull."

Power and money are largely interchangeable in a free market world where there's always a way to get what you want. At least money can be measured, and that makes it honest, sort of.

Re: Unnecessariat

#45

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

clock_tower wrote: post #43
CodeMage wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there's no followup discussion. The fact that software engineering is "destroying jobs" is the wrong problem to focus on, but any discussion that approaches the right problem -- capitalism -- is practically taboo in United States.

Indeed. The world needs to return to feudalism (EDIT: it looks like I said "feudalism" and meant "the current economic model of Europe"...), with elites -- who are more or less permanent and hereditary even in capitalism -- having, and believing and accepting that they do have, clearly-defined obligations towards the common people and towards the collective defense of the realm. Of course, there'll always be room for…

That largely resembles the contemporary European social contract, where there are elites and commoners and in exchange for the elites not having their boat rocked too hard the commoners are guaranteed health care and general welfare, but not necessarily prosperity.

Re: Unnecessariat

#46

Post by wildmusings »

clock_tower wrote: post #43
CodeMage wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there's no followup discussion. The fact that software engineering is "destroying jobs" is the wrong problem to focus on, but any discussion that approaches the right problem -- capitalism -- is practically taboo in United States.

Indeed. The world needs to return to feudalism (EDIT: it looks like I said "feudalism" and meant "the current economic model of Europe"...), with elites -- who are more or less permanent and hereditary even in capitalism -- having, and believing and accepting that they do have, clearly-defined obligations towards the common people and towards the collective defense of the realm. Of course, there'll always be room for…

>Indeed. The world needs to return to feudalism, with elites -- who are more or less permanent and hereditary even in capitalism -- having, and believing and accepting that they do have, clearly-defined obligations towards the common people and towards the collective defense of the realm.

This post is a good reminder that capitalists are the radical liberal utopians of an earlier age, and what the realistic alternative is: social engineering and control of ordinary people by elites who think they know better, in the best case.

Count me out. I'll die fighting before I become a serf.

(edit: Also, it's just not true that the elite in capitalism are mostly permanent and hereditary. There are over two million Cuban-Americans who either came to this country with nothing to their name, or are the descendants of those who did. Today, they've found their way to the middle and upper classes in about the same proportions as non-hispanic white people who have been here for much longer.)

Re: Unnecessariat

#47

Post by clock_tower »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #45
clock_tower wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The world needs to return to feudalism (EDIT: it looks like I said "feudalism" and meant "the current economic model of Europe"...), with elites -- who are more or less permanent and hereditary even in capitalism -- having, and believing and accepting that they do have, clearly-defined obligations towards the common people and towards the collective defense of the realm. Of course, there'll always be room for…

That largely resembles the contemporary European social contract, where there are elites and commoners and in exchange for the elites not having their boat rocked too hard the commoners are guaranteed health care and general welfare, but not necessarily prosperity.

I honestly hadn't thought about Europe that way, but I always did know that I liked the cut of their jib.

Hearing this is both heartening and depressing: heartening because a neo-feudal system already exists; depressing because it's precisely the neo-feudal part of the world that has a neo-fascism problem...

Re: Unnecessariat

#48

Post by Animats »

The California suicide map is interesting. Coastal suicide rates are low until north of the Bay Area. Then they are very high.

Re: Unnecessariat

#49

Post by api »

Animats wrote: post #15

From the article: "We aren’t precarious, we’re unnecessary. The money has gone to the top. The wages have gone to the top. The recovery has gone to the top. And what’s worst of all, everybody who matters seems basically pretty okay with that. " That's it right there. We just don't need that many people to do all the stuff. Some of that is imports, but not all, or even most, of it. Get behind the $15 minimum wage. The…

I feel like calling citation needed on imports. Outsourcing is massive, and far larger than automation.

Re: Unnecessariat

#50

Post by api »

Animats wrote: post #48

The California suicide map is interesting. Coastal suicide rates are low until north of the Bay Area. Then they are very high.

California's major cities are doing well, while its rural areas like those of much of America have been in a depression since 2000.
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