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Unnecessariat

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Re: Unnecessariat

#131

Post by dredmorbius »

roymurdock wrote: post #69

I'm reading two books right now. The Rise and Fall of American Growth [1] by Robert Gordon and The Grapes of Wrath [2] by John Steinbeck. They complement each other, and this post, very well. I would recommend Gordon's book as an objective overview of the astonishing growth in economic and quality of life terms from 1870-1970. It's not as thoroughly researched as I expected it to be, and the prose is somewhat clunky,…

I've read Gordon and am planning a review (I've published a "first impressions" at https://reddit.com/r/dredmorbius). Some (brief?) thoughts:

1. His history of change 1870 - 2015 is good. Some weaknesses, but solid, and he makes his case for dramatic changes. A mention of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs would improve the discussion, but his point even without stating that is of drastic changes (and improvements) to basic food, shelter, clothing, and security needs.

2. He misses some infrastructure with his focus on consumer impacts. Less so with early work than in his discussion of information and communications infrastructure, in which I think there might be some weaknesses to his argument (and a possible out for the optimists).

3. You'll find the meat of his theory in the third section of the book. Chapters 15-17 IIRC. Focus your critical eye there.

I've got many quibbles with his economics arguments, though most of the errors actually bolster his overall argument -- I feel actual recent trends are worse than Gordon states.

Steinbeck's Grapes is a true classic. Reading that as a story of an epic animal migration (as Steinbeck begins it) is humbling.

Re: Unnecessariat

#132

Post by EGreg »

mindcrime wrote: post #130
EGreg wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little by little the argument that "taxation is theft" will come to sound like: "But it's not fair to demand that the hard working robot owners pay more in taxes to help the people too lazy to own their own robots."

"Taxation is theft" is true regardless of whether robots are employed or not. The fundamental issue is, simply, that it involves the use of force (or threat of use of force). As long as men with guns will come and arrest you if you don't "pay your taxes" then it is theft. No rhetorical flourishes or byzantine logic can alter that.

And the institution of private property doesn't use force or the threat of force? Property allows you to exclude, by force, others from use of a resource. Some organization grants a monopoly to some other organization or individual, and uses force, propaganda and intimidation to keep things that way. Whether it's "intellectual property" or owning huge swaths of land or whatever.

Every system uses force or the threat of force, to enforce the rules. A co-op or mall charging rent is not much different than a city or state charging taxes. "Men with guns" will come evict you if you don't pay your rent. But in the majority of cases what usually happens is that your taxes get withheld by the employer from your wages and no guns are involved.

Re: Unnecessariat

#133

Post by [deleted] »

mindcrime wrote: post #130
EGreg wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little by little the argument that "taxation is theft" will come to sound like: "But it's not fair to demand that the hard working robot owners pay more in taxes to help the people too lazy to own their own robots."

"Taxation is theft" is true regardless of whether robots are employed or not. The fundamental issue is, simply, that it involves the use of force (or threat of use of force). As long as men with guns will come and arrest you if you don't "pay your taxes" then it is theft. No rhetorical flourishes or byzantine logic can alter that.

[deleted]

Re: Unnecessariat

#134

Post by gbhn »

smacktoward wrote: post #52
dragonwriter wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obama's proposal was Obamacare without an individual mandate. Clinton's proposal was Obamacare with an individual mandate. Those were the only entrees on the proverbial menu. No candidate ran on a public option Actually, all of Obama, Clinton, and Edwards ran on a public option. They differed on other points (as you note, during the primary Obama opposed and Clinton supported an individual mandate, and there were v…

They sometimes mentioned a public option, but it was never central to either Obama's or Hillary's pitch. See here for an evaluation of Obama on the issue: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/dec/... It was included in his platform, but as an "also, too" kind of thing. And if you took your evaluation of his position from what he said on the stump, you'd never have known it was in his platform at al…

My recollection is that it was included, but then traded to the relevant industries for their acceptance of the plan we have now. Whether it was always intended as a chip or was a serious part of the plan is open for debate I suppose, but the best chips are ones that are serious, so I'm not sure there's much difference in practice.

Re: Unnecessariat

#135

Post by stephengillie »

drumdance wrote: post #63
aston wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who elected those filibuster-threatening senators? Were the senators acting of their own accord, or on behalf of their constituents' desires?

The Senate is ridiculously undemocratic. Because every state gets two senators regardless of population, a vote by a Wyoming resident is worth 65 Californian votes.

The House is supposed to make up for this. A vote by a California resident is worth 3.6 Wyoming resident votes.

Re: Unnecessariat

#136

Post by mindcrime »

EGreg wrote: post #132
mindcrime wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Taxation is theft" is true regardless of whether robots are employed or not. The fundamental issue is, simply, that it involves the use of force (or threat of use of force). As long as men with guns will come and arrest you if you don't "pay your taxes" then it is theft. No rhetorical flourishes or byzantine logic can alter that.

And the institution of private property doesn't use force or the threat of force? Property allows you to exclude, by force, others from use of a resource. Some organization grants a monopoly to some other organization or individual, and uses force, propaganda and intimidation to keep things that way. Whether it's "intellectual property" or owning huge swaths of land or whatever. Every system uses force or the threat…

And the institution of private property doesn't use force or the threat of force?

For defense, not offense. I thought that would be clear, but apparently that needed to be called out explicitly. My bad.

A co-op or mall charging rent is not much different than a city or state charging taxes. "Men with guns" will come evict you if you don't pay your rent.

It's not even remotely the same thing. In the mall case you very explicitly entered into a contract with the mall owner, with clearly defined terms regarding the rights and responsibilities on both side. Taxation, on the other hand, is done by agencies which presume the authority to tax anybody within an area defined by lines drawn on a map by men who are long dead. As Thomas Paine put it (paraphrasing a bit) "by what principle can the dead bind the living?"

Re: Unnecessariat

#137

Post by zeemonkee3 »

a13n wrote: post #106
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.

I would guess the discussion ends there because your fellow software engineers (myself included) don't see automation as a bad thing. Algorithms become smarter, processes more efficient, production cheaper and faster, etc. How is this worse? It's not. Soon truck driving will be automated. This will eliminate millions of jobs. We need to figure out a system that supports people regardless of employment. We need to fig…

When basic income is a done deal, then maybe. But it's not, and in a toxic and divided political system basic income - and other necessities, like modern universal health care - are not guaranteed for years, if not decades.

Re: Unnecessariat

#138

Post by kragen »

api wrote: post #49
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.

The tractor took the jobs of 70% of the US population, and the US is still a net food exporter. If we're talking about job destruction, nothing is more massive than the tractor. (I'm metonymically including the attendant Green Revolution technologies, which also don't depend much on imports — the US makes its own ammonia, too, and in highly automated plants.)

Re: Unnecessariat

#139

Post by rumcajz »

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…

> That's it right there. We just don't need that many people to do all the stuff.

No. But we need that many people to buy the stuff.

Re: Unnecessariat

#140

Post by TeMPOraL »

a13n wrote: post #106
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.

I would guess the discussion ends there because your fellow software engineers (myself included) don't see automation as a bad thing. Algorithms become smarter, processes more efficient, production cheaper and faster, etc. How is this worse? It's not. Soon truck driving will be automated. This will eliminate millions of jobs. We need to figure out a system that supports people regardless of employment. We need to fig…

I personally don't see automation as a bad thing in principle. But without universal basic income (and a real chance for it in the current political climate), it poses the danger of fucking the world over big time. Think multiple simultaneous French Revolutions, or maybe even a world war. This is not something I want to see, and I shy away from even thinking about it.

Moreover, a lot of those people we're automating away are our friends and family members. Who do you think will they turn to for support? I'm already preparing myself for the possibility of supporting some tech-illiterates in my family in the future.

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