351–360 of 539 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure the answer is to retrain and/or go into a different profession.
As a thought exercise, what will/would software developers do once 90% are made redundant by A.I. or something? Maybe "suck it up" and go back to school to become nurses?
Teach the AIs the other 10%, and get killed by Terminators ;-).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, I feel you haven't read the spirit of this comment accurately. The comment specifically talked about those people not wanting to do another form of work. It wasn't a generic "lets talk about mass automation induced redundancy" which appears to be what you're trying to discuss with me. As you'll note, I'm pro basic income. I just don't think it's fair to say I'm not properly addressing the spirit, when in this…
I didn't say they don't want to do another job. I said they don't want to go back to school. They either hated school or were bored sick of it. So they'll generally look for other jobs available at their skill level. That's why inequality grows. Disruptive tech creates jobs for educated ambitious people while displacing people who are less so. Yeah we as a society can tell them it's their problem, but there might be…
At some point, personal initiative and responsibility is going to come into the picture. Those who demonstrate it will have better outcomes in the aggregate than those who don't.
There's a genuine question of how much we should take from those who do and transfer to those who don't in order that they don't starve. It's far from obvious that the answer should be "none" but it's equally far to suggest the answer should naturally be "a lot".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mostly agree with you, and I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you 2 weeks ago, but I just read a book ("Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank) that makes some interesting points about how liberals have shifted from representing working people to representing professionals, and to worshiping innovation. While free trade and disruptive technology is good for the professional class, it inherently increases inequality.…
I might check that book out. One thing that strikes me is that you're right - these things are unequal. Uber develops an app but this has made it very difficult for anyone else to get their foot in the door. Given enough funding they can also just wait out any smaller competitors while still sucking the life out of their "non-employees". They skirt the law and are not being held accountable for the misery they cause,…
> That doesn't solve all problems but it does make it friendlier for new people to compete.
I don't think it solves much. Such apps have been popping up in Europe for some time now, but the strength of Uber is not really in the app. Their strength is in channeling VC money to lawyers to keep regulators at bay while they break the law to conquer a market here and there. They've also managed to spin a good tale about how they're the vigilante fighting the Evil Taxi Cartel (which mostly doesn't exist anyway - it's Uber who's the only large, trans-national player in the industry, so if anyone is Cartel in this story...). Consumers like consumers, they care about price first. Uber is cheaper therefore Uber wins, sustainability and externalities be damned.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mostly agree with you, and I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you 2 weeks ago, but I just read a book ("Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank) that makes some interesting points about how liberals have shifted from representing working people to representing professionals, and to worshiping innovation. While free trade and disruptive technology is good for the professional class, it inherently increases inequality.…
I like your comment as a contribution to discussion, but I'd like to see a dialectic about why income inequality increasing is bad, in of itself. I see this implied quite a bit on Hacker News. Usually something along the lines of, "But doing this will increase income inequality" stated as a counterpoint. If overall quality of life increases, I am personally unconcerned with income inequality. I haven't seen definitiv…
Rising inequality generally hasn't improved quality-of-life for everyone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They will always need drivers just to stave off banditry and handle emergencies. What is likely is a single manned truck leading small convoys of automated machines.
What if we did something clever to keep them all in a row, almost like tracks of some sort? /s
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My bad, I should have tried to clarify. It seems we have different definitions of the working class. I'm an upper middle class professional, but I consider myself in the "working class". Otherwise, I'm not sure why I waste 40-60 hours every week on other people's problems :P
Yes. Your bad. When you are using a term with a common meaning to say something completely different, you should say that up front.
This is a pretty surreal move: >The law says the money will help taxi businesses to adopt "new technologies and advanced service, safety and operational capabilities" and to support workforce development... [Larry Meister, manager of the Boston area's Independent Taxi Operator's Association] said the money could go toward improving a smartphone app his association has started using, or to other big needs. I'm not an…
I mostly agree with you, and I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you 2 weeks ago, but I just read a book ("Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank) that makes some interesting points about how liberals have shifted from representing working people to representing professionals, and to worshiping innovation. While free trade and disruptive technology is good for the professional class, it inherently increases inequality.…
It really can't. If you're pondering the counterarguments, consider the entire Austrian school as one :)
https://mises.org/library/liberalism-classical-tradition
https://mises.org/library/human-action-0
tl;dr: Attempts to prevent the inevitable through policy merely amplify the negative consequences of the inevitable. They never _actually_ prevent it.
This is a pretty surreal move: >The law says the money will help taxi businesses to adopt "new technologies and advanced service, safety and operational capabilities" and to support workforce development... [Larry Meister, manager of the Boston area's Independent Taxi Operator's Association] said the money could go toward improving a smartphone app his association has started using, or to other big needs. I'm not an…
I mostly agree with you, and I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you 2 weeks ago, but I just read a book ("Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank) that makes some interesting points about how liberals have shifted from representing working people to representing professionals, and to worshiping innovation. While free trade and disruptive technology is good for the professional class, it inherently increases inequality.…
If most people can accept this then our society will do alright.