Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

aeon.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 576 posts

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#51

Post by landryraccoon »

lucideer wrote: post #30
alexmingoia wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their own land and related machinery, plumbers who own their own tools, software developers who own their own computer Nonsense. Our abundance is increased by specialization not a lack of it. Specialization and…

Generally speaking, I agree with the overall content of your post. However your first and last sentences really emphasise for me the real problem: oversimplifying and stratifying the discussion. "Nonsense" is an extreme overstatement, there are nuances to both arguments. "This is economics 101" is exactly the problem: we're dealing with an economic system that isn't working. Questioning economics 101 is precisely wha…

> we're dealing with an economic system that isn't working.

Can you explain this statement further? North Korea and Venezuela's economic systems aren't working. America and most of Europe simply don't allow everyone to consume as much as they would prefer to consume.

It sounds like you mean "isn't working" in the sense of "an iPhone 5 isn't working as well as an iPhone 7", not "my car isn't working so I can't get to work."

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#52

Post by matthewmacleod »

cperciva wrote: post #37
lucideer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, I agree with the overall content of your post. However your first and last sentences really emphasise for me the real problem: oversimplifying and stratifying the discussion. "Nonsense" is an extreme overstatement, there are nuances to both arguments. "This is economics 101" is exactly the problem: we're dealing with an economic system that isn't working. Questioning economics 101 is precisely wha…

"This is economics 101" is exactly the problem: we're dealing with an economic system that isn't working. Questioning economics 101 is precisely what's needed, and I'd argue that while your arguments are sound, they've been treated as absolutes, which they're not. This makes as much sense as saying "You say that my magical spacecraft won't work due to the laws of physics, but physics is exactly the problem: We can't…

That's a bit of a silly comparison. 'Economics 101' is not a hard-and-fast set of physical rules; if it were, we'd probably be doing a much better job of managing it!

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#53

Post by hkmurakami »

a3n wrote: post #40
Practicality wrote: post #4

At this point I've already come to accept that fulltime labor for everyone is simply not going to happen. We just don't need it. The big question is will the majority be able to maintain enough power to obtain income for those who aren't working, or will we see some kind of serious class warfare/starving populations? This is a huge question in human history and it remains to be seen how we as a species are going to a…

> The big question is will the majority be able to maintain enough power to obtain income for those who aren't working, or will we see some kind of serious class warfare/starving populations? In the United States it will be the class warfare/starving thing. You don't deserve anything here unless you pay for it. Many people believe that taking unemployment compensation is shameful. I think a lot of us will be fed in p…

>You don't deserve anything here unless you pay for it.

So true. Even things like safety, cleanliness, education quality, etc. are things we must pay for here, in stark contrast to other countries in the world.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#54

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jokoon wrote: post #5

There is a difference between a job you like, and a job you do because you believe "work sets you free" or because you believe work is a some sort of value or a necessary pain everybody has to take part in. I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will. I think it's a great thi…

>"work sets you free"

As a side note, recently there's been a drive to not normalize fascist slogans or ideas in mainstream politics. Among those, "arbeit macht frei" is a particularly offensive one, since it was written on the gates of Auschwitz.

Just saying. When someone quotes this kind of phrase to us, we should remind them where they got it from and refuse to treat it as normal.

>I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will. I think it's a great thing to be able to live a frugal life and still be healthy enough.

Good for you!

>I hear so many people yelling about moochers and parasites, it's becoming weird. Everybody wants everybody to behave like superman, yet nobody realizes you can't educate everyone to have enough qualified workers.

I don't think people want to acknowledge how much social capital goes into enabling us "supermen" who actually do work for high incomes. If all the roads get cracked and the trains break down, I'm going to be a less productive worker because I have a harder time getting to work.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#55

Post by sqeaky »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #47
sqeaky wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unsustainable? Why must inequality be forever?

No physical system is uniformly distributed, and dynamical systems ensure that it will stay that way, therefore enough differences are baked into the system that it's effectively impossible have equally functional systems everywhere. Some people can just lift more stuff than others, or think about numbers faster or whatever happens to need to be done and their labor is more valuable because it's more efficient. There…

Clearly their ability to lift is not why there are millions without clean drinking water, for example.

You are right that there are difference built-in to humanity, but we have already overcome those with fairly common technology already. Now inequality is more about who your parents were instead of where you are born or other purely physical problems.

We can ship drinking water to anyplace on the planet. We just aren't incentivized to do so. The person leading a team building the roads that will support that effort could be a wheelchair bound parapalegic.

Our systems don't need to be perfect they just need to be better than they are now.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#56

Post by ux-app »

cperciva wrote: post #37
lucideer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, I agree with the overall content of your post. However your first and last sentences really emphasise for me the real problem: oversimplifying and stratifying the discussion. "Nonsense" is an extreme overstatement, there are nuances to both arguments. "This is economics 101" is exactly the problem: we're dealing with an economic system that isn't working. Questioning economics 101 is precisely wha…

"This is economics 101" is exactly the problem: we're dealing with an economic system that isn't working. Questioning economics 101 is precisely what's needed, and I'd argue that while your arguments are sound, they've been treated as absolutes, which they're not. This makes as much sense as saying "You say that my magical spacecraft won't work due to the laws of physics, but physics is exactly the problem: We can't…

economics isn't hard science

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#57

Post by module0000 »

jokoon wrote: post #5

There is a difference between a job you like, and a job you do because you believe "work sets you free" or because you believe work is a some sort of value or a necessary pain everybody has to take part in. I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will. I think it's a great thi…

> If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will

Are you banking on the tax payers never reaching that mindset as well? Because it kind of breaks down if that happens.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#58

Post by eli_gottlieb »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #47
sqeaky wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unsustainable? Why must inequality be forever?

No physical system is uniformly distributed, and dynamical systems ensure that it will stay that way, therefore enough differences are baked into the system that it's effectively impossible have equally functional systems everywhere. Some people can just lift more stuff than others, or think about numbers faster or whatever happens to need to be done and their labor is more valuable because it's more efficient. There…

That doesn't really account for the degree of inequality. Innate differences between human beings are the same in Sweden as they are in the USA, and yet Sweden has the lowest degree of inequality in the world (approximately), while the USA's numbers get listed alongside African dictatorships. The Swedes have just chosen to regularize away factors like family wealth or differences between school districts which create inequality but don't contribute to society positively in exchange. Americans are treating that statistical noise as meaningful information about "who deserves what" and conditioning on it.

The result is that Americans are just broadly doing worse, because our social system is irrational.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#59

Post by cperciva »

thesagan wrote: post #50
cperciva wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is economics 101" is exactly the problem: we're dealing with an economic system that isn't working. Questioning economics 101 is precisely what's needed, and I'd argue that while your arguments are sound, they've been treated as absolutes, which they're not. This makes as much sense as saying "You say that my magical spacecraft won't work due to the laws of physics, but physics is exactly the problem: We can't…

Begging the question; economics is not a physical science where you can run A/B tests on an economy and find results. It's a social study, mostly. As someone who studied it for years , institutionally and on my own, I can tell you that economists do not agree on any basic laws except that people have a long list of wants and that not all of them can be satisfied. Many economists are questioning their 101s lately. Loo…

"Trade and exploiting comparative advantages yields greater utility" is about as hard a law as any.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#60

Post by module0000 »

sqeaky wrote: post #38
atemerev wrote: post #24

"Jobs" are a relatively recent phenomenon, and are not forever. Inequality, however, was and is forever. Basic income is economically unsustainable.

Why is it unsustainable? Why must inequality be forever?

Because of war. Basic income will be first on the chopping block.
Post reply on HN