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What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

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

#291

Post by imglorp »

shin_lao wrote: post #284

When the steam machine was invented, it seriously disrupted Europe where most of people were working in the fields. Some people rebelled and destroyed these machines who "stole their jobs". Some thinkers thought it would be the end of work. There was a long and difficult transition period, but in the end, they were wrong. People moved to cities and did different jobs. New jobs. It will be the same over and over again…

Not this time. Automation really will replace people on massive scales because this time it's all of possible, cheap, and better. Pro drivers are first, 10m in the US. Fast food and retail are next. Imagine McD's and Walmart as drive-up vending machines.

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

#292

Post by chadscira »

djKianoosh wrote: post #270
dpweb wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a great example of this now. Uber drivers. There are a lot of people out there with a lot of free time who are willing to work for very little. Maybe the Govt should make an app that people can use their phone to sign up and do jobs like cleaning up parks etc.. and the Govt can pay them.

this would be lovely, but it's utopian. uber drivers drive someone to a place, and if they dont they dont get paid. the sorts of jobs you're talking about arent always all so clearly verified/verifiable. you'd need other government workers just to verify that the job was done properly... ufff I can see the waste now

Also those jobs wont be around that long. Every year we have quite a bit of progress on Self-Driving Cars.

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

#293

Post by cinquemb »

goatherders wrote: post #290
cesarbs wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the bit that hits close to home to me: > they must demonstrate commitment above and beyond their contracted work hours, and express constant satisfaction and happiness about their work My wife and I are both software engineers and that is a nearly constant source of stress for us. In our experience, people in our field frown upon people who treat software engineering as just their job. Two things I recall fro…

My biggest frustration at work is the colleagues - most of whom are software engineers - that are inconvenienced when being asked to consider work outside of normal business hours. I don't really care if they are happy; that's what overpaying them is for. What I care about is getting one of them to answer the phone at 5:05pm on a tuesday and not getting a return call until 9:03 on a Wednesday.

Solution to that is easy, just pay them less, and they'll leave, so you wont have to work with them during normal business hours!

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

#294

Post by shin_lao »

imglorp wrote: post #291
shin_lao wrote: post #284

When the steam machine was invented, it seriously disrupted Europe where most of people were working in the fields. Some people rebelled and destroyed these machines who "stole their jobs". Some thinkers thought it would be the end of work. There was a long and difficult transition period, but in the end, they were wrong. People moved to cities and did different jobs. New jobs. It will be the same over and over again…

Not this time. Automation really will replace people on massive scales because this time it's all of possible, cheap, and better. Pro drivers are first, 10m in the US. Fast food and retail are next. Imagine McD's and Walmart as drive-up vending machines.

>Not this time

How do you know? You don't know the needs of tomorrow.

All this free time will create demand for new jobs: coaches, therapist, teachers, etc. Also think about micro factories and bespoke production on demand. This will need people.

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

#295

Post by reflexive »

nico_h wrote: post #181
tachyonbeam wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this sentiment. There is a lot of work that needs doing. There are also a lot of parents out there with young children who could use a nanny. There's a need for more therapists, or just people to talk to. There's a lot of work that needs doing. There's an abundance of people to do the work, and I feel like we have plenty of natural resources. It seems to me that we could build housing for everyone, we ha…

Heck, even if you made that proposition to a fast food worker that he could do meaningful work instead of smelling like fried stuff all the time and always be worried about working enough hours for a crappy boss and no future, or to a janitor that he could help someone instead of cleaning pee all day, maybe they would do that instead. Maybe even to an office drone, who knows. Right now people work because otherwise t…

if you made that proposition to a fast food worker that he could do meaningful work instead of smelling like fried stuff all the time and always be worried about working enough hours for a crappy boss and no future, or to a janitor that he could help someone instead of cleaning pee all day, maybe they would do that instead

Are you saying that making food for people is meaningless? That cleaning doesn't help anyone?

Humans are always going to regard someone as being "at the bottom", just because that's how we think.

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

#296

Post by IanDrake »

dvtv75 wrote: post #169
IanDrake wrote: post #64

Forget the word "job" and instead use the word "value" to understand just how silly this idea is. What he's saying is that no one needs to do anything of value anymore. You know, like the guy who built the house you live in, chopped down the trees it was built with, managed the project to build it, inspected the building to make sure it was put together correctly, etc... Hundreds of people had jobs to make the shelte…

Perhaps if you read the article without the intent to argue everything written because it contradicts your ideology? > What he's saying is that no one needs to do anything of value anymore. Can you point to the particular sentence where this is stated? Didn't think so. The article I read said that the majority of jobs aren't paid at a level appropriate to their value, and that without the (rather limited US) welfare…

"In short, it lets us say: enough already. Fuck work."

I feel like that's pretty clear.

You're right though, it does contradict my "ideology". I'm willing to be enlightened though but there were no rational arguments in this article to sway me.

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

#297

Post by Cybiote »

freehunter wrote: post #286
edblarney wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya. Whenever anyone talks about 'the singularity' (i.e. computer consciousness) I usually respond with "get your bot to make me a goddam ham sandwich and clean my toilet!" - then we can talk! But let's avoid calling people 'retarded', eh :)

Of course a robot could do those things. Those are very easy things to do. The problem is, you wouldn't want to pay thousands of dollars for a robot to make you a sandwich or clean your toilet because those are things you can easily do yourself for free. And there's no economy of scale to offset the cost, because it's just doing it for only you . How about "get your bot to build my microprocessors" or "get your bot t…

Making a sandwich or cleaning a toilet is certainly not an easy thing to do. Getting a robot that can understand a scene, any scene and plan motions within it has been very difficult to do. Far more difficult than playing Go at a superhuman level for example. This is known by various names, with one common being the Moravec Paradox. The problem of energy storage further multiplies this difficulty.

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

#298

Post by PrimalDual »

pdonis wrote: post #264
PrimalDual wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So right now it comes from other people's paycheck but does it have to? Why don't rich countries like the US, Switzerland or Japan not print money to cover their spending? Inflation is not the problem it used to be and I actually think it's a much better measure of the economy's capacity than unemployment. Would inflation of 4% be that bad for the public and financial system anyways? In the US at least I strongly opp…

> Why don't rich countries like the US, Switzerland or Japan not print money to cover their spending? The US is doing exactly that, and has been for decades. Since the 2008 debacle it has being doing even more of it. > inflation in a sense is unavoidable If you mean politically unavoidable, I agree; no government in human history has been able to avoid messing with the currency. If you mean unavoidable period, I'm no…

What do you mean by decades? The US has been borrowing money but that hardly translates to printing it. I can definitely see how quantitative easing essentially translates to printing a couple of trillion to buy outstanding debt but that has already stopped.

By unavoidable I meant that if you hold currency, you are subject to it. Especially if you are holding assets that are appreciating at a slower rate than inflation. Essentially I don't think the wealthy get to loophole or lawyer their way out of inflation the same way they can with taxes.

I meant labor scarcity not in the exonomic sense but in the sense of literally running out of people to allocate. I think it's clear that if businesses have to compete for a dwindling pool of workers prices will inevitably rise.

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

#299

Post by choonway »

Where we are now is similar to the era where nuclear weapons were theoretically possible, but the practical implementation was still elusive until ww2 provided the impetus.

Similarly, at this juncture self-production needs more effort at the technology and engineering side, not more op-eds by economists.

/r/reprap was started as a movement to enable self-production, but sadly, these days people buy 3D printers enabled by the movement but don't subscribe to their philosophy.

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

#300

Post by knieveltech »

stale2002 wrote: post #254
knieveltech wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need for additional construction to meet housing demand. In the continental US there are something like 6 empty units for every homeless person in the country. In turn this means there is no pent up demand for building materials, so putting people to work in forestry, quarry, cement, steel, etc is also a non-starter. Global food surplus indicates there is no pressing need to put additional people to work…

There are empty houses, but not in places where people want to live. There is absolutely a housing shortage in popular metropolitan areas (take your pick) . If there wasn't, then prices wouldn't be so high.

Popular because people are clumping in areas that have jobs...
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