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

431–440 of 576 posts

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

#431

Post by [deleted] »

nhaehnle wrote: post #423
aminok wrote: post #421

>I know what you’re thinking – we can’t afford this! But yeah, we can, very easily. We raise the arbitrary lid on the Social Security contribution, which now stands at $127,200, and we raise taxes on corporate income, reversing the Reagan Revolution. In other words, we massively increase the scope of human-rights-violating income taxation, while chasing capital out of the country. The problem here is that the author…

Taxes are not related to human rights. Unless you can point to cases where taxes have been so high in the past that people starved from it? But in any case, that's not on the table. Don't pretend that it is.

[deleted]

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

#432

Post by jomohn »

jokoon wrote: post #397
wildmusings wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why do you think that you should have the right to live off of other people's work? Welfare checks aren't fairy money, they're money that ca…

Taxes are written in the law, and I'm not obligated to work a job by law. So your argument is solely a moral one. Jobs are mostly a first served problem or the result of privilege: education, network, etc.

>Jobs are mostly a first served problem or the result of privilege.

No they aren't, the easiest way to get a job is to get really good at something.

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

#433

Post by jomohn »

Asooka wrote: post #91
wildmusings wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why do you think that you should have the right to live off of other people's work? Welfare checks aren't fairy money, they're money that ca…

Why do you think that you have the right to own money? Those money aren't fairy money, they're money that came out of a government mint. You only have a natural right to the things that you make with your hands. Money that's handed to you is not a right, it's a privilege.

but if i trade my time for money, then the money isn't handed to me by privilege.

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

#434

Post by jomohn »

aianus wrote: post #123
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…

The rich are even more capable of evading inflation than they are evading taxes. I'm sure Warren Buffet has proportionally less of his money in cash than I do.

You have every option to store your wealth in other assets than USD.

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

#435

Post by qplex »

mac01021 wrote: post #422
qplex wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are vast numbers of people who cannot make an economic contribution large enough to cover their costs. "Economic contribution" is hardly a factor if you discuss morality. There are plenty of jobs that are just plain harmful. There is also a difference in subjective value if a job is done by a computer or a human being; computers do not suffer.

It's tricky to talk about what is objectively harmful in a world where people's interests are less than perfectly aligned. Those jobs exist because someone finds them beneficial.

If someone finds something beneficial, it is not a statement on if that particular thing is the right or wrong thing to do.

I'm not sure what you mean with perfectly aligned interests. What would those be?

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

#436

Post by j2bax »

reflexive wrote: post #295
nico_h wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? H…

How meaningful are jobs that could fairly easily be automated out of existence if we didn't feel the need to occupy every human?

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

#437

Post by jomohn »

lucideer wrote: post #150
Pyxl101 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that people have had to struggle less to achieve or retain financial security in the past? During what time period and in what country? Can you share some specific data substantiating the claim? Average wealth has increased in America over the last 50 years, and real family income has been rising overall since the 1950s. Wealth concentration today is lower than it was in the 1930s. Poverty has fallen…

Technical progress has brought about any of the perceived benefits you mention; the economic system has only caused those benefits to be disproportionately applied. While the median quality of life has improved, the extremes continue to widen making that metric less and less relevant. The "average person" you talk about has become a tiny minority. Your comparison of wealth concentration to the 1930s is also disingenu…

>The "average person" you talk about has become a tiny minority.

nice bait

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

#438

Post by j2bax »

sqldba wrote: post #231
edblarney wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Education won't help. Teach a human how to do something, and you have one human who can do it. Teach a computer how to do something, and you can have as many computers as needed doing it. " This is pragmatically not true. There are tons and tons of jobs that can't be done by computers. The 'entertainment sector' was not even a part of the economy 100 years ago. Now it's a big chunk. Think of how big sports are. That…

The whole "computers can do anything" theme in the original post and the comments is borderline retarded and describing a mythical state always one or two decades in the future. Teaching a computer to do anything is fucking HARD. And most of the time the problems are just unsolvable. Sure you see cool demos like one that can cook for you. That shit is awesome. So uhhh... where are they? They're demos and proofs of co…

Having worked at Mcdonalds in college I'm fairly certain that automation of food service would not be a major hurdle. I felt like a robot in that job.

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

#439

Post by allengeorge »

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.

Sounds like you're not "overpaying" them enough then, right?

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

#440

Post by varjag »

hkmurakami wrote: post #390
chadcmulligan wrote: post #136

Maybe a better approach is how can we spend the surplus labour? There are lots of things I see need doing looking around my neighbourhood - public parks need cleaning up, old houses could be torn down and make some nice new ones, old roads could be fixed. Probably stacks of other things. Maybe some creative accounting will enable us to do these things? I know national parks near me have great paths that were built in…

This is why Japan is so clean and orderly. Look closer and you'll see someone cleaning some hand railing in the train station in some corner of your peripheral vision.

Yes I was stunned to see how much low level and seemingly unnecessary labour there when visited Tokyo.

There are people literally inviting you to escalators in the airport. An empty train station would have half a dozen attendants. Road repair, in the middle of the night, 6 people directing foot traffic, with only two (us) pedestrians in sight.

This was surprising against the stereotype of machine-based Japanese efficiency. I assume it's some half employment, half social support programme going on.

Post reply on HN