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The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

nytimes.com

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Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#51

Post by snowwrestler »

wvenable wrote: post #36
edblarney wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required" Yes we do. The industrial revolution had far greater impact on labour than any of this mysterious AI will ever have. The first 'machines' powered by coal etc. instantly 'unemployed' hundreds of people per unit. Go ahead and look at the productivity/capita charts for the early 19th century - UK citizens were mu…

> tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine? As software developers, it's literally our jobs to put people out of work. My software is specifically designed reduce the need for increased labor as the company crows. In my industry, legal, entire departments (like night word processing) no longer exist. The fact is you cannot extrapolate from 100 years…

> The fact is you cannot extrapolate from 100 years of human history and say everything will continue on

It's a lot more than 100 years. The invention of the scientific process, the printing press, the popularization of steel and before that, bronze, heck even the invention of agriculture radically changed human societies by increasing individual productivity and enabling specialization.

> People just a few hundred years before that could not have predicted anything about modern employment.

Right, which is why it's silly for us to look at the technology we have today and say "welp, that's the end of human employment."

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#52

Post by api »

the_duke wrote: post #49
ianai wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "Planet Japan"?

Japan has second oldest population world-wide with 27.28% over 65, after Monaco, which doesn't really count (retirement home for rich people). http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a01001/

... and economic stagnation. It's basically a permanent liquidity trap.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#53

Post by smallnamespace »

adventured wrote: post #38
Ironchefpython wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the meantime, let's bring the manufacturing chain back here so we can build up the automation expertise ourselves How? There's obvious long term financial value in having local supply chains and manufacturing expertise. Therefore state capitalist systems will subsidize local manufacturing in the short term, while anarcho-capitalist systems will flock to set up shop there to capture convert those short-term subsi…

Sure, dramatically lower the corporate income tax rate and substantially reduce the massive over-regulation in the US economy. Check out the various regulation registries at the Federal level, the US is choking to death on thousands of unnecessary regulations (growing rapidly for decades) that are almost always written solely for the benefit of protectionism or for fake the-government-is-doing-something purposes (whi…

The US effective tax rate for corporations is pretty much comparable to other developed countries' effective rates [1], because the US has more deductions, write-offs, and tax holidays.

If you're talking about cutting the statutory rate while also eliminating deductions and simplifying the code, I'm all for that (ditto for personal income taxes). A huge complicated tax code benefits big corporations more than your small business owner, because tax lawyers and accountants are largely a fixed cost.

But let's not keep repeating the misguided fact that US corporations pay unusually high taxes -- they simply don't.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2015/03/25/the-truth...

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#54

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mjevans wrote: post #15
blackguardx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some jobs is better than no jobs, right?

Actually no. Zero jobs would be best, because then -everything- that people didn't do for their own sense of enjoyment would be automated.

Well, there is the theory that employed masses are too busy to cause trouble (e.g. demand more equality), and much of our society is structured around keeping the non-upper class busy, even if that means making them move dirt between holes. The distribution of wealth sort of bears this out.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#55

Post by slashedzero »

carsongross wrote: post #18

Whatever. In the meantime, let's bring the manufacturing chain back here so we can build up the automation expertise ourselves, and, while we wait for the End of Work, stop making the middle of our IQ bell curve compete with countries that don't give a shit about their environment, the concept of intellectual property or the safety of their workers. We can figure the automation problem out later.

Two things: firstly, the article was about the long term problem of automation, so not sure the meantime is a factor here. Secondly, who is to say that even without waiting there will be enough jobs returned to make any dent in the joblessness of that "middle of our IQ bell curve".

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#56

Post by Ironchefpython »

adventured wrote: post #38
Ironchefpython wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the meantime, let's bring the manufacturing chain back here so we can build up the automation expertise ourselves How? There's obvious long term financial value in having local supply chains and manufacturing expertise. Therefore state capitalist systems will subsidize local manufacturing in the short term, while anarcho-capitalist systems will flock to set up shop there to capture convert those short-term subsi…

Sure, dramatically lower the corporate income tax rate and substantially reduce the massive over-regulation in the US economy. Check out the various regulation registries at the Federal level, the US is choking to death on thousands of unnecessary regulations (growing rapidly for decades) that are almost always written solely for the benefit of protectionism or for fake the-government-is-doing-something purposes (whi…

> Sure, dramatically lower the corporate income tax rate and substantially reduce the massive over-regulation in the US economy.

That's a great way to destroy the environment and increase corporate profits, but I was asking about how to get companies to ignore the profit of offshoring; how to convince them to act in direct opposition to their shareholder's interests, and not take advantage of the subsidies provided by state capitalist systems and locate manufacturing overseas.

All cutting the tax rate is going to to is make offshoring more profitable. At no time in US history has a tax cut been correlated with business growth and job growth. Quite the contrary, The Bush tax repatriation holiday gave many businesses the working capital to invest in closing plants and moving factories overseas, resulting in the net job losses in many industries. But if you have hard data on examples of cutting taxes below a top marginal rate of 40% in western countries having any effect other than increasing income inequality, I'd love to see your peer reviewed study.

And is there a particular regulation that you can think of cutting that would have more of lure for for domestic manufacturing than China dumping trillions of dollars into currency manipulation and building infrastructure and manufacturing subsidies?

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#57

Post by visarga »

torpfactory wrote: post #12

I think we are destined for a future of political and social instability in the world if we continue to define labor and its compensation as we do now. We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by willing politicians of short-sighte…

> The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval,

That's why we need to place the means of production in the hands of the people, not just of capitalists.

> What will it mean to work and contribute to society in the future of machines?

Self-supporting human society, a mix of small companies, skilled people and experts, using automation as well, that works to solve the daily necessities for itself. So it would have its own farms, fabs, schools and such, totally self supporting and self bootstrapped. People wouldn't need UBI if they had the means to directly make what they need. We're going that way - everything becoming cheaper, until it lifts itself by self replication.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#58

Post by visarga »

clock_tower wrote: post #26
torpfactory wrote: post #12

I think we are destined for a future of political and social instability in the world if we continue to define labor and its compensation as we do now. We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by willing politicians of short-sighte…

Are you familiar with potlatch society in the old Pacific Northwest? With wealth readily available, the "big men" of a tribe (roughly chiefs, but not hereditary) competed to see how much they could give away to their neighbors and rivals; all you had to do to eat well, or make it through a bad winter, was to admit that your neighbors were led by a great and glorious chief. This system didn't work very well at the tim…

Everyone could have his own small farm, fab and robots. No need to rely on "big men" competing for karma points from the peasants.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#59

Post by visarga »

mjevans wrote: post #16
torpfactory wrote: post #12

I think we are destined for a future of political and social instability in the world if we continue to define labor and its compensation as we do now. We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by willing politicians of short-sighte…

I really hope we end up with something much closer to socialism than we do either the future from "The Time Machine" or perpetual cycles of Viva-La-Revolution.

Up until global trade took off, cities, villages and even individual farms were almost self sufficient. Why couldn't people be self sufficient with automation?

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#60

Post by wyager »

inimino wrote: post #33
clock_tower wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with potlatch society in the old Pacific Northwest? With wealth readily available, the "big men" of a tribe (roughly chiefs, but not hereditary) competed to see how much they could give away to their neighbors and rivals; all you had to do to eat well, or make it through a bad winter, was to admit that your neighbors were led by a great and glorious chief. This system didn't work very well at the tim…

What is the advantage of this over universal basic income funded by taxes?

Why are gifts preferable to taxes? This seems fairly self-evident to me; gifts aren't given at (metaphorical) gunpoint.
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