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

The Future of Not Working

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 279 posts

Re: The Future of Not Working

#231

Post by mateus1 »

thehardsphere wrote: post #180
marmot777 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define simplistic terms? If you were hungry and someone gave you enough money to eat, that would be a solution regardless of how corrupt your government. I don't know where you live but I'm in the U.S. where it's obvious the number of jobs is going to decline relative to the number of people who need them. Resources won't necessarily decline along with the jobs so I see this as not just applicable to the d…

> How do you define simplistic terms? If you were hungry and someone gave you enough money to eat, that would be a solution regardless of how corrupt your government. Let's work through an example. North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world, and many people starve there every year. It's also a ruthlessly oppressive totalitarian state; the government decides who can enter and leave the country. The gover…

Of course cash transfers won't topple dictatorial regimes, that's not what it is for.

You can't expect a microeconomics proposal to solve an international political crisis.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#232

Post by watt »

omegaworks wrote: post #148
Razengan wrote: post #135

With almost 8 BILLION people on this planet soon, not everyone can meaningfully contribute to something that can't be done more efficiently by automation (which is also cheaper for everyone and easier on the environment) or done away with entirely. See [1], [2], [3] for examples from our not-so-distant past. You just cannot expect everyone to "earn" money while expecting technological progress to continue unabated. D…

>Don't want so many people? Mandate reversible sterilization at birth. So... they tried a little something like that back in the 30s and a lot of people didn't like it.

There was 2 billion people on Earth then. It's 7 now and will be 8 by 2024 if nothing changes.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#233

Post by cannonpr »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #197
adrianN wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you honestly suggesting that a large part of the population can be trained to become research mathematicians?

I took the point as in "everyone can still do something", be it mathematics, art, politics etc.

That was mostly the point, though there are dozens of offshoots I'd love to argue to death on. I feel quite strongly that the path we take on labour and automation will strongly pivot us towards very different futures. Do we want to live in a future filled with thinkers, or with consumers ?

Re: The Future of Not Working

#234

Post by jimmywanger »

marmot777 wrote: post #215
jimmywanger wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if there's a threshold per se, but the X-axis on the graph you cited is demarcated as 10k per line. 250 dollars a year is about 1/40th of each unit on the X-axis. And that graph seems to apply to people all over the world, I don't see why this Kenyan village would be any different. The fertility reductions really only seem to matter once you get to 10k or 20k of annual income a year. I agree that if you…

Yes, you make some sound points here for sure. What is your position on the concept of universal basic income, setting aside beta tests for now. And what do you think it's viable, what would it take to make it viable. Maybe consider a few scenarios say how it might work (or not work) in different parts of the world, including both developing and developed.

I don't know enough about UBI to say anything for sure.

I know that either UBI will have to be so slow that it'll be useless for those in a first world country (like 250 dollars a year) or else we'll have to have far stricter immigration controls than ever - a UBI for first world standards would be unimaginable luxury for those living in third world conditions.

Fundamentally I think it comes down to population control. A geometrically increasing population is simply not sustainable for any long enough period of time. My personal opinion is that if UBI could be linked to contraception (you only receive UBI if you're not allowed to have children while on UBI or take care of children with your UBI funds) then that could work.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#235

Post by marmot777 »

rubicon33 wrote: post #74
marmot777 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty cynical attitude. It's obvious the intent of this is to test a program that has the potential to keep people from drowning. I doubt you're now gasping for air as you sink below the waves.

What's cynical about it? I guess I must not understand what UBI is all about. I had thought it WASN'T a form of welfare. Rather, it's UNIVERSAL in nature. That would mean theoretically everyone from millionaires, to the poorest, would receive UBI funds. I'd love to be free from having to earn an income, so that I can work on my own projects (businesses). But who wouldn't, right?

I tried to right my mistake of saying it was cynical by apologizing above. It's not cynical.

As far as free from having to earn an income, of course, you realize we're talking about a floor? Someone could correct me on this but my understanding is "basic income" means enough to survive?

Some people would accept living very simply so they could work on their personal projects, build their business, etc., while others would make seeking additional income their highest priority. That's what I like about this concept is that there does not appear to be coercion or social engineering involved.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#236

Post by sametmax »

EliRivers wrote: post #198
sametmax wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think our quality of life would improve if we could half our population, once passed the painful periode where society adjusts.

Why? What's magical about halving the population in the typical Western industrialised country? That's not an order of magnitude change. I don't see any reason why this would have some kind of magical effect. We'd still need pretty much the same kind of society. We'd need pretty much the same kind of infrastructure. Given that wealth in the typical industrialised, Western country isn't generated by natural resources,…

Traffic jams, pollution, loads of wastes, material consumption, needs to administrate all that, size of the cities, ability for justice to be served, hospital facilities, availability of pre-schools, number of children in class rooms...

People think overpopulation is a problem when you reach a certain cap, but I don't think there is a cap. I think it's progressive.

Plus with our current population size, we are bound to certain kind of systems and can't try alternatives. We have to normalize, we have to batch, we have to have pyramids, a chain of command to manage things.

This is great to produce and consume a great quantity of goods, but not so much for education, progress as a society, as a specie and even for something simpler such as producing goods of great quality.

But even if you disagree with any of that, and my whole population size theory, great birth control would solve one current major problem: unwanted pregnancy by men.

I'd say about half of my male friends became parents unwillingly for a lot of different reasons and scenarios. It does not make them great fathers because they didn't want to be one at this time of their life in the first place.

I think a global solution for a safe, non invasive and permanent procedure to keep one sterile at will would improve immensely the quality of life, eduction, and growth of children. Because the ones being here would be the ones wanted.

Which means basically shaping a better future.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#237

Post by thehardsphere »

mateus1 wrote: post #231
thehardsphere wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you define simplistic terms? If you were hungry and someone gave you enough money to eat, that would be a solution regardless of how corrupt your government. Let's work through an example. North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world, and many people starve there every year. It's also a ruthlessly oppressive totalitarian state; the government decides who can enter and leave the country. The gover…

Of course cash transfers won't topple dictatorial regimes, that's not what it is for. You can't expect a microeconomics proposal to solve an international political crisis.

I think we're in violent agreement. I just picked an example where

> someone gave you enough money to eat, that would be a solution regardless of how corrupt your government.

is obviously not a solution. NK is the most extreme example, but there are others which are less extreme and don't rise to the level of "international political crisis."

Re: The Future of Not Working

#238

Post by marmot777 »

Clubber wrote: post #150
marmot777 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've made some cogent points here. The '30s here were not deeply structural or were they? That is, during the Depression, there was always the potential to climb back closer to full employment. It was thought to be part of the business cycle. If automation takes way more jobs than it creates, possibly a lot more jobs, then nothing will jump start economy into jobs creating machine even if with higher econom…

>The '30s here were not deeply structural or were they? That is, during the Depression, there was always the potential to climb back closer to full employment. Yes and no, I mean knowing the outcome certainly makes it seem that way. We certainly didn't have the economic knowledge we do today. 10 years of working at the problem had modest results and then a second recession occurred. The war spending was really what g…

It is a Pearl. I'm going to come back to this thread to read your comment and others I've missed later on as apparently there's more to life than HN.

Is this community kept civil exclusively by users up and down voting posts or are there moderators, too? Regardless, if you value civility you get civility.

I feel gratitude toward those who have built the culture here. Thank you.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#239

Post by grzm »

marmot777 wrote: post #238
Clubber wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The '30s here were not deeply structural or were they? That is, during the Depression, there was always the potential to climb back closer to full employment. Yes and no, I mean knowing the outcome certainly makes it seem that way. We certainly didn't have the economic knowledge we do today. 10 years of working at the problem had modest results and then a second recession occurred. The war spending was really what g…

It is a Pearl. I'm going to come back to this thread to read your comment and others I've missed later on as apparently there's more to life than HN. Is this community kept civil exclusively by users up and down voting posts or are there moderators, too? Regardless, if you value civility you get civility. I feel gratitude toward those who have built the culture here. Thank you.

There are two moderators, 'dang and 'sctb, who—while they don't see everything—are quite publicly active on HN.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#240

Post by grzm »

nrdwavexe wrote: post #211

Why is "defining a problem called 'not working'" not called "massively manipulating the economy"? From the point of view of the people who work hard to make Kenya's economy work, this can't possibly be helpful. It sounds like an evil, abusive psychological experiment. Forget about "fake news", the New York Times is literally evil news. It is literally promoting views that proliferate evil. Injecting this level of dis…

This is all speculation, but from what I've observed on HN there could be a number of reasons you were downvoted.

- HN isn't primarily for political or ideological debate. Creating a new account and starting with a contentious comment probably looked like someone creating an account purely for ideological battle, which is an abuse of HN.

- The HN community strongly values civil discourse, which usually requires keeping strong, passionate, strident language at a lower level, particularly on contentious issues. Phrases like "literally evil news", "literally promoting views that proliferate evil", and "moral perversion" don't meet the expectation of civil discourse, regardless of how strongly you believe them to be true. (Yes, this is "it's not what you say, it's how you say it".)

- You've made a direct, harsh attack on someone without providing any support.

- After receiving downvotes, you complained about it. This is explicitly against HN guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

As I stated from the outset, this is speculation. For what people would consider obvious disregard for community standards, they may downvote and not think it's necessary to comment why.

As you express concern about your karma, as you're new to commenting on HN, I suggest refraining from commenting on contentious topics for a while until you become more accustomed to the HN community. There are plenty of other interesting submissions that you may find to contribute to and not find yourself as open to downvotes. I'm sorry you've found your first brush with the HN community to be negative. I hope you find what I've written useful and that you have a more positive experience in the future!

Post reply on HN