The Future of Not Working • Hacker News Board

Re: The Future of Not Working

#261

Post by sobani » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 11:33 AM UTC

NumberCruncher wrote: post #209

marmot777 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you've got this wrong. First off, let's distinguish our terms to prevent completely muddled thinking. There are different flavors of socialism: national socialism, communist flavor socialism, democratic socialism. You seem to lump democratic (aka European style socialism) with the heavy handed-killed-20-million-of-his-own-people Stalin-style central planning socialism. You can be opposed to democratic socialism j…

How long have you been living in a country where everything is basic? Your job, your income, your home, your education, your healthcare? What do you know about how humans living under sutch conditions act and how sutch systems end up? You call it ideology, I call it experience. [Edit:] I appreciate your intent to build up a working socialism and not to fvck it up this time. But some systems simply does not work with…

I live in a country with a guaranteed level of education and healthcare (I guess that's what you mean) and I love it. No need to worry when I go to a doctor or whether I can afford university.

As far as I know what has never been tried on a large scale is to give everyone a no-strings-attached 'salary' and let them do whatever they want, without consequences for that income.

Communism definitely didn't let you do whatever you want, while still paying you for it. And in all socialist countries I know of unemployment benefits are decreased as soon as you start working, sometimes even at a net-negative rate (yes, I consider that stupid as well).

I don't know what you mean with a basic home. I guess you could call where I live right now 'basic', but only because I don't care enough to spend more for it.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#262

Post by simonh » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 1:22 PM UTC

ue_ wrote: post #247

paulpauper wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marx predicted that...hundred forty years ago. Hasn't happened. History suggests revolts occur when basic needs are unmet, usually after a nation falls into debt and ruin as a consequence of war

>Marx predicted that...hundred forty years ago. Hasn't happened. Marx didn't predict that there would be an endless cycle of appeasement. He predicted that there would become a state of automation so advanced that the capitalist mode of production no longer suits the people under it who are being driven to more and more low-standard jobs. The idea that if something doesn't happen in 140 years then the predciton is fa…

I'm not entirely sure how Marx thought we would reach communism. Looking at it now it looks like super-advanced automation might be the answer, but AFAIK Marx never actually stated as much. He just contended that somehow it would happen. In fact he said things that indicated he thought the transformation into communism was imminent and even happening right then in the events of the time. Certainly historical Communist leaders such as Lenin and Mao thought they could make it happen con-temporarily by executive fiat.

In principle modern democracy, liberalism and capitalism combined with super-advanced automation could well lead to a communist system as described by Marx without violent revolution. If capital equipment (intelligent computers and automated factories) by themselves create more capital, then why would we need capitalists anymore? Currently productive ventures (companies) require investment and management, but if they become self-generating and self-managing then capitalists themselves become necessary. All we do then is vote in democratic governments that tax and regulate such ventures for the benefit of the majority and we're done.

Marx wasn't really against capitalism as such. He was perfectly well aware that it was massively increasing wealth and productivity. He saw it as an inevitable but temporary phase in world history. In that respect he might have been right but not necessarily for the right reasons and we're still to see whether he was right about what would come afterwards.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#263

Post by cannonpr » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 2:26 PM UTC

sewercake wrote: post #225

cannonpr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder about the "not everyone can contribute" perhaps they can't contribute in building cars, but with a cultural shift and education, well there are a lot of avenues of research and mathematics that only require thought and basic tools like chalk. I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. This ofcourse assumes we haven't figured out strong AÍ or we don't want to, cause th…

> I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources This feels like a pretty strong over-application of the computational metaphor, my friend.

Guilty.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#264

Post by cannonpr » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 2:34 PM UTC

douche wrote: post #227

cannonpr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder about the "not everyone can contribute" perhaps they can't contribute in building cars, but with a cultural shift and education, well there are a lot of avenues of research and mathematics that only require thought and basic tools like chalk. I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. This ofcourse assumes we haven't figured out strong AÍ or we don't want to, cause th…

> I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. If we extend the metaphor, there are 4004s and there are i7s. You need a lot of 4004s to equal the output of one i7. That many 4004s use a lot more watts than the one i7, and at some point the value isn't there.

I see your point, however these humans are alive, thinking, using power you might say anyway. There is a nearly infinite task in improving our society and science, and we have strong evidence that humans become self destructive or just destructive when not actively engaged in something they enjoy doing.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#265

Post by thehardsphere » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 3:48 PM UTC

flocial wrote: post #200

thehardsphere wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People used to do this during the original "Progressive era" im American history. The people who ended up targeted were poor and black. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

If you look at current incarceration statistics I'd say it's still happening.

I don't know if it's the same, because I don't know if that's happening with the same sort of pre-meditated malice. Like, I don't think the people behind the incarceration soad "Let's jail all the poor black people" up front, whereas that was the explicit goal of some of these Progressive-era sterilization programs.

Then again, the intentions ultimately don't matter if you're on the receiving end of it.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#266

Post by locopati » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 5:24 PM UTC

stmfreak wrote: post #230

cylinder wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the left wing reconcile its push for UBI, more redistribution to compensate for automation job loss, etc., with an unquestioned belief in immigration or even open borders? You cannot have UBI due to lack of jobs but then also have the US' current family-based immigration system. It would be a different situation if we were specifically targeting skilled robotics engineers and AI coders from around the world,…

Simple, the leftists believe you pay for UBI from the limitless resources confiscated from the "rich." /s

You mean taxes paid by the wealthy to support a stable system that enables them to create wealth and enjoy it. Please ask yourself, do a small handful of people need to possess as much wealth as half of the USA? More wealth than they could ever possibly spend in a hundred lifetimes? We are all in this together and those that have benefit by helping those that do not.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#267

Post by thehardsphere » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

marmot777 wrote: post #259

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…

Fair enough, the universal basic income would not work in a number of countries that are either failed states on one side or authoratarian on the other, but much of civilization, including the developed world, falls in the zone where this program might work and is at least worth testing. I accept your premise that this can't work unless some minimum conditions are met. Given that, do you toss the whole idea or do you…

I think it could work in places like the United States, if it is implemented correctly. I'm skpetical that a correct implementation will be possible because the incentives that created the haphazard system of poorly designed transfer payments we have today aren't just going to go away.

It's too easy for someone to say "Group X needs additional support for Reason Y" and end up with something just as expensive and complex as what we have now. I know, because I've managed to bait people on both the left and the right into doing it for different values of X and Y.

By "correct implementation", I mean one that replaces all welfare, social security, and probably some parts of the tax code. Healthcare maybe you can get away with treating separately.

I don’t know enough about Kenya to say one way or the other.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#268

Post by kwhitefoot » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

douche wrote: post #227

cannonpr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder about the "not everyone can contribute" perhaps they can't contribute in building cars, but with a cultural shift and education, well there are a lot of avenues of research and mathematics that only require thought and basic tools like chalk. I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. This ofcourse assumes we haven't figured out strong AÍ or we don't want to, cause th…

> I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. If we extend the metaphor, there are 4004s and there are i7s. You need a lot of 4004s to equal the output of one i7. That many 4004s use a lot more watts than the one i7, and at some point the value isn't there.

What do you propose that we do with the 4004s?

Re: The Future of Not Working

#269

Post by antisthenes » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 7:19 PM UTC

tn13 wrote: post #137

spyckie2 wrote: post #8

The article's title is misleading - it is not about not working, it's about giving money directly to poor villages for 12 years to provide what is similar to basic income but meeting fundamentally different needs in a very different part of the world. That said, I think it is a fascinating anthropological read. We often do not realize how many layers of wealth we had to stand on to possess our current wealth.

As Milton Friedman would say we are standing on the shoulders of the giants. People who came to these shores with almost nothing and built this amazing economy.

You're standing on the shoulders of giants but not in the way that you think.

The modern anomalous rise in wealth is directly correlated to an increase in the use of fossil fuels since the beginning of the 20th century. So if you want to talk about giants, you should mean to say you're standing on the shoulders of trillions of carbon lifeforms condensed into coal, oil and natural gas over hundreds of hundreds of millions of years.

What people have accumulated in wealth between when life arose and 1850 is entirely insignificant than what was built in the last 167 years (roughly).

Re: The Future of Not Working

#270

Post by EliRivers » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 8:04 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #236

EliRivers wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People (in our hypothesised Western industrialised nations) WANT density of population. People can already freely move to less densely populated areas, where they avoid traffic jams, pollution, etc etc etc. They choose not to. Density of population creates opportunities that people decide are worth the extra problems to be part of.

Halving the population wouldn't stop this happening. There would be a rush to the cities, a rush to create density of population and all the opportunity people want from it. What you're complaining about would happen again; particularly since people know what's possible with density of population, and they choose it over the alternative.

I suppose you might be able to get the effect you want if you really, REALLY reduced the population. By an order of magnitude or more.

We have to normalize, we have to batch, we have to have pyramids, a chain of command to manage things.

Which allows us to have a society in which people are hundreds and hundreds of times richer than they were even a couple of centuries ago. The wealth of humanity under this is astonishing. We are all so much better off. And again, to reach the point where this efficiency became uneconomic and your alternative options would become optimal would require a population drop of far more than half.