IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#161

Post by DiNovi » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #105

// Automation replaces men. This of course is nothing new. What is new is that now, unlike most earlier periods, the displaced men have nowhere to go. The farmers displaced by mechanization of the farms in the 20's could go to the cities and man the assembly lines. As for the work animals like the mule, they could just stop growing them. But automation displaces people, and you don't just stop growing people even whe…

>> The farmers displaced by mechanization of the farms in the 20's could go to the cities and man the assembly lines.

Things like this are not necessarily true; some displaced farmers moved into cities, but many did not and have been toiling away since then.

We really whitewash history

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#162

Post by yellowapple » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 4:47 PM UTC

ue_ wrote: post #80

logicchains wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The severely disabled, we should provide zero social supports for them and their families so? If "we" want to provide support to any group, it can be done through charity. I'd argue this way is more moral: it's more of a good deed to be generous with one's own money than with other peoples', and it's not much of a good deed to give money if one's only doing so due to threat of imprisonment for failing to comply. The…

>If "we" want to provide support to any group, it can be done through charity. It's funny. Propertiarians frequently use the argument against Socialism that it's "human nature" to be greedy, while simultaneously relegating social support to charity, supposedly out of the goodness of human hearts :)

It's worth noting that donating to charities usually includes tax benefits, since donations are tax-deductible. This provides a financial incentive for charity/philanthropy, thus exploiting human greed (or perhaps their disdain toward government taxation) for the betterment of humanity (at least in theory).

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#163

Post by bluGill » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 4:55 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #105

// Automation replaces men. This of course is nothing new. What is new is that now, unlike most earlier periods, the displaced men have nowhere to go. The farmers displaced by mechanization of the farms in the 20's could go to the cities and man the assembly lines. As for the work animals like the mule, they could just stop growing them. But automation displaces people, and you don't just stop growing people even whe…

The Luddites have been saying that for years, though the exact nature of the displacement from which there is no place to go is different.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#164

Post by jrs95 » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 4:59 PM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #153

jrs95 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both are true. Software engineers tend to vote Democrat, but they're also much more likely to be libertarians than the average person. Or even "alt-right" to be honest. Outside of a general leftward bias, I think we seem to be more prone to exploring ideological extremes.

Alt-right is white nationalism. So you've gone from libertarian which is not really left or right (depends on issue but revolves mainly around a weak central government except as it relates to protecting civil liberties and national defense), completely skipped moderate conservatives, conservatives, and right wing, and even hard right, and landed on a blatantly racist movement that has no f'n idea how the economy eve…

I skipped those other things because there's actually less of your typical conservatives in this industry than average, but there's a disturbingly high number of alt-right software engineers. Like 10% of the last company I worked for!

Plus, people have been referring to liberals as libtards since way before the alt right was a thing, and the alt right doesn't really tend to advocate for tax cuts for the rich. They are overwhelmingly racist and white nationalist but not exclusively. And really the root of the ideology is fear of what could happen to whites as a minority group, which is very paranoid and not something I'm personally concerned about, but it's not the same thing as hate. A lot of these people are also mentally ill. The "basket of deplorables" approach to dealing with them clearly did not work. We can be against everything they stand for and still be aware that they're human beings that on the whole are probably more confused than sociopathic or evil.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#165

Post by bluGill » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 5:01 PM UTC

turk- wrote: post #128

Globalization is the cause of inequality. Technology just facilitates it. Capitalism leads to a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and periods of globalization have resulted in high levels of inequality. Inequality today is comparable to the levels during the gilded age and there was no IT back in the 1870's.

Inequality is NOT a problem though. Poverty is a problem, but that is a different issue from inequality. Once you have the basics met (food, shelter) everything else is a luxury. A mud hut without enough to eat is not a life I would want to live, but I could live that way. Take away the hut or the food and I won't survive.

I like not having to cook over an open fire. I like having lights in the dark, a cell phone, a car, a washing machine, a table saw. Those are all luxuries and I want more of some of them.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#166

Post by mmirate » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #123

mmirate wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That speaks more to police being incompetent, understaffed and/or underfunded (and to civilian concealed-weapons-permit-holders being too few and too-far-between) than to anything else. (n.b. incarcerating a criminal costs tens of thousands of dollars per year; whereas the summary execution of a deadly threat during a riot, costs at most $10 of ammunition per criminal)

Ah yes, a competent police force is a death squad for the poor. If you're going to advocate for murdering the poor why not go whole hog and just herd them into camps for eradication? That would presumably be a lot more efficient since you're centralizing everything

Not doable whatsoever, as that would actually constitute mass murder rather than self-defense of each officer. Lawful and moral use of deadly force against any individual requires that that specific person first present deadly force themselves.

So, to be clear, my overall point here is that bribing people from threatening deadly violence, is not as good as directly responding to such threats when and as they are made.

Come to think of it, I'm not even quite sure why you made the leap that "allow riots to occur then respond to them appropriately" means "murder all the poor people".

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#167

Post by mmirate » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 5:19 PM UTC

drewmol wrote: post #124

pdkl95 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark Blyth (prof. of political economy at Brown) has advice for anyone with this attitude: "The Hamptons is not a defensible position"[1]. What are you going to do when a large fraction of the population starts getting hungry and they decide taking what they need from you (and everyone else with wealth/resources)? Do you really think that the police will simply arrest them? What about when someone starts shooting and…

Interesting response, thanks. To parent's comment: If >it's not OK to force everyone else to provide for them. Along the same lines of thinking: it's not OK to force everyone else to defend your assets/property/lifestyle Or at least it's unlikely you will succeed in that effort

> it's not OK to force everyone else to defend your assets/property/lifestyle

No need for such a thing; that is the job we expect of the police in exchange for paying our taxes, is it not?

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#168

Post by davemp » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

jrs95 wrote: post #111

davemp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious as to where this mass automation story originated. I haven't seen any real evidence that anything besides the most basic repetitive tasks will be automated in the future. This automation would also likely just lead to a new set of low pay, desirable jobs. Sure, Moore's law and advancements in machine learning/vision push to make automation more economically viable for certain areas that were already good…

Trucking, fast food, and retail could face huge amounts of automation in the next few decades, and thats a massive amount of low end jobs that could disappear. I think the idea of "fully automated luxury communism" is pretty silly, but there's almost definitely going to be substantial job losses, and I think we're approaching a limit where we don't have good low skill jobs to replace them.

I think the problem comes down to simple economic factors.

How much will it cost upfront to automate a specific area and how long will it take for such automation to turn a profit vs human alternatives.

Right now:

- the upfront costs are high

- continued maintenance and update costs are uncertain

- human are really not that expensive for what they can do

My view is that humans are actually a much more valuable resource than most HN/reddit/social media users seem to think. Solutions that fail to account for the __massive__ available decision making and processing power of the ~7 billion existing humans will just not be competitive. Someone will always find a way to harness the human resource and put people to work. I just hope the people get compensated fairly and the work won't be miserable.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#169

Post by BlackjackCF » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 5:31 PM UTC

nippples wrote: post #29

I really thought it was corrupt politicians giving away public resources to private mega corporations, irresponsible financing systems, wall street selling lel bonds, the undermining of the national working class, bogus copyright laws that are designed to squish small and upcoming competition, and people purchasing garbage degrees instead of useful ones with money they don't have guaranteeing they'll be indebted for…

I've always viewed IT as the new version of the middle/upper class. It's kind of weird to criticize a field that's open to people joining and paying well as the reason for wealth inequality.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#170

Post by jrs95 » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #151

jrs95 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen, they have been more than capable to support the industry and take credit for it's successes and simultaneously demonize tech workers as unempathetic racists, sexists, and gentrifiers. A specific examples being Alexandra Pelosi's documentary San Francisco 2.0. Bill Maher has also made similar anti "tech bro" statements from time to time. While he's not the perfect centrist, he was pretty much behi…

> they have been more than capable to support the industry and take credit for it's successes Well let's face it, we're all getting a huge break from the government right now in a ton of different ways, so they do get some credit for making the laws incredibly lax around here. Even Trump's government gets credit until it screws up this sweet deal we're on. And if you wanna see how sweet it really gets, go into fintec…

But that guy at Google is very much in the minority, as are all of the people causing problems with various *isms. But that doesn't stop people from continuing to paint us specifically with too broad a brush, and I don't think that's just an accident, I think it's because they have an issue with us personally, and that's probably due to negative stereotypes about "geeks".