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Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

nytimes.com

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Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#391

Post by cableshaft »

malvosenior wrote: post #363
kiliantics wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, poor because they are not smart. Because the US is a perfect meritocracy. This is ludicrously off the mark and shows how out of touch people really are about how the world works for others.

Having grown up poor I'd say it's not that poor people are not as smart, it's that they are extremely anti-intellectual. I tried my hardest to get family/friends/community into computers (or really any intellectual pursuit). Resistance was extreme to say the least. Reading a book is looked down upon. Computers are for "nerds". I used too many "five dollar words"... If you want a real view of the situation you have to…

Intellectuals can be poor and/or make bad choices too. I know plenty of smart people who are struggling to make ends meet (me included, to a certain extent, and I make 2-3x more than a lot of these people).

But you're right that there is a culture of anti-intellectualism amongst a certain segment of poor people.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#392

Post by lkbm »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #7
jedberg wrote: post #2

There are two solutions: Part one, a more educated populace. Education will help those that can work in the "good jobs" get the good jobs. Part two, tax policy. Wealth needs to be redistributed so that there are masses to buy the products that the wealthy are creating. Edit: I just watched this post go up to 10 points, down to 3 and then back to 5. Clearly this is controversial. I find it interesting that wealth redi…

What if the jobs require higher IQs than 85? Suddenly we have 15% of the population entirely unemployable? Wealth redistribution is a choice of ethics. What if we start to create better technologies that augment the economic usefulness of the lowest IQ people?

The good news is that we know some adjustments to make to education that would reduce that number. For example:

> More children taking MVM [multivitamin with mineral] supplements (44) than placebo (25) showed increases in nonverbal IQ scores of 15 or more points (35% compared with 21%; PThe bad news is we won't do it. Implementing effective policy is the hard part.[1]

[0] https://www.mdedge.com/pulmonary-health-hub/article/64803/as...

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/10/society-is-fixed-biolo...

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#393

Post by sol_remmy2 »

mr_overalls wrote: post #369
ummonk wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the point isn't it? European countries finally start catching up to the US in the size of their immigrant population, and all of a sudden you're seeing massive social upheaval and populist movements popping up everywhere.

> European countries finally start catching up to the US in the size of their immigrant population, No. Several European countries have had significant foreign-born populations for a long time. https://www.statista.com/statistics/549292/foreign-born-popu...

Those stats count an immigrant from any neighboring Western European country as foreign born. That makes them highly misleading compared to the US. In the US, a person from a different state does not count as an immigrant.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#394

Post by tziki »

sol_remmy2 wrote: post #231
arandr0x wrote: post #156

I saw this when I arrived in America, and it's the reason I left. I take the bus and seeing literally every day that there were people with families who worried and laughed and were kind who spent 2 hours a day transporting themselves to service or manufacturing industry job when I sat in an air conditioned office making 3x their wages was making me feel terribly guilty. I eventually went back to a country with a soc…

Western European countries hardly take immigrants. When you live in a homogenous, solely middle-class country like Sweden/Denmark/Norway, of course everything seems nice and comfortable. But America accepts some very poor immigrants and allows them to make money and be lifted up. Those are many of the people you saw on the bus.

Wow, almost every sentence in your post is at least partially wrong.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#395

Post by throwaway98121 »

The wage gap is real, although I feel like I see an anti ${insert_tech_company_here} article on NYT just about everyday attacking Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc.

None of these tech companies are on a moral pedestal but also, none of these media outlets are on any moral pedestal. These are the same folks who championed the Iraq war. Look, I’m not saying there isn’t a significant wealth disparity, but I do think people should consider the NYT motives.

It couldn’t be that thry hate tech because these large tech companies are direct competitors in the advertising space?

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#396

Post by sol_remmy2 »

moorhosj wrote: post #362
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes however the demographic diversity in the US makes it less likely for people to want to "spread it" around. If your entire country is the population of one large US metro and everyone is the same ethnicity and culture, there are fewer cognitive impediments to being empathetic at scale.

==everyone is the same ethnicity and culture== I think depends on how you define ethnicity and culture. Sweden foreign-born population - 17.0% [1] US foreign-born population - 13.7% [2] [1] https://nordic.businessinsider.com/swedens-foreign-born-popu... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-data/u-s-...

US white, non-Hispanic population: 61.3%.... Swedish white, non-Hispanic population: easily 90%+

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#397

Post by dba7dba »

Even in 'Tech' companies, there are the very highly paid and the others who are not paid enough.

Execs, senior programmers, project managers make a lot.

And than there are the office support staff, customer service staff, etc that are not really in the 'Tech' company pay scale.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#398

Post by ZeroFries »

phkahler wrote: post #294
slantyyz wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3) it will increase the incentive to send work offshore to poorer countries

Import tariffs - standard solution to that. The folks yelling "free trade" don't acknowledge that we don't actually have free trade in the first place. All these things need to be kept in balance. It's hard, but that's what governing is supposed to be about. edit. Actually no. Most of the jobs we're talking about are local. Importing stuff from cheaper places is similar to automation.

Free trade would lift hundreds of millions out of poverty.

https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/post...

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#400

Post by [deleted] »

snarf21 wrote: post #348
phkahler wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm beginning to think increasing minimum wage will help. You don't need to tax the rich, just make them pay their people better. But that's still at odds with two thing. 1) it will increase incentive for more automation - but that's already happening as fast as the engineers can do it. 2) it will increase the incentive to use undocumented workers who can be paid under the table below minimum wage. Before we can talk…

I don't think minimum wage increases work. There are some unintended consequences. Let's say you pay people $15/hour to flip burgers. They have a higher wage but companies generally pass this cost increase on to consumers. All companies that raised these prices tend to be the ones that the poor people shop at. In the end you don't get the increase in buying power that you might think just by raising wages. Additional…

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