Are jobs obsolete? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#171

Post by 3pt14159 » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:30 PM UTC

chailatte wrote: post #36

My theory from before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2906769 - In 20 years, 80% of the people in will be kept alive by welfare, supplemented by their hourly job. Enough to get a small apartment, utilities, cell phone, cheap but unhealthy food, and shopping at the dollar store. And free tv/movie/music/book/sports entertainment via the internet. - 15% will be the middlemen, extracting value from the others via se…

20 years is way too soon for this to happen, and long before it does a Gattaca type situation would have arisen.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#172

Post by CWuestefeld » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:31 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #151

jerf wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare may explain why we can't spend yet more than the more-we've-ever-spent-before we're currently spending, but it can't explain why we spend so much more and seem to be getting less and less. Really, very few of the problems we're facing can be explained by not spending enough; rather more can be explained by spending too much with no regard for what we get for our money, then letting people say "well, we jus…

It precisely explains why we're spending more and more and getting less and less. Compound 15% out over 15 years. Educational reform is a broad subject and there's lots of room for experimentation. I'm fine with properly implemented charter schools, especially for the "thousand laboratories" effect. I don't think that chanting "markets" like a religious incantation is particularly effective. But most importantly, don…

It precisely explains why we're spending more and more and getting less and less.

No.

Healthcare costs are up for everyone, everywhere, in every industry. The same increases that education has to pay for, every other employer does as well.

If other industries are not spending 15% compounded, and delivering less, then why is it happening in education?

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#173

Post by libraryatnight » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:32 PM UTC

bradly wrote: post #153

jbooth wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, my fault. They're going to end it soon, according to Obama's postmaster general and the legislation to do so is being filed by a democratic senator. http://www.businessinsider.com/say-goodbye-to-saturday-mail-... Point still stands that "fox news said this about obama" does not correlate at all to what he's thinking or even doing. In fact you can usually assume the opposite.

> They're going to end it soon. That isn't exactly true. The Postmaster General has been trying to get Saturday delivery canceled for a while now, but congress has not been willing to let it happen.

I like Saturday delivery when my package doesn't arrive on Friday. Congress wants their mail. ;)

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#174

Post by r00fus » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:32 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #65

ojbyrne wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not considering the second order effects. Multiple competitors appear to compete with craigslist (either head to head or picking off the most attractive niches). Market grows, profits fall. Are we better off? Just look at the service. Before we had tiny little text ads in the back pages of newspapers, now we have pictures, directions, the ability to search and sort, etc... clearly the service is better. And I…

There's no way that there's a comparable level of jobs. You know how many people the newspaper industry used to employ nationwide? Craigslist had substantially less than 100 last I heard (maybe they've grown a bit), pushing a way larger volume of classifieds, without any expensive correspondents or any of that news crap. As the original commentator stated, bringing their jobs back would be silly make-work now that th…

As the friction of the transaction decreases, the "jobs" are the less the "classified owners/workers" and now people who can make their living buying/selling on the far-more-fluid craigslist.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#175

Post by jbooth » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:38 PM UTC

gills wrote: post #164

jbooth wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It precisely explains why we're spending more and more and getting less and less. Compound 15% out over 15 years. Educational reform is a broad subject and there's lots of room for experimentation. I'm fine with properly implemented charter schools, especially for the "thousand laboratories" effect. I don't think that chanting "markets" like a religious incantation is particularly effective. But most importantly, don…

As you commented to someone else in an earlier branch, carry that out a few steps; why might healthcare costs rise so much faster than any reasonable measure of the output which funds both education and healthcare?. I don't know the answer. I think the point is that "health care" cannot be pointed out as the root cause, much as "markets" cannot be pointed out as the only solution.

Healthcare can indeed be pointed to as the primary cause of cost inflation in education, because, well, it is.

Don't take my word for it. Go to your local town/city hall and pull the budgets for the last decade, then scan the line items. Unless your locality has something very different going on than everywhere else, you'll see huge increases in healthcare costs and cost-cutting relative to inflation everywhere else.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#176

Post by jswinghammer » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:38 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #156

bradly wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're going to end it soon. That isn't exactly true. The Postmaster General has been trying to get Saturday delivery canceled for a while now, but congress has not been willing to let it happen.

So, the original contention was that Socialistobama would never, ever, ever consider reduction of service. The truth is that his appointee is actively pursuing it. Regardless of whether Congress (ironically, mostly rural district republicans in congress) are impeding him as usual.

Sorry I don't think Obama is any more of a socialist than Bush. My only point was that he wouldn't like the idea of getting rid of the union contracts which bankruptcy would allow. A Republican president would likely welcome such a change.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#177

Post by Jeng » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:39 PM UTC

dreamdu5t wrote: post #83

silverbax88 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mentioning the existence of a power structure of property owners does not automatically include all property owners.

Okay... then what does the power structure of private property have to do with it? Unemployment is not necessitated by private property. Removing the power structure of property owners will not eliminate unemployment or cause people to become educated. This is what Jello implies, and it's naively incorrect. Come on, Jello openly professes these politics/ideas, I am not reading anything into the quote that isn't there…

Replace "Property owners" with people of influence.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#178

Post by fauigerzigerk » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:39 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #29

It's a fact that computers/automation are going to continue to obsolete human jobs. Nothing short of a technological apocalypse is going to reverse that. And I agree that we shouldn't really lament the reality that a trucker who used to spend 50 hours a week vacuously staring at the highway no longer has to do that. But that's a triumph. One more human mind freed up for greater accomplishments. That said, I'm dubious…

Why pay 3/4 of the population to work 40 hours a week when we could pay all of them to work 30 (then 20, then 10)?

Because many types of work do not lend themselves to be broken up into pieces. Communication/coordination overhead can be quite large as any programmer will be able to attest to. Also, educating twice as many people costs at least twice as much.

But of course that's a very narrow view on the costs and benefits of having a lot of skilled and motivated people around. Available work is not a fixed size pie after all.

I totally agree with you that the disappearance of a huge number of menial jobs is potentially disruptive. It's actually quite amazing how many people still do jobs that anyone can easily pick up within a week. These people are just not used to learning no matter how much politicians beat the education drum. That doesn't mean they're dumb, lazy or uncreative but that by itself will not get them a new job I'm afraid.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#179

Post by ChuckMcM » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:40 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #111

tjstankus wrote: post #12

The opposite, libertarian answer (and the way we seem to be going right now) would be to let those who can't capitalize on the bounty simply suffer. Cut social services along with their jobs, and hope they fade into the distance. Reminds me of this quote from Jello Biafra: Some day, even the experts will figure out, that crime is not caused by rap music...or even my music, but by a power structure of self-absorbed pr…

We spend more per student than we ever have in history. Why wasn't the country in chaos when there weren't public schools at all? Teaching the kids that they are owed something merely because they have less than someone else? Seems to justify theft to me.

Totally agree. My kids have gone to the public high school and a large fraction (more than 20%) of the students there could be getting an education but they choose not to.

I don't know why this is, but I know of no counter argument that supports why an individual, who gets to school, has the books and supplies provided for them, and teachers willing to help them with any issues they are having, choose not to learn. These are not kids who just don't do homework, they do no work at all. They are disruptive in class, they harass other students outside of class, why? It is not because they 'lack jobs' (which they aren't helping by not applying themselves to learning), it is not because their home situation is untenable (they could be homeless for all I know but they are at school and have all of the equipment they need to participate there).

No amount of 'money' is going to change this population of non-students. Their burdened cost is higher as other students get less done because of their antics.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#180

Post by analyst74 » Wed, Sep 07, 2011, 7:42 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #155

analyst74 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

keeping over-priced goods at inflated price using whatever means will never work out in the long term. that applies to real-estate too, which (the real-estate industry) seems to have become the driving economic sector in many countries, which I find funny. edit: and a note on why it's funny, the value of a property never changes, only the price. From an individual perspective, you can make money trading real-estate j…

Most economists consider deflationary spiral to be a nightmare scenario. See: Great Depression and Japan's lost decade.

I have no good answer to turn the world into a harmless place, but at least part of the cause of Great Depression was measures to pull the economy out of the recession that preceded it.

Nobody is happy when economy stagnates, but keeping the economy going by inflating prices of goods has never worked out in the long term. At some point it will crash, and it will hurt more the higher you go.