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Rethinking the Luddites

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Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#201

Post by 0thgen »

Nursie wrote: post #197
harerazer wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I don’t think its so much about white collar jobs being under threat as it is about creative jobs being under threat. Many creative pursuits are viewed as an outlet of human expression in a way that other jobs never were, and I think this is what is driving the new wave of the Resistance^TM

I enjoyed seeing a meme the other day (rare for me to enjoy!) that summed it up as something like - "Having to do manual labour to make ends meet while the robots paint and write poetry was not the future I had in mind". And I think that sums up the feeling quite well. I do agree that automation in general has not paid off in the way the utopians would predict - instead of freeing humanity from the need to work, we h…

it could just be that freeing humanity from the need to work takes longer than we thought

are we worse off than we were before industrial automation? I thought the economics said the opposite (even if we exclude the eastern nations that benefits from western job loss from our utilitarian analysis here -- which we shouldn't)

that meme was really good btw

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#202

Post by taway_6PplYu5 »

0thgen wrote: post #201
Nursie wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed seeing a meme the other day (rare for me to enjoy!) that summed it up as something like - "Having to do manual labour to make ends meet while the robots paint and write poetry was not the future I had in mind". And I think that sums up the feeling quite well. I do agree that automation in general has not paid off in the way the utopians would predict - instead of freeing humanity from the need to work, we h…

it could just be that freeing humanity from the need to work takes longer than we thought are we worse off than we were before industrial automation? I thought the economics said the opposite (even if we exclude the eastern nations that benefits from western job loss from our utilitarian analysis here -- which we shouldn't) that meme was really good btw

> it could just be that freeing humanity from the need to work takes longer than we thought

May I suggest your read Graeber's "The Utopia of Rules"?

We've created a society which requires us to spend oodles of hours doing bullshit work and administer hundreds of bullshit services.

We could easily feed, house, clothe, entertain, and care for everyone with 25 hour work weeks. We (as a society) just chose not to.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#203

Post by sn41 »

jstarfish wrote: post #146
pydry wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) We need a radically different one now - one that shifts the burden *off" labor and back on to asset owners - especially land owners (there is literally only an economic upside to taxing them more). 2) somebody still has to fix those robots. 3) if control over the economy were wrested from oligarchs and were put under democratic control, the economy wouldnt be geared towards frittering away billions on trying to de…

> 2) somebody still has to fix those robots. This argument always gets made, but I don't think it works. If 10 factory workers are replaced with 1 robot, the technician job created will not go to any of the people displaced by the robot. It goes to someone privileged enough to have gone to robot-mechanic school. We then avoid all mention of those 10 factory workers and pretend they never existed. We tell ourselves th…

Thank you for a thoughtful post.

I always wondered: how did the late middle-aged coachmen of England make a living when the railroad boom arrived in the mid 1800s? Even Charles Dickens did not seem to care about them. I can hardly believe that they "retrained" to become locomotive pilots.

Automation is a wonderful thing, it reduces cost, errors, labor and time. But we need to think of ways of paying pensions or such for the immediate generation who lose their jobs. There are also future generations who would have been gainfully employed in a low-skill job which will now be left out. I am not sure what to do about them except education at a younger age.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#204

Post by andsoitis »

nico wrote: post #189
JohnFen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By replacing labour with robots and not compensating them, you're sending a clear message that you don't respect people and the value that they bring. Companies already send that clear message even without AI. That's why there's fear here: we expect companies to behave as they always have, and that is with a level of contempt for human workers.

> Companies already send that clear message even without AI. Companies are people. You are saying people running those companies are doing that to other people

> Companies are people.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. - Aristotle

Companies exhibit emergent behavior that might be hard, if at all possible, to predict if you only had a single individual as reference. For instance, most individuals would probably never agree to manufacture a weapon that is specifically requested to kill your neighbor. However, this same individual will show no empathy and remorse for their labor in a company that produces something that is used to commit incredible destruction to the earth, even contributing to the deaths of millions of people.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#205

Post by lolinder »

robbomacrae wrote: post #183
lolinder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a dollar store moves into an area, it provides most products for cheaper than an independent grocer possibly can, inevitably putting the local grocer out of business. It's sad for the grocer, but surely it's for the benefit of the community as a whole, right? Everything is cheaper! Except that the dollar store doesn't sell produce, and it just put the store that did out of business. I see a similar trend with au…

This is a really good argument. One that I haven't heard before. Is there a name for it? It seems to cover some of the backward steps we take when meandering (hopefully) forwards that I for one hadn't considered. I suspect it's not worth pausing anything over due to the inevitable if we won't they will excuse and also because its part of the re-invention of business that goes with new technology. The things you want…

> If I was an entrepreneur keeping my ear to the ground I'd weigh up starting a boutique produce delivery services, a human agency dedicated to dealing with companies on your behalf

But this just emphasizes the inequalities these automations create—poor people could walk to the neighborhood grocer and buy produce, but now that's reserved for people who can afford to pay for delivery or have a car and money for gas. Poor people could wait on hold like everyone else, but now only the rich can afford your agency. A small business could hire a designer, but now they're left buying stock plugins because being a small-time designer doesn't pay anymore.

The premise of this article isn't that automation is bad in and of itself, but that we are bad at considering the inequitable impact these automations have on our world.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#206

Post by FrustratedMonky »

nico wrote: post #189
JohnFen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By replacing labour with robots and not compensating them, you're sending a clear message that you don't respect people and the value that they bring. Companies already send that clear message even without AI. That's why there's fear here: we expect companies to behave as they always have, and that is with a level of contempt for human workers.

> Companies already send that clear message even without AI. Companies are people. You are saying people running those companies are doing that to other people

Companies are people, but not free from duress. Duress of having to eat, having a mortgage, having tuition, debt.

Everyone has a boss, and a budget to hit.

It is the Banality of Evil.

US corporations are full of layers of Middle management made of "Eichmann"s.

Be it violating environmental laws on dumping, covering up sexual abuse, or sending people to ovens.

It happens, has happened, and will get worse.

And yes, it will be done by humans to other humans.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#207

Post by nemo44x »

epolanski wrote: post #133
fatherzine wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income can be generated politically, see e.g. Soviet command economy.

In Soviet economy virtually all people had a job though. In communist Poland where I grew, safe for the years of martial law in mid 80s everyone who wanted a job had one.

In our modern economy everyone that wants a job has one. Unemployment is extremely low and has been.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#208

Post by raincole »

Aunche wrote: post #50

> Today, the word “Luddite” is used as an insult to anyone resistant to technological innovation; it suggests ignoramuses, sticks in the mud, obstacles to progress. But a new book by the journalist and author Brian Merchant, titled “Blood in the Machine,” argues that Luddism stood not against technology per se but for the rights of workers above the inequitable profitability of machines. Just because Luddites were sy…

> Just because Luddites were sympathetic doesn't change the fact that they were wrong. They didn't care for the welfare of workers in general so much as they were looking out for themselves.

Unions don't fight for the welfare of workers in general. They fight for their members and their members only.

So thank you for your strong anti-union speech, I guess.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#209

Post by rainonmoon »

paxys wrote: post #170

It's telling that this anti-automation and anti-AI movement is finally reaching its crescendo now that creative and white collar jobs are under threat. These same people writing books about the evils of AI sat back over the last few decades as countless factory jobs, farm jobs, retail jobs and even "lower class" intellectual jobs (like bookkeepers, travel agents and telephone operators) were automated away. "It's jus…

Did "these same people"? I can think of lots of people who orbit and are sympathetic to Brian Merchant's recent work who have been approaching tech via a labour rights lens since the start of their careers. The visibility may be new, but that says more about who's paying attention (and who wasn't previously) than who's doing the work.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#210

Post by kaashif »

stan3223 wrote: post #160
w_for_wumbo wrote: post #3

There's plenty of rhetoric about whether technology advancements will be a good thing or not. But I think that distracts from the core message, that the most important matter is not whether we use technology, but how we treat our fellow humans. By replacing labour with robots and not compensating them, you're sending a clear message that you don't respect people and the value that they bring. We have a mandate for us…

> By replacing labour with robots and not compensating them, you're sending a clear message that you don't respect people and the value that they bring. Wasn't this message sent in the 80s and 90s when it was somehow acceptable to offshore manufacturing for increased bottom line devastating economies and people of small/mid size cities.

At the same time, China booming has brought hundreds of millions out of crushing poverty. There are obviously positives and negatives, we shouldn't focus on one side.
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