Live data from Hacker News

Greece introduces the six day work week

dw.com

51–60 of 162 posts

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are only separate in the strict dictionary sense. You can't have an efficient general robot if it is not handled by a general-ish AI.

But you can have AGI in advance of (or without) Robotics.

Yes, true, though I don't see the relation to the previous argument you were making.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#52
Greece should have left the EU when the price of membership was revealed to be a generation of ruthless recession and exploitation. Somehow the german bankers convinced them it was worth it even though grexit would've been much more expensive to them then loan forgiveness. I don't see what Greece got out of EU membership other than a brain drain as their ambitious youth is forced to leave their country.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#53

AGI and General Purpose robots are both so far off in the future they should be considered science fiction at this point. The "Woz Standard" - a robot is dropped in front of a random house and proceeds without any assistance to brew a cup of coffee - is hard to imagine being met before 2040, if not even later.

Try 2400. Our current breed of capitalism is always only aiming to pick the lowest-hanging fruit and milk it to death and then beyond. Our current economics do not reward long-running projects with a huge payout in some 10-50 years in the future so I am pretty sure we'll never see general AI in this current phase of the civilization.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#54
post #20

I'm confused because economically it doesn't add up. Shortages of labor should lead to higher wages. Supply and demand. So it would make sense to relax laws prohibiting working more than 40hrs in order to unleash additional economic output i.e. increase the amount of money made. The article claims that for some reason that defies logic, it will just make employers demand more work for same amount of money. I see two…

A lot of employers will never increase wages just out of spite. Clearly you haven't spoken with some of these awful human beings.

Don't assume the market is rational. History shows otherwise.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#56
post #38
post #7

Two things happen at the same time: 1. people say that robots are taking all the jobs 2. countries raise retirement age & adopt 6 day work week, because there's too much work to be done I am not entirely sure, but maybe robots are not that bad, assuming appropriate taxation to fund pensions & 5-day work weeks?

People not working at all, or working significantly less, is not acceptable by any political system of the western countries. The proof here, is the exponential rate in which debt goes up. That debt is directly funding the anti-automation each political system imposes. In other words, automation has to be stopped, and it's gonna take as much money as it needs. This anti-automation process, created the biggest bubbles…

if people have too much time on their hands, they start to organise and ask for their fair share.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#57
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Greece's unemployment rate is almost 11%. What a bizarre situation.

It's a whole bunch of toxic factors working synergistically. The Greek economy is dominated by low-wage tourist-oriented businesses, a whopping 20-30% of employed people are directly involved in them. And they have to compete against Turkey, Egypt, and other low-income countries. These businesses simply cannot pay high salaries, there's no profit margin for it. So people don't want to work in these miserable conditio…

Is it still common to expect workers to pay government-mandated bonuses back to their bosses in cash? I know this was a common practice some years ago.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#58
post #38
post #7

Two things happen at the same time: 1. people say that robots are taking all the jobs 2. countries raise retirement age & adopt 6 day work week, because there's too much work to be done I am not entirely sure, but maybe robots are not that bad, assuming appropriate taxation to fund pensions & 5-day work weeks?

People not working at all, or working significantly less, is not acceptable by any political system of the western countries. The proof here, is the exponential rate in which debt goes up. That debt is directly funding the anti-automation each political system imposes. In other words, automation has to be stopped, and it's gonna take as much money as it needs. This anti-automation process, created the biggest bubbles…

What triple A derivatives are blowing up?

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#60
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Greece's unemployment rate is almost 11%. What a bizarre situation.

It's a whole bunch of toxic factors working synergistically. The Greek economy is dominated by low-wage tourist-oriented businesses, a whopping 20-30% of employed people are directly involved in them. And they have to compete against Turkey, Egypt, and other low-income countries. These businesses simply cannot pay high salaries, there's no profit margin for it. So people don't want to work in these miserable conditio…

Those low-wage tourist-oriented businesses are making crazy high margins and paying workers peanuts. Beaches keep getting gobbled up by multimillion-euro hotel complexes (unconstitutionally) so they can make money hand over fist by taking advantage of public property (with the appropriate kickbacks to the local politicians), while the local economy benefits minimally from whatever minimum-wage jobs are created in the process.
Post reply on HN