61–70 of 194 posts
Very nice to see pmarca's neoliberal idiocy taken apart so thoroughly. Peter Thiel could do with similar treatment imho.
He didn't take anything apart. He's just another leftist that has a hard time comprehending that some people have differently ideological views that his own.
I don't think pmarca is saying people are against robots per se, but against the efficiency-driven unemployment they see. I'm firmly on the side of pmarca and technology here -- I'd love to see virtually all crappy jobs today disappear, and we could find new and better things for those people to do (through the market, ideally, but I'd be open to Basic Income or other forms of wealth distribution if needed). I cannot…
I do not think this is universally true.
I'm with Alex generally, but disagree with this sentence: "We could make the choice to pay for universal health care, higher education, and a basic income tomorrow" In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into education. Much money has been allocated to increase college enrollment. But, IMO, for the vast majority of people, college education is a luxury social club. Spending more money o…
I really like this idea. Lately I've been thinking about minimum wage laws (SF, $15/hr min wage, etc) and something about it rubs me the wrong way. It feels like minimum wage laws are a convenient way for governments to take all the credit for improving the lot of the poor, while making others (companies) pay for it. It also feels like it disproportionately impacts small business owners, who are already stretched pretty thin.
Implementing a minimum wage like that, where part of the burden is on the government, and comes out of tax revenues (which can be collected in a more progressive fashion) really appeals to me
I'm with Alex generally, but disagree with this sentence: "We could make the choice to pay for universal health care, higher education, and a basic income tomorrow" In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into education. Much money has been allocated to increase college enrollment. But, IMO, for the vast majority of people, college education is a luxury social club. Spending more money o…
That wouldn't be the last sixty years of explosive innovation and social growth, would it?
You mean the most inventive and creative sixty years in all of human history?
The problem now is that universities have become degree mills and social networking clubs. The subscription fees are insane, and because education has become commoditised, and too much of the process exists to exploit students instead of educating them, the results are becoming ever-more mediocre.
But it would surely be possible to make useful adult education a part-time thing, with the rest of the time spent on useful work.
It's not as if there aren't enough jobs that need to be done in healthcare, infrastructure maintenance, childcare, teaching, and all the other work that counts towards social, not investor, dividends.
Unfortunately these jobs are deemed 'too expensive' and 'a drain on resources' - which is code for 'we're not going to make money from them in the next six months, so fuck everyone.'
Seems that both authors don't really see strong AI as a possibility (at least within say next 50 years). I wonder what HN readers take on that is, but to me it seems quite likely. Not necessary designing one from the scratch, but "uploading" human brain (once we have good enough resolution and technology). It changes quite a bit about everything.
Unless we massively redistribute wealth, then inequality will arrive at unimaginable levels. It's hard to think of a world where the top 1% owns many multiples of what the bottom 99% owns.
I'm guessing at some point that we'll decide as a species that strong AIs cannot be owned by individuals. I'm guessing that it won't be a smooth transition. Instead, we'll become quasi-communists and fairly evenly distribute gains made by the strong AIs.
Also by "uploading", I'm guessing you mean simulate the human brain? Actually uploading a human consciousness would come a while after the advent of strong AI.
The most meaningful disagreement is summed up in this sentence: "Emerging technologies can also create demand for things that are inherently expensive – cutting-edge medical procedures and treatments, for example – driving up costs in entire economic sectors." It boils down to: should we subsidize cutting-edge medicine for everyone, or treat it as a luxury because people who can't afford it are no worse off than they…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_excluded_middle
Logical Fallacies -----------------
I’d like to close with some brief comments on invoking logical fallacies. These fallacies are essentially shortcuts through logical space that pick out common failures in constructing valid arguments without digging into the logical machinery at work. However, like most shortcuts, invoking fallacies means missing out on the complete picture of the argument and it can very well be the case that stating the logical errors explicitly (i.e. premise two does not entail premise three, etc) can expose helpful implicit premises or make it clear to your opponent how, precisely, his or her argument fails. These things are both important to charity and helpful to informative discussion about an argument. For these reasons and others, we recommend against invoking popular logical fallacies against an argument in favor of spelling out and objecting to arguments in more robust ways.
Just a clarification: Cab drivers are protesting Uber because Uber takes away their business and there's nothing they can do about it. It's not because they feel pressured to become Uber drivers and take less money - Uber drivers make a shit ton of money. It's the cab OWNERS who are really fucked.
What evidence do we have that this is true or, if so, will remain so past the period when they're recruiting to enter a new market? It seems a lot more likely that Uber is going to keep gradually lowering the rates paid to drivers to maintain their profit margins amidst competition.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_excluded_middle
r/philosophy has this in their "A Guide to Arguments" page: Logical Fallacies ----------------- I’d like to close with some brief comments on invoking logical fallacies. These fallacies are essentially shortcuts through logical space that pick out common failures in constructing valid arguments without digging into the logical machinery at work. However, like most shortcuts, invoking fallacies means missing out on th…
I'm with Alex generally, but disagree with this sentence: "We could make the choice to pay for universal health care, higher education, and a basic income tomorrow" In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into education. Much money has been allocated to increase college enrollment. But, IMO, for the vast majority of people, college education is a luxury social club. Spending more money o…
2) My policy preference ... of at least $15 an hour. Why does everybody need to work? Just look around your own company, (arbitrarily) less than 50% of your workforce creates (arbitrarily) 95% of the value. We would save money by paying the rest to stay home.
3) The way productivity is being enhanced by technology means that sooner or later, only a small part of the population will make the workforce, and they will create more value than all of us are creating now. The only question at that point will be how will this value/profit be shared and benefit the "unproductive" population.
> Well, we’re three decades into an era of systemic deregulation and financialization. The result? Not really, finance and banking are still the most regulated sectors on earth. Hardly deregularized.
A field can remain highly regulated while having certain aspects deregulated. This is what we saw before the financial crisis. For instance, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act is credited with enabling the broad systemic risk that created Too Big To Fail - by allowing commercial banks to invest in securities and proprietary trading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislat... This was further co…
True, but then to blame a financial crisis on free markets when no such thing even remotely existed is also disingenuous at best.