The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all? • Hacker News Board

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#61

Post by bayesianhorse » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:15 PM UTC

saticmotion wrote: post #21

bayesianhorse wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a way to get there, for most nations. Big nations would have the most trouble introducing this. And what about immigration? Immigration can't be effectively regulated by any means available to a moderately democratic state. Should immigrants receive the BLS? If yes, you go broke. If no, the immigrants are essentially second-class citizens who have to work for an extremely low wage (because they would have…

A solution - though extremely unlikely in this day and age - would be to abandon the notion of nations. Especially in the far future, if we are ever to meet aliens. Imagine having to explain that you only represent one of 196 nations. Seems a bit silly to me.

The "national" level will always matter. It's a problem of governing and risk management. Different regions have different problems, and the bigger an organisational structure, the more complicated. The hierarchical system with different levels of legislation and regulation at least works.

In some sense we are already working towards a global government by claiming human rights to be universal. Out of that endeavour there will (in the far future) emerge a central authority or assembly which effectively enforces human rights and free trade.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#62

Post by webXL » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:15 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #51

MarcusVorenus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income is not a left vs right issue. Lots of libertarians (including Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek) support basic income as a more efficient safety net than government-run programs.

Uh... how exactly do they see "basic income" and "government-run" as opposites?

Here's an example: vouchers vs. one size fits all public schools. They're not opposites; vouchers just free up resources by using market forces to prevent good money to go to bad schools.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#63

Post by sillysaurus3 » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:16 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #58

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should productivity go down (say we run out of fossil fuels without developing a cheap alternative or all our productivity starts going to dealing with run-away climate change) then you just decrease the guaranteed minimum income. That decision would have lots of consequences. People usually live slightly beyond their means. Decrease their means, and suddenly the majority of your population is living way beyond their…

> People usually live slightly beyond their means. There've been brief periods in US history where that was true (where the savings rate was negative), but that usually been when there's been an economic downturn [1] in the wake of stronger economic times, and in any case relies on credit availability or savings to make possible. A drop in guaranteed minimum income or basic income doesn't mean welfare automatically r…

A drop in guaranteed minimum income or basic income doesn't mean welfare automatically reappears, it means that the standard of living drops for those dependent on the GMI/BI. But that's what you'd expect in a broad-based economic downturn -- the mean standard of living drops.

Translation: The poor can no longer afford food, because there's no welfare program and their guaranteed minimum has dropped.

Maybe they entered into a predatory loan situation where they can't simply break their contract and have to keep paying a monthly minimum, so there's not enough money for food + payment each month.

Maybe it's a standard loan situation, and now their car is repo'd because they've missed a bunch of monthly car payments. "Just sell the car and get a cheaper one!" Nobody's buying it because the economy is in a downturn, which is why the guaranteed minimum dropped in the first place. So now they can't get to whatever employment they decided to have for themselves, which further reduces their income to a level that they can't even afford food. And then there's no welfare program to turn to. So now their family is in an oh-crap situation and there isn't any government solution.

There are all kinds of corner cases which the current system handles. Any new system has to have fallbacks so that the poor can still feed themselves. Not "feed themselves in an idealized scenario where they don't have any existing debts."

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#64

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:18 PM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #2

Current top comment: I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down…

Not this.

A minimum income means that it is in everybody who doesn't works interest to raise it, which is what will happen (because that is what will win elections) which will cause more people to not work, which will further the pressure.

This will banckrupt any state that starts down that path, assuming you set the initial income about what 10% or so makes, which is typically enough to swing an election.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#65

Post by randallsquared » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:20 PM UTC

saticmotion wrote: post #21

bayesianhorse wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a way to get there, for most nations. Big nations would have the most trouble introducing this. And what about immigration? Immigration can't be effectively regulated by any means available to a moderately democratic state. Should immigrants receive the BLS? If yes, you go broke. If no, the immigrants are essentially second-class citizens who have to work for an extremely low wage (because they would have…

A solution - though extremely unlikely in this day and age - would be to abandon the notion of nations. Especially in the far future, if we are ever to meet aliens. Imagine having to explain that you only represent one of 196 nations. Seems a bit silly to me.

Imagine having to explain that you represent some people only because you told those people you represent them. What with all the independence movements, the direction of the world seems to be toward a million nations, not world government.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#66

Post by webXL » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:22 PM UTC

sumeno wrote: post #55

stronglikedan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The right believe that their way is the only way. To be fair, the left feel this way too.

If that were true a conservative based healthcare reform like the ACA would never have been passed by a democratic controlled congress. For better or for worse the left has been much more open to compromise

If ACA is a conservative solution, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#67

Post by bottled_poe » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:23 PM UTC

Job-killing is a GOAL of technological innovation, and this is a good thing. In an ideal world this would free up our time to be spent doing things we as humans WANT to do. Technological improvements should decrease the price of good and services because less resources and efforts are required to provide them. Sadly, this is not what we have seen. Working hours go up, and so do the prices. Perhaps it is due to the nature of capitalism, something like Jevon's paradox or some other unexpected behaviour.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#68

Post by dalore » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:25 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #64

istjohn wrote: post #2

Current top comment: I think the answer is fairly straightforward: create a guaranteed minimum income. Tax all income after that. As productivity goes up, you increase the guaranteed minimum income. If you want more than the minimum, you go out and work, and the people who have only skills that can be done by a computer/robot more cheaply than a minimum wage work just leave the work force. Should productivity go down…

Not this. A minimum income means that it is in everybody who doesn't works interest to raise it, which is what will happen (because that is what will win elections) which will cause more people to not work, which will further the pressure. This will banckrupt any state that starts down that path, assuming you set the initial income about what 10% or so makes, which is typically enough to swing an election.

Then bring in mandatory voting like in Australia.

Or better yet, let's vote on issues collectively and do away with representation system. We have the internet. Then the majority of people who make more than the minimum income will vote out the ones who do.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#69

Post by Benji_San » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:26 PM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #26

grinnbearit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why a basic income? I propose basic welfare, food + clothing + shelter, even entertainment. Mass produced in order to minimise costs. Then allocate a fixed amount of tax revenue to fund it, say 10%. Then as productivity goes up and goods become cheaper, this 10% can provide even more. Let money be what it is, a claim on goods and services provided for by other people. With basic welfare no one is forced into work out…

In kind welfare is notoriously inefficient. The bureaucracy required weighs down the system. No one knows what they need better than the people themselves.

The current overly bureaucratic welfare systems are reactions on the idea that everyone is supposed to have a "job". If you don't have a job your job is to navigate the welfare system to "earn" your welfare income while you are "looking for a job that doesn't necessarily exist". The overly bureaucratic system also require more people to maintain it which means jobs are created through it, which ultimately is a good thing because more jobs is obviously a good thing in the western economies, right?

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#70

Post by grinnbearit » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:32 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #48

grinnbearit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why a basic income? I propose basic welfare, food + clothing + shelter, even entertainment. Mass produced in order to minimise costs. Then allocate a fixed amount of tax revenue to fund it, say 10%. Then as productivity goes up and goods become cheaper, this 10% can provide even more. Let money be what it is, a claim on goods and services provided for by other people. With basic welfare no one is forced into work out…

> Why a basic income? I propose basic welfare, food + clothing + shelter, even entertainment. Mass produced in order to minimise costs. Because basic income respects human freedom, and as automation advances and the rewards of the economy in pure-market terms increasingly shift even further from labor to capital, a basic income that is adjusted in amount as the economy shifts provides a comparatively light touch redi…

The idea is to have a floor on consequences, people make bad choices or are just plain unlucky. Think of basic welfare as a utility, to draw upon as and when you need it, hopefully temporarily as you get back on your feet. Eliminating choice is important, it solves the underlying issue (people dying) while removing opportunities to exploit (reselling food stamps).

Incentives to be productive don't go away, can you create something other people want? Art? Literature? Take a loan or find investors. Worst case scenario you end up back on welfare.

Welfare needs to be thought of as a cost, not an investment.