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?

#71

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:33 PM UTC

jcromartie wrote: post #52

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…

Can you imagine government-issue food, clothing, and shelter? That's destined to be some horribly depressing Soviet-type shit right there. With a basic income, even the people who are not working can participate in the market and drive the competition and innovation of people who are producing goods and services.

Exactly. The point is to make it so that you can survive like that but you always have incentives to work, even a little. If you don't you will walk around in clothing that is obviously provided by the state (manufactures of clothing will work hard to make sure their clothing doesn't look like that), living a state area, eathing state food (may be pretty healthy, actually) - so everybody will know you belong on the bottom of society.

Yet nobody really suffers like they do today, nobody has to go hungry (this also helps those whoes parents aren't good with money, since they will still get food) nobody has to become homeless.

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

#72

Post by tbrownaw » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:37 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?

It has less knobs for politicians to twiddle.

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

#73

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:40 PM UTC

jfoutz wrote: post #30

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…

I'm not completely clear i understand the distinction. With basic income, you just get cash (or a tax deduction if you're making money - the original proposal was around 2x the deduction vs cash). you can do whatever you want with it. like eating steak more than having a large living space? Do that. I get the impression you're wanting to provide standardized essentials, a room, 5 shirts, 5 pants, government cheese. T…

It is true that the market is efficient in getting people what they want and that the government is not.

However that is not desirable in this case since it makes it too easy to live on government money with little incentives to take whatever job you can. If you lived in a government room, got your government clothing and ate in your government chow hall/mess tent/whatever then you could get a benefit out of shoveling dogshit for 10usd/hour since you could get a better shirt, a more tasty meal, etc. You can't sell access to a government bed because every person would be entitled to one, you can't sell access to government food if any person could show up and you could sell your government shit, but to whom? That person would also be able to get 5 shirts.

With government money you would have to check that that person wasn't working under the table, you would have to provide incentives to work (since it is better for society), etc.

When we truely have human level AI we can make the Culture and nobody has to work. And it will be an epic achievement, but in the transition period we still have to use the carrot and stick.

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

#74

Post by MadManE » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:41 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…

How do you determine what "minimum" means? Depending on who you ask, "Basic Living" is high speed internet and all new iProducts on release along with a new car every 5 years. Where do you draw the line?

Also, how does this propagate after a few generations? We can already see the welfare lifestyle being inherited - will this be any better? Especially since there is much less reason to try to be better under this system.

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

#75

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:42 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.

Inefficient in what terms? If you want to optimize for a nice current life for that person you give money, if you want to optimzing for getting back to work without starving then you given physical goods.

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

#76

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:44 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #7

githulhu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but then you're creating a whole class of people who basically don't have anything anything to do. They will inevitably find things to fill that vacuum, such as having lots of babies. What happens when population growth outstrips the ability of production to provide for the needs of non-production? Unless you assume that productivity can scale up indefinitely, those people will just get poorer and poorer as wea…

First of all, the consequence of free time isn't necessarily more children. In fact, as people move up from poverty to "middle-class" lifestyle (with more free time as well), they have less children. Second, China solved the overpopulation problem quite well with the one-child policy (maybe too well, even).

About your China point - I would not consider anything that involved forced abortions to be a solution.

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

#77

Post by kilbasa » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:45 PM UTC

draugadrotten wrote: post #8

githulhu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but then you're creating a whole class of people who basically don't have anything anything to do. They will inevitably find things to fill that vacuum, such as having lots of babies. What happens when population growth outstrips the ability of production to provide for the needs of non-production? Unless you assume that productivity can scale up indefinitely, those people will just get poorer and poorer as wea…

Productivity doesn't need to scale up indefinitely - it just needs to be able to scale up until it's enough. Silly but simple thought experiment: - 10 people on an island - 2 people can pick enough coconuts for all 10 to eat well - Using a ladder, productivity picks up enough so 1 person can pick enough coconuts for all 10 - A coconut picking robot is developed, picking enough coconuts for all 10 The coconut picking…

I think if you measure productivity in terms of coconuts over man hours, productivity could rise indefinitely if it's at all possible to make robots that repair themselves and don't require any non-renewable resources.

Anyway, I think the first people to lose their jobs would be the ladder makers.

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

#78

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:46 PM UTC

oddevan wrote: post #41

Kiro wrote: post #13

Technological innovation is more important than any job.

Can you elaborate? For example, what is the end-goal of technological innovation? What's the end-goal of any job? To me, the point of innovation is to make people's lives better. Growing pains, a temporary loss of one type of job, those are inevitable when talking about innovation. But people adapt, they get new jobs, sometimes enabled by the very innovations that displaced them in the first place. That's fine, that'…

A job is a means to an end. Technological innovation is a means to make our lives better. There is no end goal because there is no limit to how good we can make it.

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

#79

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:49 PM UTC

dalore wrote: post #68

tomjen3 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those solutions just make the problem worse. If you make direct voting happen then it will be even easier to raise the limit and even more difficult to lower it.

The root issue is that votes should be linked to net tax dollars paid - the more you pay the more you get to decide.

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

#80

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

MarcusVorenus wrote: post #28

forca wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, Tea Party (yes, I'm being sarcastic). The far right in this country have driven home their stupid Ayn Rand message and too many people have listened. We now have the most polarized government since the Civil War. The right believe that their way is the only way. To them everything is a zero sum game. I would settle for a Scandinavian or Swiss-style system. The older I get, the less I like capitalism as des…

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.

> Basic income is not a left vs right issue.

Yes, it is.

> Lots of libertarians (including Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek) support basic income as a more efficient safety net than government-run programs.

Well, first, "libertarian" says nothing about left vs. right. "Lots of libertarians support one side of the issue" doesn't mean it doesn't split left vs. right.

Second, neither Milton Friedman nor Friedrich Hayek can be counted as current supporters of, well, anything.