101–110 of 150 posts
A hole in RMS' line of thinking is this - he extends only one end of the argument, the end which says Uber will massively grow. He doesn't acknowledge the fact that there will undeniably be other competitors to Uber, a bunch of them might end up being free software. If history has taught us anything, somebody somewhere always tries to copy every closed source project in the name of freedom and open source. Why does R…
> Uber plans to do away with human cab drivers. > It would be easy for a non-plutocratic government to prohibit this, and that's what every country ought to do, unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed. Okay, so I am extremely liberal and everything, but "let's ban any new technologies that might make somebody lose their job to a robot" is seriously the most ridiculo…
It's nearly in the job description of every software engineer to create things that ease people's workloads or replace their jobs entirely. I bet Stallman's projects, and the free software movement itself, are responsible for the non-existence of numerous jobs. Also: basic income, or whatever it is that will make sense when there aren't enough jobs to go around, won't be preemptive.
Great point. It's hard to quantify though. OSS gives companies access to a quality software stack for minimal cost. On the other hand, those companies are not now buying software from proprietary vendors. I don't know which is more: jobs created by having access to inexpensive quality software, or jobs lost due to less spending on application code.
RMS doesn't use credit cards and walks around town wearing a "Don't be tracked. Pay with cash" button. Even if Uber addressed every single point on his list, he still wouldn't use them.
> Uber plans to do away with human cab drivers. > It would be easy for a non-plutocratic government to prohibit this, and that's what every country ought to do, unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed. Okay, so I am extremely liberal and everything, but "let's ban any new technologies that might make somebody lose their job to a robot" is seriously the most ridiculo…
Uber seems to be the cool company to hate, but when I talk to Uber drivers that unanimously seemed to think it was a good gig. The talked about the money(how it was much better than what they were doing), they talked about the hours(whenever they would like to work), and they talked about the pleasure of working for themselves.
When the switch to robotic cars comes, in it will impacts the world over, and Ubers interaction with the robotic car revolution will be a very small part of the impact self driving cars have, in my own humble opinion. I'm not even convinced Uber can hold onto it's market share when self-driving cars take over, the space will seems ripe for competition.
>Uber plans to do away with human cab drivers. >It would be easy for a non-plutocratic government to prohibit this, and that's what every country ought to do, unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed. So what? This is the way of technology: obsolete work becomes automated. Extending RMS' argument to its logical conclusion means reinstating many forms of manual labor…
"So what?" The way of technology is to increasingly render people obsolete. This is great for some people for most its a threat to their ability to make a living. The logical conclusion is not what you state but one conclusion his other is basic income and then you can automate away all you want. There is an unfortunate tendency to think about technology replacing jobs as temporary until the workforce re-adjust yet t…
Yeah, I know. The thing you're forgetting is that unemployment denotes a percentage of the eligible workforce, which, in itself, is only a fraction of the total population. Before the industrial revolution, literally EVERYONE, save for infants and toddlers, had some sort of employment -- some daily task to assist their making ends meet. The long-term trend is extremely obviously one of monotonic decline of the number of jobs available per capita.
I'm totally aware that the consequence of technology replacing jobs is structural unemployment. Yes, over time, there will be more unemployment. It is likely that we will adapt for this by changing the definition of the eligible workforce, and by supplying further social aid (e.g. basic income) to those who are not in the workforce.
However, the problem with your argument is that you are putting the cart before the horse: you want basic income before you remove jobs. Instituting basic income while people still have jobs is politically well-nigh impossible. There actually must be a felt need for basic income, not just "once y'all have basic income we can start automating away your jobs".
Would you have said, on the cusp of the industrial revolution, that nations should hold out on the technological progress until everyone is assured a new job and a decent quality of life? Maybe, but I think that's a bit idealistic. Innovation -- like all forms of change -- can be a bit rough as it sweeps through.
Yet another reason why working with or talking to RMS is impossible. I think we can apply many of these arguments to Taxi cabs as well. Taxis run "non free" software to process credit cards. Taxi destinations can be subpoenaed by local LEO and the government, along with credit card receipts, just like Uber. Taxis are a regulated market, but the medallion market is largel unregulated and a near-monopoly. Taxi drivers…
> Taxis run "non free" software to process credit cards. "I have a credit card, but I use it as rarely as possible. Effectively, only for airline tickets, car rental, and hotel checkin — because they demand identification anyway." https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html
I don’t even have a credit card, and I only pay electronically for large payments or where identification would be done anyway.
And it’s cheaper for the merchants as well, with cards they lose 3% of the income, some merchants even make losses with every card customer.
> Uber plans to do away with human cab drivers. > It would be easy for a non-plutocratic government to prohibit this, and that's what every country ought to do, unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed. Okay, so I am extremely liberal and everything, but "let's ban any new technologies that might make somebody lose their job to a robot" is seriously the most ridiculo…
First off, that's not what he said. Secondly, lots of smart people have been talking about the need for basic income when robots take over large portions of the labor force. I'm personally unconvinced that it will create mass unemployment, but I don't call it crazy.
Perhaps in 50 years, maybe 100, but I see the writing on the walls.
Humans seem almost universally have this hubris that says that machines will never be able to take their place, think as us, be as smart or creative as us. They almost certainly will, but it will take time, perhaps a long time. After all, biology and evolution has had(and used) billions of years to create the human brain, and we've only been building computer for less than a 100.
> Uber plans to do away with human cab drivers. > It would be easy for a non-plutocratic government to prohibit this, and that's what every country ought to do, unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed. Okay, so I am extremely liberal and everything, but "let's ban any new technologies that might make somebody lose their job to a robot" is seriously the most ridiculo…
First off, that's not what he said. Secondly, lots of smart people have been talking about the need for basic income when robots take over large portions of the labor force. I'm personally unconvinced that it will create mass unemployment, but I don't call it crazy.
Perhaps in 50 years, maybe 100, but I see the writing on the walls.
Humans seem almost universally have this hubris that says that machines will never be able to take their place, think as us, be as smart or creative as us. They almost certainly will, but it will take time, perhaps a long time. After all, biology and evolution has had(and used) billions of years to create the human brain, and we've only been building computer for less than a 100.
> Uber plans to do away with human cab drivers. > It would be easy for a non-plutocratic government to prohibit this, and that's what every country ought to do, unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed. Okay, so I am extremely liberal and everything, but "let's ban any new technologies that might make somebody lose their job to a robot" is seriously the most ridiculo…
I find Taxis to be very stressful when traveling for two main reasons: * I'd guess about 10% of the time they don't show up, so I have to bake in extra travel time for that. With uber I can see on my phone that they are actually coming. * With uber I know payment is all set, Taxi's will often say that their credit card machine is broken. I imagine these problems could start to get solved with a good open source softw…
Then, insist that they break out the manual credit-card processor and carbon paper. If they refuse, offer to have them call the cops. Their payment-processing hardware will probably magically start working.