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Software Is Eating the Job Market

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Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#111

Post by stcredzero »

anigbrowl wrote: post #74
stcredzero wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't an economist be able to figure out when such a phenomenon is happening? It seems like this should be quantifiable. It seems like a 21st century government should be looking for these situations to be arising with some regularity now, and that a "template" program for helping mentoring/apprenticeship practices to come about faster might make sense. (Modulo one's faith in the (in)competence of government inte…

Yes, and in countries like Germany there's a three-way relationship between government, employers, and unions, who seem to start from a broad assumption of being on the same team. That relationship is much more fraught in the US, where relations between business and unions are historically antagonistic (with both sides deserving some blame for this), and you have a large contingent of people that are convinced govern…

a large contingent of people that are convinced government shouldn't exist and is fundamentally incompetent to solve problems (but often simultaneously a highly effective tyrannical entity).

Well, yes. Nutters are louder everywhere. Not sure if it's worse over here. Not sure if there's as much pandering to the nutters all across the political here as elsewhere. On trips abroad, I did detect that many Europeans were aghast at our politics in the early 2000s and were still (but for different reasons) as of 2014.

Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#112

Post by jakejnichols »

ctdonath wrote: post #46
mason240 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal Basic Income is the best post-labor system I've read of. Everything is still based on the same capitalism we have now, and the ~20% of people who work will still be able to make income (meaning there will still be incentive for enterprise).

Except you'll have increasing encroachment on motivation of the productive. When Ronald Reagan was a top-billed Hollywood actor, he faced a ~90% tax bracket. Rather than work hard only to see most of his earnings confiscated, he'd make just a few movies and then enjoy those profits instead of spending time on diminishing returns. Same for plenty of us motivated ones: if 80% are living off the 20%, that will require t…

Movie stars aren't a very good example. Ronald Reagan was not 100X times better actor than the next guy. He could command a big salary because he won a tournament market based on name recognition. If he works less, someone just as good gets a chance and there is the same output.

Where a 90% tax really hurts is entrepreneurship and risk taking. If that 90% tax includes taxes on capital gains, then I have no incentive to start a business or invest in a business. If it fails I lose my money and sweat equity. If it succeeds, I get taxed so much I barely make more money than if I had just worked.

One of the reasons the economy was good in the 50's despite the high taxes was that those high taxes only applied to salaries, not capital gains. Also, there were lots and lots of loopholes so a lot of people didn't end up paying that 90%.

That all said. Americans already pay a ton of taxes. There is plenty of money for UBI already. It just needs to be reallocated from failed programs and bureaucracies - such as 90% of the educational system.

Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#113

Post by int3 »

sanderjd wrote: post #103
int3 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. But experience can be garnered outside companies, and the Internet is making that easier, too: OSS development, nonprofit / pro bono work, etc.

Absolutely true, but "well, we've replaced entry-level jobs with working for free" is a terrible answer. Also, would edit my original reply if I could to say that things seem to be heading this direction, not that they definitely or inevitably are.

It is only a terrible answer without basic income, which was the other point I was trying to make.

Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#114

Post by dllthomas »

anigbrowl wrote: post #110
toomuchtodo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI is a fine idea, but proponents are awfully short on specifics. It would be very nice if people would cite a particular scheme or gameplan they consider to be credible when they mention the topic. Social Security and Medicare expanded to everyone, regardless of age. No handwaving, that's the general idea. The devil is in the details, and there are many details to work out.

Of course I know what the idea is. I'm saying that UBI proponents need to say 'it'll cost X, we'll save Y by slashing all this bureaucracy, the rest will come from Z,' as well as some sort of strategy to shepherd it through the political process, figure how it will mesh with immigration policy, and so on. What I'm complaining about is that hardly anyone seems to be making a serious effort to fill out those details, a…

I've run some numbers in the past, though I don't have them in front of me anymore. While of course they should be taken with a rather large grain of salt, providing $6-9k/yr to every American doesn't seem to produce crazy numbers. It's also an amount that's low enough that we're not likely to see crazy numbers of people opting out of the workforce, while high enough to increase the bargaining power of workers a bit. If I had to pick an optimal level of UBI to institute nationwide (which in some senses must exist), I would guess it to be around there.

That said, recently I've been thinking of a different approach. Concerns about scale (and migration) are smaller if we start with a smaller amount. I've been thinking an approach might be creation of a private institution tasked with designing and coordinating a basic income program for regions (probably at the city or county level, in the US) that opt in and who meet whatever necessary standards. The program would then apply to anyone who lives or works in a participating locality. The program could then be gradually rolled out and scaled up as (/if) it's found to work. National benefits can be phased out by treating BI income as income. One thing that makes this plan seem more workable is that the organization could raise money from supportive individuals to build a buffer for the program, to serve as something of a carrot for prospective localities.

Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#115

Post by dllthomas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #104
toomuchtodo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI is a fine idea, but proponents are awfully short on specifics. It would be very nice if people would cite a particular scheme or gameplan they consider to be credible when they mention the topic. Social Security and Medicare expanded to everyone, regardless of age. No handwaving, that's the general idea. The devil is in the details, and there are many details to work out.

> Social Security and Medicare expanded to everyone, regardless of age. That's an idea, but its not the idea of UBI. Medicare is a complex health insurance system consisting both of government provided and government-subsidized-private health insurance, it isn't anything like UBI. Social Security is, aside from age or disability test to withdraw from it, a system with benefits governed by your (or your spouse's) past…

You seem to be objecting to an attempt at defining UBI. I'd interpreted the context as "give me a proposal for how to do UBI", in which case "Social Security and Medicare for everyone" does seem an attempt at such a proposal. The proposal is substantially incomplete, as the question certainly arises of how to calculate social security benefits for those who haven't worked long enough to qualify under existing rules... but with certain answers to that question, it would be implementing a UBI system (along with other stuff as well).

Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#116

Post by dllthomas »

niuzeta wrote: post #11

The non-fundamental shift about software is not that it's creating quality jobs at the cost of medium-quality jobs. It's also not that we are creating robots that will replace low-quality human workers. Because we still believe that as low-quality jobs go, higher-quality jobs will somehow appear. (you may not agree with this, even I am personally sceptical, but that's not the point I'm about to argue) But to get to t…

"But to get to the higher-quality jobs, you generally need experience. Not many employers are willing to hire someone and put him in a responsible position based off their potential alone. It follows, then, that we need substantial number of entry level positions to, so to speak, open the door for future potent workers."

I've been wondering about a similar (far more narrow) dynamic around the C programming language. There are still a number of places C is the best fit, but those are increasingly in places where expert knowledge of C is required.

There are presently enough legacy projects where people can cut their teeth usefully that this isn't soon a major issue, but if we continue to displace more but not all uses of C, this could get interesting in the long term (maybe).

Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#117

Post by dragonwriter »

dllthomas wrote: post #115
dragonwriter wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social Security and Medicare expanded to everyone, regardless of age. That's an idea, but its not the idea of UBI. Medicare is a complex health insurance system consisting both of government provided and government-subsidized-private health insurance, it isn't anything like UBI. Social Security is, aside from age or disability test to withdraw from it, a system with benefits governed by your (or your spouse's) past…

You seem to be objecting to an attempt at defining UBI. I'd interpreted the context as "give me a proposal for how to do UBI", in which case "Social Security and Medicare for everyone" does seem an attempt at such a proposal. The proposal is substantially incomplete, as the question certainly arises of how to calculate social security benefits for those who haven't worked long enough to qualify under existing rules..…

Fair enough. It's certainly, at least, a place to start a discussion of the mechanics.

Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#118

Post by dllthomas »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #67
ctdonath wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming there's any incentive to pursue that free education. A large segment of the population has no interest in working save for the fact that if they don't they'll starve; these are not self-motivated people who seek out academic pursuits in their spare time. Entry-level jobs are absolutely necessary, first for learning to get to work on time daily , then for the job-specific education needed to work up to…

Those advocating "basic income" need to go look up the phrase "going Galt" (upshot: given enough unproductive leeching off the productive, the latter are apt to say "screw this" and disappear from society). "Going Galt" appears to primarily be a fantasy scenario. People largely tend to consumption rates which are smoothed and that factor in long-term expectations of income as opposed to marginally increasing rates th…

More than off-the-grid, you see expatriation. Still not in tremendous numbers, for the most part.

Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#119

Post by dllthomas »

jakejnichols wrote: post #112
ctdonath wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you'll have increasing encroachment on motivation of the productive. When Ronald Reagan was a top-billed Hollywood actor, he faced a ~90% tax bracket. Rather than work hard only to see most of his earnings confiscated, he'd make just a few movies and then enjoy those profits instead of spending time on diminishing returns. Same for plenty of us motivated ones: if 80% are living off the 20%, that will require t…

Movie stars aren't a very good example. Ronald Reagan was not 100X times better actor than the next guy. He could command a big salary because he won a tournament market based on name recognition. If he works less, someone just as good gets a chance and there is the same output. Where a 90% tax really hurts is entrepreneurship and risk taking. If that 90% tax includes taxes on capital gains, then I have no incentive…

"If he works less, someone just as good gets a chance and there is the same output."

Given the pay disparity, if he works less there's probably more output.

(... note that this is considering his decision to work less, in isolation - not the effect of the tax level that purportedly motivated that as a whole, which would take a much deeper analysis...)

Re: Software Is Eating the Job Market

#120

Post by dllthomas »

juliangregorian wrote: post #99
oldmanjay wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where you get that idea. There may well be individual capitalists who believe that, and certainly in the heat of speculation some individuals act as if that is their belief, but the system itself has no such requirement.

Economics 101. Both parties are supposed to gain additional utility from any trade. I'll wait while you do the math.

Both parties are supposed to gain additional utility from any trade or it doesn't happen. That's not to say that both parties gain utility from any trade that could be made (obviously), and there's nothing that implies an infinitude - just a difference in how much people value different things.

Of course, past Econ 101, we also get into issues of people making trades they think will be beneficial but aren't.

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