You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass • Hacker News Board

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#131

Post by pharrington » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:41 AM UTC

DiscourseFan wrote: post #108

hnlmorg wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of the above was possible just 20 years ago. Most of those things were actually possible. In many cases they weren’t as convenient, but as a child of the 80s I can tell you that life wasn’t like the dark ages before we all got smart phones. In any case, I don’t think anyone here is arguing against technological progress. What we’re saying is that big tech has been too powerful, and too unregulated, for far too…

I think you'll find that most of the texts you can access right now are not available at your local library.

And most of the texts you can access at the local library aren't even at that local library right now. Libraries are part of a humongous network. If you're willing to wait a few days, there's an avalanche of material that you definitely can't instantly find on the internet.

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#132

Post by WithinReason » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:42 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #19

The premise is economically incoherent because labor is not a single task category that technology can delete. It is the input that continuously reconstitutes itself around whatever remains scarce, valuable and socially demanded as productivity rises. This is the lump of labor fallacy- the belief that there’s a fixed amount of economically valuable work that technology and capital can eliminate through automation or…

Let's say a truck driver's job gets fully automated by self-driving trucks. How will his labor reconstiture itself into something new? #learntocode? How about SW developers? What if the most capable model you need to use to stay competitive costs $10k a month so you're locked out?

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#133

Post by hnlmorg » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:42 AM UTC

DiscourseFan wrote: post #108

hnlmorg wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of the above was possible just 20 years ago. Most of those things were actually possible. In many cases they weren’t as convenient, but as a child of the 80s I can tell you that life wasn’t like the dark ages before we all got smart phones. In any case, I don’t think anyone here is arguing against technological progress. What we’re saying is that big tech has been too powerful, and too unregulated, for far too…

I think you'll find that most of the texts you can access right now are not available at your local library.

Most of the texts that matter are. Yeah you’re not going to find some random flat earth blog in the library, but equally, that’s a good thing.

However, I wasn’t talking specifically about libraries. The web did still exist 20 years ago. Wikipedia is more than 20 years old. And newsgroups have been around much longer too.

The web was also mobile accessible for more than 20 years (WAP, for example, was introduced in 1999).

There were also phone numbers you could ring who could provide quick searches for information look up. People are most familiar with them in terms of telephone directory services (eg ring an operator to ask for the phone number of someone else) but there were other general knowledge services too. In fact I used one once when my bike chain broke, I walked to a local pay phone, and enquired how to put a chain back on.

Even know, there’s a plethora of information at local government information and audit offices, which isn’t available online. most of which is store on microfilm. A friend needed to visit one office recently to look at historic maps to trace the origins of a public right of way (which is a legal public footpath though farmland in the UK)

Like I said before, we weren’t living in the dark ages before smartphones came along.

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#134

Post by Chance-Device » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:44 AM UTC

I get the feeling behind the anti-AI sentiment, I just disagree with the conclusions.

There’s a lot of fear around what will happen with AI, not so much of extinction but rather of two things: fear of losing income, and arguably more importantly, fear of losing identity.

People often are invested in what they do to the point that it’s who they are. That being replaced or eliminated might be a bigger psychological threat than lack of income, at least to those of us fortunate enough to be well off right now.

However, these threats are outweighed by the benefits that AI can eventually bring. Medical advances, power generation, manufacturing capability. Our systems for running society have a lot of problems, economically, politically, epistemologically. These can also be improved with AI assistance.

The real problem is the transition, it’s such a huge shift, and it will happen all at once to everyone, uprooting our idea of the world and our place in it.

What we need is to embrace AI and find a way to make sure that the transition and benefits of AI are distributed instead of concentrated.

For me this looks like the following: companies must commit to retaining some minimum number of employees in every currently existing function, to be determined proportional to their profit taking. This sets a floor on the job losses that can come later when AI really comes on stream.

The justification for this is three fold: firstly, it’s a safety mechanism, it ensures that regardless of the capabilities of an AI system, there are multiple humans working with it to verify its results. If they aren’t verifying diligently, then they’re not doing their jobs.

Secondly, jobs aren’t just a way of making income, they’re wrapped up in identity and meaning for at least some people, and this helps to maintain that existing identity structure across a meaningful cross section of society.

Third, it keeps the economy running, money circulating. You can’t have a market economy without consumers. UBI is one component of this too, but this is both more direct, more useful and more meaningful.

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#135

Post by WithinReason » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:45 AM UTC

OgsyedIE wrote: post #114

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about your labor, but as far as my labor goes, there are basically only three things I am capable of doing: manual labor with my hands and legs, mental labor with my mind, and selling personal charm with my handsome face. If you can perform all the same jobs I can for a penny a day, and food and rent cost a dollar a day, I'll have a hard time earning enough to remain fed and housed. Until now, I've alway…

Even though the three categories you describe include niches like museum attraction or vehicle piloting in legal niches that still respect humans, a little creativity expands your options for post-ASI work: 1: verbal/literary labour with your vocal cords, or the use of an output tool, to playback existing works in environments where mechanical methods are disallowed, 2: aesthetic labour through precise recreations of…

I had to get to 4 to realize this is sarcasm

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#136

Post by camgunz » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:49 AM UTC

Tech needs to learn about collective action problems. Are any of geohot's shops unionized? Has he done any political work or advocacy? What I want to read is "geohot donates $5m to CWA", not some insipid, entirely useless blog post effectively calling me a coward, while its author does nothing.

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#137

Post by mitthrowaway2 » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:50 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #85

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, you can still do everything you could yesterday. You can still hand-weave cloth and sell it if you want to, just like your ancestors could do three hundred years ago; you'll simply have to do it three thousand times faster than your ancestors did to exchange that labor for a loaf of bread, because even though bread is cheaper than it used to be, your customer's next best alternative is an automatic loom, and t…

I'm pretty sure you're literally just wrong on that one - no special knowledge of the weaving market but it seems people do still make a living from hand-weaving fabric. Eg, I found https://loomandstars.com/collections/handwoven-fabrics - they claim to have a shop in New York. They can probably afford bread - bread is quite cheap. The issue is if bread becomes insanely cheap and cloth becomes insanely cheap, then a v…

This is one of those cases where it's really important to remember the assumptions built into comparative advantage theory, such as "no mobility of labor". If the Green-country people are more productive at all tasks than the Blue-country people, they can still both profit from trade with each other. But that does not represent the maximum productivity allocation of resources. Output can be increased still further by the Green people replacing the population of the Blue-country with more Green people, in which scenario the optimal resource allocation to sustaining the Blue people is unfortunately zero.

This is why the population of labor animals plummeted in the 20th century. And to put it plainly, it means that there's no guarantee you can always sell labor for enough to keep your home from getting paved over for a data center.

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#138

Post by Llamamoe » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:50 AM UTC

I'd just like to add three things to the conversation:

1) Instead of LLMs, imagine large models trained end-to-end on ALL online content and the impact it has on public opinion and discourse. What about when everything is an algorithmic feed controlled by such a model under the control of the elite? You might be resistant(but probably aren't), but in aggregate this will be effective mind control over society.

2) Money directs human effort. Every quantum of bargaining power the worker/middle class lose due to being less needed is the reduction in our ability to have a say in who society should serve and how.

3) Don't forget regulatory capture is a thing. Not just a thing but happening as we speak. Are you still optimistic?

4) Tech is already addicting and ads are already everywhere even without technology that has a theory of mind.

5) Do not forget that humans are social creatures, power over others is not just an accidental byproduct of wealth. Once you're unnecessary for labor, what's left? Fulfilling sexual/emotional/social whims of the wealthy elite? Hunger games? Being a pet in a billionaire's human zoo city so he can brag about his contributions to humanity?

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#139

Post by rglullis » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:52 AM UTC

pizlonator wrote: post #104

rglullis wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil would like to have a word with you.

I find it surprising if Brazil meets this criteria: > capital is the only thing separating one set of humans from the other, and that separation is large, and the overwhelming majority of humans are in the underclass. Obviously, it's a matter of degree. You could reasonably argue that any capitalist society meets the criteria depending on your definition of "large", and depending on how you interpret the "capital is…

You could also argue in the other direction: capital is never going to be the only thing separating one set of individuals from another, because we sure like to keep finding ways to label ourselves different: ethinicity, religion, political ideology, sex preferences, eye color...

Then again, maybe this is why Brazil finds itself in this steady state of economic inequality and endemic violence but without critical mass for a civil war: the same diversity that makes Brazilians apt at navigating conflicts is what makes us incapable at finding a common enemy and building an united front?

Re: You have three minutes to escape the perpetual underclass

#140

Post by Llamamoe » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 9:52 AM UTC

camgunz wrote: post #136

Tech needs to learn about collective action problems. Are any of geohot's shops unionized? Has he done any political work or advocacy? What I want to read is "geohot donates $5m to CWA", not some insipid, entirely useless blog post effectively calling me a coward, while its author does nothing.

If you raise the bar for being allowed to speak about a very real concern that high, nobody will be left to spread and debate the idea in the first place.