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Rolling the ladder up behind us

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Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#141

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

mm263 wrote: post #67
zimzam wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Inexpensive food is a boon to society. Cultivating food the 'old fashioned way' is incredibly labor intensive. We now have machines that allow us to cultivate far more food with far less labor. For example, in 1900 corn took 38 hours/acre to plant/cultivate/harvest. In 2000 it took about an hour. The yeild per acre has also improved 3x-5x in that span, so the time per bushel has decreased…

You are not making an argument you think you are making. We switched from one set of problems to another set of problems that didn't exist before industrial agriculture: soil erosion, pest explosion, entire harvests wiped out by disease because genetic uniformity, which means one pathogen can destroy everything - think Irish potato famine but now it's scientific and modern. The mess of traditional farming - with its…

I need to finish seeing like a state and will defer to your expertise, but this raised a question in me: why are we still limping along if our farming techniques are doomed like this? Did we never adapt in recognition of the flaws of monoculture?

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#142

Post by whall6 »

Refreeze5224 wrote: post #2

This is the true problem with AI. It's with who owns it, and what they will inevitably use it for. Whether it can do cool stuff with code or equal a junior developer is irrelevant. What it can do is less important than what it will be used for. The owning class will use it to reduce payroll costs, which from their perspective is a cost center and always will be. If you're not an owner, then you have no control over t…

The owning class is different today than it was in Ned’s time.

Who owns MSFT? You, probably, through your 401k.

Nobody is stopping you from creating a coalition of similarly minded shareholders and effecting change.

Unless you stuff your cash under your mattress, you are the owning class.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#143

Post by worik »

Do we, or do we not, live in democratic societies?

If we do then we must ensure that we get the social benefits from new technologies, and we suppress the harm.

Does anyone still believe that "self interest" in the aggregate is what is best for society? I think it is clearly untrue

So we need to take collective action.

AI/LLMs are a "steam engine" moment. We can make life better for everyone. But we do need to change course, together, to get there

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#144

Post by worik »

whall6 wrote: post #142
Refreeze5224 wrote: post #2

This is the true problem with AI. It's with who owns it, and what they will inevitably use it for. Whether it can do cool stuff with code or equal a junior developer is irrelevant. What it can do is less important than what it will be used for. The owning class will use it to reduce payroll costs, which from their perspective is a cost center and always will be. If you're not an owner, then you have no control over t…

The owning class is different today than it was in Ned’s time. Who owns MSFT? You, probably, through your 401k. Nobody is stopping you from creating a coalition of similarly minded shareholders and effecting change. Unless you stuff your cash under your mattress, you are the owning class.

> Nobody is stopping you from creating a coalition of similarly minded shareholders

Sweet lies.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#145

Post by worik »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #73
Refreeze5224 wrote: post #2

This is the true problem with AI. It's with who owns it, and what they will inevitably use it for. Whether it can do cool stuff with code or equal a junior developer is irrelevant. What it can do is less important than what it will be used for. The owning class will use it to reduce payroll costs, which from their perspective is a cost center and always will be. If you're not an owner, then you have no control over t…

> The owning class will use it to reduce payroll costs Things are cyclic, nothing new; the previous big scare was (is?) outsourcing, where for the same price as one developer in western / northern Europe or SF you can hire five from eastern Europe or India. But that hasn't affected employability of the one developer, as far as I'm aware. I'm not even thinking of skill level, I'm sure that's comparable (but honestly I…

> the previous big scare was (is?) outsourcing,

I was replaced by outsourcing

Seriously. Fuck off

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#146

Post by specialist »

WalterBright wrote: post #113
specialist wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now include profit (surplus) in your analysis. Wage grow has not kept pace with corporate profitability. Why?

Because the correct comparison would be with total compensation, of which wages are only a portion. Total compensation is the costs to an employer to hire some one. It includes: 1. contributions to retirement plans 2. so-called "employer paid" social security contributions 3. sick and paid vacation days 4. employer paid health insurance 5. stock plans 6. 401k plans 7. other payroll taxes Last time I checked, these of…

Am corrected. Updated question:

Now include profit (surplus) in your analysis.

Total compensation has not kept pace with corporate profitability. Why?

--

> Just like the compensation for pro football players varies in a single team.

Then why do professional athletes have unions?

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#147

Post by doitLP »

mm263 wrote: post #67
zimzam wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Inexpensive food is a boon to society. Cultivating food the 'old fashioned way' is incredibly labor intensive. We now have machines that allow us to cultivate far more food with far less labor. For example, in 1900 corn took 38 hours/acre to plant/cultivate/harvest. In 2000 it took about an hour. The yeild per acre has also improved 3x-5x in that span, so the time per bushel has decreased…

You are not making an argument you think you are making. We switched from one set of problems to another set of problems that didn't exist before industrial agriculture: soil erosion, pest explosion, entire harvests wiped out by disease because genetic uniformity, which means one pathogen can destroy everything - think Irish potato famine but now it's scientific and modern. The mess of traditional farming - with its…

+1 on seeing like a state. But combining small plots into mega farms did create more food. It just did so at the loss of variety and knowledge and local control and ultimately freedom as you say. See enclosing the commons in England in the 18-19th century

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#148

Post by worik »

Aurornis wrote: post #110
asmxyz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are _other options_! You're argument is that the only two alternatives are that the ruling class and owning class be separate groups of people, or the same group of people. And either way the labor class if F'ed. You're right that having the ruling class and the owning class being the _same people_ is terrible. That's what we're living in right now! But what about the labor class being the owning class? What if…

> But what about the labor class being the owning class? What if Amazon was owned by the people who work at Amazon? Instead of Bezos? I wonder how many people who repeat things like this know that Bezos owns less than 10% of Amazon. About 2/3rds of Amazon is owned by institutional investors, much of which is in turn owned by individuals in their 401ks and other retirement plans. So "the people" own more of Amazon tha…

Given the low pay and harsh conditions of the people who create the wealth of Amazon, I do not see confiscating it from the current owners as a Bad Thing

There are probably better means to achieve better ends, but the status quo is very fucking rotten

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#149

Post by nyarlathotep_ »

The most pressing issue to me currently regarding LLMs is the blatant, flagrant change in tone of the "leadership/ownership" class towards employees.

It comes off as little other than thinly veiled contempt for the people that actually make the business function.

We've seen, most recently, Jassy come out and say "we're gonna need a lot less people", Zuckerberg doing his "replacing engineers" shtick on several occasions, all the commentary from the Anthropic CEO/Altman etc.

Even if none of this comes to pass, I've never witnessed such open "threats" in my lifetime.

I can't square this perspective with that of the LLM advocates that run to defend every legitimate criticism of LLM use--unless you're one of the aforementioned or in a similar position, why would you want to defend software that's primary purpose is to displace you?

They are literally telling you that's why they're investing in it. I don't get it.

Re: Rolling the ladder up behind us

#150

Post by dh2022 »

whatshisface wrote: post #64
WalterBright wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if 62% wanted two seaters? Back in the 70s, the Department of Energy was tasked with allocating gas to the gas stations. A gas station had to apply for an allocation, and the DoE doled out the gas. The DoE doled out gas based on the previous year's usage patterns. Sounds smart, right? What happened is that gas consumption varies year to year due to a number of factors, like weather patterns, population chang…

Doesn't every nationwide firm engage in central economic planning?

Yes and no. A large national firm like Starbucks has a national annual plan. However, this national plan is made up of a lot of little regional plans which are then combined together. This national plan is then executed. Execution relative to plan is assessed every quarter; and every quarter the plans (both national and regional) are adjusted. This assessment and these adjustments are done at both national level and also at regional level.
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