Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–177 of 177 posts

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#171

Post by closeparen »

coolgeek wrote: post #170
closeparen wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>wealth is not increased, only distributed differently When we have the technology to meet the population's needs without its involvement in production, we have something much better than wealth: we have our lives back, our time and energy, our freedom from wage slavery. We have government for the distribution problem. The most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever seen a human do, is wish that others be forced to ex…

> The most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever seen a human do, is wish that others be forced to expend useless, unnecessary effort to "earn" Seriously? That tops eating out of a dumpster (literally, like eating unwrapped, half-eaten discards)? Or defecating in a stairwell? > what we could just hand out It didn't work as charity. It isn't working as redistribution through taxation. What's your proposed solution?

>That tops eating out of a dumpster (literally, like eating unwrapped, half-eaten discards)? Or defecating in a stairwell?

Neither of those things are wishing lifetimes of drudgery as a condition of survival onto your fellow human beings.

> It isn't working as redistribution through taxation

Which companies are paying taxes on their automated output comparable to what the payroll would cost?

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#172

Post by mitochondrion »

logfromblammo wrote: post #168
mitochondrion wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't get rich by spending everything they had, they got rich by saving (and investing) everything they could.

It doesn't matter how they got rich; what matters is what they need to do going forward. As they say, "past performance is not indicative of future results". If the ultra-rich do not spend enough, they might begin to undermine the foundations of the economy. Then, if enough people can trace the apparent cause of their suffering to the wealth inequalities, they will start killing and/or looting rich people, possibly w…

1) Rich people not frivolously wasting enough of their wealth doesn't undermine economies;

2) The unwashed masses will never rise up against their uhpressors;

3) Rich people don't have some magical collective which solves the collective action problem; they act in their own interests on an individual basis, just like everybody else;

4) In the current regime, wealth is not power;

5) "Less" money, "fewer" dollars; one is continuous, the other discrete;

6) Nuclear is way cool, but coal isn't going to kill the planet;

7) The rich didn't get rich by frivolously buying everything they could possibly want, they got rich by saving and investing the vast majority of dollars that ever passed through their possession.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#173

Post by mitochondrion »

sammydavis wrote: post #169
mitochondrion wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part, automation doesn't create wealth. Sometimes it dramatically improves the functionality of an operation, but mostly it just lets private enterprise replace humans with capital. Thus, it enormously increases the wealth of the owners of that capital, and moderately increases the wealth of the managers of that capital, but overall wealth is not increased, only distributed differently. Also, to the exte…

What libertine thing are you referring to? Equal rights for gay people, women making the same wages as men for equivalent work? I'm from a southern state, and I hear a lot of grousing about uppity women and black folks (and people don't use words as nice as that). They want revenge. That's the kind of thing that I see people complaining about liberals. And that kind of behavior is ugly and unneeded. I can think of th…

All of them. All social behaviors, sexual and otherwise, which cause and contribute to the breakdown of the family, the community, and the nation.

I don't need to explicate; you know exactly what they are.

P.S. 99% of the guys complaining about liberals are themselves liberals, though they're too dumb to realize it.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#174

Post by mitochondrion »

closeparen wrote: post #161
mitochondrion wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part, automation doesn't create wealth. Sometimes it dramatically improves the functionality of an operation, but mostly it just lets private enterprise replace humans with capital. Thus, it enormously increases the wealth of the owners of that capital, and moderately increases the wealth of the managers of that capital, but overall wealth is not increased, only distributed differently. Also, to the exte…

>wealth is not increased, only distributed differently When we have the technology to meet the population's needs without its involvement in production, we have something much better than wealth: we have our lives back, our time and energy, our freedom from wage slavery. We have government for the distribution problem. The most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever seen a human do, is wish that others be forced to ex…

Man is an economic animal. If you want to see what purposeless leisure looks like, look at the underclass: rampant drug problems, animalistically promiscuous women, broken families, bastard, fatherless children, trash culture, and crime.

50 years ago, those people, except for the absolute worst of the worst, were productive, law-abiding citizens with intact families, functional homes, and a place in the world.

When a man is made economically useless, he ceases to be a man. He becomes just another useless mouth to feed, like an animal in a zoo, but unlike the zoo animal in that people do everything in their power to avoid seeing him.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#175

Post by coolgeek »

closeparen wrote: post #171
coolgeek wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever seen a human do, is wish that others be forced to expend useless, unnecessary effort to "earn" Seriously? That tops eating out of a dumpster (literally, like eating unwrapped, half-eaten discards)? Or defecating in a stairwell? > what we could just hand out It didn't work as charity. It isn't working as redistribution through taxation. What's your proposed solution?

>That tops eating out of a dumpster (literally, like eating unwrapped, half-eaten discards)? Or defecating in a stairwell? Neither of those things are wishing lifetimes of drudgery as a condition of survival onto your fellow human beings. > It isn't working as redistribution through taxation Which companies are paying taxes on their automated output comparable to what the payroll would cost?

>>That tops eating out of a dumpster (literally, like eating unwrapped, half-eaten discards)? Or defecating in a stairwell?

> Neither of those things are wishing lifetimes of drudgery as a condition of survival onto your fellow human beings.

You're either not communicating your point effectively, or you don't seem to have any understanding of reality.

Who, exactly, is "wishing lifetimes of drudgery as a condition of survival onto [their] fellow human beings"?

And who, in their right mind, would willingly forego stable access to the necessities of life (food, a home...) because they find such stability intolerable compared to a lifetime of drudgery?

>> It isn't working as redistribution through taxation

> Which companies are paying taxes on their automated output comparable to what the payroll would cost?

We seem to agree that redistribution through taxation categorically does not* solve the problem of providing people with the necessities of life. So what is the point in discussing a specific aspect of taxation?

Instead, I'll ask again - what is your proposed solution, such that people's basic survival needs are accommodated, given that charity doesn't solve the problem either?

* I'm not saying that it can't. I'm saying that it doesn't - primarily because the wealthy have bought 6 decades worth of across the board, increasing tax cuts (among other things) by buying government.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#176

Post by logfromblammo »

mitochondrion wrote: post #172
logfromblammo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter how they got rich; what matters is what they need to do going forward. As they say, "past performance is not indicative of future results". If the ultra-rich do not spend enough, they might begin to undermine the foundations of the economy. Then, if enough people can trace the apparent cause of their suffering to the wealth inequalities, they will start killing and/or looting rich people, possibly w…

1) Rich people not frivolously wasting enough of their wealth doesn't undermine economies; 2) The unwashed masses will never rise up against their uhpressors; 3) Rich people don't have some magical collective which solves the collective action problem; they act in their own interests on an individual basis, just like everybody else; 4) In the current regime, wealth is not power; 5) "Less" money, "fewer" dollars; one…

1. Megaprojects are not necessarily frivolous. Eradicating malaria, for instance, is not frivolous; it improves the lives of every human living on this planet. Bill Gates has my gratitude for even making the attempt possible.

2. History disagrees with you. Countries occasionally experience revolutions wherein the lower class murders a significant portion of the upper class (only to promote their own into the same social positions, whereupon they adopt similar behaviors). The unwashed masses may never exist long without a perfumed and shaved upper class, but they can certainly put a lot of bodies in the ground when they get the itch. For instance, look at the French Terror, or the Russian revolution, or the Khmer Rouge killing fields, or the Iranian revolution, or the Cuban revolution. Eating the rich tends to set back economic development by a decade or more, but that doesn't stop the lower classes from doing it.

3. Which is why there will be a lot of free riders on the coattails of those public figures that choose to pursue philanthropic projects. I'm sure that many of them lie about anonymously donating to charities.

4. Wealth and power are not equal, but they do have an exchange rate.

5. Thank you for the grammar reminder. Were you correcting someone upthread, or just mentioning it in case someone might get it wrong later?

6. Coal-burning won't kill the planet--it will just kill some of the humans on it, and maybe some unfortunate plants and animals that happen to live downwind or downstream from industrial zones. I still haven't forgotten the TVA Kingston ash slurry spill. I'm also inclined to believe that excessive burning of hydrocarbons for energy could trigger outgassing of polar methane clathrates, which would be an ecological disaster. It won't cause human extinction, but it will crater the global economy.

7. Is wealth a means to an end, or an end in itself? Of what use to the rest of humanity is the man who hoards without end, who fills warehouses to the brim and locks them away, never to be emptied? I don't care how the rich got rich. It doesn't matter to me whether they pulled themselves up out of the gutter by their own bootstraps, or whether they were lucky enough to be born rich. I only care about what you do with what you have.

Re: Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs

#177

Post by pizza234 »

clock_tower wrote: post #82
pizza234 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> those jobs are never coming back > Does it make anyone else sad to hear this? I think that to associate automation with what is ultimately a shrinkage of the GdP is a serious, although easy, misrepresantation. Those jobs are lost, but money is saved for a part of the population, which will spend it, and ultimately create a demand for new jobs. So it's not just "jobs lost". Now this transition of course happens in…

> money is saved for a part of the population, which will spend it The money mostly goes to the capital-owning class, i.e. the established rich, who spend relatively little of their incomes. They tend to buy high-quality items with a high purchase price and a low total cost of ownership (Terry Pratchett has an interesting passage on boots), and once you've got enough income you just can't spend it all -- so they spen…

> The money mostly goes to the capital-owning class

In a free (and not colluded) market, end prices will go down. Profits will depend on the market, not differently from the effects of economies of scale in general.

> The rich tend to reinvest money instead of spending it

Investing money and spending it is practically the same, from the perspective of the economy.

Post reply on HN