Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#171

Post by _ofdw » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

arandr0x wrote: post #156

I saw this when I arrived in America, and it's the reason I left. I take the bus and seeing literally every day that there were people with families who worried and laughed and were kind who spent 2 hours a day transporting themselves to service or manufacturing industry job when I sat in an air conditioned office making 3x their wages was making me feel terribly guilty. I eventually went back to a country with a soc…

Without incentives, there is no innovation. And if everyone is entitled to the same portion of the pie, what’s the incentive to work harder? Seeing your neighbor put in a third of the effort and produce the same economic result is demoralizing.

Are you suggesting that there is no middle ground between barbaric US-style capitalism and forced redistribution of wealth?

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#172

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

ipnon wrote: post #15

jedberg wrote: post #2

There are two solutions: Part one, a more educated populace. Education will help those that can work in the "good jobs" get the good jobs. Part two, tax policy. Wealth needs to be redistributed so that there are masses to buy the products that the wealthy are creating. Edit: I just watched this post go up to 10 points, down to 3 and then back to 5. Clearly this is controversial. I find it interesting that wealth redi…

If the average IQ of a STEM graduate is a standard deviation or more above average [0][1], then how does a more educated populace result in something besides the stratification we see today? STEM education can help a person get on the right side of the tech split, but the STEM education itself is already prohibitively difficult. [0] https://thetab.com/us/2017/04/10/which-major-has-highest-iq-... [1] http://www.randal…

You don't need to be a STEM graduate to grok tech. There's a difference between the science of technology, the engineering of technology and the implementation of technology. You can be productive without being able to pass calculus.

When I started working for a .gov years ago, about 40% of the technical staff where former administrative people (clerks, typists, etc) who were trained and transitioned into technology related jobs ranging from programmers to sysadmins to project managers. They were great.

On another thread, I help with a school club at my son's school where 8-year olds are building Raspberry Pi based gadgetry. They are average kids, and they do very well.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#173

Post by normal_man » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

arandr0x wrote: post #156

I saw this when I arrived in America, and it's the reason I left. I take the bus and seeing literally every day that there were people with families who worried and laughed and were kind who spent 2 hours a day transporting themselves to service or manufacturing industry job when I sat in an air conditioned office making 3x their wages was making me feel terribly guilty. I eventually went back to a country with a soc…

Without incentives, there is no innovation. And if everyone is entitled to the same portion of the pie, what’s the incentive to work harder? Seeing your neighbor put in a third of the effort and produce the same economic result is demoralizing.

I think the idea that free-market capitalism drives innovation is not something you can take for granted at all. How many companies making copycat apps that serve no purpose or complete bullshit like Juicero get millions in funding?

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#174

Post by kaybe » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #72

gotocake wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can solve that problem with robots and technology, too. Revolting mobs of socialists can be dealt with pretty easily. (If you’re going to start threatening murder as the premise of your theory of justice, you’d best make sure your side would actually be the one doing the killing.) Yeah, that that could never go wrong and backfire horribly. How about we win a war before we decide to design, mass produce, a…

Another repeating and predictable cycle throughout history is that improvements in technology do not take away jobs . If the revolting mob is suddenly incapable of doing productive work due to some sort of AI revolution, it's fallacious to assume that they would be capable of putting anyone against the wall, either.

They do though. Not all the people skilled in the old technology will find a job in the new one, especially if they're older. Some people will fall through the gaps, even if the total amount of jobs is not affected.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#175

Post by maxxxxx » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

anthony_romeo wrote: post #166

aantix wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without incentives, there is no innovation. And if everyone is entitled to the same portion of the pie, what’s the incentive to work harder? Seeing your neighbor put in a third of the effort and produce the same economic result is demoralizing.

I don’t think the poster above suggested that everyone is entitled to the same portion of the pie, so I’m not sure why you made that leap

It’s a standard technique to stop the discussion. As soon as someone mentions inequality just shout “socialism” and “incentives “. Never mind that nobody argues that everybody should get exactly the same but the question is how much more of the pie the top should get and whether their share should keep increasing.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#176

Post by kaybe » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #136

maerF0x0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the jobs require higher IQs than 85? Suddenly we have 15% of the population entirely unemployable? Wealth redistribution is a choice of ethics. What if we start to create better technologies that augment the economic usefulness of the lowest IQ people?

There are some indications that the bottom 15% of IQs will not become the STEM man's burden. Instead, AI will hit the fat underbelly of knowledge work, first, where people get paid more than the bottom 15%, to do the things that can be automated without interacting with real-world objects. The problem won't be robot shopping cart fetchers or grocery baggers, but that knowledge work, which is the last refuge of human…

I think one more thing is left: emotional work.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#177

Post by arandr0x » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

arandr0x wrote: post #156

I saw this when I arrived in America, and it's the reason I left. I take the bus and seeing literally every day that there were people with families who worried and laughed and were kind who spent 2 hours a day transporting themselves to service or manufacturing industry job when I sat in an air conditioned office making 3x their wages was making me feel terribly guilty. I eventually went back to a country with a soc…

Without incentives, there is no innovation. And if everyone is entitled to the same portion of the pie, what’s the incentive to work harder? Seeing your neighbor put in a third of the effort and produce the same economic result is demoralizing.

I just think people who come in late at the party because their kid was sick and they're mentally ill and they live way out in the middle of the country and there's no pie left should at least get a couple apples or something.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#178

Post by Temasik » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

arandr0x wrote: post #156

I saw this when I arrived in America, and it's the reason I left. I take the bus and seeing literally every day that there were people with families who worried and laughed and were kind who spent 2 hours a day transporting themselves to service or manufacturing industry job when I sat in an air conditioned office making 3x their wages was making me feel terribly guilty. I eventually went back to a country with a soc…

Without incentives, there is no innovation. And if everyone is entitled to the same portion of the pie, what’s the incentive to work harder? Seeing your neighbor put in a third of the effort and produce the same economic result is demoralizing.

>>incentives >>linus torvalds

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#179

Post by Pulcinella » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

arandr0x wrote: post #156

I saw this when I arrived in America, and it's the reason I left. I take the bus and seeing literally every day that there were people with families who worried and laughed and were kind who spent 2 hours a day transporting themselves to service or manufacturing industry job when I sat in an air conditioned office making 3x their wages was making me feel terribly guilty. I eventually went back to a country with a soc…

Without incentives, there is no innovation. And if everyone is entitled to the same portion of the pie, what’s the incentive to work harder? Seeing your neighbor put in a third of the effort and produce the same economic result is demoralizing.

This is a pretty negative outlook on humanity. People do things for reasons other than making money.

Also seeing your boss put in a third the effort and produce 10 times the paycheck is also demoralizing...

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#180

Post by atemerev » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

zimablue wrote: post #154

atemerev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my wealth that is going to be “redistributed”. I am a relatively well off software engineer; I was born in a poor family on the outskirts of a Siberian town. I learned to program all on my own, by visiting my friends with computers and taking programming books from the local library. It wasn’t a “function of circumstance” — it was a function of my interest and targeted activity. What is unfair here?

It depends on what sort of redistribution you talk about. Picketty argues that we tax income but not wealth and that's the root of our problems. I would imagine that your income is a way higher percentile than your wealth, income middle-class like you and me get smashed by income taxes (as someone from the working class in the UK it absolutely blew my mind when I learned how much wealth the people all around me had i…

I am not a fan of Picketty, but yes, this is more or less correct. Tapping these monetary reserves is what I want to learn how to do.