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

nytimes.com

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

#201

Post by normal_man »

atemerev wrote: post #80
whateveracct wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is redistribution of wealthy any more unfair than the circumstances that gave rise to it in the first place? Nobody inherently deserves their wealth - it's largely a function of circumstance.

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?

Unless you are a multimillionaire, no it will not be your wealth being redistributed. The problem is not well-off people driving their Teslas around and taking two vacations a year, it is the relatively few people hoarding such obscene levels of wealth that their personal holdings dwarf those of entire lower economic classes of people. More than they could possibly need for 1000 lifetimes.

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

#202

Post by cheeseomlit »

baroffoos wrote: post #62
pmiller2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your evidence that UBI reduces people’s contribution to society? If you’re referring to people not “working” in the traditional sense, not all contributions map nicely to economic output.

Exactly, the UBI would enable people to be paid for often non paying contributions like open source contributions, keeping park lands clean, creating educational content online and lots of other things. If I was paid a UBI I would still spend most of my time contributing but I would just do the things I see value in without having to worry about how will I make someone pay for this.

Oh come on. If I was paid UBI I'd sit at home playing video games all day and so would everyone else I know.

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

#203

Post by matt4077 »

ENOTTY wrote: post #185

Is this inherently a bad thing, or does it just call for more progressive taxation that can fund services that benefit the broader set of people (transit, housing, health care, etc).

It’s preferable to have somewhat equitable outcomes while preserving a mostly bottom-up market economy. Because that remains the unchallenged champion of organizing an economy, both in terms of productivity as well as dynamism.

It seems, however, that the 50s and 60s were sort of a fluke: WW2 had destroyed the remnants of feudalism. And with even many scions of the upper classes experiencing turmoil and breaks in their CVs, such as going to war instead of college, class mobility reached an all-time high. As long as you were white & male, that is, of course.

The nature of the dominant industries was also beneficial: construction or car dealerships are inherently local, giving many people the opportunity to share in the spoils of growth.

Today, the knowledge economy and other zero-marginal-costs businesses dominate. They who would have run a well-respected local vinyl shop in 1974 are now despised middle managers at Spotify.

Taxation definitely plays a role. Inheritance taxes may the only tax where I care more about the taking-away than the giving-to. Obviously nobody is arguing for a complete leveling of income differences, or even anything close to it. But school budgets should certainly not depend on the wealth of the immediate neighborhood or the specific parents.

I’m not sure if something like UBI could ever be sold to the public. But within the next decade, the 10%-20% of the population work as some sort of ‘driver’ will be asking their new Wayno 5000 to take them to a political rally. What happens next will be interesting.

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

#204

Post by arandr0x »

wincy wrote: post #197
arandr0x wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My kid is disabled and I have severe anxiety and suffered depression. I live right in the middle of the US. I didn’t start my tech career until 28 because of all that, but I’m doing ok. I live in a big house with good schools. From what I’ve gathered of non-US (European) tech jobs, I’d never have gotten an opportunity to work as a programmer because I never got a bachelors degree. Maybe it isn’t like that everywhere,…

It's great that you were able to do that, and I've been to Europe (not where the country I was referring to is located) and I agree with you about the degree.

That said, it's just emotional on my part like I said in the OP. Yeah I knew people who were poor and who probably spent their entire life since that time doing drugs and collecting their assistance checks. (And to be fair I knew people who were rich and probably spent their entire life since that time doing drugs and collecting their monthly allowance. Both are far from the norm of the rich/poor people. They're just specific examples of not caring much about your life beyond it going on.)

I prefer to live in a world where five hundred thousand people are sitting on their asses doing nothing passing the seconds till their death through their own choices than in a world where fifty thousand people are running ragged feeling their bodies waste away not knowing where their time goes through the choices of people who just wanted a nicer lawn. The first world seems like it has more happiness per capita plus the outcome of each is a result of things like effort. The second world seems like it belongs in a SF story about the unchosen ones.

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

#205

Post by graeme »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #150
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our productivity has indeed grown immensely, but, for good or for bad, instead of making things cheaper we're directing all our free resources to making them better. Instead of cheaper cars we're making safer cars, instead of cheaper houses we're building bigger houses, and so on.

A very large percentage of free resources are being hoarded in wealth and cash piles, would you actually claim a company like Apple is directing all of it's free resources to making better products? Why the stock buybacks and 200 billion pile?

That's capital. It gets given back to investors, who invest it elsewhere. They don't just stick it under the mattress. It is moved from Apple to a place where it can be put to use. With a buyback (or dividend) apple is saying "we ran out of productive ways to spend this money"

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

#206

Post by PakG1 »

Pulcinella wrote: post #179
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.

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...

Temper this with the understanding that many workers don't have a good view of what their boss actually does and just assume that their boss puts in a third of the effort, when in fact he might put in much much more and the situation may also be difficult to fathom. https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3156692

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

#207

Post by donaldknuth123 »

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.

What is the point of innovation without progress? So San Francisco can house dozens of billionaires while also facing an astonishing homelessness crisis? You can create all the apps and gadgets you want but if you don't improve peoples lives or in fact actively hurt them what exactly are you achieving besides personal enrichment?

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

#208

Post by donaldknuth123 »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #186
aantix wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have access to “the top” through resourcefulness and risk taking. But if one is not inclined to be that type, I’m not sure what ensures them to the rewards of those willing to do so?

> You have access to “the top” through resourcefulness and risk taking You forgot generational wealth. In the U.S. the class into which you are born determines the class you'll reach more than any other factor. Overwhelmingly. It's not even close. So, it's doubtful that poor people's problem is that they just don't take enough risks.

>In the U.S. the class into which you are born determines the class you'll reach more than any other factor. Overwhelmingly. It's not even close.

Who would downvote this, the data isn't even remotely controversial.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/economi...

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

#209

Post by wil421 »

Domenic_S wrote: post #95
aphextron wrote: post #76

It is splitting our entire society in two. There are people who work in the old economy, actually doing things in the world. These people are still "tied to the land" in a sense. Their income isn't high enough to live alone, so they still maintain strong familial and neighborly bonds. Their work is physical (that doesn't mean unskilled or low paid, just that it requires physical manipulation), and requires them to ph…

I've been in tech my whole professional life and I can't relate to the second class at all. The technologically enabled upper middle class are fighting over Yeezys, Supreme drops, and Rolexes (seriously, try to find any of those at retail price). My neighborhood is filled with WFH techies, and we all head outside in the evening for our kids to ride bikes with each other while we sample microbrews together. Those truc…

You do know a lot of trade people either have a truck stipended or if they are self employed the business pays the bill. My friend is an electrician on commercial sites. He gets a $600-$700 truck stipen from his employer.

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

#210

Post by ikurei »

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.

> And if everyone is entitled to the same portion of the pie, what’s the incentive to work harder?

Huge strawman. Who's arguing for total and absolute equality of our outcomes?

I live in one of those "safety net" countries. We aren't all entitled to the same share of the pie, it's just that hard-working people don't have to go hungry or work 2 jobs just to get by, or at least not that often. People can get a very good and valued education without going into debt, and cancer doesn't make you go poor.

I get a greater share of the pie than most of my friends, because I was wise at choosing degree, and worked harder at it, and also I was lucky enough to be born with some mild gifts. But when friend's parents get sick, the families don't have to go into debt to get a great treatment.

I can't be expected to know how the economy and society will change, and whether they will leave me stranded after a bubble bursts or something. We can't all be great economists; not that they get it right either. I'll work my ass off to avoid that, but I'm glad to know my compatriots have my back (to some extent), as I have theirs now.

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