Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know • Hacker News Board

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#231

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 10:38 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #102

crdoconnor wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I already choose to book my holidays with machine rather than human assistance, pay for my groceries via machine rather than human It's funny you should mention this. My last job was at an OTA (online travel agent). They started out with a website to book holidays and an intent to streamline the crap out of the process catering to individuals like yourself. They hired a skeleton call center staff to deal with unfore…

> It turned out a lot of people actually wanted to talk to a human when spending $1,500 on a holiday. Shocker. I'm surprised, and I wonder what the age breakdown of those people looks like. > I'm skeptical of the notion that Roombas took anybody's job It must have on the margin, surely? I was on the fence about getting a cleaner for a long time; it wouldn't've taken much to push me into not doing so (and many of my f…

I don't know about that. I'm used to thinking in terms of automation and I can easily envision a semi-automated way to clean toilets. You basically need to remove the cleaning fluids, etc. faster than you apply them. A set of conformal brushes, high pressure pump and high flow vacuum should do it.

The question is: is it faster/more cost effective than a human? If I could build a few of these things in my basement, could I get commercial toilet cleaning contracts and make more money than the traditional cleaners?

The answer is probably "not yet," but I haven't looked through any commercial cleaning publications to see what's on the market.

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#232

Post by adynatos » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 11:48 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #204

adynatos wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from my point of view all those deaths and massive unrests resulted from various groups trying to do away with inequality, usually by taking what's not theirs.

True, but... Lenin (for example) didn't walk into a prosperous, free, egalitarian country, and persuade everyone to rise up against the existing system. The inequality, poverty, and misery gave rise to people willing to listen to Lenin, and to try what he was selling. I'm not excusing Lenin. I'm not apologizing for him. But without the existing inequality, he would have gotten no traction.

he also wouldn't have gotten any traction if people had no concept of envy. yet eliminating envy is just as stupid as eliminating natural differences between individuals.

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#233

Post by spiralx » Fri, Feb 23, 2018, 4:01 AM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #44

abusoufiyan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything except one minor detail. Not sure if outsourcing and offshoring are such bad things. I mean, if someone will work for less than you, you either need to do better work, do cheaper work, or find different work.

In the luddites' case that 'person' was willing to work for less using the weaving machinery because they were desperate. The Napoleonic Wars made them lose their livelihoods, homes and families. After the industrial revolution, the enclosure movement was used to strip peasants of their land. After being dispossessed, they were then desperate enough to accept the paltry wages and disgusting working conditions offered…

The TPP contained provisions for ensuring worker's rights, including the right to unionise (chapter 19), along with environmental standards (chapter 20) and mechanisms to increase transparency and fight corruption (chapter 26). All of these issues will suffer from the US having ceded their influence to China by abandoning years of painstaking effort - and make the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries, who fought the TPP and lost, very happy.