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America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

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Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#231

Post by codedokode »

feoren wrote: post #171
markus_zhang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is probably going to happen I think. But I don't think it's going to achieve much. Yes it's going to give common people some foothold, but with automation and AI I really doubt we need that many jobs, and unemployment rate is going to be high anyway. The elites are going to throw UBI as a bone and then they can do whatever they want. And that's it -- A cyberpunk future where elites can pretty much ignore the comm…

I too worry about a future where the rich no longer have any need for the poor. I think the scenario where the rich end up just giving the poor a bit of money each month is an extremely optimistic one. Much more realistic is a slow genocide, where the poor simply die en masse in the streets due to having no homes, food, and healthcare, while such homelessness becomes both increasingly more unavoidable and more illega…

Aren't you too pessimistic? 1 kg of rice costs somewhere around $2 here and you won't eat it in a day. So with $20-30 you can have a month worth amount of rice. You don't need thousands of dollars to survive.

And giving everyone $30 every month won't break even developing country economy.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#232

Post by fuzzfactor »

blueyes wrote: post #18

Some authors of this piece are deeply involved themselves in building robots and other hardware technology. They should be taken seriously. The US is moving into a trade war, however unwise, with the country that supplies components for everything we make and need. That country has expansionist ambitions and a superior manufacturing base, which is typically what wins wars.

>The US once had a solid base to spin up heavy industry factories, but this withered away as cheaper overseas manufacturing cut US producers out and the American economy shifted toward leading edge technology and services.

The Americans in charge of the "economy" settled for "leading edge" technology and services.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#233

Post by stuartjohnson12 »

roenxi wrote: post #222
yibg wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this is a consequence of the political systems of China vs the US. China tends to think and plan longer term, where as the US seems much more transactional; what will win me the next election / midterm etc.

> China tends to think and plan longer term... Pull the other one, we saw how they went in the 20th century. Large centralised governments have never managed to systemically outplan democracies. The issue is US culture has been giving priority to anti-industrialists. As a result they aren't the leader of the industrial world. This has been planned for a long time and a bunch of people were celebrating it the entire w…

I'm most of the way through reading Moral Mazes which covers this part of American culture in-depth as it relates to chemical and textile manufacturing. Specifically, it discusses psychological attitudes to perception of chemical manufacturing as being dirty, and the rationalizations employed by middle managers towards their work.

What Moral Mazes lays out is the idea of the tension between the perception of manufacturing ethics as matters of practicality (as seen by manufacturers), and the perception of manufacturing ethics as matters of purity (as seen by activists and lawyers).

It is a great book I would recommend to anyone, although being primarily an observation of the psychological processes at play, there are of course no solutions offered.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#234

Post by fancl20 »

dluan wrote: post #176
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Romans used to think that way. Their subjects thought otherwise.

It's funny you invoke some trad/conservative appeal to tradition, and meanwhile China's imperial history of bureaucratic machinery is never pointed to as an example of "look, technocratic meritocracy works".

I think it's well documented that modern bureaucracy is at least inspired by China's bureaucratic machinery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Service_(United_Kingdom)

> Under Charles Grant, the East India Company established the East India Company College at Haileybury near London, to train administrators, in 1806. The college was established on recommendation of officials in China who had seen the imperial examination system. In government, a civil service, replacing patronage with examination, similar to the Chinese system, was advocated a number of times over the next several decades.[10]

> William Ewart Gladstone, in 1850, an opposition member, sought a more efficient system based on expertise rather than favouritism. The East India Company provided a model for Stafford Northcote, private Secretary to Gladstone who, with Charles Trevelyan, drafted the key report in 1854.[11]

And western countries accepted it as part of the base assumption how government should work, then nobody points to its origin since now it's so obvious (from modern perspective).

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#235

Post by Joel_Mckay »

chrisco255 wrote: post #180
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon acquired that facet of its business, and should not be considered a B2B product. Most general purpose robot firms just don't do well domestically, and rarely make it past a business cycle. I would partner with Festo Germany before touching US markets. =3

Most general purpose robot firms don't do well at all, because until very recently, general purpose robotics have fallen short of being useful in general purpose scenarios. Amazon acquired Kiva 13 years ago. Kiva was itself founded and headquartered in the U.S.

My point was robotics startups don't typically survive with generic products very long. They are acquired or go under even after they reach TRL launch stage.

Best of luck =3

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#236

Post by idiotsecant »

thuanao wrote: post #155
flyinglizard wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is trying to make war, but naturally China is looking at changing the order of things, at least regionally. To make that happen it needs USA to move out, and create its own coalition of countries around the area.

USA needs to move out and stop trying to start a war with China. Taiwan is China. Historically, legally, even according to the US's own policy. The KMT lost. This fantasy the US has of toppling or splitting up the PRC in a proxy war is extremely deranged. China has exercised incredible restraint over the actions of a belligerent warmonger US.

The Taiwan obsessed PRC loonies online always seem to think that the west spends way more time thinking about Taiwan then they actually do.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#237

Post by linkregister »

regularization wrote: post #211
Hikikomori wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point all China needs to do is the gaben strategy, doing nothing while America keeps shooting itself in the foot. Trump seems to have unlimited bullet supply.

[flagged]

> This occurred to me. April 2001, US Navy plane crashes into Chinese J8 jet, kills pilot, lands on Hainan Island without authorization

An interesting interpretation of events. Let's continue.

"Then the air crew donates their airframe & technology to the Chinese Communist Party. And when they return they come up with a lie that they had been buzzed several times by the J8 pilot until the crash. Also they faked distress calls recording it. All to prove that the United States is a paper tiger intent on disrupting the Chinese people's rightful claim to all East Asian territory."

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#238

Post by karmasimida »

chasd00 wrote: post #96
Fricken wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has squandered its advanced manufacturing capabilities, warning bells have been sounding for decades, and yes, those chickens will eventually come home to roost. Not yet but soon.

trying to spread democracy to China through its economy was the biggest mistake the US has made in 50 years.

Or China will come around one way or another. It is not like US did all the hard work.

Let me put it another way, even if China is a democracy, it will still compete with US in world economy. So many people there need work, the price will be low to produce things there.

Blame US's manufacturing woe fully on China isn't logical, Japan/South Korea are of the same breed, just lesser on China's scale.

Another arguably more important factor is the over regulation and bloated governance here, to a degree of being comical, just look at the California government.

Is this drawn out, lengthy democratic process really for anything of substance or just performative virtual signaling that essentially benefits no one in the name of benefiting everyone?

Anti manufacturing is a choice, made the government, thus by the populace themselves. And please, do not bring Trump, California has been in a Dem super majority since 2012.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#239

Post by squigz »

markus_zhang wrote: post #10
tartuffe78 wrote: post #2

Who will buy the phones when no one is paid to produce them? The cars? The food and the clothes? Wealth keeps concentrating upward, great leaps in efficiency and throughput, but I can't see how it's a sustainable model for continued consumption growth year after year.

UBI is probably going to happen I think. But I don't think it's going to achieve much. Yes it's going to give common people some foothold, but with automation and AI I really doubt we need that many jobs, and unemployment rate is going to be high anyway. The elites are going to throw UBI as a bone and then they can do whatever they want. And that's it -- A cyberpunk future where elites can pretty much ignore the comm…

> The reason I think UBI won't fix much is, UBI cannot give people purposes to live. Obviously we already have enough material wealth for everyone and UBI is just a confirmation. But "meaning" is always a luxury, and will be more so when less people need to work.

Employment is the only - or even best - way of finding meaning in one's life?

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#240

Post by UncleOxidant »

markus_zhang wrote: post #10
tartuffe78 wrote: post #2

Who will buy the phones when no one is paid to produce them? The cars? The food and the clothes? Wealth keeps concentrating upward, great leaps in efficiency and throughput, but I can't see how it's a sustainable model for continued consumption growth year after year.

UBI is probably going to happen I think. But I don't think it's going to achieve much. Yes it's going to give common people some foothold, but with automation and AI I really doubt we need that many jobs, and unemployment rate is going to be high anyway. The elites are going to throw UBI as a bone and then they can do whatever they want. And that's it -- A cyberpunk future where elites can pretty much ignore the comm…

> The reason I think UBI won't fix much is, UBI cannot give people purposes to live. Obviously we already have enough material wealth for everyone and UBI is just a confirmation. But "meaning" is always a luxury, and will be more so when less people need to work.

It's not like most jobs in this economy provide purpose and meaning now as it is. People on UBI can find meaning in hobbies, art, hiking, friendships, and other things that they currently don't have time for. Volunteering is another route. Remember how everyone started baking sourdough bread and making home cooked meals when the pandemic started? We'll find other ways to have purpose and meaning. UBI will be a lot like retirement is now only it will last for a much longer portion of the lifetime.

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