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No Recent Automation Revolution

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Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#241

Post by Retric »

ajuc wrote: post #230
Retric wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a question of implementation. Consider say a 10% dividend on the economy, in the US that’s 6,300$ per year per person. Which does not sound like much to live on, but historically represents a significant income. Not that the US would adopt such a system, but it could by cutting back other spending like social programs. A tiny group might try to live in it, but more would see seasonal jobs as enough. As automatio…

10% of billions of dollars is plenty enough to cause the companies to move to some tax heaven. You can fight that with tariffs, but the end game is being outproduced by orders of magnitude and losing any influence over global market.

Automation goes beyond manufacturing. Even a simile spell checker saves a lot of time over doing it manually.

That said, labor has been cheaper outside the US for decades, yet manufacturing is still 2+ Trillion dollars per year in the US. In part it’s because you can’t simply move farms, oil wells, or forests etc. But, business friendly regulations, educated workers, efficient transportation, etc are also huge contributors.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#242

Post by Chathamization »

tuatoru wrote: post #69

An independent line of evidence looks at the formation of new occupations over time. If automation were taking over jobs, or jobs were being refactored because some tasks are automated, then we'd expect to see new job titles appearing in employment advertising and classifications such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics's. This does happen, as it has happened since the start of the Industrial Revolution. "Social Media…

Indeed, productivity growth is actually lower than in the past, so we're actually in a phase of slower automation. I think one thing that doesn't get considered enough is the viewpoint that we're currently in a post-automation revolution world. We generated a lot of excess capacity and weren't able to funnel it to productive uses, hence the rise of many things we see discussed here like "bullshit jobs," excessive administration, zero-sum industries, parasitic industries getting people to buy things they don't need, etc. My guess is that increases in automation won't eliminate jobs but will just further exacerbate these issues, unless there are some sort of societal changes.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#243

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ajuc wrote: post #230
Retric wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a question of implementation. Consider say a 10% dividend on the economy, in the US that’s 6,300$ per year per person. Which does not sound like much to live on, but historically represents a significant income. Not that the US would adopt such a system, but it could by cutting back other spending like social programs. A tiny group might try to live in it, but more would see seasonal jobs as enough. As automatio…

10% of billions of dollars is plenty enough to cause the companies to move to some tax heaven. You can fight that with tariffs, but the end game is being outproduced by orders of magnitude and losing any influence over global market.

Apparently we can win the cold war, but can't sort out tax accounts of a coffee company. Starbucks can report record profits to wallstreet, and losses to the exchequer in the same month.

Read about industrialisation of United States and history of tarrifs. US had plenty of them when the British Empire was the industrial powerhouse.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#244

Post by dragonwriter »

shadowfox wrote: post #204
mc32 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, so not capitalism, not communism. What political system might be capable of meeting these requirements? Is it the political equivalent of unobtanium or vaporware? Im not trying to be a smartass; I want to know what the answer might look like. It doesn’t have to be a treatise. Just something consistent with a chance at succeeding with non-ideal people.

> Fair enough, so not capitalism, not communism. > What political system might be capable of meeting these requirements? Capitalism isn't really a political system, even though people seem to elevate it to one. Different political systems/policies combined with capitalism can produce very different societies and structures. For example, see social democratic systems in many parts of Europe.

> Capitalism isn't really a political system, even though people seem to elevate it to one.

“Capitalism” is not a full description of a national political system, but since it is fundamentally a system of legal property relations, it is exactly an aspect of a political system.

> For example, see social democratic systems in many parts of Europe.

Social democratic systems are not, even in the aspect of a political system which “capitalism” describes, purely capitalist but one of many forms of post-capitalist mixed-economy systems which retain elements of capitalist property relations but constrain them in various ways foreign to capitalism in the strict sense.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#245

Post by dorgo »

ajuc wrote: post #203
kaybe wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really makes me sad that jobs are seen as inherently valuable. The way you phrase it, 'provide jobs', feels like jobs are something needed. Of course, in the current setup, this is true, but there are so many boring and hard jobs (worked by people who are yet poor) that we shouldn't mourn once we manage to get rid of them. I want an economy where we can celebrate automation and distribute the profits evenly.

> I want an economy where we can celebrate automation and distribute the profits evenly. In such an economy there's no incentive to work on further automation. In particular if there's a part of world where profits aren't distributed evenly - the innovation and manufacturing will move there.

>In such an economy there's no incentive to work on further automation.

And no need if the work on further automation is automated.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#246

Post by carapace »

kaybe wrote: post #169
Zaskoda wrote: post #10

Due to the Covid-19 lock down, my company was forced to accelerate our automation program. We did in months what we had originally planned to do in years. As we are able to open our operations center further, it's clear that we'll be providing fewer jobs than we did before. At least some part of that is the result of automation. I can't help but think this same pattern is playing out at other companies right now.

It really makes me sad that jobs are seen as inherently valuable. The way you phrase it, 'provide jobs', feels like jobs are something needed. Of course, in the current setup, this is true, but there are so many boring and hard jobs (worked by people who are yet poor) that we shouldn't mourn once we manage to get rid of them. I want an economy where we can celebrate automation and distribute the profits evenly.

Yes, "Let the robots do the work and we'll take their pay."

Bucky Fuller pointed out that we could apply technology to solve our problems efficiently and wind up with a two-year career. You would work for about two years and that pays for the rest of your life, you can retire or do whatever.

(FWIW, this is the context within which I think UBI makes sense, and we are not there just yet.)

Really it's a choice (at least in theory, maybe we are strapped in but I like to think we can affect things at least a little.) We can't un-invent the transistor.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#247

Post by jeffreyrogers »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #218
bildung wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm agreeing with everything you wrote (with the minor differentiation that this is mostly rooted in particular protestant branches, not Christianity per se), but in my understanding the opposition to UBI is not primarily about dignity, but about identity, hence my comment. People were displayed as their being their job, not just generic underlings to the king, on egyptian stela from 3000 BC.

> but in my understanding the opposition to UBI is not primarily about dignity, Opposition to UBI (as well as healthcare for all, proper schooling for all, nutritional food for all, etc) is about not wanting to pay higher taxes and maintaining a competitive edge in being able to obtain resources over others in society (or the world). Those with more wealth (or who think they are capable of gaining more wealth) want t…

There are lots of reasons for not supporting those things. Some in-line with what you said. Others not. The issues are more complicated than you're making them out to be.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#248

Post by carapace »

dorgo wrote: post #245
ajuc wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want an economy where we can celebrate automation and distribute the profits evenly. In such an economy there's no incentive to work on further automation. In particular if there's a part of world where profits aren't distributed evenly - the innovation and manufacturing will move there.

>In such an economy there's no incentive to work on further automation. And no need if the work on further automation is automated.

Bingo! The runaway feedback loop driving the singularity (which was John von Neumann's idea originally FWIW.)

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#249

Post by Klinky »

tharne wrote: post #233
som33 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Capitalism isn't really a political system, even though people seem to elevate it to one. It is you need a giant violent state to create a culture of sophisticated property rights. AKA capitalism requires a state and legal system, it doesn't exist without one. Things like copyright and Intellectual property are pure man made cultural political fictions, they do not exist in the natural animal kingdom. How is it poss…

Capitalism is the default system that evolves organically when free men and women create things of value and voluntarily exchange them with others. That's not to say it's perfect or 100% fair. That's why you always hear communists and socialists talk about the need for a "revolution". No one ever talks about a capitalist revolution because people don't need to be coerced into voluntarily exchanging goods and services…

Most countries run on fiat to exchange wealth. Fiat already takes a huge leap of faith in the state issuing it. To think that the current economy is anything like barter is bogus. There is too much blind trust that the current economy is more fair than not, which leads to "fiat wealth" = "human worth" thinking, while money leaks like a sieve to entrenched interests.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#250

Post by ClumsyPilot »

barrkel wrote: post #226
EGreg wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things become more fulfilling when you see everyone else doing them, such as raising kids. There are so many things people could be doing which are not compensated by the market and corporations. “Leaning in and earning $1 instead of 70c” is a meme that corporations use to get more humans to trade quality time with parents and kids for them. [1] Why don’t we ask about “Leaning out and spending more time with our fami…

> You've been CONDITIONED I haven't been conditioned, thanks. Large corporations enable efficiencies of scale which in turn enables modern living. We can't live at our current standards with artisan search engines, hand-crafted phones and home-made cars. But the same scale which enables modern living alienates workers from their labour. In most companies, all but a select few at the top have very little agency. They…

On the contrary, when you have only a few large companies, they form oligopolies, there is no competition, free market does not function and the consumer looses out.
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