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Just own the damn robots

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Re: Just own the damn robots

#291

Post by fastball »

richardknop wrote: post #263
fastball wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where did the wealthy parents come from? You're setting up a chicken and egg problem for yourself. Wealth had to start somewhere, as I doubt you'd argue that it was handed down to certain families by a deity. Heritage is important. A person does not just have more opportunity because of the wealth of an ancestor - they exist because of that ancestor. Does everyone not deserve to have whatever their ancestors chos…

If you go down the history, most wealth was stolen from people violently and from then on anybody born into these aristocratic families would continue benefiting from the wealth. A lot of new wealth has been created by people born into poor / middle class families in last 1-2 centuries for sure, especially 20th century. But there are still families today that are wealthy and their wealth have been with them for 400-5…

Right. "Probably", "maybe".

I don't think it's society's responsibility to look back further than the formation of that society. For the US, I think you can safely use 1776 as a starting point. The US formed itself with the express purpose of creating equality for the original settlers.

If someone is violating those principles, society should punish accordingly. If not, society is not "rewarding wealth". They are allowing for the fact that everyone is someone else's child, and that comes with it certain rights.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#292

Post by ben_w »

lostboys67 wrote: post #264
ben_w wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the stories of WW1 was a soldier explaining that a machine gun could kill enemy soldiers indefinitely if it had ammo, but the gunner had to stop for the sight of human dead. KillBot doesn’t need to stop. KillBot can read your body language. KillBot knows if you’re loyal to Supreme Leader. KillBot doesn’t care if your death makes you a martyr, all that does is add a few dozen more targets to KillBot’s naughty l…

and if it had a crew to change belts top up the water and hump new boxes of ammo to the front

I believe the original story didn’t bother with the specifics of machine gun logistics and maintenance as it wasn’t the relevant point.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#293

Post by fastball »

akvadrako wrote: post #224
fastball wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between basic income and the children of the wealthy is the spectre of the money disappearing. Only the most short-sighted of the wealthy do not realize that there are many ways in which their wealth could dry up. This provides an impetus to use the money constructively while you have it, because it might not be around forever. Basic income does not give the same drive. You can watch TV all day, doing…

The rich could easily survive forever off the modest guaranteed interest of their fortunes. But if you want more from life than sitting at home and watching TV all day, you have to take some initiative.

1. Only certain types of rich can do that.

2. Someone in the family history had to be a diligent/industrious/successful. And that person probably tried to pass those values down to their children and so on and so on.

If you give people wealth, no such ideals will be passed down to their children.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#294

Post by jernfrost »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #163
fspeech wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is investing in automation at a faster pace than anyone else.

And wages are growing faster in China than anywhere else. Automation has never been associated with mass unemployment or declining wages. In fact, the reality is exactly the opposite: it is the ultimate cause of all increases in workers' compensation. The belief that automation will hurt workers goes back 200 years and is found in sources as diverse as Marx's writings, JFK's speeches, and warnings from world renowned…

They are investing in automationnlargely because of the rapid wage increase.

But you are mixing concerns. This is mostly old style automation which has never bothered is because it could never fully replace humans so we simply moved to new jobs.

However now we are getting closer to the beginning of a period were people will become FULLY redundant because eventually there will be NO task which machines can’t do cheaper and better than us.

What then?

If common people don’t have stocks or don’t get money from government they will get screwed because there will be no job for them.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#295

Post by logfromblammo »

aorloff wrote: post #170
knodi123 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people who built those automated industries expended capital, and likely, borrowed against future revenue to do so. > What you are free to do is compete with them. You can drive them into their stupid lender's hands by forcing a collapsing of margins in the industry using your wits. So the solution for the hordes of people who were put out of work by automation, is to gamble it all on the bet that they can outc…

I'm not suggesting that literally, I'm saying that's what the overall system does. Someone will gamble their time on beating powerful established businesses, and they will figure out some efficiency to win by. Some of the factory workers will find other work, some in other industries, or other businesses in the same industry. But when you are suggesting policy, you think about the overall system, not just the poor fa…

But eventually, you will run up against something never before experienced in human history--exhaustion of demand.

The problem with automation is that the robots don't want anything, and all they need is power and maintenance (that is much easier to perform than medical care).

They can supply goods and some services so much more efficiently than human labor that no human can effectively compete with them and still be able to eat. So the humans that formerly did their jobs have nothing to trade at market. They are forced to subsistence labor, if they are even allowed to do that. You can't afford the electric induction cooktop or the electricity produced by robots, so you have to burn scavenged wood in a hand-built rocket stove. The displaced laborer contributes no more demand to the robot-supplied marketplace.

Each worker you make obsolete removes their demand. The robots produce less, consuming only their most basic needs, and send most of the output to their owners. The owner class, who does not consume 100% the maximum output of their robots, slowly buys up all valuable resources with the excess, as those who wish to avoid subsistence lifestyles sell off their assets in order to stave off scavenging for roots, mushrooms, and squirrels. Perhaps some of them can manage a parallel economy trading in inferior goods and services, but the threat always looms that anyone too productive will be able to buy in to the robot-owner class and stop supplying the under-economy. Most everyone becomes Spam. They only trade with each other until they can be steak again. So everything in the under-economy sucks.

One laborer can maintain hundreds of robots, who can each support a specific want of millions of people, but only have thousands of owners. The owners don't want more than the robots can provide, so those humans that don't own can't manage to sell much of anything to the owners, except things that robots cannot provide [yet]: art, love, babies, etc.

Every unemployed-becomes-entrepreneur is a last-gasp effort to leap the widening gap between the haves and have-nots, like a salmon shooting past the open jaws of a grizzly. If you don't buy in soon, you might not have anything left worth trading for your golden ticket.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#296

Post by alien_at_work »

Zanni wrote: post #161

What I never see mentioned in these types of articles is the rise of the service economy. There are some jobs that will never be automated because we prefer to deal with humans. Take food service for instance. No one wants to go to a high end steak house and have their wine poured and meal served by robots. Human interaction is part of the experience and part of the value. (At McDonald's, by contrast, the humans don'…

>There are some jobs that will never be automated because we prefer to deal with humans.

This is cultural. People used to say they would never buy X online. Today there is almost nothing left in the set of X.

And I disagree about dining out. In the US I really dread dining out, even though the food tastes so good and is so cheap. Why? Servers constantly coming over, interupting conversation to ask me if I need anything (no doubt hoping to get a bigger tip). I'd rather press a button or something on my phone. I never go to a resturant for the staff, I go for the food/drink and the people I went with. Everyone else is somewhere between necassary evil and active annoyance.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#297

Post by [deleted] »

kmicklas wrote: post #72
EliRivers wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the problems in every serious piece of software I've ever worked on stem from the customer (be it external or in-house) not knowing what they want, the person in charge of capturing that doing a pretty bad job of it anyway, and the chain from there to the person writing the software taking that failure and making it worse. AI writing software will just get me another flavour of the wrong software. AI working out…

You don't think good old fashioned bugs are a problem?

[deleted]

Re: Just own the damn robots

#298

Post by hectorlorenzo »

alien_at_work wrote: post #284
Waterluvian wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under my mattress! Kidding. A combination of TFSA max out, RRSP max out, rolling GIC, RESP. I doubt I'm min-maxing my savings ideally, but I'm generally interested in infinitesimal risk solutions I don't have to think about more than once a quarter or so. I've only been in the workforce for 4 years. Married for 1. Was planning on a house so I valued liquidity. But you're right, I need to do the mature, responsible th…

That's exactly what index funds are for: just dump what you can spare into it every pay period and don't even look at the statement. When you get to, say, mid 50's, have a look to see if you can retire. My advise, when you're ready to give a little thought to this is to check out this site: [1]. EDIT: After you pick out some indexes (at you're age I'd probably just do SP500 exclusively), you can use this [2] to see w…

Just out of curiosity, which platform do you use to make these investments? Do you use your regular bank?

Re: Just own the damn robots

#299

Post by alien_at_work »

hectorlorenzo wrote: post #298
alien_at_work wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what index funds are for: just dump what you can spare into it every pay period and don't even look at the statement. When you get to, say, mid 50's, have a look to see if you can retire. My advise, when you're ready to give a little thought to this is to check out this site: [1]. EDIT: After you pick out some indexes (at you're age I'd probably just do SP500 exclusively), you can use this [2] to see w…

Just out of curiosity, which platform do you use to make these investments? Do you use your regular bank?

I don't live in the USA so I use Interactive brokers and buy ETFs. If I was in the US, I'd probably go to Vanguard and setup a monthly payment into the fund.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#300

Post by hectorlorenzo »

alien_at_work wrote: post #299
hectorlorenzo wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, which platform do you use to make these investments? Do you use your regular bank?

I don't live in the USA so I use Interactive brokers and buy ETFs. If I was in the US, I'd probably go to Vanguard and setup a monthly payment into the fund.

I'm in the UK, so your advice is spot on. Thanks!
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