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What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

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Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#321

Post by _audakel »

knieveltech wrote: post #210
tachyonbeam wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this sentiment. There is a lot of work that needs doing. There are also a lot of parents out there with young children who could use a nanny. There's a need for more therapists, or just people to talk to. There's a lot of work that needs doing. There's an abundance of people to do the work, and I feel like we have plenty of natural resources. It seems to me that we could build housing for everyone, we ha…

There is no need for additional construction to meet housing demand. In the continental US there are something like 6 empty units for every homeless person in the country. In turn this means there is no pent up demand for building materials, so putting people to work in forestry, quarry, cement, steel, etc is also a non-starter. Global food surplus indicates there is no pressing need to put additional people to work…

> There simply isn't enough work to go around.

Dissagree. Technolgy works best when augmented with humans, however the training needed for ppl (ie truck drivers) may take longer to retool their minds then they have life left. So there may be a generation gap in jobs. Also consider space as the final frontier. How much work will be needed to build fleets of ships to colonize space and all that entails?

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#322

Post by nhangen »

goatherders wrote: post #290
cesarbs wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the bit that hits close to home to me: > they must demonstrate commitment above and beyond their contracted work hours, and express constant satisfaction and happiness about their work My wife and I are both software engineers and that is a nearly constant source of stress for us. In our experience, people in our field frown upon people who treat software engineering as just their job. Two things I recall fro…

My biggest frustration at work is the colleagues - most of whom are software engineers - that are inconvenienced when being asked to consider work outside of normal business hours. I don't really care if they are happy; that's what overpaying them is for. What I care about is getting one of them to answer the phone at 5:05pm on a tuesday and not getting a return call until 9:03 on a Wednesday.

I hear you.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#323

Post by pfarnsworth »

throwaway368 wrote: post #307
goatherders wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest frustration at work is the colleagues - most of whom are software engineers - that are inconvenienced when being asked to consider work outside of normal business hours. I don't really care if they are happy; that's what overpaying them is for. What I care about is getting one of them to answer the phone at 5:05pm on a tuesday and not getting a return call until 9:03 on a Wednesday.

This is exactly the kind of moronic bs that I haven't and will not put up with. Executives most of the time are paid, and compensated to be there 24/7. Software engineers are not. While founders and other execs have tendency to forget that - deal with it. I am there between 8am - 4pm, or 6am - 2pm or what ever it says in my contract. No more, no less. You want me to do extra hours, fine, most of the time happy to, yo…

My colleagues have base pays > $150k/yr and I'm closer to $200k/yr. I consider myself very well paid, I'm grateful for it, and I'm available whenever I'm needed, within reason.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#324

Post by snoman »

WoodenChair wrote: post #289
nico_h wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heck, even if you made that proposition to a fast food worker that he could do meaningful work instead of smelling like fried stuff all the time and always be worried about working enough hours for a crappy boss and no future, or to a janitor that he could help someone instead of cleaning pee all day, maybe they would do that instead. Maybe even to an office drone, who knows. Right now people work because otherwise t…

> Heck, even if you made that proposition to a fast food worker that he could do meaningful work instead of smelling like fried stuff all the time and always be worried about working enough hours for a crappy boss and no future, or to a janitor that he could help someone instead of cleaning pee all day, maybe they would do that instead. Maybe even to an office drone, who knows. You imply that being a fast food worker…

I'm willing to give GP the benefit of the doubt and was only speaking of the people who don't like, or are not suited for, those positions. I think there's enough people that fit that description in any reasonably sized profession to make it a valid statement in that context.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#325

Post by hardtke »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #136

Maybe a better approach is how can we spend the surplus labour? There are lots of things I see need doing looking around my neighbourhood - public parks need cleaning up, old houses could be torn down and make some nice new ones, old roads could be fixed. Probably stacks of other things. Maybe some creative accounting will enable us to do these things? I know national parks near me have great paths that were built in…

The biggest labor need in the next 40 years will be caring for the elderly. When my father was out of the hospital after an operation and needed live in care it was insanely difficult to find at any cost. This is work that cannot be automated.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#326

Post by bertiewhykovich »

grzm wrote: post #252
bertiewhykovich wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good and not at all insane that I make $100,000/year for dicking around on a computer every day. Those poors just aren't creating value.

Snide comments like this do nothing to promote constructive discussion. Please post civilly or just don't.

I very much disagree that they do nothing to promote constructive discussion. They put a fine point on the absurdities of the position mocked -- hardly unconstructive.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#327

Post by knieveltech »

_audakel wrote: post #321
knieveltech wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need for additional construction to meet housing demand. In the continental US there are something like 6 empty units for every homeless person in the country. In turn this means there is no pent up demand for building materials, so putting people to work in forestry, quarry, cement, steel, etc is also a non-starter. Global food surplus indicates there is no pressing need to put additional people to work…

> There simply isn't enough work to go around. Dissagree. Technolgy works best when augmented with humans, however the training needed for ppl (ie truck drivers) may take longer to retool their minds then they have life left. So there may be a generation gap in jobs. Also consider space as the final frontier. How much work will be needed to build fleets of ships to colonize space and all that entails?

Disagree all you want to, the market clearly finds your argument unpersuasive.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#328

Post by gregpilling »

edblarney wrote: post #318
freehunter wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course a robot could do those things. Those are very easy things to do. The problem is, you wouldn't want to pay thousands of dollars for a robot to make you a sandwich or clean your toilet because those are things you can easily do yourself for free. And there's no economy of scale to offset the cost, because it's just doing it for only you . How about "get your bot to build my microprocessors" or "get your bot t…

"Of course a robot could do those things. Those are very easy things to do. " Sorry, but no. Very, very hard. + Find my fridge + Open it + Find the meat + Find the bread + Open the mayo + Get a knife + Spread it etc. etc. etc. Even if you do it 'the machines way' it's extremely difficult. No way. Not for quite a while. Much harder than 'driving a car'. Without proving it directly - let me do it indirectly: Factories…

If you get to do it "the machines way", then you get this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPTwpLIpDWE

I agree with the idea that we are 20 years away from a walking talking robot. One that could find the fridge, figure out which mayo is the good one, and which mayo has gone bad. The get the right ham, not the crap the kids like, and find the knives. Where are all the knives? And then put the stuff away, so nobody complains later....

I own 2 welding robots.(Miller-Panasonic Prefab Welding Cell) They are time consuming to program, and you do have to 'touch up' the program all the time. They are both 7 axis machines, with the capability of running another 13 axis each. The complexity of a setup is much much higher than a self driving car, which has go/stop/left/right as possible inputs. A self drive car is only 2 axis of movement.

In order to deal with 900 types of sandwiches in another factory, humans are used, not machines . http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sandwich-factory-worker... . They don't do it because they like paying humans. It is too complex to handle the high mix of products (900 sandwich types) for automation.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#329

Post by cesarbs »

bluejekyll wrote: post #288
cesarbs wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the bit that hits close to home to me: > they must demonstrate commitment above and beyond their contracted work hours, and express constant satisfaction and happiness about their work My wife and I are both software engineers and that is a nearly constant source of stress for us. In our experience, people in our field frown upon people who treat software engineering as just their job. Two things I recall fro…

For some people it's a passion. For others it's a job. IMO anyone who is passionate about their work will have greater success and generally be more innovative. I'm sure this is true across all career paths not just engineering. In software there is no one right answer, the passion comes into play when you look for the most elegant or most performant solution, that may not be obvious on the first pass. This makes it…

> IMO anyone who is passionate about their work will have greater success and generally be more innovative.

That is true, I don't dispute it. What I dislike is the shunning of those who want to do it just as their job.

Also, passion comes in different forms. For example, I am "passionate" (as much as I hate the term) about delivering reliable, secure and well-documented products. Sometimes a project will be focused on that and my passion will show, other times projects focus on things I just can't get myself to care enough about and will only do as much as is strictly necessary to get the job done.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#330

Post by gregpilling »

freehunter wrote: post #314
Cybiote wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making a sandwich or cleaning a toilet is certainly not an easy thing to do. Getting a robot that can understand a scene, any scene and plan motions within it has been very difficult to do. Far more difficult than playing Go at a superhuman level for example. This is known by various names, with one common being the Moravec Paradox . The problem of energy storage further multiplies this difficulty.

I think we're getting confused on the definition of how the robot accomplishes its task. To clean a toilet like a human would, yeah that's difficult. To clean a toilet like a robot would, it's not. A toilet cleaning robot would have a spinning brush like a drill and would circle the bowl of the toilet a couple of times. Really, really easy thing to do. If a Roomba can clean my entire house, not fall down the stairs,…

Here you go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPTwpLIpDWE&t=8s
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