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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?

#341

Post by kLeeIsDead »

cesarbs wrote: post #331
kLeeIsDead wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the call-center example was dumb too, but he got his point across. What you describe is the way I read it as well. That's why I don't think I'm going to pursue a career in software engineering despite doing it as a hobby since a young age. I think there'd be some irreversible damage to my brain if I used something I've liked and identified with for my whole life as a means to do something I hate. To me it s…

What sort of blue collar job do you do? A part of me dislikes that I turned what was a genuine interest of mine into my job. Software was a lot more fun to do before it became a professional thing for me.

I'm still in college, but I have some experience in renovating apartments/houses so I'll probably do that.

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

#342

Post by kazagistar »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #93
scandox wrote: post #8

> there’s not enough work to go around, and what there is of it won’t pay the bills – unless of course you’ve landed a job as a drug dealer or a Wall Street banker, becoming a gangster either way. This kind of lazy discourse from someone who has authored a whole book on the topic under discussion is remarkable.

"Yes, as through this world I've wandered I've seen lots of funny men; Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen. And as through your life you travel, Yes, as through your life you roam, You won't never see an outlaw Drive a family from their home." -- Pretty Boy Floyd by Woody Guthrie

That quote might feel right, because first world people deal with first world problems. However, the vast number of Syrian refugees make that quote somewhat inapplicable to the current day.

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

#343

Post by adevine »

edblarney wrote: post #216
Animats wrote: post #79

We're there already. There are vast numbers of people who cannot make an economic contribution large enough to cover their costs. Education won't help. Teach a human how to do something, and you have one human who can do it. Teach a computer how to do something, and you can have as many computers as needed doing it. The US has already hit "peak school" in terms of economic benefit. About half of college graduates tak…

"Education won't help. Teach a human how to do something, and you have one human who can do it. Teach a computer how to do something, and you can have as many computers as needed doing it. " This is pragmatically not true. There are tons and tons of jobs that can't be done by computers. The 'entertainment sector' was not even a part of the economy 100 years ago. Now it's a big chunk. Think of how big sports are. That…

> Think of how big sports are.

But that's just it. Sports (and entertainment, your other example) are tiny, because only the top .001% are valued. Everyone else is basically slaving away for free in the hopes that they make it to that top echelon. Even the amount of support jobs is teeny compared to other industries.

The problem with advanced automation is that it eliminates sectors that have huge employment bases (think of how many people that drive for a living) and replaces them with sectors that tend to be much smaller in comparison.

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

#344

Post by JDiculous »

nico_h wrote: post #153
rdtsc wrote: post #82

> Most jobs aren’t created by private, corporate investment, so raising taxes on corporate income won’t affect employment. But won't raising taxes on corporate income drive corporation to other jurisdiction? So employment in that company then won't just slowly trail off, but will look like a cliff, dropping to 0. So isn't that idea ignoring the fact that companies don't have to stick into one place and so we arbitrar…

This are the idea I have been struggling with: 1) how do you get people to accept the existence of basic income without perceiving the beneficiaries as moochers. 2) what do people on basic do? Right now your example of people visiting the elderly is in some place paid work but can also be performed by volunteer. However volunteers should be vetted. My guess is that when everybody is on basic, you can earn "social cre…

> how do you get people to accept the existence of basic income without perceiving the beneficiaries as moochers.

Land value tax and Pigovian taxes. UBI would then be compensation for allowing others to monopolize our society's collective resources (eg. land). Every citizen is a shareholder, and UBI is a dividend.

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

#345

Post by kazagistar »

nhaehnle wrote: post #182
nico_h wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This are the idea I have been struggling with: 1) how do you get people to accept the existence of basic income without perceiving the beneficiaries as moochers. 2) what do people on basic do? Right now your example of people visiting the elderly is in some place paid work but can also be performed by volunteer. However volunteers should be vetted. My guess is that when everybody is on basic, you can earn "social cre…

Well, we already have a form of "social credits". It's called money. We're just not used to thinking of it that way, but that's really what money is. So replace "social credits" in your line of thinking by money, and you've basically arrived at the idea of a Job Guarantee. And somebody who works for their money is no longer a moocher, so...

Money interacts with rent, starts unfairly allocated, and largely maintains is imbalanced allocation due to how it discourages helping those with little in favor of those with plenty. The evidence is in social mobility rates.

An allocated credit (for example), that could only be transferred once before going into artificial sinks, would function very differently, and encourage activities that help a much broader population.

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

#346

Post by kazagistar »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #114
superuser2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, the effort is not wasted if competition drives the products to be better and/or cheaper in the end. Uselessly duplicated efforts due to secrecy are the problem patents were supposed to solve, btw.

I think open source software was much more effective in solving the problem of duplication, albeit a slightly different problem (not as effective with hardware). As an aside, does anyone building software these days not have quite a lot of FOSS in their tech stack? Imagine if we had to pay for Windows NT 2011 to run our containers. :)

> Imagine if we had to pay for Windows [...] to run our containers

https://aws.amazon.com/windows/resources/licensing/

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

#347

Post by smileysteve »

taeric wrote: post #304
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.

If you are constantly having a situation where you need them to answer a question as late as 4:50 on a regular basis, you've already failed. I seriously mean that. Movies and revisionist history are full of companies that successfully pulled out last minute victories. Real life is full of companies that kept that death march until the end, and blamed the workers for not keeping up.

Steve Jobs killed Apple (Lisa, Macintosh, Apple2) and NEXT with the death marches; yet he is renowned because he did it better the last time.

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

#348

Post by witty_username »

cmurf wrote: post #226

Well, if we're going to simplistically blame just one thing and blame the premise of jobs, why not blame the premise that everyone has a right to propagate, or do so as many times as they want? Obviously it's less provocative to say fuck work than fuck children; or jobs are the problem than too many humans are the problem. But if there aren't enough jobs to go around, part of that is because there are so many people.

No, more people means more employees and customers.

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

#349

Post by rplst8 »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #323
throwaway368 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not all software engineers make that kind of cash. In fact I'd say over 90% don't even come within 10% of that range.

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

#350

Post by rplst8 »

drvdevd wrote: post #319
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.

I've been on both sides of this equation: not wanting to be availble outside of "business hours" and also feeling frustrated when colleagues aren't available when I need them. I view this as an engineering and social process problem: your systems should be reliably engineered such that off hours maintenance or other technical issues are minimized. This gets to the social part: people will be more receptive to off hou…

I'm not going to be on call for other's people's garbage they call a production system.
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