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America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

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381–390 of 448 posts

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

#381
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a strong China hawk. But Beijing currently has an opportunity to craft a global alliance that balances the U.S. in a way that America has historically excelled at. Put another way, the idiots who voted this man in have turned America into an Axis power.

That is normal; the world worked that way prior to 1990. The real change is that the US economy isn't obviously superior to the next however many economies combined. Consequently the US is losing the ability to impose its opinions on others as fundamental truths. It looks like everyone in the West will have to re-learn negotiation and it'll probably be a rocky process.

> the world worked that way prior to 1990

Sort of. I’d move the needle to the 1970s, when Soviet power was on an obvious downside. Realpolitik would dictate, at that time, for Europe and Asia to balance America. But we were a good ally. So balancing wasn’t seen to be necessary.

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

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look how capitalism is actually implemented, it always has bigger or smaller kleptocratic component.

Of course, but it's the proportion of that that makes all the difference.

I agree. But that might be why soviets are bad at everything. They always get this proportion wrong, in all systems.

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

#383
post #52

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Once upon a time, a US president said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself". His unconventional administration brought USA from deep economic depression into a golden age. Meanwhile, the current ruling elite smears him as one of the worst presidents of all time, and has spent decades undoing that legacy and racing towards a repeat of 1929.

he also ran for reelection four times and made private ownership of gold illegal, and vastly expanded the power of the executive branch. Reminds me a lot of the current guy and his obsession with another term, and whether or not the gold (that FDR largely stole from the people in the first place) is in Ft Knox. I guess the biggest difference is DOGE but it's all too much centralized power for me

The difference between DOGE and FDR banning gold hoarding over $100 ($2K+ today) is that the latter targets the wealthy, while the former is focused on looting public goods to enrich the privately wealthy.

It could be seen as naked class warfare either way, but they are opposites. Increasing wealth inequality is fantastic path to social unrest and weakened institutions.

FDR was the leader of a republic, Musk is a classic robber baron.

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

#384

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.

Chinas demographics are a ticking time bomb They’ve also massively overinvested in sectors like real estate But maybe if Drumpf screws up the US enough, they will be able to weather these problems Or perhaps AI will get so good it won’t matter

In contrast to North America which has under invested in real estate, having all that extra real estate sounds like a dream.

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

#385
post #171

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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.

1 kg of rice has 1300 calories. Not enough for most adults. And not very appetizing if that’s all you eat

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

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What definition of treaty are you using that the USMCA is not a treaty? The difference is negligible in international use, but in the US it means “agreement that was ratified by the Senate”. Are you claiming the USMCA was not, in fact, ratified by the Senate? Disputing under the terms of a treaty is quite different than unilaterally breaking a treaty.

In the U.S. a treaty requires a 2/3 Senate confirmation. The USMCA is an executive trade agreement.

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

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's all this annexation talk then? That sounds pretty disrespectfully inflammatory.

It's not annexation to invite a country to join the Union. It's quite the honor, to be honest.

If it is such an honor, why has the response of 90% of Canadians been "Go fuck yourself"?

Up here, we consider it a betrayal, certainly nothing honorable.

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

#388
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. China's five year plans are translated into English and are quite readable. Here's the 14th Five Year Plan, 2021-2025.[1] Wikipedia has a summary.[2] This is China's business plan. The top level is expanded into more detailed plans at lower levels. For example, here's the plan for Fujian province.[3] Further down, here's the transition plan for IPv6.[4] You can go back and read previous five-year plans. The succ…

What makes these plans go so successfully, when the soviets have historically not been able to make such plans successful (despite being richer and more powerful at the time)? This video about Argentina's economic failures mentions why free market capitalism failed in argentina, and why a "similar" opening up in china didnt fail (but not so much detail that another country could follow it and replicate the success).…

The Soviets were insanely successful: From the 1920s to 1960s they raised the USSR to space age, industrialized it to become the 2nd superpower, won a world war, upgraded citizens from village huts to apartments, from being barefoot to cars and subways.

What 'went wrong' was the economic war that Kennedy admn. started to starve the USSR of GDP by starting an arms and space race. The USSR did not bite the space race bait, but arms race was impossible to not participate. So it did. Then in the 1970s, the US started an economic warfare against the USSR with the help of its Gulf allies by manipulating oil prices. That wasn't enough either, so Reagan started another arms race. In the end all of that combined, crippled the USSR and it went bankrupt.

The US also went bankrupt, but it was able to delay it for ~15 more years by printing money and pumping it into the stock market and real estate thanks to the reserve currency status of the dollar. That came crashing down in 2008. The US did some more of the same and dragged it a decade and half more and here we are, where everything is finally crashing down.

China avoided most of that economic warfare by sitting on the sidelines and taking lessons. Sometime a decade ago, it passed the threshold of being too well-rounded and large to fail. To the point that it became a driving engine of the world economy, but backed with actual goods and services instead of the financial voodoo that the US built everything on.

> Basically, is such 5 year plans a recipe for success

Yes, if your country can keep the private interests and capitalists under control. Otherwise, they derail every plan to maximize their profit by siphoning off state resources for little actual progress. Like how the last US administration's 'build back better' plan was derailed.

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

#389

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.

Sadly, they really need to start consuming 100x what they are currently to even have a shot

Hyper-consumerism took off in the US because it’s a false economic indicator. It makes lines go up, but doesn’t materially improve anyone’s lives.

We’re seeing the effects of ~70 years of hyper-consumerist behavior. It worked for a while, but now the costs have accumulated. There’s shit everywhere, and everything either breaks or is poison. Or both.

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

#390
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I agree that people will still want/need meaning, and some may lose it, along with their jobs, but having the money for basic needs by default gives you the…

Also I think a large chunk of people will be happy to just consume media all day.

Or, less pessimistic, a lot of people are happy to consume human relationships all day.

That’s what life has always been about for a large segment of people, going back thousands of years. Media is more or less a bandaid. People are busy, people are anxious, people don’t want to bother to spend money - media can give the sensation of human interaction without the hard bits.

But ultimately, if I could never work but I was surrounded by my loved ones forever, I would be pretty happy with that. We can find stuff to do, or just do nothing at all. With them, it’s always a blast.

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