Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if the jobs require higher IQs than 85? Suddenly we have 15% of the population entirely unemployable? Wealth redistribution is a choice of ethics. What if we start to create better technologies that augment the economic usefulness of the lowest IQ people?
That's what the wealth redistribution is for. For the 15% that are unemployable.
Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
51–60 of 541 posts
Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
#52There are two solutions: Part one, a more educated populace. Education will help those that can work in the "good jobs" get the good jobs. Part two, tax policy. Wealth needs to be redistributed so that there are masses to buy the products that the wealthy are creating. Edit: I just watched this post go up to 10 points, down to 3 and then back to 5. Clearly this is controversial. I find it interesting that wealth redi…
Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
#53It just looks very dramatic right now because its left the lower strata and is now sweeping across the middle.
The end game is a tiny few that have acquired the keys to all of the machines through natural consolidation. The only question is, will the machines be off because there is no reason to run them because the world is full of poor sods who can't buy anything, or will we be running them because we finally figured out how to share their output.
Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
#54There are two solutions: Part one, a more educated populace. Education will help those that can work in the "good jobs" get the good jobs. Part two, tax policy. Wealth needs to be redistributed so that there are masses to buy the products that the wealthy are creating. Edit: I just watched this post go up to 10 points, down to 3 and then back to 5. Clearly this is controversial. I find it interesting that wealth redi…
I'm still not convinced that it's possible to successfully tax the rich enough to ensure that the poor isn't poor. The redistribution (and taxation) always comes up as "the solution" to inequality. I think that's overestimating how rich the rich are, and underestimating the number of poor people.
It's easier to make the rich poorer, and close the wealth cap that way, compared to making the poor richer. Sadly that's not going to help anyone.
Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
#55There are two solutions: Part one, a more educated populace. Education will help those that can work in the "good jobs" get the good jobs. Part two, tax policy. Wealth needs to be redistributed so that there are masses to buy the products that the wealthy are creating. Edit: I just watched this post go up to 10 points, down to 3 and then back to 5. Clearly this is controversial. I find it interesting that wealth redi…
“Redistribution” is inherently unfair; there is no “redistribution” except by force. Venezuela was the most recent in the vast row of examples of how redistribution works; probably not the last, as the idea keeps being pushed by some people for some reason, completely unimaginable to me.
Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
#56The problem is that as a society we believe that people need to work 40 hours a week to survive. We replace people with robots and retain the same output. We are more productive than ever before, yet work the same amount. Physical and uneducated work is being replaced by automation, yet we expect these people replaced by robots to find jobs to survive where there are now none. I don't believe in Universal Basic Incom…
What about people who want to work? Their productivity increases even further, they make more money and inequity increases. Or are you suggesting we ban working?
Well, with a sufficiently progressive tax, you might choose to stop volunteering your time for what will be diminishing returns in income.
Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wealth redistribution is a choice of ethics. If you study world history you’ll quickly realize that it’s ultimately the choice of the mob with the torches and pitchforks. You’d be amazed at how disinterested they are in moral relativism or a chat about Atlas Shrugged. Personally I’d prefer a more equitable redistribution based on planning, rather than a redistribution based on plutocrats being put up against a wall.…
I mean, you can solve that problem with robots and technology, too. Revolting mobs of socialists can be dealt with pretty easily. (If you’re going to start threatening murder as the premise of your theory of justice, you’d best make sure your side would actually be the one doing the killing.)
Yeah, that that could never go wrong and backfire horribly. How about we win a war before we decide to design, mass produce, and deploy enough robots to pacify a few hundred million people with guns. Oh, and don’t forget to make it the first hack-proof device ever, or you might find yourself on the wrong end of the robot.
Besides, I’m not threatening murder, I’m literally just describing a repeating and predictable cycle throughout history. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll be up against the wall too.
Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
#58The problem is that as a society we believe that people need to work 40 hours a week to survive. We replace people with robots and retain the same output. We are more productive than ever before, yet work the same amount. Physical and uneducated work is being replaced by automation, yet we expect these people replaced by robots to find jobs to survive where there are now none. I don't believe in Universal Basic Incom…
Partial basic income would fit right into that if it helps people afford to work one job instead of two, or move to part time.
Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
#59There are two solutions: Part one, a more educated populace. Education will help those that can work in the "good jobs" get the good jobs. Part two, tax policy. Wealth needs to be redistributed so that there are masses to buy the products that the wealthy are creating. Edit: I just watched this post go up to 10 points, down to 3 and then back to 5. Clearly this is controversial. I find it interesting that wealth redi…
Isn't wealth redistribution via taxes treating the symptom and not the cause? We should look at the structures that allow massive wealth inequality to form in the first place. This could be a lot of things besides tax policy.
Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two
#60The problem is that as a society we believe that people need to work 40 hours a week to survive. We replace people with robots and retain the same output. We are more productive than ever before, yet work the same amount. Physical and uneducated work is being replaced by automation, yet we expect these people replaced by robots to find jobs to survive where there are now none. I don't believe in Universal Basic Incom…
Working 8 hours a day already leaves enough downtime in my schedule to get bored, but not enough to turn that boredom into something productive. 6 hours would be outright hell.
The problem is, the extra two hours don't really provide me with any compelling new opportunities to contribute! That's barely enough time to get at a school and volunteer and get back to work. Barely enough time to get into the flow of things if I'm volunteer programming. Etc.
But an entire additional day off of work would be great. I could commit to do real things. I could bake so much bread for the church's food shelter. I could build an entire web app using the city's open data to help people avoid tickets. I could spend an entire day in a classroom. Etc.
If you distribute service days evenly and treat them like "just another business function" for businesses, then you could pretty much replace the teaching aspect of higher ed with volunteers. 2-3 people prep+lecture+office hours one day a week, 2-3 people are spending all their service hours helping design curriculum, 2-3 people do a day of grading each week. A <10 person team can teach an entire university course @ 1 day per person per week. Multiply across the whole city, every company. Universal 4 year higher education for "free". And there's still tens of millions of volunteer days per week left over for all the other stuff.