571–580 of 823 posts
In short, people have been having the day off for decades now. It's called part-time work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The economic surplus from that increase in productivity accrued to everyone in society, not just the wealthy. Sure, a poor man with two dollars is richer than a poor man with one dollar. And yet the man handing out the dollars had 100$ in surplus when he was handing out 1s and now that he's handing out 2's he's got 1,000,000,000. Look at the wealth disparity. Even if quality of life has increased, it's not wrong fo…
> Look at the wealth disparity. Even if quality of life has increased, it's not wrong for the people delivering that increased quality of life (workers) to also demand a requisite slice of the pie. Sure, but the argument being made is that "productivity gains accrue to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth." That is simply not true. Across the entire world, from rich countries to poor c…
It is, though, if we talk scale. The rich went from having big houses in the 1920s to being sent into space, or building private libertarian colonies, or buying elections, or potentially increasing their lifespan a few decades, in the 2020s. The working class went from working 40hrs a week until age 64 when they retire in a house they own, to working 60hrs a week until they die, but hey, that death might be at an older age!
The improvement disparity between the two makes the improvement for the working class insignificant enough to be dismissible. I don't buy into the idea that the working class should be grateful that the scraps now have better seasoning.
I mean really, just look at the wealth gap. Imagine how much better the lives of everyone could be if that wealth was distributed better! Fuck a 20 hr workweek, what about 5?
The four day work week is a prisoner's dilemma. If everyone did it, then we'd all get a payoff, but if someone defects to a longer work week they tend to get ahead at work. Thus we all do it and thus we all lose. It's funny how underappreciated it is how the five day work week is powered by norms...at least in the US. People assume there are laws about it. The only laws dictate compensation past certain thresholds, a…
If only there were some kind of third party we could all collectively agree to delegate enforcement of cooperation to...
That is an oxymoron. I think you probably meant coercion.
The four day work week is a prisoner's dilemma. If everyone did it, then we'd all get a payoff, but if someone defects to a longer work week they tend to get ahead at work. Thus we all do it and thus we all lose. It's funny how underappreciated it is how the five day work week is powered by norms...at least in the US. People assume there are laws about it. The only laws dictate compensation past certain thresholds, a…
I never understand why software engineers are so excited about AI as a whole. If you are excited about the technology, sure. But if you are excited about the increase in productivity, unless you are a manager, I don't really understand it. Like, why? You are not working one hour less than before. If anything, it's more likely you'll get laid off and have trouble finding your next job.
Dictating what to exist and what not to to the machine is a power fantasy that's not going to stick around for long, because we'll inevitably reach the point where no human is needed in the loop (or at least not as often as they needed today).
Most people finally feel how they would've felt like if they actually put deliberate practice for hours to work on something. That's why you see comments going "wow, I rewrote this in Rust, and I don't even know Rust". You get to feel like someone who outputs Rust.
This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…
There have been movements toward this in the US, but particularly in the tech sector, far too many people are still stuffed full of decades of anti-union propaganda (like the idea that the union is a "third party" rather than being the workers themselves, or that it would bring down their salary because they're such a special awesome 10x developer and 10x negotiator).
The executive class has taken roughly all the productivity increases since 1980 and slid them straight into their bulging pockets, at our expense. The only way we get any of that back, or prevent them from taking this new increase from us too, is to stand together against them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But we should be seriously asking in our next all hands meetings if 10x’ing our productivity can get us some days off. Pretty sure if you ask this that they'll give you all your days off.
Standing up for yourself and your peers is a virtue, not a weakness. Yes, it’s easy to crack down on individual dissent — but only if you stay quiet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One possibility is once AI becomes profitable and wildly successful, and we all lose our jobs, we vote to nationalize the AI companies, and send some good vibes (but no money) to the VCs who paid for it, and remember that the AI was only built by breaking copyright law at an industrial scale and so it's fair to nationalize it.
[flagged]
Political disengagement is often "too damn tired"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where do you suggest we start? You can't nuke everything at once.
Uh, we might have to depending on how quickly AI and robots become effective at doing most jobs.