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Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

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Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#61

Post by fredkbloggs »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #42
fredkbloggs wrote: post #30

Let's suppose for a moment that we accept the thesis that due to automation, there won't be much work for humans in the future. Instead of taking wealth from the smaller number of humans who are creating that wealth and giving it to those who are not, why don't we just accept that we don't need so many of us any more? Let the extras die off naturally (note to angry skimmers: I SAID NATURALLY) and migrate to a new low…

>Instead of taking wealth from the smaller number of humans who are creating that wealth and giving it to those who are not, why don't we just accept that we don't need so many of us any more? Let the extras die off naturally (note to angry skimmers: I SAID NATURALLY) and migrate to a new lower-population equilibrium. Because we value people's lives and happiness, so "You're unemployed now, please die quietly" is act…

If your idea of happiness and health is a bipolar world in which everyone is either:

(a) A producer, whose entire production is taken from him or her by force of arms and given to others, or

(b) A consumer, who does nothing and contributes nothing but lives off the work of others, and

in either case one lives in a horribly crowded, polluted, sweltering world, then we will have to agree to disagree. I'm not even sure which of (a) or (b) would be worse, but I know I'd choose suicide if those were the other options.

Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#62

Post by dragonwriter »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #61
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Instead of taking wealth from the smaller number of humans who are creating that wealth and giving it to those who are not, why don't we just accept that we don't need so many of us any more? Let the extras die off naturally (note to angry skimmers: I SAID NATURALLY) and migrate to a new lower-population equilibrium. Because we value people's lives and happiness, so "You're unemployed now, please die quietly" is act…

If your idea of happiness and health is a bipolar world in which everyone is either: (a) A producer, whose entire production is taken from him or her by force of arms and given to others, or (b) A consumer, who does nothing and contributes nothing but lives off the work of others, and in either case one lives in a horribly crowded, polluted, sweltering world, then we will have to agree to disagree. I'm not even sure…

That's cute, but I don't see anyone upthread suggesting anything like the strawman dichotomy that you react to.

Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#63

Post by api »

redneck_ wrote: post #58
api wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's largely a concept I've encountered online, with varying degrees of precision in discussions. There will be books about it in 20 years once the academics notice, sort of like stagflation (which was "impossible"). It really strikes me as an exact description of today's economic reality -- stagnant wages, deflation in manufactured goods and anything tech, and crazy inflation in areas like housing, rent, health care…

it's such a new idea google can't even find it

https://www.google.com/#q=%22indeflation%22

Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#64

Post by cwb »

mcv wrote: post #27

It's not clear why the author thinks it's not a fallacy. What bothers me about this sort of discussion, though, is the assumption that we need to work. I want technology to do my job for me, so I can focus on fun stuff. But for that to work, we should change our economic system so we don't need to work, or at least not as much. What technology has really done, is not so much take away people's jobs, but make capital…

Sorry I couldn't make it more clear. Was there anything particular that you didn't understand?

Agree on the basic income (in general, I'm not sure about the details). Jobs so far have been a convenient and pragmatic (not necessarily fair) way to both create and distribute wealth. At the same time, we should note that popular alternatives like communism or socialism have failed rather badly.

Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#65

Post by burntsushi »

api wrote: post #53
melling wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these the same people who ignored all the warnings? http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo Bought cheap stuff from Walmart so middle class manufacturing jobs were sent overseas? Refused to get a STEM education so we're required to import 100,000 engineers ever year? Didn't develop a better immigration plan so now we have 11 million undocumented people, many who will work for far less because life is better here…

... because in the wake of an extremely noisy and well publicized dot.com / tech market crash, everyone would be completely reasonable to choose an expensive STEM degree. Professionals are routinely wrong about predicting economic trends. Random teenage kids from average high schools should not be expected to be better than, say, the Fed chairman in this regard.

> Professionals are routinely wrong about predicting economic trends.

But you're not, right?

There isn't an ounce of uncertainty in any of your comments despite the fact that you make several outlandish claims about the future.

Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#66

Post by [deleted] »

Sulfolobus wrote: post #59
arethuza wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point - here in Scotland there were the Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries forcing peoples off lands - either to the cities or to emigrate or to simply starve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances There is a lot of very murky history to land ownership in Scotland - one of the reasons I'm so pleased with the "right to roam" that we have now as well as Scottish Government policies favouring com…

If you haven't already read it I highly recommend "The Poor Had No Lawyers" by Andy Wightman [1]. It can be a struggle to convince people to read a book on the history of Scots property law but it is a really fantastic book. Manages to balance detail without ending up stultified and provides a lot of context behind the current state of land reform in Scotland. [1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Poor-Had-No-Lawyers/dp/17…

[deleted]

Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#67

Post by api »

burntsushi wrote: post #65
api wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... because in the wake of an extremely noisy and well publicized dot.com / tech market crash, everyone would be completely reasonable to choose an expensive STEM degree. Professionals are routinely wrong about predicting economic trends. Random teenage kids from average high schools should not be expected to be better than, say, the Fed chairman in this regard.

> Professionals are routinely wrong about predicting economic trends. But you're not, right? There isn't an ounce of uncertainty in any of your comments despite the fact that you make several outlandish claims about the future.

I believe in having definite but mutable opinions. I'll change my mind if someone can present a compelling argument with evidence, but so far I haven't seen one (here or elsewhere).

"It's always turned out that way in the past" is a poor argument IMO.

Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#68

Post by cwb »

marcosdumay wrote: post #48
cwb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not for it having significant economic and social implications, that's more a corollary of employment rate decreasing -- I'll change that sentence. The argument for the Luddite fallacy not being a fallacy was that humans have so far been able to compete with technology, but that we're fast losing that edge and when that happens things really are different this time. Does that make sense?

That's an assertion, not an argument. The article also does not support it in any way (what would turn it into an argument). Thus, I'll have to agree with the GP, in that it is an unsupported assertion. It's an assertion that I happen to agree with, but not because of this article.

Perhaps, I might be missing something. The way I understand it is that "the Luddite fallacy is not a fallacy" is an assertion (OED: "a confident and forceful statement of fact or belief"). The reason, I claim, is that humans will not be able to compete with robots for much longer (in large numbers) which means unemployment is likely to go up (I understand that that's not a strict implication since governments could ban robots). The reason humans won't be able to compete with robots is that technology is gaining more and more of the abilities that humans use in their jobs (like reasoning and visual recognition). Those reasons consists of (a set of) assertions that could be wrong, but they are reasons and an argument is (OED again) "a reason or set of reasons given in support of an idea, action or theory". Thus, I thought that what I did qualified as an argument, or am I mistaken?

In any case, if you agree with the assertion, what would be your argument for it?

Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#69

Post by nsajko »

fastandfurryous wrote: post #50
fredkbloggs wrote: post #30

Let's suppose for a moment that we accept the thesis that due to automation, there won't be much work for humans in the future. Instead of taking wealth from the smaller number of humans who are creating that wealth and giving it to those who are not, why don't we just accept that we don't need so many of us any more? Let the extras die off naturally (note to angry skimmers: I SAID NATURALLY) and migrate to a new low…

Why is redistribution unfair? There have been hundreds of years of theft, violence and political misgivings against labor to get to the point where, as a class, labor is neutered against having a chance to have a piece of the pie they built for industrialists and owners. So why is it suddenly unfair to suggest redistribution? Why are the deaths of billions of people somehow more just than a redistribution of wealth a…

How do you redistribute?

Re: Not a Luddite fallacy (2011)

#70

Post by burntsushi »

api wrote: post #67
burntsushi wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Professionals are routinely wrong about predicting economic trends. But you're not, right? There isn't an ounce of uncertainty in any of your comments despite the fact that you make several outlandish claims about the future.

I believe in having definite but mutable opinions. I'll change my mind if someone can present a compelling argument with evidence, but so far I haven't seen one (here or elsewhere). "It's always turned out that way in the past" is a poor argument IMO.

I didn't make that argument. Stop shifting the burden. You're the one making fanatical claims with precisely zero evidence.

The world isn't binary. Disagreeing with you doesn't automatically mean I believe "well, in the past it happened that way so it must continue to happen that way."

My only point is that you should be applying the same litmus test to yourself that you're applying to everyone else. You're balking at the certainty of others seemingly without acknowledging that you're suffering from precisely the same flaw in your communication.

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