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Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

fortune.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#81

Post by dragonwriter »

bko wrote: post #48
jjoonathan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our current economic system holds that people don't deserve food, shelter, medical care, or dignity if they don't have a job. If you believe that we should stick with the current system then the proposition "everyone should have a job" follows from "everyone should have food, shelter, medical care, and dignity".

Well that's a disagreement between positive and negative rights: > A negative right is a right not to be subjected to an action of another person or group; negative rights permit or oblige inaction. A positive right is a right to be subjected to an action or another person or group; positive rights permit or oblige action. You may believe in positive rights, like I have a right to food, shelter, etc. Others may belie…

> You may believe in positive rights, like I have a right to food, shelter, etc. Others may believe in only negative rights, like I have the right to not provide you food, shelter etc. It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea.

The distinction between positive rights and negative rights is a lot less clear than is often presented. Sure, the right to food, shelter, etc. is framed in the language of positive right, but the right to not be obstructed in the pursuit of food, shelter, etc., is a framed in the language of negative rights.

Simply dividing things into positive and negative rights and saying that (as is one common argument) only "negative" rights are valid resolves nothing, even then there is considerable debate about which negative rights exist and, when they conflict, how you determine which has priority.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

evanpw wrote: post #57
chongli wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea. Not really, it's an irrelevant distinction. If you have the right deprive me of food, shelter, etc. then I have the right to kill you in order to take those things for myself.

"deprive of" is not a synonym for "not provide". It's completely consistent to say that you have an obligation not to actively hinder someone someone from obtaining food/shelter/etc., but no obligation to provide it to them. Stealing someone's lunch is generally considered worse than not giving them your lunch.

> It's completely consistent to say that you have an obligation not to actively hinder someone someone from obtaining food/shelter/etc., but no obligation to provide it to them.

Preventing someone from making use of food and shelter that exists is actively depriving them of it. If there is a (negative) right to freedom from interference with the acquisition of food/shelter/etc., it conflicts with the (positive) right to exercise exclusive dominion over particular items as "property".

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#83

Post by s73v3r »

dragonwriter wrote: post #69
s73v3r wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People often forget that jobs are an expense, not a benefit. We should celebrate that society can do more with less." Not until such time that people don't need a job to survive. As is, a job is currently required to pay rent and buy food. "If someone thinks that jobs need to be created through artificial means to keep people busy and give them some money, then that person has a rather dim view of human potential."…

> Not until such time that people don't need a job to survive. People need an income to survive. Most people get incomes through jobs, some get them through capital holdings, a few get them through other means. > So how do you plan on housing and feeding all of the people who's jobs are displaced through technology? Jobs being displaced through technology means output is produced more effectively without the job than…

"People need an income to survive. Most people get incomes through jobs"

Exactly, which makes any quibbling to my statement nothing but worthless pedantry.

"Jobs being displaced through technology means output is produced more effectively without the job than it would be with the job, and someone is capturing the value of that output."

Which has absolutely nothing to do with my question.

"The issue becomes one of distributing the value of the output."

Which is just rephrasing my question.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#84

Post by diziet »

rwmj wrote: post #50
rattray wrote: post #31

This article doesn't actually seem to provide any evidence to support its claim - the actual factoid at the heart of the article is that Total Factor Productivity (TFP) has fallen since the 90's, which is irrelevant. The only pieces of evidence supporting the "No Jobs Growth" claim are Facebook's employee count from _2013_ (which has since grown by almost 50% to 12000 [0]), and the claim that "in 2010, only 0.5% of t…

What do 12000 people do at Facebook? Edit: (Apart from sitting around and downvoting me). Does it really take 12000 people to run a site where people write about what they're doing, and upload some photos and videos? Instagram had 13 employees when they were acquired by Facebook.

To get a sense of what kind of work is done at facebook, please visit their careers page:

https://www.facebook.com/careers/teams/

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#85

Post by chongli »

bko wrote: post #58
chongli wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea. Not really, it's an irrelevant distinction. If you have the right deprive me of food, shelter, etc. then I have the right to kill you in order to take those things for myself.

I respect your intensity, but if you were to come home one day finding your home has been broken into by a unfortunate soul demanding that you house and feed him, would you oblige? He may see you as depriving him of food and shelter by not opening your home. Would you be willing to bare this burden?

Good analogy. You've framed it in a way that makes it sound like this person has infringed my rights. But what right of mine is he infringing, specifically? The right to own property and keep it secure when I am not around? That's a positive right, not a negative one.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#86

Post by pconner »

rwmj wrote: post #50
rattray wrote: post #31

This article doesn't actually seem to provide any evidence to support its claim - the actual factoid at the heart of the article is that Total Factor Productivity (TFP) has fallen since the 90's, which is irrelevant. The only pieces of evidence supporting the "No Jobs Growth" claim are Facebook's employee count from _2013_ (which has since grown by almost 50% to 12000 [0]), and the claim that "in 2010, only 0.5% of t…

What do 12000 people do at Facebook? Edit: (Apart from sitting around and downvoting me). Does it really take 12000 people to run a site where people write about what they're doing, and upload some photos and videos? Instagram had 13 employees when they were acquired by Facebook.

A huge amount of infrastructure is needed for Facebook's scale. People have to create, manage, and maintain that infrastructure. And that's ignoring the multitude of complex user-facing products Facebook has (the number of which has grown significantly over the last few years).

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#87

Post by nickff »

minimuffins wrote: post #77
evanpw wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post argues that this back-door form of welfare is inferior in just about every way to just cutting people a check, but that we tend to do it this way exactly because "welfare" has negative connotations: 'With all these advantages of “Simple Check”, what exactly is the “Sneaky Job” condition good for that makes it so popular? As far as I can tell, it is good for fooling people. People do not like paying welfare.'

> "welfare" has negative connotations > People do not like paying welfare. We should work on fighting this perception. Welfare is actually good. There was a time in the past ('30s-'70s) when welfare wasn't a bad word. People liked the idea of welfare. It was a positive idea. That we're still all talking like this, like welfare is a handout to worthless losers, etc is a testament to the success of Reaganite conservati…

The main problem with this line of thinking is that it is materialistic. People get more out of their jobs than money, and just shovelling cash at the unemployed does not make them happy.[1] Most people are happier with a job that pays minimum wage than a welfare program that pays significantly more.

[1] http://wol.iza.org/articles/unemployment-and-happiness.pdf

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#88

Post by TeMPOraL »

bko wrote: post #48
jjoonathan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our current economic system holds that people don't deserve food, shelter, medical care, or dignity if they don't have a job. If you believe that we should stick with the current system then the proposition "everyone should have a job" follows from "everyone should have food, shelter, medical care, and dignity".

Well that's a disagreement between positive and negative rights: > A negative right is a right not to be subjected to an action of another person or group; negative rights permit or oblige inaction. A positive right is a right to be subjected to an action or another person or group; positive rights permit or oblige action. You may believe in positive rights, like I have a right to food, shelter, etc. Others may belie…

I think this separation doesn't work, and you could trivially transform positive/negative laws into their counterparts of opposite polarity. In a world of positive-rights-believers, you may believe in a right to food, but if everyone else believes in the right to keep their food (and property, in general), you're still out of luck. As usual, the interesting things happen at the boundary between various people's rights and wishes.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#89

Post by TeMPOraL »

chongli wrote: post #76
douche wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I must have the right to kill and loot you after you get done killing and looting them. This is starting to sound like Fallout. Or maybe we should get onto welding spikes all over our vehicles and wearing hockey masks and assless chaps and go for a more Mad Max vibe.

Yes, it's called Hobbes' State of Nature [0]. Simply put, it's every person's natural right to do whatever is necessary to provide for themselves. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature

And civilization is what happens when we decide to relinquish some parts of this right.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Driving Jobs Growth

#90

Post by nickff »

salemh wrote: post #71
nickff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encouraging rich people to fritter away their money on ephemeral objects instead of investing in technologies and equipment which would improve per captica productivity would be good?

Do rich people invest in technologies and equipment as a safe haven for their capital?

No, wealthy people invest their money in all aspects of the economy to both benefit themselves and others, from their own businesses (whose objects vary, but are generally positive in terms of human welfare), to startups (which advance new technologies), to municipal loans (which finance infrastructure), and even many donations which pay for university research.
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