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Rethinking the Luddites

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Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#91

Post by Gigachad »

coolhand2120 wrote: post #14

People are happy to use tech like wix to build a web page because building web pages is hard. Virtually every designer, artist, writer, and musician, were all very happy to use wix even though it cost the jobs of legions of developers. “Finally I can do what these nerds can do without their help”. I really don’t see the difference.

Reality is that it didn't cost any jobs. Everyone just moved up to making things more complex than what Wix can do. I don't feel my life is any worse off having moved from building static marketing pages to complex web apps.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#92

Post by tzs »

pydry wrote: post #77
mulmen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a nice sentiment but labor doesn’t create value in a world of robots. We need a radically different system of wealth allocation.

1) We need a radically different one now - one that shifts the burden *off" labor and back on to asset owners - especially land owners (there is literally only an economic upside to taxing them more). 2) somebody still has to fix those robots. 3) if control over the economy were wrested from oligarchs and were put under democratic control, the economy wouldnt be geared towards frittering away billions on trying to de…

> 2) somebody still has to fix those robots.

Not necessarily. If the manufacturing of robots can be made cheap enough it may be cheaper to replace broken robots with new ones and send the broken ones off to be recycled rather than fix them.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#93

Post by AnimalMuppet »

zlg_codes wrote: post #48
its_ethan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd find that, on average, "as poorly as they can get away with" actually does mean that they treat people quite well. I'm not sure what hierarchies you've been a part of where people actively trying to treat people poorly leads to their success - I'd wager those are few in far between in reality, and over represented in media. Maybe you're cynical about a few high profile companies or how U.S. politics app…

Walk into any office in the United States and you'll find this. There's even a phenomenon associated with it that has a name: The Peter Principle. Within any organization, you will have the sociopaths who want the glitz and title and power but have no respect for those they'll have to knock down to get there. That is what we're talking about.

The Peter Principle is about being incompetent, not sociopathic.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#94

Post by gadflyinyoureye »

TotalCrackpot wrote: post #76
ta8645 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's human nature. You won't get a better deal in Russia, China or any theoretical utopian civilization you dream up either. I don't know what the answer is, but it sure as hell isn't blaming everything on capitalism.

Do you know that slavery too was justified to be just human nature and now it's fairly niche in richer parts of the world? Your argument is essentialist, so I find it weak. And both Russia and China are capitalist countries actually.

https://www.un.org/en/delegate/50-million-people-modern-slav...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_contemporary_Afri...

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#95

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #90
w_for_wumbo wrote: post #3

There's plenty of rhetoric about whether technology advancements will be a good thing or not. But I think that distracts from the core message, that the most important matter is not whether we use technology, but how we treat our fellow humans. By replacing labour with robots and not compensating them, you're sending a clear message that you don't respect people and the value that they bring. We have a mandate for us…

> By replacing labour with robots and not compensating them, you're sending a clear message that you don't respect people and the value that they bring. The thing is we can't help but compare people on the value that they bring. We can't go on about human value being tied to our creativity, emotional sensitivity, or any skill because once AI can do that, that value goes out the window for humans. Humans have to be va…

Perhaps it's time to stop using untyped value as a concept entirely.

It has always been unclear--in cases where people's objectives differ--just whose values are used determine what counts as "value".

It's a simplification that served us well when the common threat was famine or disease or war, but those threats weigh less on us these days. We're more concerned with mistreatment from each other, so we probably need something that answers "whose values?" instead so that we can be reminded to check if that person's agenda is actually worth persuing.

Such a shift might help interrupt dangerous optimizations such as optimizing for GDP at the expense of biosphere stability.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#96

Post by Gigachad »

lolinder wrote: post #22
alexb_ wrote: post #12

Opposing technological development because it might cost people jobs is how you fall behind as a country. The last thing I want is for China to become the leader of the world because they actually pushed forward with technological progress.

I think you completely missed the article's thesis. It's not about whether people lose their jobs, it's about whether people lose their livelihoods. Millions of lost jobs is inevitable, but millions of ruined lives is unacceptable. > In the era of A.I., we have another opportunity to decide whether automation will create advantages for all, or whether its benefits will flow only to the business owners and investors l…

I don't think AI and automation actually matters here. You just have a strong welfare safety net so anyone is caught regardless of how they got there. And then you don't have to do wacky accounting about jobs replaced by AI.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#97

Post by Aunche »

its_ethan wrote: post #18
mouse_ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people in positions of power are going to treat their fellow humans as poorly as they can get away with. That's how they got their positions of power.

I think you'd find that, on average, "as poorly as they can get away with" actually does mean that they treat people quite well. I'm not sure what hierarchies you've been a part of where people actively trying to treat people poorly leads to their success - I'd wager those are few in far between in reality, and over represented in media. Maybe you're cynical about a few high profile companies or how U.S. politics app…

> on average, "as poorly as they can get away with" actually does mean that they treat people quite well.

This is a very important point and the strength of capitalism. Even a self asshole like Elon Musk is incentivized to provide useful goods and services and create jobs that raise people's standard of living.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#98

Post by UtopiaPunk »

Another book with a similar premise is " Breaking Things at Work:The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job" https://www.versobooks.com/products/688-breaking-things-at-w...

This book came out in 2021, so there's definitely a trend to look back at the Luddites, investigate what their movement and actions were about, and apply some of those ideas to today. I actually just happened to pick this up in a local bookshop on a whim this weekend, but haven't read it yet.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#99

Post by fiftyfifty »

JohnFen wrote: post #78
w_for_wumbo wrote: post #3

There's plenty of rhetoric about whether technology advancements will be a good thing or not. But I think that distracts from the core message, that the most important matter is not whether we use technology, but how we treat our fellow humans. By replacing labour with robots and not compensating them, you're sending a clear message that you don't respect people and the value that they bring. We have a mandate for us…

> By replacing labour with robots and not compensating them, you're sending a clear message that you don't respect people and the value that they bring. Companies already send that clear message even without AI. That's why there's fear here: we expect companies to behave as they always have, and that is with a level of contempt for human workers.

What about as consumers then? Without workers who's going to buy anything? We have some serious logistics to figure out if we automate the majority of jobs away, and yet somehow all these companies are expecting people to still be able to buy their products.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#100

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

pydry wrote: post #77
mulmen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a nice sentiment but labor doesn’t create value in a world of robots. We need a radically different system of wealth allocation.

1) We need a radically different one now - one that shifts the burden *off" labor and back on to asset owners - especially land owners (there is literally only an economic upside to taxing them more). 2) somebody still has to fix those robots. 3) if control over the economy were wrested from oligarchs and were put under democratic control, the economy wouldnt be geared towards frittering away billions on trying to de…

The shift you're describing in #3 needs to happen. But it doesn't have to be all at once. We can start practicing now and let it be "pretend" until we're comfortable enough with it to start turning our backs on the real economy in favor of the alternative.

CirclesUBI is an attempt at getting that alternative rolling. It ain't perfect but I think it's a good start.

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