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by r00fus 3474 days ago
> Every time a company, economy, nation or empire doesn't follow the route that saves more human effort they are outcompeted (or conquered) by those who do.

The economics of slavery seem to be an effective rebuttal to your point, unless slaves are put in the role of automaton (and not human).
1 comments
sqeaky 3474 days ago
Really its not unless you somehow stop counting them as people. People have high maintanence costs whether or not they are a slave. Slaves also revolt. Beasts of burden and Robots (so far) cannot revolt.

Also you miss out on a large portion of the person's output if they are slave. There are very few slave inventors.

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r00fus 3474 days ago
Slave inventors - 5 high-profile counterpoints: http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/02/11/5-inventions-by-ensla...

I'd say the only reason they were "missed out" is because of the politics of slavery.

The entire basis that efficiency of human effort is competitively dominant relies on a definition of human as only the "humans benefiting from automation" leaving out those who don't benefit out of the equation.

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sqeaky 3473 days ago
You must be trolling to seriously compare the creative disruption automation causes to real human loss slavery causes.

Compared to the non-slave inventors the list of slave inventors is disproportionately tiny. A few anecdotal people don't hold muster to waves of people innovating. I can point to single companies with hundreds of inventors.

In the long run automation benefits everyone, even the people who temporarily lose their jobs. Those people are encouraged to get back into the work force and to do the best they can even they have less work to do because of some new tool. Slaves were sometimes killed for not working hard enough. If slaves invented a labor saving device they got non of the benefit and instead any value increase was entirely given to the slave's owner. Employees can choose who to work for and choose their conditions, slaves cannot. Employees can try see their obsolescence coming and go to school, shift careers or fight it, slaves can only do as they are told.

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