[themistocle]

Who is automation for? What end does the technology serve? If the economy doesn’t serve humanity then to hell with it. Offer people decent lives, or at least don’t act surprised when the luddites come to smash your precious “labor-saving”.

[austenallred]

> Who is automation for?

All of us.

I, for one, am glad that I'm not sending this message via pigeon by the light of a candle, because I wouldn't be sending it - I'd probably be spending my days plowing some field somewhere were it not for "job killing" technological innovation.

50% of the United States used to be farmers, now it's 2%. We sure as hell don't have 48% unemployment, and I'd guess that nearly every American has it better now than they would have in the same social strata then.

Tesla saw the promise of electricity and automation as a magical force that would free men from toiling away doing things they actually needn't do. And I think he was largely right! Think of where we would be if Tesla, Edison and Westinghouse refused to work on electricity, lightbulbs, and electric motors because it would put the people that stoke fires for a living out of a job.

What happened when tractors came and took all of the farming jobs away? Food became much less expensive, and we all ended up doing different things - the vast majority of which are much better than farming. And the luddites would have smashed the tractors?! What a counterproductive way to try and help people.

It's not always beautiful in the short-run, but the economy cures itself relatively quickly, and the people that fill the gaps are handsomely rewarded. To fight innovation for the sake of jobs, so far as I can tell, is almost always short-sighted.

[themistocle]

> What happened when tractors came and took all of the farming jobs away?

Have you heard of “The Grapes of Wrath”?

No one is talking about fighting “innovation” for the sake of jobs. I questioned to point to the central conflict of who benefits from all of this. The old socialists were the most technologically hopeful, because they believed new technologies would spare workers from drudgery. Yet if you look at the vast interior of the United States, almost every community is worse off now than it was 25 years ago. Old, bad jobs at least gave people dignity and a sense of place.

Your naïve faith in high school economics fails to address a key question of our times: as technology races ahead of social ability to adapt and integrate it, how will people manage? Leave behind Ayn Rand and look to history: this same crisis has played out in the 1st century BCE in Rome and the 18th century in France just to name two famous examples. Depriving common people a decent living leads to disaster.

People need to make a living. Immigration alone has provoked widespread resentment. When self-driving cars and the like displace more workers at an unprecedented pace the outcome will be violent. Rhetoric and greed will not stem the high tides of blood.

[austenallred]

> Your naïve faith in high school economics fails to address a key question of our times: as technology races ahead of social ability to adapt and integrate it, how will people manage? Leave behind Ayn Rand and look to history.

We don’t need to look to Rome for that. It’s happened a dozen times in the United States. This isn’t a new scenario. Though it certainly is simple to call anything that disagrees with your understanding of the world “high school economics.”

And you can quit it with the Ayn Rand strawman. Just because someone is discussing economics doesn’t mean they’re Randian any more than it makes you a Marxist.

[pm90]

> We don’t need to look to Rome for that. It’s happened a dozen times in the United States. This isn’t a new scenario.

I think you're being too optimistic. The only time I can think of where the US made the switch successfully was when creating entirely new job sectors. e.g. from Agriculture to Industry meant there were similar numbers of jobs in Industry, and then to the Services. But Automation seems to be a dead end: one worker is so productive he/she can manage an entire fleet of autonomous trucks (e.g.)! So there will most certainly be a lot of people losing their jobs and the kind of jobs opening up for them... don't seem to be many.

[peoplewindow]

A few decades ago the most common job title in the USA was secretary. It certainly isn't anymore. Now it's truck driver.

Secretary went away (and wasn't simply replaced with a new title like admin assistant) because of IT. We don't have a secretary shaped hold in the economy. They mostly got other jobs, or retired.

[blt]

The truck driver thing is not true: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-m...

[themistocle]

Secretary didn't go away. Hot-type printing is a better example. Look at how healthy and well-performing the economy is doing. Real wages stagnating for almost fifty years, speculation enriching the gamblers. Millions of people have already given up finding work. Whole communities have become drug-infested hellholes. America is falling apart. Visit these towns where industry is obsolete or shipped abroad. Look at that, and then say "yep, accelerating this process will be wonderful".

[austenallred]

That was literally the argument people made about electricity, tractors, steam engines, etc.

[themistocle]

What I referred to as high school economics are sentimental rhetoric like:

> Who is automation for? All of us

Your arguments have largely been innocent either by design or accident from the terrifying reality of daily life under our glorious economic system. I meant no personal insult to you of course. Your words reflect a broader notion that questions like automation are problems to be solved – a fine mindset from a technical perspective. But these are not just technical questions, they are grave conflicts where millions of lives hang in the balance. Slate Star Codex has a better exposition of this difference[0].

> Think of where we would be if Tesla, Edison and Westinghouse refused to work on electricity, lightbulbs, and electric motors because it would put the people that stoke fires for a living out of a job.

This is nearly identical to the plot from Ayn Rand's book "Anthem"[1].

[0]: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_(novella)

> The next day he presents his work to the World Council of Scholars. Horrified that he has done unauthorized research, they assail him as a "wretch" and a "gutter cleaner" and say he must be punished. They want to destroy his discovery so it will not disrupt the plans of the World Council and the Department of Candles.

[eecc]

The Luddites smashed machinery because the ownership was using it to drop their cottage industries off the map without a moments notice. No negotiations, no winding down, retooling, retraining or nothing, just pack your shit and go starve out of sight. Can’t see how that wouldn’t happen again

[dredmorbius]

Political economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign.

-- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, introduction to Book IV.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/...

[chrischen]

Depends if you work to live or if you live to work.

If the latter then fake busy work is good for society, regardless of why it’s being done.