[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 Visit these towns where industry is obsolete or shipped abroad.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".

[pm90]

> 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 Visit these towns where industry is obsolete or shipped abroad.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".

Genuine question (not trying to flamebait): why are these failing communities "America" any more than the metro regions are booming like crazy and creating prosperity for so many Americans? Again, I'm not blaming them for their predicament, but I've met many Americans who grew up in rural areas but migrated to other places to seek work. Why should the rest of us be heavily taxed and regulated just to preserve these anachronistic, unproductive communities?

[themistocle]

> why are these failing communities "America" any more than the metro regions are

They aren't. They do represent more of the population and land area. Also many cities, probably most, are awful. Memphis, TN or Dayton, OH are much more representative of the nation then New York or San Francisco.

> Why should the rest of us be heavily taxed and regulated just to preserve these anachronistic, unproductive communities?

That really hasn't been a question in this discussion. The international order is built on nation-states. Whether you like it or not, the nation implies collective responsibility. This was the "fraternité" part of the French revolution, for example. Your remarks reflect the prevailing liberal sentiments that we are all just individuals. If we are these atomic subjects, why should we be obligated to help some random other atoms? This is one of the reasons why liberal democracies are failing. The left and establishment have no good response to this. The alt-right has pushed people to revive ethnic (Richard Spencer) or civic (Steve Bannon) nationalism.

[pm90]

Perhaps I didn't phrase my question correctly. I wasn't advocating abandoning middle and rural America; my concern is that we shouldn't be pouring money (in the form of tax incentives and debt that hides the true cost of rural living) into sustaining rural America as it is now. I am certainly all for investing in retraining programs; hell perhaps even having a rural specific health insurance system.

But increasing tariffs to protect coal miners? Killing solar and renewables for the sake of those communities? That is not a tradeoff I want to make.

You do make a good point about why liberal democracies seem to be in crisis though. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I too was influenced very strongly by libertarian beliefs (specifically Rand's system of less Government) in most of my youth and only recently have started understanding how poisonous and selfish that can be when taken to its extremes.

[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.