[derekjdanserl]

>So?

So much for humanity benefitting from technology. Instead of our workdays becoming fewer and shorter, a tiny number of people who don’t work at all will become richer while our lives become more alienated from our labor. This is the opposite of what we tell each other technology is supposed to accomplish. If it’s not a problem, why do we keep lying about?

[retube]

> Instead of our workdays becoming fewer and shorter,

If that happened any increase in productivity would be offset by the reduced time worked, so no one would get richer (very simplistically).

At the end of the day, humans are competitive, so of course hours worked will never really reduce, but it's that competition which drives innovation

And we're all getting richer. Sure there's more billionaires then ever, but if we're all getting richer so what? (and yes we are getting richer: the economic progress in Asia and Africa over the last two decades has been incredible. And the west continues to develop also. The world is richer than it has ever been)

[throwaway2331]

Normally, it would be poor form to pick apart someone's well thought-out reasoning, but your reasonings are not well thought-out: they're middle class talking points, and effectively propaganda, lacking any overarching cohesion.

> If that happened any increase in productivity would be offset by the reduced time worked, so no one would get richer (very simplistically).

This is a useless point for the common man. "Productivity," in statistical economics jargon, means "how much profit is squeezed out of an employee." It's a substitute for the much more charged "surplus value of labor." When productivity goes up and wages stagnate, as we've seen happen, it means the common employee is not getting richer, but instead being fleeced -- usually do to a moral depression that does not leave him able to negotiate (struggle/fight/etc.) for higher wealth (both material and non-material).

This false equilibrium falls apart when you can simply deduct hours worked, and lower wages just enough to have a better productivity-to-hours ratio. Cannily, this is what has happened to most large low-skilled labor markets, where MBA "consultants" come in to grift and sell management/the executive team on how to make more money -- at the cost of everything else. See: McDonalds and Walmart as a prime example.

This also has the added bonus that you can now decide not to offer full-time benefits (human rights), because your workers are no longer "full time."

I.e. economic propaganda does not reflect real life.

> Humans are competitive

Humans with way less, are also hungry. Humans with way more, are also desensitized-degenerates that need hyper-stimulating avenues of pleasure like extreme avarice to sate their desires.

Most people do not work because they want to, but because they need to. The only "competitive" people you'll see in the work-force are the greedy. Who've passed the point where money no longer really means anything, but still have decided to dedicate their life watching that number go up. They are degenerates. Using them to paint all of humanity with a broad stroke is ill thought-out.

> And we're all getting richer. Sure there's more billionaires then ever, but if we're all getting richer so what? (and yes we are getting richer: the economic progress in Asia and Africa over the last two decades has been incredible. And the west continues to develop also. The world is richer than it has ever been)

Materially, yes. Spiritually, morally, intellectually, emotionally, socially: no.

Colonialization of foreign lands, effectively enslaving these people to be a part of the dominating civilization's "economic machine" is not a good thing. These people had a way of life before Western Civilization (TM) came in and obliterated their culture. They were presumably content, otherwise they would've sought out "innovation," "competition," and "productivity" on their own -- without the help of colonizers.

If the pieces of what I've quoted are authentic, and genuinely from the heart, then it is an example of moral bankruptcy (most likely due to environmental causes -- rather than individual).

There are other things in the world besides money. The only civilization that keeps on beating the war-drum of money money money is the Western Civilization. Everyone else has other things that are important to them (notably: family, social connections, spirituality, living a good life, being a decent human being, and so on). But in fairness, these are all slowly disappearing, as the U.S. keeps on pumping inflation out to the world, and forcing everyone else to "join" or "suffer" economically (materially).

[shukantpal]

Didn’t get time to read your ranting monologue but the false definition of productivity (profit per worker not output or revenue per worker) shows that it has no credible basis - just like most rants.

[FDSGSG]

You are describing some speculative future that doesn't really correlate with historical progress. Same could've been said about the industrial revolution, but somehow it did end up dramatically benefitting all of humanity.

[nopenopenopeno]

Again, that is the story we well, but it’s a very reckless claim. Generations in early industrialization who still remembered life as a peasant almost universally preferred life as a peasant. Industrialization’s need for labor forced other peasants from their land to build competing modern nation states. Very few people asked for this and only a small wealthy few would tell you that dragging these people into brutal toiling factory labor improved everybody’s lives, but those are the people who funded the history books.

[FDSGSG]

I don't think anyone is arguing that the transitory periods aren't difficult, but the reality is that very few people would choose to trade their current existence for the life of a pre-industrialization peasant if they actually knew what that implied.

[ilikerashers]

The Industrial Revolution also played a heavy hand in WW1 and Industrial Warfare.

I don't think anyone is saying progress is wrong. Unfettered capitalism which robs people of their rights and alienates people from society is disastrous.

Putting an algorithm to treat people like machines is not innovation. Uber Eats is not our generations "spinning jenny". They should be forced to provide basic working benefits.