[icandoitbetter]

People would still want to work. But they'll start working on things they actually care about, because they won't be enslaved by their fear that if they quit their jobs they'll end up homeless or without health insurance. Right now so few startups dare to actually imagine new things because investors must be pleased and profit must be made. Plus, if we escaped the job-for-survival mindset, we would actually start focusing on automation. It's a mistake to think that automation hasn't come at the scale we expected because of unprecedented technical challenges. It hasn't come because the government has stopped throwing money on basic research. We need to focus on wild, idealistic, big-scale projects. And admit that the private sector isn't good at radically innovating, because, to radically innovate, you need to have been failing for many, many years, and have someone sustain you throughout those years. The best the private sector can do is catch up and minimize costs, like SpaceX does.

[philwelch]

It's utter first-world utopian horseshit to propose this kind of thinking, of all things, as a response to today's unemployment problems. It's like you don't even realize that there are third world migrant workers picking our fruit because every single one of those unemployed college graduates is, to put it bluntly, too spoiled and decadent to do the work. Or that the lifestyle of those unemployed college graduates is made possible by armies of Chinese factory workers.

I don't mean this as a personal attack on anyone. Frankly, I'm probably too spoiled and decadent to pick fruit all day too. But I'm willing to admit that's a weakness on my part, and I'm uncomfortable living in a world where I have to rest my weight on the backs of those who will gladly and happily do what I'm either incapable of or unwilling to do.

The one saving grace for us is that if we depend on people who do things we can't or won't do, then we can climb up the value chain and make them depend on us doing things they can't or won't do. Decadent as it may be to sit in an air-conditioned office and make stupid iPhone games for other spoiled, decadent first worlders to play, at least that guy living in the Foxconn dormitory and assembling iPhones all day might be grateful to us for making sure he still has work. I'm sure the guys who made "Angry Birds" boosted demand just enough to buy a few weeks breakfast, lunch, and dinner for maybe a couple thousand Chinese factory workers.

Pretending there isn't enough work out there and hence we should pay people to do nothing is just an excuse for cultural laziness. I can't imagine any social justice in subsidizing first-world people to contribute nothing and continue to live off the backs of third-world workers. Once those Chinese factory workers and Mexican fruit pickers are out of work because we can replace them with robots, then we can talk.

[zurn]

I bet the migrant workers you romanticise have a different view than being "stronger" than you and hence doing underpaid back-breaking work in bad conditions and no health coverage...

[philwelch]

Romanticize? Not at all, I think they have a right to be outraged that they're practically supporting an idle class on their backs already. Nonetheless it's something I can't or won't do, and that's a flaw on my part.

[icandoitbetter]

It's not a flaw on your part. Stop being so moralistic. That kind of job is something that NOBODY needs to do. If we really tried, we could automate those jobs within a couple of decades or less. But we won't because those workers are possibly even cheaper than the maintenance of a potential automation solution, not to mention the R&D that would be needed to arrive there.

[philwelch]

> That kind of job is something that NOBODY needs to do. If we really tried, we could automate those jobs within a couple of decades or less.

OK, so let's all go without fruit for 20 years? No, that kind of job is something that SOMEBODY needs to do for as long as a couple more decades, and it's something that SOMEBODY has needed to do for the entire history of the human race. If somebody needs to do it, why can't you or I? Because we're so fucking spoiled and lazy that we get worked up over having to work in cubicles?

I get your argument. I think any good programmer is insulted by the notion of doing something a machine could do. And if it was between me and a machine, I'd happily sit on my ass and not worry about it, just like I happily sit on my ass and don't worry about calculating square roots. But it's not between me and a machine, it's between me and another human being who was born in less fortunate circumstances and goes out of his way for opportunities that I feel are below me. For someone in our position to sit around blithely talking about how automation can solve the problem "within a couple of decades", as if that's a solution to labor rights and unemployment today, is like one of America's founding fathers writing about the inalienable rights and freedoms of man while owning slaves.

[icandoitbetter]

Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said that this is a solution for labor rights or unemployment right now.

[fulafel]

Countries with reasonable (& enforced) regulation of working conditions still grow tomatoes. They just cost a little more.