[_DeadFred_]

The 1880s blacksmith didn't become a 1950s American suburbanite. They moved to shared housing in Manchester and a shorter lifespan working for poverty wages, lost fingers/arms in machines, maybe ended up on skid row, the section of town for failures who couldn't 'adapt' to the new modern world. Their children died in WW1 in a trench to industrial produced gas. Their children's children were transported around the world to die storming a beach in WW2. And their children's children's children lived on meager 1940-60 diets as the world rebuilt it's food stocks destroyed by industrialized war, eating new industrial food replacements like margarine and SPAM. There were hundreds of millions of industrial enabled deaths. There was industrial enabled famine and near famine.

That all gets waived away with 'always worked to society's benefit'. It took almost 70 years and the post WW2 destruction of the rest of the worlds economies/infrastructure to create that 1950s American suburbanite world. 'always worked to society's benefit over the long term' is just handwaving not based on the reality of adapting, or if those societies even wanted to join in.

Because not all peoples/nations even had a choice. Japan among many originally opted out. But they were forced to 'modernize'. Peoples around the world were forced into the industrial world by railroads and machine guns and the industrial need for rubber/banana whatever plantations or lumber or strip mines. Once one nation passed through the door, every nation had to follow or be subjugated.

[Terr_]

To highlight one of your points: Adaptation is very different than dying and being replaced with a new cohort.

We have to be very careful about fallacies of division.

[ajross]

> The 1880s blacksmith [...] moved to shared housing in Manchester and a shorter lifespan working for poverty wages, lost fingers/arms in machines, maybe ended up on skid row

That's... just not remotely true, unless you're talking about it as a maybe-it-happened-to-someone story. In fact it's basically a lie.

Every income group in the US (and recognize that "blacksmiths" represent skilled trades workers who earned well above median and had for thousands of years!) saw huge, huge, HUGE increases between 1880 and 1950. I mean... are you high?

> It took almost 70 years and the post WW2 destruction of the rest of the worlds economies/infrastructure to create that 1950s American suburbanite world.

Again, big citation needed on this one. Western Europe was very close to US quality-of-life numbers by the 60's, and the more successful nations started to pass it in the 90's. (Also recognize that the US had already pulled ahead in the 30's, Germany and France were lagging even before the war). You're looking at something along the lines of a decade to rebuild, tops.

[_DeadFred_]

You need to tighten up before you call someone a liar. Manchester is the poster child city for the industrial revolution. The blacksmith moving to Manchester had a lower lifespan/quality of life, it's not in question or up for debate. He is who we will be in the AI disruption, not the person in 1950.

https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stor...

https://healthinnovationmanchester.com/cottonopolis-to-metro...

You don't think there are 70 years between 1880 and the end of WW2 and the real start of suburban American prosperity we think of when we think of the end results today? And I need a citation? Or are you saying I should use 1960 not 1950s as the point, since it took a decade to rebuild in much of the world?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburb#Postwar_suburban_expans...

Or are you arguing that butter use recovered over margarine before the 1970s? https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2016/july/butter-and-ma...

[ajross]

> Manchester is the poster child city for the industrial revolution.

Which is to say, you cherry picked the data rather than looking at aggregates. Manchester industrialization being terribly managed isn't an indictment of steel machining or electrification, it means the government fucked up.

What you are claiming (that the industrial revolution led to lower quality of life generally) is simply false, period. And it won't be true of AGImageddon either, no matter how deeply you believe it. Economics just doesn't work that way.

[_DeadFred_]

Oh look, I didn't lie. No apology? Nope, just more attacks.

I picked THE Industrial Revolution city. THE CITY where it all happened. Did your high school not have a history class? I picked where it went wrong, the first go live site. That's what you do for analyzing things. You don't pick go live 500. That isn't cherry picking, that's what we do when we discuss scenarios that INITIALLY came up so they don't happen again. We don't just whitewash like you would like.

I claimed the industrial revolution led to lower quality of life for the blacksmith. The modern narrative when talking about AI implies they just turned into 1950s style suburbanites and waives away any thought/planning/discussion like you are trying to do. The reality, as it factually happened, was a much worse life and it is worth considering when implementing something that could be just as impactful.

People like you want to just handwave away the inconvenient fact that I am more likely to be the blacksmith in Manchester than to be born in some post-work AI Utopia that may exist in 70 years after things settle. why can't we even discuss this? Why do we have to stumble blindly into it, to the point you call me a liar/cherry picker for pointing out basic history taught in high school and basic root cause analysis concepts?

The reason that Manchester is taught about in American high schools is so that we learn from it and we understand our current world didn't just magically happen. Good and bad happened along the way, and that we have to work within that reality. Good can come in the end, be positive IF progress IS being made. Bad will happen, fix it don't just accept it, challenge it. Think about it. Look to history to prevent the easy things to prevent.

[ajross]

Just stop. Your ability to show a handful of negative externalities from industrialization doesn't invalidate the progress of the last century and a half, and to argue so (as you clearly did) is laughable.

And all the same logic applies to AI. Do we need to be willing to re-regulate and adjust as this is deployed? Almost certainly. Will it make us all wealthier? Undeniably.

[_DeadFred_]

We will need to re-regulate and adjust but talking about it ahead of time and moving forward intelligently is laughable? talking about how the last huge revolution played out initially is laughable? Come on. And yes, when you are talking about the start of something you normally only have a handful of examples. That is how things start, with a few instances.

You didn't know basic level history, called me liar, then a cherry picker for using the gold standard example.

You might want to check yourself before you tell people to stop, call them liars, cherry pickers, or make claims. No need to mis-represent me. My point is that 70 years of upheaval prior to the modern version of the world get ignored in the discussion. My point is that original people impacted, the proverbial blacksmith or buggy whip maker that 'adapted' had worse, shorter lives because of adapting.