[theptip]

I think it’s pretty naive to ask your employer for a day off. As experienced by companies, the market is more competitive than ever. Whoever slows down will get eaten by some hungry upstart that is willing to work 996 to eat the incumbent’s lunch. It’s a Prisoner’s Dilemma.

The only way to get this outcome is to coordinate at a level higher than individual market participants.

In other words, get your government to implement UBI - tax all companies (or if AI really takes off, just compute) and redistribute to the people.

[EliRivers]

Whoever slows down will get eaten by some hungry upstart that is willing to work 996 to eat the incumbent’s lunch.

Is this true? There are a lot of low-productivity and zombie companies trudging through year after year.

[jackp96]

Yeah, I see language like this a lot, but we don't live in an idealized microeconomic market with perfect information flow and competition levels.

Some companies are in highly competitive spaces while others have found a quiet, profitable niche.

And companies do have to compete for talent. If you want A-level players on your team, you're going to have to pay them more and/or provide benefits that surpass the competition.

[theptip]

There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of talented engineers that just got laid off from BigTech. Meanwhile it’s never been easier to found your own company, and if you label it as “AI for X” it’s easy to raise too.

From what I see in the market, it looks obviously true.

I’m sure there are lots of zombies too, they will die quickly IMO. Bad time to be a zombie, possibly the worst time ever.

[Timwi]

Yeah, they're all taking a gamble and hoping that they, not their peers, will be the lucky ones with the breakthrough.

[godelski]

  > Whoever slows down will get eaten by some hungry upstart that is willing to work 996 to eat the incumbent’s lunch.

I hear this a lot but it seems another old saying is still true today: why is there always time to do it twice but never enough time to do it right?.

If you were right then there wouldn't be so much busy work, especially at big companies. They would have become more efficient, not less.

[mastazi]

> I think it’s pretty naive to ask your employer for a day off.

Someone said the same before 1938, probably [1]

I think it's possible that AI will bring as much of a shift to our lives as the industrial revolution did, so it might be necessary to make some adjustments, just like we did back then.

[1] https://www.history.com/articles/five-day-work-week-labor-mo...

[UncleOxidant]

yep. The Progressive Era (with it's 5 day work week women's suffrage ) came after, and was a backlash to The Gilded Age. Now we're in Gilded Age II (Gilded Age on Steroids). Hopefully we'll see history repeat itself and we get Progressive Era II. But keep in mind that the Progressive Era only lasted about 20 years, if that long.

[soco]

By the amount of money thrown out the AI window nowadays, a day off, or hiring a few more folks to cover for those days off and more, seems like the much cheaper option. But that's only my naive impression right?

[ForHackernews]

Unions unions unions unions unions unions unions unions unions.

[63stack]

"the market" is literally the arena of competition, it's not a surprise it's more competitive than ever

[naveen99]

The world is decentralized. People and produce can cross borders. People don’t vote for sending ubi to outside borders.

[lazide]

lol, this government is going to just throw anyone trying into the meat grinder.

The only way to do this is to bypass the authorities.

[Griffinsauce]

Or change them.

[ixtli]

Few willing to discuss this!

[ixtli]

UBI without many other anti-capitalist reforms is just a subsidy paid directly to your landlord.

[Gareth321]

We don't want anti-capitalist reforms. Perhaps reforms like those we use in Denmark would make sense? We're ranked higher than the U.S. in ease of business. We love capitalism here. But we also have high taxes, universal healthcare, and great social safety nets. It allows us to lean into the great parts of capitalism while also protecting those for whom capitalism isn't working so well. It's a great compromise without having to go full starvation and gulags, which would be worse than what we have now.

[godelski]

  > we also have high taxes

In plenty of places in the US we have high taxes and none of those things. Since it's HN I'll mention San Jose has some of the hardest water I've seen in any city and I've seen glass on the street for 6 mo before being cleaned up. I can't figure out where the taxes are actually going. Other states I've lived in I've even paid less and gotten way more.

I don't think people mind paying taxes, but it's when your taxes don't clearly benefit you that people get upset.

Honestly it seems to me like one party just wants to shift all costs to the poor (rather than the government) and the other wants to be the king of Nottingham. It's no surprise our citizens are feeling defeated. The choices appear to constantly be the lesser of two (geriatric) evils. Not choices between reasonable leaders, but with different beliefs

[Gareth321]

It really does seem like the U.S. gets the worst of both worlds: high taxes (well, not quite as high as Europe), and poor social services. Even worse: despite all this tax revenue and poor social services, the nation is borrowing trillions more every year. Where is it all going?? I suspect there is a lot of fraud baked into the structure of the system, and this makes the governance layer very resistant to change. I've seen many attempts to move to proportional representation over the decades and both major parties rise up to quash such attempts with fury.

I hope you guys find a better way forward. I have affinity for your people and culture and I think most of you have big hearts and mean well.

[godelski]

Don't forget that your governments can help too. The US isn't the only country with Epstein files to be released.

[topaz0]

I don't know what starvation and gulags have to do with anti-capitalist reform. In this country (the USA), capitalism is what produces gulags and starvation.

[Gareth321]

On the contrary. The U.S. has so much food that 72% of Americans are fat. There is simply too much tasty food available. This happened in a very short space of time, historically speaking, thanks to capitalism. As for gulags, one would need to use a very cynical definition to believe that. Especially when we have real gulags around the world today.

I imply that the alternative to capitalism is starvation an gulags because that is roughly what happened the last 37 or so times humanity tried something else. That's just from the last century. Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's infinitely better than everything else.

[topaz0]

My man, you suffer from capitalist realism. I don't think I can help you.

[Griffinsauce]

Where do you suggest we start? You can't nuke everything at once.

[colordrops]

Uh, we might have to depending on how quickly AI and robots become effective at doing most jobs.

[flohofwoe]

Tbh, with the productivity gains of the last 150 years, we should already be able to easily afford another weekday off for a long time. Instead most people sit around doing bullshit jobs to kill time until the weekend.

[colordrops]

There's a fundamental difference with AI though. Even though we could live easily, greed drives the class with power to continue to force more and more productivity from workers, which is the elite's only source of labor. With AI, the workers won't been the most cost effective or even necessary. Very different situation.

And you must be a high paid tech worker in a bubble if you think most people are just trying to "kill time". At least in the US the majority of people are living paycheck to paycheck.