[_moof]

Whenever a new way is found to improve efficiency, choices have to be made about how to distribute the new surplus.

Choices are made by people who have power and imposed upon people who don't.

The people with power under current systems don't care about the people who do the work. They care about getting rich. So if there's an efficiency gain to be had, all of that new efficiency is going to be put towards increasing output or reallocating work. None of it - under current power structures - will ever go towards allowing workers to work less, because workers aren't the ones deciding where it will go.

[d4mi3n]

Unless one choses to bargain. Perhaps collectively.

[Avicebron]

[flagged]

[doublepg23]

Quoting a tweet:

“People on twitter will really be like ‘you believe in voting? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy, firebombing a Walmart’ and then not firebomb a Walmart”

[slg]

Revolutions don't start with violence. People talk about it first.

[quadrifoliate]

I don't understand why people make these hyperbolic jokes about guillotines. Violence is counterproductive; and not practical anyway. Joking about it just makes you feel great without actually doing anything.

There is a simple alternative. Vote; and educate your family and friends.

If you don't know what is on the ballot in the midterms, you are part of the problem. If you aren't starting a family conversation about how corporations are squeezing us, you are part of the problem.

[iteria]

Everyone talks about MLK, but no one points out that people were willing to listen because Malcom X was a looming threat if MLK failed. Yes vote, but the threat of violence is what makes voting a delighted option. That's why protests exist. They are reminders that peace is a choice.

Violent revolution has merit when peaceful means break down. The rise of the guillotine jokes are the first time that people are losing faith in the peaceful option. We should hope that our leaders don't make most of use disillusioned with the idea of a peaceful transfer of power.

[ericd]

For anyone thinking about going that way, I highly recommend listening to the Revolutions podcast series starting here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1wVvwnrBP2cVQrFf06RoO9

It'll probably disabuse you of the idea that its a good way to get things done.

[sassbadger]

It is one of the most eye opening pieces of media. Especially the French and Russian Revolutions are covered in such great detail, while staying interesting. I also loved the appendix to the show where Mike talked about "patterns" in a revolution. Learned a lot about the relationship between the government and its people.

[kombookcha]

It's never been a good way to get things done, but when you block off every other venue for change people will be much more willing to take a chance on a high risk option. Violent revolutions aren't usually the first thing people try.

Democracies that arise by nonviolent revolution, do so in part due to the threat of what comes next if the nonviolent revolution is crushed. Because if you make sure placards and petitions don't work, it eventually won't be placards and petitions anymore.

'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable', and all that.

[klipt]

Everyone remembers Malcolm X, but does anyone remember the names of the thousands of civilians who protested the Iranian regime and got summarily executed?

Resistance doesn't work very well against highly militarized autocratic regimes.

[rapidaneurism]

France had revolution and guillotines, but the UK had a strong police force and good suppression.

[achierius]

The UK didn't just repress its citizens, it ultimately caved to them. The voting reforms of the 19th century gave people essentially everything they wanted, at the time, and as a consequence when the rest of europe was going thru 1848 Britain was chilling. But just a few years beforehand there was legitimate fear that the government would be toppled by rioters! You can't judge centuries of history just by looking at the end result.

[_doctor_love]

> Violent revolution has merit when peaceful means break down.

Robespierre first entered the chat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

Then Napoleon followed.

Make of it what you will.

[EDIT: for the downvoters - the folks who got guillotined in France were definitely bad, but the Terror was very real and very awful. It tends to be a trend with the noble overthrowers that after the initial wins they then get excited to go lop the heads off anyone else that might have ever bothered them. Be careful what you wish for.]

[bandofthehawk]

Violence is not always counterproductive

[rickydroll]

So you are saying that I shouldn't start my artisanal guillotine business?

Believe me, I know what's on the ballot for the midterm in the state but it's not going to stop me from making dark snarky jokes.

[wombatpm]

Mass produced and pre-staged. Think zipcar for guillotines pre positioned in finance districts and rich neighborhoods.

[rickydroll]

That would make one hell of an art project.

[jchw]

I don't believe that activism actually generally works, and I am skeptical that voting works either.

Don't get me wrong. I do vote, and I believe that voting and activism can work, and even still does for a variety of things. But as for fighting against forces of corruption and tyranny, I believe activism is about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle. Any grassroots efforts are in a horribly asymmetric battle against well-funded adversaries that will come back every year everywhere without fail to get their opening. And any hope we had of limiting corporate interests in politics has been decimated in the U.S. basically since Citizen's United — not that I really believe there wouldn't have been some other workaround had that not happened.

So yes, I believe grassroots activism largely doesn't work. The fact that the battle is so asymmetrical makes it even more asymmetrical by making people apathetic about and fatigued over activism, making it even less effective.

But people often turn their heads when there's violence.

Nobody wants violence, just like nobody wants to hit rock bottom. I believe truly that political violence is a very dark place that will be no fun for anyone involved that I personally do not want to be a part of in any way. But, it just is the case that things will get worse before they get ~~much worse~~ better.

I see it as a question of if and not when until structural changes occur that durably improve upon the asymmetry of political activism. And in that case, it's not a matter of whether or not, it's a matter of getting it the hell over with.

I don't know how the fuck these stupid Flock "safety" cameras got here, but I have a pretty good guess how they'll disappear.

[wombatpm]

They grew out of red light cameras, which everyone saw as a naked cash grab- especially once towns were caught tweaking the yellow light timings.

Cops love them, and look longingly at the UK panopticon and how easy it is to solve crimes.

[cameronh90]

If our panopticon actually meant crimes got solved, I’d be less pissed off by it.

Instead we’re being spied on but seemingly police can’t solve any of the crime affecting most people’s day to day lives.

[llbeansandrice]

Those flock cameras arrived in many places in the US bc people did not show up to public city council meetings to oppose them, aka “activism”.

[achierius]

In many cities they just bring it up again and again until it passes. They only need to win once, we need to win every time. That's the problem.

[jchw]

Locally over here our city councils are overran with people who are anti Flock. Flock's strategy is to sneak their way in as if it is an "emergency". They've got a whole playbook.

Normal activists don't stand a chance against well-funded adversaries.

[nekusar]

> I don't know how the fuck these stupid Flock "safety" cameras got here, but I have a pretty good guess how they'll disappear.

Gee golly, I have no clue how the pole ended up being cut and the solar and cameras ended up smashed.

Must'a been an "accident".

[mcmcmc]

How is it hyperbolic when it’s human history?

[anigbrowl]

Violence has been very productive for the ruling class. Voting sounds nice but evidence abounds about the mendacity of politicians and their willingness to subvert or overrule voters' preferences if sufficient money or status is to be had. You can say 'well vote those people out if they ignore the voters' but once a new reality has set in the politicians often gainan incumbency advantageor have lined up a cushy post-retirement gig.

[dlev_pika]

I mean, it’s not something anonymous edgy twitter accounts have come up with. There is ample historic precedence on the trend.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." - Jefferson

[porknubbins]

My employers who are introducing AI are not laughing evil supervillains hoovering up all the excess profits, they are normal people who wanted long careers and are as nervous as anyone about competition amd what AI will do to organizations if people become truly redundant.

[hilariously]

Cool well my employers fired me for an AI psychosis trip so I am glad you are working for those ones who "wanted long careers" and "are nervous as anyone" because hoboy is that not what we are seeing in the ownership class right now.

[macintux]

How many of those employers are living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to feed their kids?

I have less sympathy for decision-makers who are stressed than the people who’ll be fired first, and have less mobility. Or safety net.

[musicale]

> My employers who are introducing AI are not laughing evil supervillains hoovering up all the excess profits

I care less about the motivation rather than the action.

[mcmcmc]

Yeah I thought my employers were good normal people too, just found out they sold to PE firm that wants to “supercharge” our operations with AI. This of course is after swearing they had no interest in M&A to get me to join. “Nothing is changing, no one is getting laid off. Things will just get more efficient so you can do more ‘strategic’ work.” Heard that one before.

[chanux]

Someone up in the food chain must have big investments in AI though. The great shove down didn't just appear.

[_moof]

So, are you getting your share of the surplus or not?

And what exactly does it mean to "compete"?

[komali2]

Right, exactly, there's no good guys under capitalism, that's why you need industry wide labor unions moreso than within a single company.

You could have a straight up communist for a boss that completely shares all profits, but if the business doesn't extract labor value and expand as aggressively as other businesses do, it'll eventually get eaten or lawfared to death, or priced out, or closed out of deals (e.g. small player in chips related business).

So the only way to prevent industry wide redundancy at everywhere except the 1% largest companies that survive (which will also be laying off people but not completely closing down), is through organized labor. Or, I suppose, completely restructuring the economic system, which I'm very down to chat about as well, but the labor organizing feels more achievable for now.

[llbeansandrice]

They are absolutely hoovering up the excess profits are you fucking stupid? That’s literally how capitalism works.

When have you ever saved the company money and been given a bonus that was even 1/10th of that money?

[necovek]

This would assume there was excess profits to begin with. The jury still seems out on that one.

[lubujackson]

It is almost reassuring to think that rich and powerful people all know what they are doing every step of the way. A handful may, but most certainly do not. Most are also terrified of AI. Stable profits are always better than transformative change, if you already have power and riches. Look at how insane companies are acting right now with token quotas for employees and mandates AI usage - the goal is not to milk profits but to not fall behind every other company in case this becomes table stakes. They are trying not to be devoured by a beast they don't understand.

When the AI bubble pops, large companies will be extremely relieved to stop throwing money into the wind playing this game. For most companies, the AI arms race is a huge hassle. They are fine with losing money in the short term and even in the long term as long as they can find a stable path forward.

This is the exact same trajectory as when the internet came out and every insurance company and toothpick manufacturer spent gobs of money to have a brochure website built because everyone else had one. This will play out differently, but recognize most companies are acting entirely from a place of fear right now.

[TheWrongGuy]

"Hence too the economic paradox, that the most powerful instrument for shortening labour-time, becomes the most unfailing means for placing every moment of the labourer's time and that of his family, at the disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the value of his capital." - some crazy radical economist, nearly 200 years ago

[jonstewart]

"The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must." — Thucydides

[tsunamifury]

It’s a stupid statement by a stupid philosopher. Years later we learned collective development and incentive produced a society he could have never imagined.

It’s simply being looted now by the idiots this moron worshiped.

[jonstewart]

It’s from the Melian Dialogue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos) and it’s perhaps the most succinct embodiment of the realist school of international relations/politics.

I quote it here because the best way to get a day off is not to continue being weak, but to find strength, just as miners and railroad workers found strength in the 1870s.

[AlterEgo7]

You sound very sure of your opinion... While missing the basic fact that he was a historian, not a philosopher.

[tsunamifury]

The commentary was that of a general/philosopher/historian fused together... and really just a statement of "the weak are meat". Yes power has an advantage but its not the end all be all configuration.

Maybe he meant this somewhat disparagingly, but ultimately not enough. For a greek.

[jvanderbot]

This narrative is clean, matches expectations and history.

But let's be clear - we all probably own a decent part of our companies (collectively). Productivity gains mean winning the race to market, profits, glory. And that means ownership is valuable.

At the _very least_, you can push your company stock higher and buy it with your 10% IRA contributions or through a similar investment program and make 16x your investment over your 40 year career.

It's easy to look tactically at productivity gains being "captured" by high CEO bonuses, and that's legitimate, but we have so sufficiently seized the means of wealth production if we have stock options and market access that I'm not sure it's really valid to say we get, paraphrasing, "nothing if not a day off work".

[whiplash451]

Companies don’t care about it but governments certainly do.

Over the past 150 years, the work week dropped from 70+ to 35h in France.

Granted that’s a long time horizon but still.

[jlebar]

> Choices are made by people who have power and imposed upon people who don't.

In a capitalist society, choices are made according to supply and demand.

In a world where there's a positive supply shock (in this case, there's a lot more programming available for purchase today than there was a year ago), supply goes up. We therefore expect the price for the good to decrease.

This has nothing to do with power or whether people care about xyz. It's a consequence of the economic system we live under.

You can desire to live under a different economic system! That's logically coherent. But if you want the laws of supply and demand not to apply to you, that's what you're asking for.

Honestly I'm getting tired of this narrative. People take the benefits of capitalism for granted (indeed most of us on this forum do very well for ourselves relative to the average person in our country and around the world), but we blame all of its downsides on "bad people".

[skew-aberration]

From where do you get your understanding of the terms supply and demand? They are primarily from classical economics - have you read any? e.g Adam Smith?

[ncallaway]

Right, but a day off would reduce supply.

And 2 days off was not a system dictated by God, which we are obligated to keep in perpetuity (in fact, most religions dictate 1 day off, not 2).

So, we could, as a society, just choose to make a 32 hour workweek “full time”, and mandate overtime pay after that.

There’s no reason, even under capitalism that we must allow all of the productivity gains to accrue to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth.

In fact, I think if we choose to do that as a society, it will end horrifically.

[jlebar]

> There’s no reason, even under capitalism that we must allow all of the productivity gains to accrue to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth.

I would question the premise that all or even most of the productivity gains of any past technological improvement have accrued to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth.

200 years ago 90% of Americans lived on farms. In the early 1900s, it was 40%. Today that number is 2%.

The economic surplus from that increase in productivity accrued to everyone in society, not just the wealthy. (The evidence for this is that we are all living at a higher standard of living today than we were in the early 1800s or 1900s.)

But certainly the positive supply shock was not great news for farmers, many of whom lost their jobs. In the case of AI, I'm asking us -- programmers -- not to make the mistake of saying "this is not a benefit for me, therefore it's not a benefit for society".

[JuniperMesos]

> But certainly the positive supply shock was not great news for farmers, many of whom lost their jobs. In the case of AI, I'm asking us -- programmers -- not to make the mistake of saying "this is not a benefit for me, therefore it's not a benefit for society".

I'm not sure about that - farming kind of sucks. I think what the transition away from farming generally looked like was people who had some kind of small family farm, where multiple generations had worked hard all their lives to make a living growing crops, having kids who left the farm to work in some other industry, and making more money that way and having better working conditions (at the price of living a more urban lifestyle foreign to their family back on the farm). When their parents' generation got old and was ready to pass the family farm along, the urban worker generation decided they'd rather not quit their jobs and go back to the family farm; so (perhaps with some feeling of guilt), they sold the land to a large farming conglomerate; and then the next generations who grew up in an urban area doing white-collar jobs simply forgot that their ancestors had ever been farmers.

Something like this happened in my own family - about one hundred years ago, my great-grandfather owned a farm on what was then the outskirts of the bay area. He sold the land when he retired, no one else in my family ever did agricultural work, I only know the story, and the land that farm was once on is now incredibly valuable bay area real estate that is not being used for any agricultural purpose. I have no desire to work in agriculture.

[musicale]

> I would question the premise that all or even most of the productivity gains of any past technological improvement have accrued to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth.

The historical automation story seems to be that technology replaces workers, and those workers typically end up taking lower-paying jobs:

"replacing workers with technology “explains 50 to 70%” of the increase in inequality from 1980 to about 2016."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/21/1067563/automati...

They point out a disappointing aspect of some technologies (self-checkout), which seems to be that not only are workers displaced, but customers also experience degraded service (probably without a new benefit such as a discount for using self-checkout.)

[jlebar]

> The historical automation story seems to be that technology replaces workers, and those workers typically end up taking lower-paying jobs

As I said, when farming became more efficient, it wasn't great to be a farmer.

But when I say (and I assume everyone else here also says) "I don't want to go back to a world where 90% of people had to be farmers" (because farming was so inefficient), that's another way of saying, the world that farming efficiencies gave us is richer / more preferable overall than the previous world. In other words, the economic surplus did not go exclusively or primarily to the richest.

I expect the same will be true for AI. I think our society should do more to help the displaced. But I do not want my grandchildren to live in a world where, 100 years from now, 90% of people are still doing jobs that could be done by a computer, but we choose for the computer not to do them. Just like I wouldn't want to have to be a farmer.

[musicale]

> As I said, when farming became more efficient, it wasn't great to be a farmer

What you seem to be saying is that consolidation of the farming industry into fewer producers with higher productivity was good for food buyers and society at large, which might be true but doesn't contradict GP's point that when their company earns $100 more due to improved employee productivity, approximately $0 of that will be paid to the employees, so they find little reason to celebrate.

The link I posted makes somewhat different yet important points: first, the arc of automation seems to tend toward increased inequality (and a hollowing-out of the middle class); second, automation may provide a markedly worse (but cheaper) replacement for the thing it replaces. Even in the case of farming, many fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they were 100 years ago - perhaps effects of selective breeding (such as for size, shelf-life/durability, resistance to pests/pesticides/herbicides/etc.), soil depletion, environmental changes, etc.

[TFYS]

> In other words, the economic surplus did not go exclusively or primarily to the richest.

That was in large part due of strong leftist movements and states that forced the capitalists to share the increasing wealth. WW2 and the resulting labor shortage and other special circumstances contributed as well. Currently no such movements and circumstances exist. Globalization and the resulting free movent of capital has put capitalists in a better position to direct the extra wealth for themselves than ever before. A global movement is required to get a meaningful share of the increased surplus to the workers now, and that is very hard to do. The market will not do it on its own, as the demand for human labor eventually decreases due to automation.

[ncallaway]

> I would question the premise that all or even most of the productivity gains of any past technological improvement have accrued to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth.

That would be relevant if I stood for that premise, but I don't and I wasn't putting it forward.

I was responding to your earlier claim:

> But if you want the laws of supply and demand not to apply to you, that's what you're asking for.

I was disagreeing that this was what was being asked in the present moment. What was being asked in the present moment ("can we have a day off") is very similar to what was being demanded in the past.

In the past, workers demanded to share in the wealth and productivity that was being created through technological gains. And so, I agree with you, workers in the modern era have benefited massively from past technological gains. But that wasn't an accident. Those gains were earned through the blood and sweat of workers demanding to be included in those gains.

And so, to ensure that these present gains continue to be distributed more equally, we need to continue applying the pressure that was applied in the past.

But that's not a rejection of the the laws of supply and demand, it's at a social layer before the economics of supply and demand apply. It's at the political and social layer of how much work we expect an individual worker to put forward into society, which is a major factor in determining the amount of supply of work available.

It's a political decision—totally separate from a rejection of capitalism—of how many hours a "full week of work" is. It is not a rejection of capitalism to set the "full work week" to 48 hours, or to 40 hours, or to 32 hours.

[komali2]

> The economic surplus from that increase in productivity accrued to everyone in society, not just the wealthy.

Sure, a poor man with two dollars is richer than a poor man with one dollar.

And yet the man handing out the dollars had 100$ in surplus when he was handing out 1s and now that he's handing out 2's he's got 1,000,000,000.

Look at the wealth disparity. Even if quality of life has increased, it's not wrong for the people delivering that increased quality of life (workers) to also demand a requisite slice of the pie.

In fact, I see no reason why the pie should be shared with wealthy non workers at all. Were they necessary for the increased quality of life?

On top of that, it's a global economy. Expand beyond the USA and include in your analysis how life has changed in imperialized nations that now function as cheap labor sources for our factories that pollute the local environment while exploiting workers for absurdly low wages and bad working conditions.

[jlebar]

> Expand beyond the USA and include in your analysis how life has changed in imperialized nations that now function as cheap labor sources for our factories that pollute the local environment while exploiting workers for absurdly low wages and bad working conditions.

Agreed, let's do that! Here is the economic history of the developing world over the past 70 years.

https://ourworldindata.org/history-of-poverty-has-just-begun

Pick any metric you care about: number of people living on less than $1/day, literacy, maternal mortality, access to birth control. It has dramatically improved in the developing world over the past 70 years or so.

[komali2]

Capitalists invented metrics to show how awesome capitalism for the world, and then said "see, against these metrics, the world is better!"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2...

Putting the poverty line at 1$ a day, or saying people crossed from 2$/day to $3/day is "poverty decreasing," lets people get these self-serving numbers. Poverty declined, relative to what threshold? Do these people have secure housing, medical care, education, political power, in line with their contributions to the global market they've been shoved into?

People being moved from centuries old homes distributed across agrarian geographies into slums, that's improvement?

https://data.unhabitat.org/pages/housing-slums-and-informal-...

People living side by side to polluting factories that poison their water, that's improvement?

These people are foisted into a global supply chain, their economies changed into e.g. unsustainable cash crop or similar fragile-to-price-shock products, and themselves thrust into market dependence without any labor security since outside entities show up, exploit while it's profitable, then disappear without leaving any meaningful industrialization to the overall nation. Not to mention there's still a lot of people being straight up enslaved.

[jlebar]

> Look at the wealth disparity. Even if quality of life has increased, it's not wrong for the people delivering that increased quality of life (workers) to also demand a requisite slice of the pie.

Sure, but the argument being made is that "productivity gains accrue to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth."

That is simply not true. Across the entire world, from rich countries to poor countries, economic development, driven in large part by technological development, has resulted in a dramatic improvement to everyone's quality of life.

https://ourworldindata.org/history-of-poverty-has-just-begun

The way some people talk about it, it's as though they wish they were middle class in the 1920s instead of in the 2020s. People are so. much. richer. today. In ways that really matter, like education, retirement, ability to travel the world. MEDICINE.

I get that it still sucks today. The only point I'm making is that it's false that the historical economic surplus has accrued "solely" (or even, mostly) to the wealthiest. It's not true.

[blackjack_]

Both can be true. Standards can both have improved since the 1920s and income inequality can be equivalent or worse than the gilded age. This would be coherent with improvements mostly being funneled to the top, while some benefits accrue throughout the economy.

However the story is much more dynamic and interesting than that, with income inequality shrinking until the late 70s and early 80s, then expanding drastically until now, half a century later. That period of lower income inequality is mostly why things got better for the working class (but science and technology have marched on regardless).

[komali2]

> I get that it still sucks today. The only point I'm making is that it's false that the historical economic surplus has accrued "solely" (or even, mostly) to the wealthiest. It's not true.

It is, though, if we talk scale. The rich went from having big houses in the 1920s to being sent into space, or building private libertarian colonies, or buying elections, or potentially increasing their lifespan a few decades, in the 2020s. The working class went from working 40hrs a week until age 64 when they retire in a house they own, to working 60hrs a week until they die, but hey, that death might be at an older age!

The improvement disparity between the two makes the improvement for the working class insignificant enough to be dismissible. I don't buy into the idea that the working class should be grateful that the scraps now have better seasoning.

I mean really, just look at the wealth gap. Imagine how much better the lives of everyone could be if that wealth was distributed better! Fuck a 20 hr workweek, what about 5?