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[G.ZZZ]

I found this article about workforce automation and I pretty much agree with everything it says:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150805-will-machines-eventually-take-on-every-job

The TL;DR is - Workforce automation has been happening for hundreds of years to various degrees. in the short term, yes some jobs go away, become obsolete, etc. And yes some people get the short end of the stick. But in the long run society adapts, and the end result is a society that is overall more prosperous than before, with people -- everyone -- having more time and more happiness.


For me, personally, I like to focus on the end result. I like the idea of a world in which my life is automated. How we get there remains to be seen, but there are certain things that can only be done gradually as you face the new problems as they arise since you can't predict them in advance. But if you don't move forward, despite the perceived risks, you'll never get there.

Any article that miss the fact that automation is essentially a process that has an exponential basis is stupid. Computers aren't only getting smarter, but getting smarter faster. No human job will ever be safe from automation. This isn't an energy revolution like the first industrial revolution, this is an idea revolution, where human skills are getting obsolete at the most basic level since computer are smarter than us in specific fields, even if they're not still smarter than us in general-purpose intelligence.

 

[travisbickle]

Seriously? Humans never dream of improving their life? It takes capitalists to create a mega industry to persuade you that at your core, a human being seeks to improve his living conditions?

Don't confuse yourself with needs and wants. Yes, we can get by with shelter, food, warmth and a few odds and ends. No one, once aware of what is possible, wants to live life like that when there is so much more.

Yes, advertising is expensive. Just as much as they have to persuade you to spend your dollar improving X quality in your life instead of spending it on Y, they need to inform people that there are options out there to make their life better.

Of course humans aspire to improve their life, just not through buying stuff without persuasion. It's pretty much fact that buying things makes you miserable.

 

[biggersmaller]

Yay. But workers (especially really productive ones) should get bigger slice of the business owners' pie.

Sadly the vast majority of truly productive people are not individually vital and are easily replaced. Following this logic, there would be a lot of productive people with seniority pay out of a job.

 

[Foffy]

Any article that miss the fact that automation is essentially a process that has an exponential basis is stupid. Computers aren't only getting smarter, but getting smarter faster. No human job will ever be safe from automation. This isn't an energy revolution like the first industrial revolution, this is an idea revolution, where human skills are getting obsolete at the most basic level since computer are smarter than us in specific fields, even if they're not still smarter than us in general-purpose intelligence.

You got it. However, I don't know if 'no human job will ever be safe' but I admit this is because I don't go the whole way with the macro transitions. I kind of stop with wondering if 25% of the current labor force is wiped out, and that appears to be almost promised by every major study and inquiry from economists and technologists now.

Oxford University argues 47% just for the States(!!!!) and there are people involved with machine learning who say it risks being higher than that, for reference.

 

[kingkaiser]

Let's be honest, as long as the majority of the people don't get up at 6am for work everyday, voluntary and just for the good of all, capitalism is a necessary evil.

It puts the necessary pressure on people to keep the society running.

Maybe someday when fusion power, replicators and holodecks become a reality, people will go to work just for fun, to improve themselves and humankind, but that's gonna take some centuries or even millennia.

 

[thehypocrite]

Any article that miss the fact that automation is essentially a process that has an exponential basis is stupid. Computers aren't only getting smarter, but getting smarter faster. No human job will ever be safe from automation. This isn't an energy revolution like the first industrial revolution, this is an idea revolution, where human skills are getting obsolete at the most basic level since computer are smarter than us in specific fields, even if they're not still smarter than us in general-purpose intelligence.

Thanks. It reminds me of the article that we are bad at predicting exponential changes cause we are the individual at the end of the line as long as we live. Automation, AI, foundries development, new materials, new computational paradigms and more are all pushing in parallel on the technology side. We need to start the social development of what would be our interactions if all these changes come about or subsets of them and start preparing our social contract for that. How are we going to live if these happens at large scale? What do we do with those workers that get displaced? Is it possible to relocate their labor to a different area? When do we start to prepare them for that. It's an economic system of expulsion, like capitalism, the more ideal for it? Or we need to design a new and more inclusive system?

Good question that many just want to dismiss under the axiom that capitalism "works" for the now.

 

[sphagnum]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

Thankfully they didn't go with the original version, which read "life, liberty, and property".

A lot of this thread just reminds me of this:

 

[Sapphire Dreams]

Would Scandinavian-style socialism like in Finland or Denmark even work in the United States ?

 

[Guileless]

It's pretty much fact that buying things makes you miserable.

Following Stalin’s death in 1953, the extensive privileges enjoyed by the East European political elite became even more apparent. In East Germany, for example, the party leaders had initially taken up residence in a set of elegant villas located near the Schönhausen Palace (used as the offices of the head of state of the GDR and then, from 1964, as the State Guest House for visiting dignitaries), in Berlin. In 1956 however, the SED leadership approved the building of a luxurious ‘secure living zone’ for the party leadership near Wandlitz (about 30 km north of East Berlin). Construction of the Waldsiedlung complex was undertaken between 1958 and 1960. The completed complex covered a total area of 2km² and consisted of 23 luxury detached family houses; a club house with private cinema; a gourmet restaurant; a shop stocking a selection of luxury Western goods; a market garden; a health centre; a shooting range; a swimming pool; a sports field and several tennis courts.

In the 1970s a new four-lane autobahn was also constructed, to provide a direct connection between Waldsiedlung and Berlin. The area surrounding the complex was officially designated as a protected area for ‘game research’ , decreed off limits to all ordinary Germans and troops were stationed to guard the entrances to the complex, which could only be entered with special passes. The SED elite lived here in luxury from 1960-1989.[4] SED leader Walter Ulbricht (1950-1971) not only enjoyed the comforts of a magnificent 25 roomed house in Waldsielung, but also had a holiday home specially built on the small Baltic Island of Vilm, which was subsequently deleted from maps to avoid unwanted attention...

However, perhaps the most extreme example of excessive elite privilege during the latter decades of communist rule in Eastern Europe was provided by Nicolae Ceausescu. The fact that the Romanian leader and his family lived in the lap of luxury while most ordinary Romanians lived under conditions of enforced austerity and extreme repression, struggling with deprivation and poverty, has been well documented. During his time as leader (1965-1989) Ceausescu owned over 15 luxury palaces around Romania, including a riverside villa at Snagov, a lakeside resort at Cernavodă, a mountainside lodge at Braşov and the Primaverii Palace in Bucharest, which had rooms filled with priceless silk, porcelain, marble, silverware, chandeliers and carpets. Ceausescu also acquired a large collection of valuable gifts and ‘trinkets’ from other world leaders, many of which – including a leopard skin, a pair of silver enamelled doves and an ornamental bronze yak – were recently auctioned off in Bucharest.[8]

This level of luxurious living was even extended to non-human members of the Ceausescu family. Ceausescu’s pet dog, Corbu (who was awarded the rank of ‘Colonel’ in the Romanian Army!) was often driven through Bucharest in a limousine accompanied by his own motorcade, and there are reports that the Romanian ambassador in London had official orders to visit UK supermarket Sainsbury’s every week to buy dog biscuits for Corbu, which were then sent back to Romania in the diplomatic bag![9]


[5]

Via

 

[Rubenov]

Thankfully they didn't go with the original version, which read "life, liberty, and property".

A lot of this thread just reminds me of this:

I guess the caricature of the Soviet Hammer and Sickle system instead of one dude getting his heart ripped out, has hundreds of thousands of people waiting to die at concentration camps.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Capitalism is fine. Crony Capitalism is shit. Well regulated Capitalism is what America ought to have.

But it seems like there are those who confuse oligarchy with 'free markets'

 

[RobotNinjaHornets]

It'd be good if you could define what characterises a post-feudal society, because I've a feeling you're trying to dismiss the actual argument by getting into wooly semantics and a process whereby True Communism is defined as "All the good things I think Communism would lead to with none of the bad things that exist in self-professed Communist regimes". The USSR was a Communist regime that was informed by Marxist-Leninist thought and implemented policies based on that ideology. It was a bad regime, but it was a Communist regime.

North Korea is not democratic because it lacks free and fair elections and inclusive institutions; the self-description of the regime is obviously ridiculous.

Well

I mean Lenin himself did describe Soviet Russia as state capitalist rather than communist

 

[travisbickle]

Via

A dictator? Who oppressed a nation and ended up being shot? That obviously happy guy. That's your response to an obvious reference to contemporary theories on the links between buying material objects and happiness?

 

[tiredheadcrab]

Of course humans aspire to improve their life, just not through buying stuff without persuasion. It's pretty much fact that buying things makes you miserable.

Yeah...no

 

[Foffy]

Yeah...no

If you think genuine, lasting happiness is found in things, one is already playing a game of vapidity and emptiness.

This isn't to denounce consumerism, but peace and well being can in fact exist prior to external situations and the like, as hard as that is for us and the way we normally think.

 

[cpp_is_king]

If you think genuine, lasting happiness is found in things, one is already playing a game of vapidity and emptiness.

This isn't to denounce consumerism, but peace and well being can in fact exist prior to external situations and the like, as hard as that is for us and the way we normally think.

"True happiness comes from within" is not the same as "things make you miserable". The latter is complete bullshit.

 

[homelessscootaloo]

Yay

Not for pure capitalism, it really requires safety nets. Capitalism provides the best and fairest chances for success, that's what I like about it.

 

[voodoojohn]

Capitalism is unhealthy when it engenders intraogranizational competition and general unfriendliness in society. The question is how do we stimulate friendly competition between organizations that individually place a priority on teamwork? Can we compete with each other without hating each other and destroying the fabric of society?

I believe a society where people actually acted out friendly competition would vote for income distribution/minimum income/publically provided housing.

Also, I definitely think race is a roadblock in creating such a society.

 

[JayDotZee]

Nay, it has only brought suffering and misery so a few assholes can feel empowered and make up for their small penises.

 

[Foffy]

Nay, it has only brought suffering and misery so a few assholes can feel empowered and make up for their small penises.

I don't know if I said it here, but the problem you speak of is not a system that does this, but belief. In this case, it's people who believe themselves as totally separated beings from the rest of humanity and/or society, and wish to take the views of our economic system to became a "haver" of things, which in our society is ascribed wealth.

The problem here is not the system, but those in it and the projections they make within it. Communism would not eliminate people who want to have more than others if one buys into the idea one ought to have more than others, for example. Belief drives behavior, and behavior drives the social system.

One can at least be nay to the whole system because of the progenitor problems, but the system itself is not the fault, it's the drivers behind it that are.

 

[theecakee]

I think you need a little bit of both capitalism and socialism. Too much of either or is a bad thing.