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> By the time these countries have been exploited. While I agree with many of your points, and certainly there are many people who get exploited. But overall,

> By the time these countries have been exploited. While I agree with many of your points, and certainly there are many people who get exploited. But overall, if employers and employees are agreeing to mutual employment terms without coercion, then by definition it is not exploitation. Additionally, things robotics and 3D printing are different than events like the industrial revolution which a large amount of capital was required. The owners of robotics and computing will be much more distributed and require less capital. Brining people into the middle class with the modern infrastructure and stability that comes with is a really great thing. Robotics will only augment the quality of life for these people, freeing up massive amounts of human potential.

philipov 11y ago
> But overall, if employers and employees are agreeing to mutual employment terms without coercion, then by definition it is not exploitation. However, not all coercion is someone putting a literal gun to your head. Labor is systemically coerced due to having an inferior negotiating position. It is called exploitation when it is much more important for the employees to get (and keep) the job so they can survive, especially when people are living paycheck-to-paycheck. They can't afford to negotiate, because even trying to do so might get you denied the job, and not be able to eat.
- hwstar 11y ago
  Absolutely spot on! Nobody talks about it, and it is a very important issue. In the US, the balance of employer/employee power is heavily tilted in the employer's favor.
  - zanny 11y ago
    This is where you insert of the arguments about basic income to balance the employee / employer negotiating position and progressively ward off the failing of market economics while scarcity goes away.
cpursley 11y ago
The example I like is the farming revolution. There was a point when only 97% of people worked on farms. Now that's flipped. Only 3% of people work on farms. Are those 97% without jobs and nothing to do? No, of course not. The economy expanded and new industries emerged that nobody expected. The (farming) machines unlocked massive amounts of human potential. I don't expect the robotic/software/3D revolution to be any different. I'm pretty optimistic about what's coming.
- wstrange 11y ago
  Previous innovations have essentially automated human (or animal) muscle power. A tractor is vastly more powerful than a horse. AI (or whatever you want to call it), is coming - perhaps not as fast as its proponents would like, but I think we can agree it will happen. This is the first technology that automates the power of the human mind. The range of jobs that can't be done by a machine is going to get increasingly narrow
  - Futurebot 11y ago
    Right. Part of what's missed is that we don't need great GAI to get rid of lots of jobs; weak "AI" / deep learning / related automation techniques get us a long way there. We have existing examples in law document review, article topic summarization, etc. Another thing which is often missed is how complementarity may play out for certain jobs: it's NOT going to necessarily be "program / robot replaces every job X", but instead "program / robot allows one person to do the job previously done by 50." You can still have massive unemployment without getting rid of every worker doing a certain job (and their job may change more to be a machine guide / manager / error corrector.) An example I see all the time now is in supermarkets. You have self-checkout lanes that are overseen by one person. It used to be 5 lanes staffed by people. Now you only need one to intervene when something goes wrong. 5 workers have become 1 without eliminating the job "register person" completely. Instead, they've changed into "auto register checkout manager" while everyone else got the ax.
    - zanny 11y ago
tedks 11y ago
>While I agree with many of your points, and certainly there are many people who get exploited. But overall, if employers and employees are agreeing to mutual employment terms without coercion, then by definition it is not exploitation. Right. Employers and employees agree to mutual employment terms without coercion. That is the world we live in. Also, consumers make rational choices to maximize their happiness, advertising exists to inform people of products and give them more information to rationally make decisions, and competition between rival corporations drives down prices and makes everything better for consumers. Employees can negotiate better wages because if they don't like it at one job, they can leave and find another employer who will face no repercussions for hiring them. When things like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides or this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_fire happen, it's not exploitation. It's just employers and employees mutually agreeing to the terms of employment.
- cpursley 11y ago
  I can play this game as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... tl;dr is USA has higher per capita suicide rate then China.
  - DonaldFisk 11y ago
    This doesn't mean that people in China are happier, though: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268111001120 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268111... Summary: the happiest places tend to have the highest suicide rates.
  - tedks 11y ago
    What about the per capita rate of factory workers left to burn to death in a locked building? What is that for the US?
    - tedks 11y ago
      It's too late to edit, but I should add that really, what we want here is the per capita rate of factory workers locked inside factories so they can't leave. You know, because of the contract they entered into as rational economic agents without any coercion. Still waiting on what the per capita rate of that for the US is.

philipov 11y ago

> But overall, if employers and employees are agreeing to mutual employment terms without coercion, then by definition it is not exploitation. However, not all coercion is someone putting a literal gun to your head. Labor is systemically coerced due to having an inferior negotiating position. It is called exploitation when it is much more important for the employees to get (and keep) the job so they can survive, especially when people are living paycheck-to-paycheck. They can't afford to negotiate, because even trying to do so might get you denied the job, and not be able to eat.

hwstar 11y ago
Absolutely spot on! Nobody talks about it, and it is a very important issue. In the US, the balance of employer/employee power is heavily tilted in the employer's favor.
- zanny 11y ago
  This is where you insert of the arguments about basic income to balance the employee / employer negotiating position and progressively ward off the failing of market economics while scarcity goes away.

cpursley 11y ago

The example I like is the farming revolution. There was a point when only 97% of people worked on farms. Now that's flipped. Only 3% of people work on farms. Are those 97% without jobs and nothing to do? No, of course not. The economy expanded and new industries emerged that nobody expected. The (farming) machines unlocked massive amounts of human potential. I don't expect the robotic/software/3D revolution to be any different. I'm pretty optimistic about what's coming.

wstrange 11y ago
Previous innovations have essentially automated human (or animal) muscle power. A tractor is vastly more powerful than a horse. AI (or whatever you want to call it), is coming - perhaps not as fast as its proponents would like, but I think we can agree it will happen. This is the first technology that automates the power of the human mind. The range of jobs that can't be done by a machine is going to get increasingly narrow
- Futurebot 11y ago
  Right. Part of what's missed is that we don't need great GAI to get rid of lots of jobs; weak "AI" / deep learning / related automation techniques get us a long way there. We have existing examples in law document review, article topic summarization, etc. Another thing which is often missed is how complementarity may play out for certain jobs: it's NOT going to necessarily be "program / robot replaces every job X", but instead "program / robot allows one person to do the job previously done by 50." You can still have massive unemployment without getting rid of every worker doing a certain job (and their job may change more to be a machine guide / manager / error corrector.) An example I see all the time now is in supermarkets. You have self-checkout lanes that are overseen by one person. It used to be 5 lanes staffed by people. Now you only need one to intervene when something goes wrong. 5 workers have become 1 without eliminating the job "register person" completely. Instead, they've changed into "auto register checkout manager" while everyone else got the ax.
  - zanny 11y ago

tedks 11y ago

>While I agree with many of your points, and certainly there are many people who get exploited. But overall, if employers and employees are agreeing to mutual employment terms without coercion, then by definition it is not exploitation. Right. Employers and employees agree to mutual employment terms without coercion. That is the world we live in. Also, consumers make rational choices to maximize their happiness, advertising exists to inform people of products and give them more information to rationally make decisions, and competition between rival corporations drives down prices and makes everything better for consumers. Employees can negotiate better wages because if they don't like it at one job, they can leave and find another employer who will face no repercussions for hiring them. When things like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides or this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_fire happen, it's not exploitation. It's just employers and employees mutually agreeing to the terms of employment.

cpursley 11y ago
I can play this game as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... tl;dr is USA has higher per capita suicide rate then China.
- DonaldFisk 11y ago
  This doesn't mean that people in China are happier, though: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268111001120 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268111... Summary: the happiest places tend to have the highest suicide rates.
- tedks 11y ago
  What about the per capita rate of factory workers left to burn to death in a locked building? What is that for the US?
  - tedks 11y ago
    It's too late to edit, but I should add that really, what we want here is the per capita rate of factory workers locked inside factories so they can't leave. You know, because of the contract they entered into as rational economic agents without any coercion. Still waiting on what the per capita rate of that for the US is.