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> The benefits are also tremendous though. Those people would be unburdened of repetitive, menial, dangerous work and society would have a more effective and re

> The benefits are also tremendous though. Those people would be unburdened of repetitive, menial, dangerous work and society would have a more effective and reliable way of transporting goods. Perhaps. If, and only if, they can get something that at least partially replaces the menial work they lost. To give a worked example, some of the former mining communities decimated by the pit closures in the 80s are dead communities with unemployment around the 40% mark, to this day. Many people never worked again, despite having spent many years in constant employment and were plagued with depression and other illness as a result of losing career. Many of those former miners would trade the half lifetime of unemployment for repetitive, menial, dangerous work in a heartbeat. So in that case you're not filling people's needs more effectively, especially when as is so often the case, only lip service is paid to providing alternate options, encouraging industry to move to decimated localities and providing real, substantive help to those unable to find alternate employment.

nefitty 11y ago
You're right. This is the danger we're facing as automation across industries looms greater. There is reason to be pessimistic, seeing as governments and other institutions have historically dealt with this very poorly. I believe the danger is greater when middle class jobs (according to this site the average starting pay is $40k/yr http://www.alltrucking.com/faq/first-year-truck-driver-salary/ http://www.alltrucking.com/faq/first-year-truck-driver-salar...) are tossed in the mill. There are few other alternatives when it comes to salaries like that. A high school graduate is going to have a hard time finding anything remotely close to that kind of pay, and that will be worse in rural working class communities, like the kind you point out. This discussion is not full without some mention of the basic income debate. That is the leverage point at which governments can make a difference. The problem is that those policies will be difficult to fund at the beginning, before we see the possibly dramatic economic benefits of automation. My other fear is that this reality will cause governments to stifle automation. Things are usually very messy before they get better.
- anexprogrammer 11y ago
  My concern is if a basic income is introduced it will be so low as to render it near meaningless. In the UK minimum wage is around £11k, welfare gives somewhere around £3k I think. A basic income is likely to be nearer a welfare level than a working minimum. Politically I think it's going to be a very tough sell to set it at working minimum. I think it has to be at or near working minimum to be effective. We're potentially looking at unprecedented numbers of lives ruined unless it is handled better. Nearly all options for manual or lower qualified workers are going away. It probably is going to be very messy.

nefitty 11y ago

You're right. This is the danger we're facing as automation across industries looms greater. There is reason to be pessimistic, seeing as governments and other institutions have historically dealt with this very poorly. I believe the danger is greater when middle class jobs (according to this site the average starting pay is $40k/yr http://www.alltrucking.com/faq/first-year-truck-driver-salary/ http://www.alltrucking.com/faq/first-year-truck-driver-salar...) are tossed in the mill. There are few other alternatives when it comes to salaries like that. A high school graduate is going to have a hard time finding anything remotely close to that kind of pay, and that will be worse in rural working class communities, like the kind you point out. This discussion is not full without some mention of the basic income debate. That is the leverage point at which governments can make a difference. The problem is that those policies will be difficult to fund at the beginning, before we see the possibly dramatic economic benefits of automation. My other fear is that this reality will cause governments to stifle automation. Things are usually very messy before they get better.

anexprogrammer 11y ago
My concern is if a basic income is introduced it will be so low as to render it near meaningless. In the UK minimum wage is around £11k, welfare gives somewhere around £3k I think. A basic income is likely to be nearer a welfare level than a working minimum. Politically I think it's going to be a very tough sell to set it at working minimum. I think it has to be at or near working minimum to be effective. We're potentially looking at unprecedented numbers of lives ruined unless it is handled better. Nearly all options for manual or lower qualified workers are going away. It probably is going to be very messy.