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> What would a more powerful USA look like? Passenger rail; durable houses; less unemployment and more labor-force participation; a population not balkanized a

> What would a more powerful USA look like? Passenger rail; durable houses; less unemployment and more labor-force participation; a population not balkanized along political/cultural lines.

wernercd 10y ago
With an increase in immigration and a cheapening of robotic workers and kiosks... where is this decrease in unemployment and increase in labor-force participation going to come from? I mean, there is "always" going to be jobs for plumbers and spots for artisan made stuff... but those jobs aren't going to replace the amount of jobs that will be lost when $15 becomes more expensive than iRobot...
- zanny 10y ago
  A UBI, supplied taxafion, and significant deregulation would enable citizens to participate in the economy on much more liberal terms and you would almost always see participation rates rise while total hours worked fall.
  - zanny 10y ago
    simplified taxation*. Yay autocorrect on mobile from hours ago.
- fedora_hat 10y ago
  200 years most people farmed, 15 years ago SEO, apps, and YouTubers didn't exist either, yes YouTubers... News jobs are already being created.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    > News jobs are already being created. Not fast enough to replace the abolished ones, and most of those new jobs are knowledge work, which can't scale as there's a IQ floor that will stop most people from being able to work them. The more we shift to knowledge work, the higher unemployment will climb. You're making the mistake of thinking the past predicts the future, but today's automation is unprecedented, it will not follow the same pattern because it has different effects.
    - messel 10y ago
      Humans have a knack for adaption. We'll figure out the employment problems that result from automation and robotics. We'd make great pets.
      - gnaritas 10y ago
        Humans have a knack for selfishness and war, it's more likely there will be much needless suffering and death along any path to an eventual solution to those problems, which will likely be a solution that most suffer under.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  > With an increase in immigration and a cheapening of robotic workers and kiosks... where is this decrease in unemployment and increase in labor-force participation going to come from? I don't know where it would come from (perhaps the same magical unicorn tooth fairy who would remove balkanization, inspire durable construction, and give us more passenger rail), but the US would look a lot stronger if it had it. This includes politically stronger; poverty, disengagement from the labor force, and high inequality are not good for a country's political stability.

> What would a more powerful USA look like? Passenger rail; durable houses; less unemployment and more labor-force participation; a population not balkanized along political/cultural lines.

wernercd 10y ago

With an increase in immigration and a cheapening of robotic workers and kiosks... where is this decrease in unemployment and increase in labor-force participation going to come from? I mean, there is "always" going to be jobs for plumbers and spots for artisan made stuff... but those jobs aren't going to replace the amount of jobs that will be lost when $15 becomes more expensive than iRobot...

zanny 10y ago
A UBI, supplied taxafion, and significant deregulation would enable citizens to participate in the economy on much more liberal terms and you would almost always see participation rates rise while total hours worked fall.
- zanny 10y ago
  simplified taxation*. Yay autocorrect on mobile from hours ago.
fedora_hat 10y ago
200 years most people farmed, 15 years ago SEO, apps, and YouTubers didn't exist either, yes YouTubers... News jobs are already being created.
- gnaritas 10y ago
  > News jobs are already being created. Not fast enough to replace the abolished ones, and most of those new jobs are knowledge work, which can't scale as there's a IQ floor that will stop most people from being able to work them. The more we shift to knowledge work, the higher unemployment will climb. You're making the mistake of thinking the past predicts the future, but today's automation is unprecedented, it will not follow the same pattern because it has different effects.
  - messel 10y ago
    Humans have a knack for adaption. We'll figure out the employment problems that result from automation and robotics. We'd make great pets.
    - gnaritas 10y ago
      Humans have a knack for selfishness and war, it's more likely there will be much needless suffering and death along any path to an eventual solution to those problems, which will likely be a solution that most suffer under.
clock_tower 10y ago
> With an increase in immigration and a cheapening of robotic workers and kiosks... where is this decrease in unemployment and increase in labor-force participation going to come from? I don't know where it would come from (perhaps the same magical unicorn tooth fairy who would remove balkanization, inspire durable construction, and give us more passenger rail), but the US would look a lot stronger if it had it. This includes politically stronger; poverty, disengagement from the labor force, and high inequality are not good for a country's political stability.