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Many of them don't want to go back to school or get technical training... What do we tell the taxi and truck drivers when Uber shows up with self-drivers, etc.?

• gerbilly 10y ago
  >Uhhh, how about "suck it up and do it anyway"? A lot of these people are older. Also, it's gotten to the point that the rate of 'disruption' is too fast for a human lifespan. It's one thing if horses are replaced by tractors in half a human generation. People can adapt to that and even benefit. It's another if entire industries are replaced every decade. Once the rate of change becomes too fast, people simply can't 'suck it up' enough to keep up. There are human limits: physiological and psychological ones.
  • ChartsNGraffs 10y ago
    This is a great point. We spent so much time trying to see if technology actually followed Moore's Law that we forgot the implications of such growth causing the rapid outmoding of people's skill level several times within a typical lifetime.
• tro2102 10y ago
  how about "suck it up and do it anyway"? I don't necessarily disagree with this sentiment, but this doesn't really address the question, which is about what happens to an industry when it's made redundant by technology. Cab drivers competing with self-driving cars can't "suck it up". "what if they don't want to" in regard to people working? Again, I feel you haven't read the spirit of this comment accurately. What happens to an entire class of working people (truck drivers, for instance), when their trade is replaced by tech which is 1/10 (conservatively) the cost to produce? I too want to say innovation is worth it, but it's definitely worth the thought cycles to consider what happens when we make an entire workforce obsolete.
  • maverick_iceman 10y ago
    What happened to the drivers of horse-drawn carriages when automobiles arrived?
    • flamedoge 10y ago
      What happened to the horses?
      • govg 10y ago
        The glue factory?
  • Trundle 10y ago
    Again, I feel you haven't read the spirit of this comment accurately. The comment specifically talked about those people not wanting to do another form of work. It wasn't a generic "lets talk about mass automation induced redundancy" which appears to be what you're trying to discuss with me. As you'll note, I'm pro basic income. I just don't think it's fair to say I'm not properly addressing the spirit, when in this case that means ignoring the specific language the commenter chose to use and just having the same generic conversation that's continuously being had all over the internet. I'm interested in debating this guy if he does actually think work is something people only do if it's intrinsically motivating and thus we should consider taxi drivers desire to spend their day driving around rather than doing math, I'm not interested in just having a standard /r/futurology back and forth. I mean hell, I even hedged against this with my last paragraph.
    • acidburnNSA 10y ago
      I didn't say they don't want to do another job. I said they don't want to go back to school. They either hated school or were bored sick of it. So they'll generally look for other jobs available at their skill level. That's why inequality grows. Disruptive tech creates jobs for educated ambitious people while displacing people who are less so. Yeah we as a society can tell them it's their problem, but there might be a lot of them, and they might be a force to be reckoned with politically. Will it escalate beyond Trump, Brexit, etc.? Who knows. Telling people to get more school is something educated people often do, but it's sometimes a bit self-serving. It makes themselves feel like they're a winner and they deserve it when often their circumstances positioned them better to be able to get that education in the first place.
• ucarion 10y ago
  You identify most of the difficulty of this scenario: 1. Taxis are a dying industry, but taxi drivers are not adapting. 2. As a result, taxi drivers are suffering. Their livelihoods, which have brought food to their families' tables for decades, are being taken from them by forces they could not anticipate or control. Of course, 3. We care about these taxi drivers. Suffering is bad no matter what industry you work in. Suffering is worth avoiding. Ultimately our answer has to be to say "your job doesn't really exist anymore, you need to find a new one". But it matters how much time we give taxi drivers. Clearly, asking them to adapt overnight would be too demanding, so there's a balance to be made between market efficiency and the realities of our apish learning rates. In the long run, a lot of jobs are going the way of the taxi, and perhaps basic income is the long-term solution. But we can't implement basic income today. It's a massive solution to what is currently a minor, contained problem. Every country's policies are a gigantic legacy codebase. Basic income would be re-writing a huge chunk of the code, where this tax is adding yet another minor hack to keep the thing running smoothly.
  • erikpukinskis 10y ago
    To this end, we should br taxing self driving cars to create a pension fund for taxi drivers. Taxing one cab company to pay another doesn't seem to address your listed concerns at all.
    • ptaipale 10y ago
      It's good to care about taxi drivers, but not because they are taxi drivers. Go back >200 years. In England, Spinning Jennies replaced weavers, and there were luddites who tried to resist, but the solution was not to start subsidizing weavers; and not even a specific tax to weaving machines to provide for the weavers specifically; the solution was to slowly build a social security system, and not just for master weavers (who had been relatively well off) but everyone. Agreed, taxing one company to pay another does not make sense, but neither does subsidizing people of a certain profession just because they are no longer productive, by putting a burden on something productive just because it is better.
• ap22213 10y ago
  Sadly, the reality is that most people seem to side with your perspective. And, like that, the great middle class boom that drove the golden age of the 20th century is over. Recently, I've had the jarring realization that for Humans (and maybe nature, in general), the stable equilibrium point is inequality. And, like the cab drivers, a lot of us have to 'suck it up' and realize that the 20th century (and perhaps the whole post-enlightenment period) is not coming back. So, better to brace ourselves, tighten up our finances, and ready our families for the 'low-growth' future.
  • legutierr 10y ago
    You believe that it was the strength of the middle class that drove the high growth rates the US experienced in the 20th century? And you think that the relatively low growth rates we see today are attributable somehow to high levels of inequality, and the resulting decline of the middle class? Well, that sound about right. But I wonder, who are the mainstream economists that are making that same argument? Because the only advocacy for reduced inequality I read seems to ground its arguments in the logic of humanitarianism and social justice. Maybe I'm not reading the right things. The fact is, though, that while humanitarianism and social justice are nice, the reason that I myself am worried about inequality is that it seems to be making the pie smaller for everyone (at least relative to what it should be). I wonder why people advocating for reduced inequality aren't making the growth argument their first argument.
• xg15 10y ago
  What if they can't because they literally have not enough time to go back to school - because they need most waking hours for work, otherwise they couldn't cover their costs?
  • yorwba 10y ago
    Maybe we should pay them to go to school, so they can be productive later (or structure it as a loan to be paid back or ...)
• icantdrive55 10y ago
  I don't fully get your comment. The thesis of your argument is, "Many of them don't want to go back to school or get technical training... What do we tell the taxi and truck drivers when Uber shows up with self-drivers, etc." At the end of you comment, I noticed you brought up a basic income. I think you realized the work force is really shrinking, and becoming very exploitive. When was the last Labor Union formed in the U.S.? Let's start with this whole, "Go back to school to earn more money." And major in what? Let's take a white 40-50 male. Exactly what degree/certification is he going to get in order to get that carrot on the stick, or move up? The economic world has changed so much--I don't know too many degrees that will further that guy in life. Right now, maybe registered nursing, but that's been hot since ObamaCare, and who know what that future holds. Hay, I got a great one; go back to even a middle tiered law school, and hang up your shingle at 50. Wait for that phone to ring. I know a black entomologist, with a degree, who literally works for Orkin. He was recently reprimanded by the company because he left the air conditioning on while in park. (He was in Alabama, during a heat wave.) My point is I hear people say go back to school. I have seen people go into great debt(debt that isn't bankruptable), only to graduate with a degree, sometimes a degree in the hard sciences, that are working multiple minimum wage jobs. What exactly is a 50 year old going to do with a degree in mechanical engineering? I don't even want to think what they would do with a bachelor's in computer science. And please, don't tell me this industry isn't all about age. I think that might change one day when VC's calm down about finding the next Zukerburg, and realize this industry is about profit, and not reaching for the stars, or hitting a once in a decade home run with a ambiguous individual, usually a guy who wants to get that girl with financial success? A guy who was just in the right place in the right time, horny, and had the privilege of being a middle class white guy. My point is I always hear education is the answer. I see so many people with multiple credentials on their basement wall, and no career. I won't even bring up the certificate programs advertised on t.v., and how many people spent thousands on worthless paper. I don't have a solution to this mess. Yes--there's a part of me that would close down the borders, and become an semi-island until we figure out what to do. I would also like to see some taxes/regulation on tech. Yes--I said it--I'm the devil. I just know there's less real jobs out there than the government claims. Most people I know are barely getting by. As to Uber paying a tax; I could care less. I have watched that company from it's sperm days. I have watched people go into debt/ruin their credit buying a Uber approved four door vechicle, and not making the money they were told was at the end of the stick. I don't want to get into a long winded debate, but this economy has changed so much; I'm literally in shock. It might seem great when you are in this tech bubble, but wait until it explodes. Watch what the homeless population in San Francosco spikes up to. Sure the rich kids will move back home, and maybe pull out of the crash with help, and contacts for family, but the poor/middle class kids will be at Home Depot mixing paint. Remember tech is one of the few industries you can get into with just talent. You don't need a degree. You do need some good skills, and the Internet is making learning those skill exponentially easier. So we get back to what that older person is going to do in this sharing economy. I honestly don't have a clue. Try landscaping at 50, and competing with immigrants who see nothing unusual about putting four to a bedroom. The Titans of business, or the wealthy are not getting anymore--what's the word; financially moral? In my world it's a Christian attitude. (Save the religious bashing for another time. Their are some good proverbs that some you should look at, but then again why; being a fair guy isn't even admired in certain circles. It's all about maximum accumulation of wealth. They are not offering jobs livable wage jobs with a future. Thay are praised for exploiting certain, usually older, or minority workers to further their wealth, and don't just don't give a dam about how their workers live, or their workers' future. Oh they, do care about what trendy, like animals, or global warming, but it can't interfere with their money nut. I see a dearth of real morality lately. Why? I have my suspicions, but to tired to verbalize, and don't want to argue with the persons who are offended by this post. I noticed at the end of you post you brought up a basic income. Maybe deep inside you can forsee the future? Between 1896 and 1996 world population went form 1 billion to 9 billion.(Too tired to verify that statistic--yes, I'm fifty, but I belive its correct.). What are people going to do to provide for food, and housing? I guess we will just service the wealthy? Great times! (I said some very controversial statements. They might be from a warped mind? I just see a bleak future, and too many "Hay I'm doing fine--what's the problem?")
• emodendroket 10y ago
  > Uhhh, how about "suck it up and do it anyway"? Why don't these dummies just forego income for months or years to get training for new careers that they may or may not even be able to enter?
  • Trundle 10y ago
    >Why don't these dummies just forego income for months or years to get training for new careers that they may or may not even be able to enter? Applies to everyone that enters a skilled trade/profession, not specifically drivers.
• TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > Uhhh, how about "suck it up and do it anyway"? You have it backwards. Humans have always had to suck it up because this is the default, natural state. But one would think in XXI century we could do better. That we can show some civilization, some compassion, instead of telling the unfortunate among us that they should suck it up. They're not our slaves to be forced into productive jobs, or resources to be used up and discarded. They're human beings - with dreams, fears and hopes. The deserve some help, or at least, some consideration. (Not to mention, the next day it may be us who will need the same.) EDIT: changed to sound less personal - it wasn't my intention for it to sound like it was aimed at the OP.
  • Trundle 10y ago
    >They're not our slaves to be forced into productive jobs Slaves no but being forced in to productive jobs is the whole point of tying income to market demands. A force which effects us all not just taxi drivers. >The deserve some help Sure. Financial aid to reskill. Unemployment benefits while they job hunt. Hell, as I said, I'm for a basic income presuming I get to not work alongside the ex-taxi drivers. Help doesn't need to come in the form of specific regulations to allow a minority of people to perform unwanted work in exchange for income.
    • pitaa 10y ago
      This whole thing reminds me of my favorite Heinlein quote: “There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.”
  • IsaacL 10y ago
    The taxi drivers in this story are not being "forced into jobs". They're forcing others (app developers) to give them money. Or they're forcing customers to use their services over someone else. Don't equivocate on the word "force". If you get the government to make people do things, that's force. If people aren't giving you money they are not "forcing" you to work for your money.
• rayiner 10y ago
  The purpose of government isn't to facilitate innovation or make life easier for professionals. It's to, basically, maximize the welfare of the middle 51%. The former is often a means to an end for the latter, but it's just that.