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The anti-innovation backlash is the most likely thing to happen. Today, politicians are winning the populace by lamenting on unfair trade deals, globalism and

by hbt 10y ago

The anti-innovation backlash is the most likely thing to happen. Today, politicians are winning the populace by lamenting on unfair trade deals, globalism and foreigners taking jobs. Those jobs are not coming back, if they are, certainly not to humans. We will see a growing class of people who are economically useless. (read Professor Yuval Noah Harari new book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Deus:_A_Brief_History_of_Tomorrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Deus:_A_Brief_History_of_... ) And, no, the answer is not basic income. It's intelligence augmentation. Intelligence is the only valuable currency nowadays and we are not acquiring enough of it fast enough compared to the machines. Our only tool for intelligence augmentation is still education. Not good enough at all. It's already impossible to keep up; let alone learn something from scratch at a late stage in life and be expected to contribute something significant enough to derive long term economic advantage that can't be taken by a machine or globalists. I think all other issues will fix themselves or reach a natural equilibrium (overpopulation, climate change etc.). But lack of intelligence is our doom.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
The anti-innovation backlash is here. Shiv Sena, the racist party of Maharashtra, has also been pushing luddism mixed with racism. No Biharis should get an auto driver license, and they want to stop technology (Uber, Ola) from allowing Biharis/etc to compete via other means. http://www.afternoondc.in/city-news/shiv-sena-mns-raise-red-flag-over-ola-uber-cabs/article_147645 http://www.afternoondc.in/city-news/shiv-sena-mns-raise-red-... http://www.newsgram.com/maharashtra-only-marathi-auto-drivers-to-receive-permit/ http://www.newsgram.com/maharashtra-only-marathi-auto-driver... There were even riots in my town. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/news/auto-strike-in-pune-turns-violent-cabs-attacked/article9056540.ece http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/news/auto-strike-... Terrorists (or "illegal armed groups" to use TechCrunch's euphamism) in Columbia and France have engaged in political violence to stop technology, and the government has sided with them. https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/ubers-colombian-speed-bumps/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/ubers-colombian-speed-bump... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3417215/Riot-police-called-Paris-taxi-drivers-torch-car-tyres-block-traffic-anti-Uber-protest-British-travellers-warned-expect-severe-delays-reaching-France.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3417215/Riot-police-... See also SF/NY attacking AirBnB. The anti-innovation backlash is a 2016 issue which we will hopefully resolve before 2076.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  I think your examples are a bit hyper-bolic. First, anti-innovation and anti-technology are two different things. Your parent seems to be referring to innovation in the tech innovation sense. Second, opposing specific companies that market themselves as the epitome of innovation (Uber, AirBnB) is not the same as being genuinely anti-innovation. It's possible to oppose specific (esp. business model!!!) innovations without adopting an anti-innovation or anti-technology mindset. I don't see anything particularly worrying about people opposing specific innovations -- especially innovations tied more to business innovation than technology innovation (e.g., human Ubers and AirBnB's). Municipalities opposed to sharing economy apps aren't blinding following some unsubstantiated populist sentiment. They typically have a different set of priorities and assessments, but it's not generally accurate to characterize those concerns as luddism. Anti-technology is much scarier than and very different from opposition to "sharing economy" apps. Conflating to two cheapens the meaning of anti-technology and makes it harder to oppose true luddism.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    I don't think anyone, besides maybe a few extreme environmentalists, is opposed to technology in the abstract. All luddism - including the original luddites - are opposed to specific technology that they believe harms them. The original luddites were manual weavers who were opposed to mechanical looms that did their job faster and better than they did. The modern luddites are lazy Marathi auto drivers who are opposed to Uber (or Biharis) outcompeting them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      > All luddism... All luddism to date. The article and GP are predicting something new -- a generally anti-technology sentiment. The post I replied to stated that such a sentiment is already here. I don't think opposition to Uber or AirBnB demonstrates the sort of general anti-technology or anti-innovation sentiment predicted by the article. It may very well be the case that this general sentiment arises out of a large confederation of people who have become obsolete for various reasons, who become generally anti-technology due to particular technologies ruining their lives. In fact, I grant you that this is the most probable scenario. But that sort of confederation doesn't exist in today's world, and there's plenty of opposition to Uber/AirBnB that is not motivated by luddism. Lazy Marathi auto drivers may oppose Uber, but they aren't the only critics. In fact, it's not even clear to me that taxi drivers are the most populous critics of Uber.
EGreg 10y ago
Why does everyone need to work and contribute to society intellectually? Throughout history it has not been the case. People will have to cooe with being consumers ALWAYS and producers MAYBE, sometimes.
bluetomcat 10y ago
> We will see a growing class of people who are economically useless. Should we build our society on the imperative that every citizen must be "economically useful"? If production of basic goods and services is automated to such a high degree that only a small portion of people are needed to develop and maintain this machinery, aren't we just creating artificial, unproductive niches by trying to employ every citizen?
- branchless 10y ago
  There are two types of economically useless people: 1. those superseded by tech who are incapable of adding "value" as defined by our current economy 2. those using the state to appropriate labour, such as banks using their monopoly on credit creation to force up land prices to extract labour We should be focusing on taxing rentier activity to provide for the former in order to obliterate the latter. Land value tax must be used to fund a basic income.

by hbt 10y ago

yummyfajitas 10y ago

The anti-innovation backlash is here. Shiv Sena, the racist party of Maharashtra, has also been pushing luddism mixed with racism. No Biharis should get an auto driver license, and they want to stop technology (Uber, Ola) from allowing Biharis/etc to compete via other means. http://www.afternoondc.in/city-news/shiv-sena-mns-raise-red-flag-over-ola-uber-cabs/article_147645 http://www.afternoondc.in/city-news/shiv-sena-mns-raise-red-... http://www.newsgram.com/maharashtra-only-marathi-auto-drivers-to-receive-permit/ http://www.newsgram.com/maharashtra-only-marathi-auto-driver... There were even riots in my town. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/news/auto-strike-in-pune-turns-violent-cabs-attacked/article9056540.ece http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/news/auto-strike-... Terrorists (or "illegal armed groups" to use TechCrunch's euphamism) in Columbia and France have engaged in political violence to stop technology, and the government has sided with them. https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/ubers-colombian-speed-bumps/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/ubers-colombian-speed-bump... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3417215/Riot-police-called-Paris-taxi-drivers-torch-car-tyres-block-traffic-anti-Uber-protest-British-travellers-warned-expect-severe-delays-reaching-France.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3417215/Riot-police-... See also SF/NY attacking AirBnB. The anti-innovation backlash is a 2016 issue which we will hopefully resolve before 2076.

throwaway729 10y ago
I think your examples are a bit hyper-bolic. First, anti-innovation and anti-technology are two different things. Your parent seems to be referring to innovation in the tech innovation sense. Second, opposing specific companies that market themselves as the epitome of innovation (Uber, AirBnB) is not the same as being genuinely anti-innovation. It's possible to oppose specific (esp. business model!!!) innovations without adopting an anti-innovation or anti-technology mindset. I don't see anything particularly worrying about people opposing specific innovations -- especially innovations tied more to business innovation than technology innovation (e.g., human Ubers and AirBnB's). Municipalities opposed to sharing economy apps aren't blinding following some unsubstantiated populist sentiment. They typically have a different set of priorities and assessments, but it's not generally accurate to characterize those concerns as luddism. Anti-technology is much scarier than and very different from opposition to "sharing economy" apps. Conflating to two cheapens the meaning of anti-technology and makes it harder to oppose true luddism.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I don't think anyone, besides maybe a few extreme environmentalists, is opposed to technology in the abstract. All luddism - including the original luddites - are opposed to specific technology that they believe harms them. The original luddites were manual weavers who were opposed to mechanical looms that did their job faster and better than they did. The modern luddites are lazy Marathi auto drivers who are opposed to Uber (or Biharis) outcompeting them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > All luddism... All luddism to date. The article and GP are predicting something new -- a generally anti-technology sentiment. The post I replied to stated that such a sentiment is already here. I don't think opposition to Uber or AirBnB demonstrates the sort of general anti-technology or anti-innovation sentiment predicted by the article. It may very well be the case that this general sentiment arises out of a large confederation of people who have become obsolete for various reasons, who become generally anti-technology due to particular technologies ruining their lives. In fact, I grant you that this is the most probable scenario. But that sort of confederation doesn't exist in today's world, and there's plenty of opposition to Uber/AirBnB that is not motivated by luddism. Lazy Marathi auto drivers may oppose Uber, but they aren't the only critics. In fact, it's not even clear to me that taxi drivers are the most populous critics of Uber.

EGreg 10y ago

Why does everyone need to work and contribute to society intellectually? Throughout history it has not been the case. People will have to cooe with being consumers ALWAYS and producers MAYBE, sometimes.

bluetomcat 10y ago

> We will see a growing class of people who are economically useless. Should we build our society on the imperative that every citizen must be "economically useful"? If production of basic goods and services is automated to such a high degree that only a small portion of people are needed to develop and maintain this machinery, aren't we just creating artificial, unproductive niches by trying to employ every citizen?

branchless 10y ago
There are two types of economically useless people: 1. those superseded by tech who are incapable of adding "value" as defined by our current economy 2. those using the state to appropriate labour, such as banks using their monopoly on credit creation to force up land prices to extract labour We should be focusing on taxing rentier activity to provide for the former in order to obliterate the latter. Land value tax must be used to fund a basic income.