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Consider a Trump voting factory worker who lost his job. There is nothing (besides his own pride) preventing him from taking up elder care, house cleaning, nurs

Consider a Trump voting factory worker who lost his job. There is nothing (besides his own pride) preventing him from taking up elder care, house cleaning, nursing or something similar. This is a necessary economic transition. As the article notes, a BI makes it easy for this person to avoid making the necessary transition into the pink collar economy. The result is that our elderly are not sufficiently cared for, our high skill labor has dirty houses, our patients don't get adequate nursing care, and similar things. Why should the elderly suffer without adequate care simply because this person's misguided pride is preventing him from taking on pink collar jobs?

wrsh07 10y ago
At some point there won't be jobs to transition to, though. How do humans survive when they simply aren't needed? (And how do we make them feel valued by society?)
- tarr11 10y ago
  How do you know that there won't be enough jobs?
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  If that day ever comes then perhaps a BI might be helpful. It'll certainly be cheap. Right now the problem we have is too little labor, not too much.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    Evidence? 95 million adult Americans are currently out of work. That doesn't sound like "too little" to me. What you really mean is "too few willing to do scut work for a pittance". That's an entirely different thing. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15000000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15000000
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      You realize that your number includes children, the disabled and retirees, right? It's not an entirely different thing that people are refusing work because they prefer the laziness that government programs enable. That's the whole point. BI only makes this problem worse.
      - Turing_Machine 10y ago
        The only "children" on that chart are those 16 and up (i.e., old enough to quit school and go to work). While there have been increases in retirees in recent years, that's not nearly enough to account for the spike on that chart.
eximius 10y ago
They won't make the transition anyway. They'd rather claim unemplpoyment.
Turing_Machine 10y ago
If you want people to join your "pink collar economy", you're going to have to pay them an adequate wage and provide decent working conditions. The days when people would work as personal servants in exchange for a crust of bread and a pile of straw to sleep on aren't coming back, nor should they, even for "Trump voting factory workers" (like Peter Thiel, you mean?). By the way, nursing is a skilled profession. Most nurses today have degrees in the subject and a significant number have advanced degrees. The ones who don't have degrees are almost all older women who went through a multi-year hospital training program (these used to be common, but are pretty rare today). Nursing isn't something that you can just walk into the day after you stop tightening bolts at the Ford plant.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  If you want people to join your "pink collar economy", you're going to have to pay them an adequate wage and provide decent working conditions. Alternately, we could just stop paying people to sit around being lazy. Here in India people fill these jobs and earn far less than what most western activists consider a "living wage". Why do you believe that the non-working Trump voters should be able to mooch off of the rest of society? Why do you believe social obligations go only one way?
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    Here in India people fill these jobs and earn far less than what most western activists consider a "living wage" That's nice. I prefer living in a first world country with a first world economy, myself. "Why do you believe that the non-working Trump voters should be able to mooch off of the rest of society?" Do you have any evidence that "Trump voters" are more likely to be on welfare than non-Trump voters? I will be quite surprised if you do (in fact, I'll be shocked).
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      http://wallstreetpit.com/89671-are-welfare-recipients-mostly-republican/ http://wallstreetpit.com/89671-are-welfare-recipients-mostly... 80% of those in public housing are Democrats. 74% of those receiving Medicaid are Democrats. 67% of those receiving food stamps are Democrats. "Trump voters"? Really?
big_youth 10y ago
I think your alternatives for a factory worker are interesting as they are jobs whose wages I know are being driven down by (often illegal) immigrant labor. House cleaning is the most notorious and has almost always been done by fresh off the boat immigrants for peanuts, I pay my mexican maid in Austin $75 in cash for a day of labor. Elder care pays employees a bit more but usually less than $10 an hr. How many jokes are there that maids or elder care nurses are from foreign nations? Just the other day I saw a Seinfeld episode where the elderly care taker was african and didn't speak english. Of your suggestions the only with decent pay is nursing which requires a degree and my mom constantly complains about the thousands of oversee nurses they fly over every year to drive down her wages. Similar to how Tech the employers complain about the huge talent shortage but don't pay competitive salaries and rather import labor. I don't know where I'm going with this other than to say that the Trump voters are justifiably angry at the WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM and suggesting the entire rust belt become house cleaners or personal aides is silly.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  We wouldn't be hiring immigrants to do these jobs if the jobs were automated away. That's the point. I understand that you feel an African woman should be prevented from economically competing with white men, but I don't really agree with that. I'm sure it feels very bad when people lose status relative to out-group members, but I don't consider the anger that result from this to be "justifiable".
  - benjohnson 10y ago
    >>I understand that you feel an African woman should be prevented from economically competing with white men In my opinion, you're intentionally misconstruing the previous poster in an attempt to discount their concerns as racist or sexist. The issue wasn't the race of the individuals, but the fact that a American was being displaced by someone who came outside of America. In my opinion, we can debate about levels of immigration with understanding.
    - areyousure 10y ago
olegkikin 10y ago
> elder care, house cleaning, nursing All of these will be automated as well. House cleaning first. It already started with Roomba and its clones.
synicalx 10y ago
Yeah right because there's a lot of skills from assembling engines that can easily be transferred over to wiping geriatric bums. Go and spend a few months doing all those jobs, then come back and re-read your post.

wrsh07 10y ago

At some point there won't be jobs to transition to, though. How do humans survive when they simply aren't needed? (And how do we make them feel valued by society?)

tarr11 10y ago
How do you know that there won't be enough jobs?
yummyfajitas 10y ago
If that day ever comes then perhaps a BI might be helpful. It'll certainly be cheap. Right now the problem we have is too little labor, not too much.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  Evidence? 95 million adult Americans are currently out of work. That doesn't sound like "too little" to me. What you really mean is "too few willing to do scut work for a pittance". That's an entirely different thing. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15000000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15000000
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    You realize that your number includes children, the disabled and retirees, right? It's not an entirely different thing that people are refusing work because they prefer the laziness that government programs enable. That's the whole point. BI only makes this problem worse.
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      The only "children" on that chart are those 16 and up (i.e., old enough to quit school and go to work). While there have been increases in retirees in recent years, that's not nearly enough to account for the spike on that chart.

eximius 10y ago

They won't make the transition anyway. They'd rather claim unemplpoyment.

Turing_Machine 10y ago

If you want people to join your "pink collar economy", you're going to have to pay them an adequate wage and provide decent working conditions. The days when people would work as personal servants in exchange for a crust of bread and a pile of straw to sleep on aren't coming back, nor should they, even for "Trump voting factory workers" (like Peter Thiel, you mean?). By the way, nursing is a skilled profession. Most nurses today have degrees in the subject and a significant number have advanced degrees. The ones who don't have degrees are almost all older women who went through a multi-year hospital training program (these used to be common, but are pretty rare today). Nursing isn't something that you can just walk into the day after you stop tightening bolts at the Ford plant.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
If you want people to join your "pink collar economy", you're going to have to pay them an adequate wage and provide decent working conditions. Alternately, we could just stop paying people to sit around being lazy. Here in India people fill these jobs and earn far less than what most western activists consider a "living wage". Why do you believe that the non-working Trump voters should be able to mooch off of the rest of society? Why do you believe social obligations go only one way?
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  Here in India people fill these jobs and earn far less than what most western activists consider a "living wage" That's nice. I prefer living in a first world country with a first world economy, myself. "Why do you believe that the non-working Trump voters should be able to mooch off of the rest of society?" Do you have any evidence that "Trump voters" are more likely to be on welfare than non-Trump voters? I will be quite surprised if you do (in fact, I'll be shocked).
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    http://wallstreetpit.com/89671-are-welfare-recipients-mostly-republican/ http://wallstreetpit.com/89671-are-welfare-recipients-mostly... 80% of those in public housing are Democrats. 74% of those receiving Medicaid are Democrats. 67% of those receiving food stamps are Democrats. "Trump voters"? Really?

big_youth 10y ago

I think your alternatives for a factory worker are interesting as they are jobs whose wages I know are being driven down by (often illegal) immigrant labor. House cleaning is the most notorious and has almost always been done by fresh off the boat immigrants for peanuts, I pay my mexican maid in Austin $75 in cash for a day of labor. Elder care pays employees a bit more but usually less than $10 an hr. How many jokes are there that maids or elder care nurses are from foreign nations? Just the other day I saw a Seinfeld episode where the elderly care taker was african and didn't speak english. Of your suggestions the only with decent pay is nursing which requires a degree and my mom constantly complains about the thousands of oversee nurses they fly over every year to drive down her wages. Similar to how Tech the employers complain about the huge talent shortage but don't pay competitive salaries and rather import labor. I don't know where I'm going with this other than to say that the Trump voters are justifiably angry at the WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM and suggesting the entire rust belt become house cleaners or personal aides is silly.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
We wouldn't be hiring immigrants to do these jobs if the jobs were automated away. That's the point. I understand that you feel an African woman should be prevented from economically competing with white men, but I don't really agree with that. I'm sure it feels very bad when people lose status relative to out-group members, but I don't consider the anger that result from this to be "justifiable".
- benjohnson 10y ago
  >>I understand that you feel an African woman should be prevented from economically competing with white men In my opinion, you're intentionally misconstruing the previous poster in an attempt to discount their concerns as racist or sexist. The issue wasn't the race of the individuals, but the fact that a American was being displaced by someone who came outside of America. In my opinion, we can debate about levels of immigration with understanding.
  - areyousure 10y ago

olegkikin 10y ago

> elder care, house cleaning, nursing All of these will be automated as well. House cleaning first. It already started with Roomba and its clones.

synicalx 10y ago

Yeah right because there's a lot of skills from assembling engines that can easily be transferred over to wiping geriatric bums. Go and spend a few months doing all those jobs, then come back and re-read your post.