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As the article mentions, the pie needs to be better distributed. The pie will not shrink. McDonalds will be selling the same amount of burgers if not more, but

As the article mentions, the pie needs to be better distributed. The pie will not shrink. McDonalds will be selling the same amount of burgers if not more, but the profits will have to be distributed to people who can not find work.

ianmcgowan 10y ago
Who will buy the burgers? This point seems so obvious, it's almost an axiom - if (unemployment >= 0.5) { sales = sales * 0.5; } People point to previous paradigm shifts and "mass unemployment didn't happen then". But what if this time is different? For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Is it better to be the CEO of McDonalds in a post-scarcity world with UBI (paying high marginal tax rates), or the head warlord in your own personal Mogadishu?
- godelski 10y ago
  And you captured a key point in my argument. "What IF this time is different?" That's the concern. It is naive to think that possibility doesn't exist. And if that possibility exists we should investigate and prepare for that possible future. That future doesn't happen, wasted some time preparing (but learned some stuff along the way). But if that future happens you smooth the transition.
godelski 10y ago
Well what I'm saying is with the IR the pie grew. There were more jobs. Or think of the cotton gin. Intention was to reduce slave labor but it brought more because price went down and demand went up. The different here is that instead you are replacing workers with automata. So if a machine can do half the amount of a human, but is a third the price, and demand increases you buy more machines, not more humans. That's the key difference. You buy more machines, not humans to meet demand increases. Obviously this is not going to be a universal thing and some sectors will be hit harder than others. But are we projecting 5 years or 50. It would be naive to think that there couldn't be a 10% unemployment in 50 years because of this stuff (not saying that it will happen, but that you have to consider that there's a nontrivial possibility). So you have to take the question seriously. IF that is where things are going, how do you transition smoothly?

ianmcgowan 10y ago

Who will buy the burgers? This point seems so obvious, it's almost an axiom - if (unemployment >= 0.5) { sales = sales * 0.5; } People point to previous paradigm shifts and "mass unemployment didn't happen then". But what if this time is different? For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Is it better to be the CEO of McDonalds in a post-scarcity world with UBI (paying high marginal tax rates), or the head warlord in your own personal Mogadishu?

godelski 10y ago
And you captured a key point in my argument. "What IF this time is different?" That's the concern. It is naive to think that possibility doesn't exist. And if that possibility exists we should investigate and prepare for that possible future. That future doesn't happen, wasted some time preparing (but learned some stuff along the way). But if that future happens you smooth the transition.

godelski 10y ago

Well what I'm saying is with the IR the pie grew. There were more jobs. Or think of the cotton gin. Intention was to reduce slave labor but it brought more because price went down and demand went up. The different here is that instead you are replacing workers with automata. So if a machine can do half the amount of a human, but is a third the price, and demand increases you buy more machines, not more humans. That's the key difference. You buy more machines, not humans to meet demand increases. Obviously this is not going to be a universal thing and some sectors will be hit harder than others. But are we projecting 5 years or 50. It would be naive to think that there couldn't be a 10% unemployment in 50 years because of this stuff (not saying that it will happen, but that you have to consider that there's a nontrivial possibility). So you have to take the question seriously. IF that is where things are going, how do you transition smoothly?