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I imagine this feels slightly worse than training your replacement in a different country, where the labor is cheaper, which is something I have done before. At
by sharkweek 10y ago
I imagine this feels slightly worse than training your replacement in a different country, where the labor is cheaper, which is something I have done before. At least in that case, another human is making a living.
- jstanley 10y agoWhy not just leave without training your replacement? You're going to be leaving anyway.
- tryitnow 10y agoI'm guessing that's not a realistic option for people in jobs where automation is taking place. The companies that would otherwise hire them are probably automating or planning to automate. If they have the resources, then retraining themselves for another job might be worthwhile, but just leaving their current job probably won't help them much.
- sharkweek 10y agoSeverance payouts
- fuzzybeard 10y agoYour severance package is dependent on your training your replacement. We're talking months worth of pay which is nothing to sneeze at since you have nothing to gain from walking away from that severance.
- dsp1234 10y agoAnother way to think about this is that, depending upon how long of a notice they give, that severance could be equivalent to double or triple pay to train a replacement. If you're going to leave anyways, then what incentive is there to say no to getting that double or triple pay
- gnaritas 10y agoBesides severance, there's unemployment which you can't claim if you quit.
- wu-ikkyu 10y agoI don't mean to bash you because it is a valid point considering the current state of affairs, but this comment really highlights how we as a society don't understand that the purpose of automation is humanitarian.
- nemo 10y agoIn theory the purpose of automation is humanitarian. In practice results vary.
- sharkweek 10y agoIf I truly believed that automation, especially in the short term, would include UBI or some other social safety nets, I'd be far more optimistic about this. I'm nervous that in the short term, fewer people will continue to get very rich, and more people will fall out of the middle class.
- alexbecker 10y agoVery much this. HN seems not to appreciate that jobs are our only currently accepted mechanism for distributing wealth on the scale necessary for our current society. If automation removes them, sure, it will increase net productivity (at least until the poor masses destroy the machines). But if we lose distribution in the process, it's an enormous loss.
- laughingman2 10y agoIs it because we are not ready to do away with capitalism as it becomes obsolete?
- wu-ikkyu 10y agoI think Dr. King said it well back in 1967: >we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. >A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.