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I 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 unde

I 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 ago
In theory the purpose of automation is humanitarian. In practice results vary.
sharkweek 10y ago
If 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 ago
  Very 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 ago
Is it because we are not ready to do away with capitalism as it becomes obsolete?
- wu-ikkyu 10y ago
  I 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.
random28345 10y ago
> we as a society don't understand that the purpose of automation is humanitarian. The purpose of automation is humanitarian in the same way that politicians serve the needs of their constituents, and police protect their communities. While I reap the positive benefits of all of the above, there are plenty of marginalized people who are harmed by exactly the same forces. In the gap between theory and reality, there's a lot of misery.
ssalazar 10y ago
> we as a society don't understand that the purpose of automation is humanitarian If "we as a society" don't understand the supposed purpose of something that we as a society are enacting, then that supposed purpose is academic and ultimately meaningless. There is no universal agency or purpose behind automation other than that of those who are building it, who to date have largely been capitalists and not utopians.
- wu-ikkyu 10y ago
  In the short term the so called "capitalists" may have received marginal profits by the selfish and stifling use of automation, just as a luddite may temporarily maintain their status quo by stifling automation. But in the long term, anything but humanitarian ends of automation will be self-defeating; that is the misunderstanding. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfXln4NCQAAN5z2.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfXln4NCQAAN5z2.jpg

nemo 10y ago

In theory the purpose of automation is humanitarian. In practice results vary.

sharkweek 10y ago

If 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 ago
Very 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 ago

Is it because we are not ready to do away with capitalism as it becomes obsolete?

wu-ikkyu 10y ago
I 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.

random28345 10y ago

> we as a society don't understand that the purpose of automation is humanitarian. The purpose of automation is humanitarian in the same way that politicians serve the needs of their constituents, and police protect their communities. While I reap the positive benefits of all of the above, there are plenty of marginalized people who are harmed by exactly the same forces. In the gap between theory and reality, there's a lot of misery.

ssalazar 10y ago

> we as a society don't understand that the purpose of automation is humanitarian If "we as a society" don't understand the supposed purpose of something that we as a society are enacting, then that supposed purpose is academic and ultimately meaningless. There is no universal agency or purpose behind automation other than that of those who are building it, who to date have largely been capitalists and not utopians.

wu-ikkyu 10y ago
In the short term the so called "capitalists" may have received marginal profits by the selfish and stifling use of automation, just as a luddite may temporarily maintain their status quo by stifling automation. But in the long term, anything but humanitarian ends of automation will be self-defeating; that is the misunderstanding. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfXln4NCQAAN5z2.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfXln4NCQAAN5z2.jpg