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Isn't this just a problem of living in an efficient, globalised society? In an efficient global economy, most of the middle class won't be required, because fra

Isn't this just a problem of living in an efficient, globalised society? In an efficient global economy, most of the middle class won't be required, because frankly, most of those jobs are useless and shouldn't even exist in the first place. We'll need the "low level" jobs, e.g. cleaners. Given the cost of automation, it's just not interesting enough to automate this. We'll also need the high level jobs, e.g. anything that requires significant (creative) thinking to some extent. Unique creative thought is probably the only thing that can't be automated at the moment. Most traditional middle class jobs can easily be simplified / removed / etc. For each job that's created in software development, two traditional ones will disappear. We're optimising the world. Tl;dr: Most people, imo, haven't realised the world is changing. The people voting Trump / UKIP / Brexit / Le Pen are (unless someone gives me a good argument) fools for thinking the people they elect can actually change things. I'm not saying they haven't been left behind, or there are no legit concerns, but to think these people can change things.. that's just ridiculous. For example: I dare say Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about what he had to do to get elected. He picked out 5 or 10 focus groups that would give him the necessary votes to win, and focused on those. He won't deliver. He just wanted to be president.

slurry 9y ago
Your comment assumes that Trump/Brexit/Le Pen voters are trying to "do something" with their votes. What if they're just trying to do as much damage as possible, knowing the system has it out for them?
golemotron 9y ago
> For example: I dare say Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about what he had to do to get elected. He picked out 5 or 10 focus groups that would give him the necessary votes to win, and focused on those. He won't deliver. He just wanted to be president. It's weird that we tend to assume people are stupid or disingenuous when we disagree with them. Trump has been on the receiving end of a lot of that and in the case of economics it's easily debunked. He was a supporter of Ross Perot in the 90s, and nearly ran for Perot's Reform party. For those too young to remember, Perot's primary issue was protection for American jobs. The interesting is that, as international businessmen, both Perot and Trump were in more of a position to make money internationally than under the protectionist rules they pushed. When you realize that it looks a little less like self-interest. There are many reasons to dislike Trump but it doesn't do any good to minimize him. In fact, it's counter-productive. You counter your opponent by really knowing him.

slurry 9y ago

Your comment assumes that Trump/Brexit/Le Pen voters are trying to "do something" with their votes. What if they're just trying to do as much damage as possible, knowing the system has it out for them?

golemotron 9y ago

> For example: I dare say Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about what he had to do to get elected. He picked out 5 or 10 focus groups that would give him the necessary votes to win, and focused on those. He won't deliver. He just wanted to be president. It's weird that we tend to assume people are stupid or disingenuous when we disagree with them. Trump has been on the receiving end of a lot of that and in the case of economics it's easily debunked. He was a supporter of Ross Perot in the 90s, and nearly ran for Perot's Reform party. For those too young to remember, Perot's primary issue was protection for American jobs. The interesting is that, as international businessmen, both Perot and Trump were in more of a position to make money internationally than under the protectionist rules they pushed. When you realize that it looks a little less like self-interest. There are many reasons to dislike Trump but it doesn't do any good to minimize him. In fact, it's counter-productive. You counter your opponent by really knowing him.