4 ms·

>But, like, there's no massive discontinuity in how likely people are to employ a cleaner (is there)? I'd expect that distribution to be a bell curve like anyth

>But, like, there's no massive discontinuity in how likely people are to employ a cleaner (is there)? I'd expect that distribution to be a bell curve like anything else Even if it was a bell curve (and I see no reason why reality ought to be that neat), there's no reason to suppose it doesn't just lead to slightly cleaner houses rather than fewer maids. > You already mentioned Roombas, and I mentioned LaundryBot Roombas are singularly unimpressive as a means of cleaning your house (I know of nobody who actually owns one, and the reviews on amazon are... only really impressiveif you are without stairs and have a pet hair problem). Googling laundrybot gives me some japanese thing invented in 2015 that costs $280,000 and, product-wise, doesn't seem to have gone anywhere since then. It's almost as if the automation hype isn't matching reality. I wouldn't be surprised if in 20 years time nothing has really changed in this space either. Roombas came out in 2002 - 16 years ago. Significant potential I'll be dead by the time a robot that can clean my toilet exists and I'm not exactly old.

lmm 9y ago
> there's no reason to suppose it doesn't just lead to slightly cleaner houses rather than fewer maids. If we assume people's willingness to hire a cleaner is a function of how dirty their house is (and how could it not be?) then the two are equivalent. The only way roombas could not be putting people out of work on the margin is if there's some sort of mysterious discontinuity, and why would we assume such a thing?
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >If we assume people's willingness to hire a cleaner is a function of how dirty their house is (and how could it not be?) Because: a) lots and lots and lots of people clean their own house and maybe they're the ones buying the vast majority of the roombas, not people with maids. b) just because your roomba cleans up your pet hair really well upstairs doesn't necessarily mean you will want your cleaner to stop coming on tuesdays. c) tolerance for dirt to me seems like a textbook example of something that has a high demand elasticity
  - lmm 9y ago
    > lots and lots and lots of people clean their own house and maybe they're the ones buying the vast majority of the roombas, not people with maids Surely the one substitutes for the other. The thought "I'm spending longer than I want to cleaning, and my house still isn't as clean as I'd like, and I've had more money lately, I can afford to..." could be completed "hire a cleaner" or "buy a roomba". > tolerance for dirt to me seems like a textbook example of something that has a high demand elasticity What do you mean? Different people will have their threshold in different places, certainly, and the amount they're willing to pay will vary, but I don't see how that changes anything. I'm generally struggling to understand what your model is here. Are you saying people make the decision about whether to hire a cleaner when they're born and then never change it?
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      >Surely the one substitutes for the other. If a roomba approximated a maid, perhaps. It very much does not. >I'm generally struggling to understand what your model is here. Are you saying people make the decision about whether to hire a cleaner when they're born and then never change it? No, I'm saying that: A) building a neoclassical economic model on this at all is pointless because of the assumptions you'd have to make. You've just tried to make about four assumptions in order to build your model and they weren't just poor assumptions, they were cringeworthy assumptions. B) the total number of people who actually own roombas or roomba like devices suggests to me that the effect on cleaner employment is likely, in any case, to be < noise.
      - lmm 9y ago
        > If a roomba approximated a maid, perhaps. It very much does not. It fulfils some of the same functions, some of what some buyers are buying for. A milkshake is not a close approximation to a muffin, but McDonalds found that they did substitute for each other in terms of what people bought for breakfast. > A) building a neoclassical economic model on this at all is pointless because of the assumptions you'd have to make. You've just tried to make about four assumptions in order to build your model and they weren't just poor assumptions, they were cringeworthy assumptions. You're essentially saying "give up trying to understand the world", to which I can only respond "no" (compare the opening quote on http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/24/probabilities-without-models/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/24/probabilities-without-m... ). I think all the assumptions I gave were true and reasonable; if you can actually make a case for why any of them is wrong I will listen, but just dismissing them is not constructive.
cr0sh 9y ago
Roombas are great if you run them constantly and you have more than one in your house; but even a single one saves a ton of time and effort. What they "shine" at is keeping up on cleaning away surface dirt and such. Instead of needing to vacuum a couple of times each week, you just run the Roomba(s) a few times a day. It takes away a dull and difficult chore. Occasionally though, you do have to break out the vac for a deep clean (once a month or so) - and on the odd occasion the carpet cleaner for a good scrub. And you have to keep up on the cleaning/maintenance/emptying of the Roomba as well. But overall, at least for my family's household, having our Roombas have been a plus.

lmm 9y ago

> there's no reason to suppose it doesn't just lead to slightly cleaner houses rather than fewer maids. If we assume people's willingness to hire a cleaner is a function of how dirty their house is (and how could it not be?) then the two are equivalent. The only way roombas could not be putting people out of work on the margin is if there's some sort of mysterious discontinuity, and why would we assume such a thing?

crdoconnor 9y ago
>If we assume people's willingness to hire a cleaner is a function of how dirty their house is (and how could it not be?) Because: a) lots and lots and lots of people clean their own house and maybe they're the ones buying the vast majority of the roombas, not people with maids. b) just because your roomba cleans up your pet hair really well upstairs doesn't necessarily mean you will want your cleaner to stop coming on tuesdays. c) tolerance for dirt to me seems like a textbook example of something that has a high demand elasticity
- lmm 9y ago
  > lots and lots and lots of people clean their own house and maybe they're the ones buying the vast majority of the roombas, not people with maids Surely the one substitutes for the other. The thought "I'm spending longer than I want to cleaning, and my house still isn't as clean as I'd like, and I've had more money lately, I can afford to..." could be completed "hire a cleaner" or "buy a roomba". > tolerance for dirt to me seems like a textbook example of something that has a high demand elasticity What do you mean? Different people will have their threshold in different places, certainly, and the amount they're willing to pay will vary, but I don't see how that changes anything. I'm generally struggling to understand what your model is here. Are you saying people make the decision about whether to hire a cleaner when they're born and then never change it?
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    >Surely the one substitutes for the other. If a roomba approximated a maid, perhaps. It very much does not. >I'm generally struggling to understand what your model is here. Are you saying people make the decision about whether to hire a cleaner when they're born and then never change it? No, I'm saying that: A) building a neoclassical economic model on this at all is pointless because of the assumptions you'd have to make. You've just tried to make about four assumptions in order to build your model and they weren't just poor assumptions, they were cringeworthy assumptions. B) the total number of people who actually own roombas or roomba like devices suggests to me that the effect on cleaner employment is likely, in any case, to be < noise.
    - lmm 9y ago
      > If a roomba approximated a maid, perhaps. It very much does not. It fulfils some of the same functions, some of what some buyers are buying for. A milkshake is not a close approximation to a muffin, but McDonalds found that they did substitute for each other in terms of what people bought for breakfast. > A) building a neoclassical economic model on this at all is pointless because of the assumptions you'd have to make. You've just tried to make about four assumptions in order to build your model and they weren't just poor assumptions, they were cringeworthy assumptions. You're essentially saying "give up trying to understand the world", to which I can only respond "no" (compare the opening quote on http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/24/probabilities-without-models/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/24/probabilities-without-m... ). I think all the assumptions I gave were true and reasonable; if you can actually make a case for why any of them is wrong I will listen, but just dismissing them is not constructive.

cr0sh 9y ago

Roombas are great if you run them constantly and you have more than one in your house; but even a single one saves a ton of time and effort. What they "shine" at is keeping up on cleaning away surface dirt and such. Instead of needing to vacuum a couple of times each week, you just run the Roomba(s) a few times a day. It takes away a dull and difficult chore. Occasionally though, you do have to break out the vac for a deep clean (once a month or so) - and on the odd occasion the carpet cleaner for a good scrub. And you have to keep up on the cleaning/maintenance/emptying of the Roomba as well. But overall, at least for my family's household, having our Roombas have been a plus.