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But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. What you're getting at is that

But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. What you're getting at is that there are many people right now who are too poor (and are going to be too poor) to ever own any part of the robots. This century's great debate is forming up to be whether or not we should give them some anyway even though they can't "earn" it for whatever moving value of earn society is currently accepting.

baby 9y ago
In a few centuries students in history classes will look back and try to understand why we let our people die in the streets.
- potatolicious 9y ago
  I too am afraid that our future descendants will look at our actions with disdain. But I am even more afraid that our future descendants will live in the same rampant callousness and cruelty that we've created and perpetuated. If they live in a better world than ours and look at us like savages, then I think overall things will have gone pretty well.
- drharby 9y ago
  I disagree
  - dvdhnt 9y ago
    Care to elaborate?
    - drharby 9y ago
      They didn't - so no
- piracykills 9y ago
  I don't think so, reading real statistics on this kind of thing instead of alarmist and politically slanted headlines paints a very different picture of how the world is doing. https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    As global average quality of life trends upward, the American lower and middle class are dying quietly in the streets. https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/12/21/572080314/life-expectancy-drops-again-as-opioid-deaths-surge-in-u-s https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/12/21/5720803...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - piracykills 9y ago
      That's a very niche problem in comparison - we're talking hundreds of millions of people leaving poverty across the globe compared to under hundreds of thousands dying of opioid overdoses. Perhaps it's because I'm not American, but I just don't find it that concerning when put into the larger picture.
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Perhaps you not finding it concerning emphasizes the problem. As an American, it greatly concerns me. It’s also why populism and nationalism have taken hold in first world countries.
        piracykills 9y ago
        That some tiny portion of the deaths in your country are from opioid overdoses? People voluntarily injecting themselves with drugs and fucking up? Why exactly does this concern you so much? It's hard to see it as representative of a larger systemic problem beyond the American drug enforcement and medical systems resulting in over-prescription of opioids and fenantly entering common usage. Not much beyond that, is there? I don't see a larger trend to extrapolate from that.
- Domenic_S 9y ago
  Who is dying in the street in substantial numbers?
  - bitwize 9y ago
    Go to San Francisco. You'll meet them.
    - Notorious_BLT 9y ago
      You mean the progressive city that still refuses to build housing?
  - ItsMe000001 9y ago
    Poor people die earlier. More importantly though their quality of life sucks, especially in a country with tens of millions without health insurance. They may have rotten teeth and loads of stress, but hey, they are not dead yet so what's the problem? Sorry that it's all The Guardian but they had a series that I happened to remember, and I think that publication has a good enough reputation: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-extreme-poverty-un-special-rapporteur https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-extr... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/21/sequester-cuts-make-america-third-world-country https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/21/seques... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/01/un-extreme-poverty-america-special-rapporteur https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/01/un-extreme-pov... Of course, if we find the slightest mistake or hyperbole (if there even is any) in an article or comment about the plight of the poor we can discuss THAT instead and dismiss the entire thought. Another form of bike-shedding, instead of using good faith for the discussion use every tiny opening of the "opponent" to sidetrack the discussion and to dismiss the issue. So, where are the people of the masses of dying in the streets? None? Even in San Francisco they look shabby but very much still alive? Well, case closed I guess.
    - Domenic_S 9y ago
      You're moving the goalposts. The person I replied to implied that people are literally dying in the gutters, so of course future humans will look at us with genuine confusion -- who steps over a dying person in the street? How does that make sense? It trivializes the problem and handwaves away the millions of people who help the poor/homeless, and the millions of dollars we spend on that. If future historians look at any part of this with confusion, it'll be the part where we ignore mental health and think dumping cash/housing/whatever on a person will solve everything.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ekianjo 9y ago
  we just halved poverty in the world in the past 20 years. Time to check your facts again.
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    halved != eradicated. Given the incredible amount of energy and resources being wasted by some of the richest countries this level of inequality is far from acceptable.
- progval 9y ago
  You're assuming it will get better in the future.
- pascalxus 9y ago
  SF spends 240 million dollars every year to help the homeless. That's more than most city's entire budget. The reason that money doesn't help anyone is because it won't go very far in a city where housing costs 2000$ per square foot. And it really doesn't need to be like this at all. It's an entirely man made disaster of colossal proportions. There's plenty of blame to go around. You can thank all the NIMBYs and countless housing regulations that prevent cost effective shelter from being created. It's within our technological power to create housing for a tiny fraction of what it costs today in SF: just look at the tiny house movement. Just imagine how much cheaper it would be if something like that was built but stackable. Housing, A potentially multi-trillion dollar industry, completely unassailable, very few companies or investors are investing in this, all thanks to: Regulation. Regulations and land use policy hamstring developers, increasing costs endlessly. Instead of working against them, we should be working with them to streamline and reduce their costs and finding ways to create more competition between them, to ensure that people get the very lowest prices. It can be done. Places like Dallas are growing every bit as quickly as SF/bay area and can still create housing for 100$/sq foot. I suspect even lower prices are possible with the removal of regulation: which would finally allow humanity to innovate in this area, rather than creating yet more cat video apps. This harmful idea that real estate is something that should go up and up forever is wrong: morally and economically. In a world that is progressing, things should be getting cheaper, even real-estate. Right now, your options in SF are a 200$ tent under a bridge or a 2 million dollar condo. There, really ought to be more options between those two extremes.
  - CobrastanJorji 9y ago
    > just look at the tiny house movement. Just imagine how much cheaper it would be if something like that was built but stackable. Say, did you ever read or see "Ready Player One"?
    - pascalxus 9y ago
      I see your point. but, I'd rather live in a small apartment trailer (which could have heating, water, electricity, etc) than a tent.
TaylorAlexander 9y ago
I think there are some differences between owning stock and owning the machines. Stock gives you abstract control through voting, and the board has much more power than you. When you own the machine, you can physically operate it yourself. It’s like owning a car versus owning stock in Uber - when you own a car you reap the benefits of cheap travel much more directly and in a very different way than getting a dividend check. I think stock schemes can work as an abstraction, but only when combined with other bylaws that grant clear powers to shareholders (like a bill of rights). I write a little about that in one of my speculative fiction stories on automated society here: http://tlalexander.com/corporation/ http://tlalexander.com/corporation/
- noonespecial 9y ago
  >When you own the machine, you can physically operate it yourself. Can I? I've got no clue how to run a Kiva, I just know that somewhere, there's one making me a few pennies right now being run and maintained by people who know what they're doing.
  - TaylorAlexander 9y ago
    Following the car analogy, many people don’t know how to change their oil, but they could if they wanted. That is a freedom a piece of normal stock does not give you. If your stock truly represented an equal share of the operation, you could work with other shareholders and manage the local warehouse to your liking. It sounds like you’re satisfied with Amazon, so perhaps you won’t get involved. But it would give the warehouse workers a voice if they felt they were being abused.
    - noonespecial 9y ago
      I'm not exactly disagreeing. I'd absolutely explicitly dump my Amazon (the whole mutual fund its in actually) if a robot-owning stock with a "shareholder bill of rights" as you describe existed. A product/brand independent "means of production" type investment is an interesting idea. It still doesn't fix the fact that there are people who are just never going to have the resources to buy into such a thing, which I think is really the core of the issue.
arielweisberg 9y ago
That assumes the profits go to the shareholders. I don't think that's a safe assumption and I don't think that will necessarily persist.
aylmao 9y ago
> But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. Is it though? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't stock only generates value if it increases in price (or the company decides it wants to pay dividends), and not directly from the productivity of robots? To put it a bit more clearly, your stock only makes you money if Amazon keeps growing. Let say Amazon were to reach a theoretical maximum size: profits and value stop growing. It would still generate massive amounts of money but would it be obliged to give you a cut of it?
- shamsalmon 9y ago
  Due to population increase the revenues would grow. When a company stops growing and increasing revenue its not keeping up with population increase and may as well be dying. There are also stocks with high dividends, which are paid out based on profit and not by the stock increasing in value. This is obviously ignoring the fact many people either make horrible financial decision or are too poor to invest in stocks.
  - aylmao 9y ago
    > Due to population increase the revenues would grow. When a company stops growing and increasing revenue its not keeping up with population increase and may as well be dying. I'd like to retort this because I think it's important to have a bit of perspective here: 1. Population growth doesn't imply market growth. If I sell polio treatment, my market are the number of people with polio, which thankfully hasn't been correlated with population growth. 2. Market growth doesn't imply revenue growth. Competition. 3. Revenue growth doesn't imply profit growth. Say, for example, I run a company building cheap computers for the children of low-income families. As I move into new countries and expand my revenue I might want to, instead of increasing profits, make my computers cheaper so more children have access to them. 2 and 3 are usually not true when companies are trying to maximize profits, but I don't think 1 should be at all rare. Anyway, this is besides where the discussion was meant to go, but thought I'd share.
- eberkund 9y ago
  If it stops growing and the "massive amounts of money" it generates result in a profit, then shareholders like the parent could vote that the company starts paying dividends to shareholders. So to answer your question: Yes.
SubiculumCode 9y ago
With truly advanced multi-purpose robots (like in sci-fi), it would take just one donation of a robot to a charity to start a 'robot self-replication for poverty movement', where one robot build another with its own labor, doubling, and doubling again, until every down and out has their own pool of robotic laborers.
- bbddg 9y ago
  This implies a world with unlimited energy and natural resources?
  - SubiculumCode 9y ago
    I didn't mean to imply doubling forever. Also, yes I assumed that the robot would have to be employed at least initially to earn a wage, so that it could buy materials and components off alibaba.
    - bbddg 9y ago
      How much do you think raw materials are going to cost in a world with free labor? What's to stop rich people from just buying up all the resources? With free labor they can use as much resources as they get their hands on. There are structural problems in our society that cannot be solved with new technology.
      - SubiculumCode 9y ago
        Space is big. The asteroid belt plus robotics. There is a lot of energy from the sun. There is a lot of iron.
        bbddg 9y ago
        Fully Automated Space Communism.
ihm 9y ago
Around 80% of stock is owned by the top 10% wealthiest individuals[1]. More recent work[2] puts the percentage even higher. You might own some of the robots but most people don't. [1]: https://appam.confex.com/appam/2012/webprogram/ExtendedAbstract/Paper2134/Wealth%20Trends%201962%20to%202010%20Sept%202012%20Version%20WOLFF.pdf https://appam.confex.com/appam/2012/webprogram/ExtendedAbstr... [2]: http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-richest/ http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-ric...
- gimmeDatCheddar 9y ago
  But you know what most people DO own? Unnecessary consumer debt that stunts their ability to save and invest. When the average car payment in America is around $500 a month, it's clear evidence that people have a spending problem rather than an income problem. Here's an idea: Teach people not to finance $500 worth of car each month (plus gas, plus insurance, plus maintenance, plus healthcare costs) and suddenly people will be able to amass multiple millions of dollars in investments over their working career.
  - hfdgiutdryg 9y ago
    Teach people not to finance $500 worth of car each month (plus gas, plus insurance, plus maintenance How? Keep in mind, I drive a car I bought for $1700 cash and I've restored and maintained it with my own hands. Most people don't have the time, knowledge, tools, or space to maintain an older car, so a new car with a warranty is a smart move. New cars are safer and more fuel efficient. They last longer than ever before. Not having a car is not an option for most Americans. I don't see how a car payment is indicative of poor decision-making.
    - gimmeDatCheddar 9y ago
      You can buy excellent cars that will last a long time for far less than $500 a month. $500 a month for much more car than you need is a very poor decision because you can get by with much less and invest the rest.
    - 9y ago
progval 9y ago
> I have Amazon stock in my 401k. It's weird seeing someone writing this in a thread about how Amazon exploits its workers for profits (ie. in part for its shareholders).
- rwmj 9y ago
  As a thought experiment I wonder if it will be better or worse when Amazon eventually automates all those jobs (yes, maybe even the programmers' jobs one day).
- noonespecial 9y ago
  Its not lost on me... I first thought "those bastards", then had a flash of insight, checked the breakdown of the biggest mutual fund I'm invested in and realized, I'm one of them.
gimmeDatCheddar 9y ago
The average working class American is financing their car. The average car payment is $500. That is way too much car, yet people are financing that. Over the average working career, this $500 per month represents a foregone multi-million dollar net worth at retirement. So the average working class American is poor or struggling for cash not because of income issues, but because of spending issues. We have a spending problem in this country. If everyone working in Amazon's warehouses prioritized wise financial decisions, like not financing a car for $500 a month or more, they'd be able to demand better work conditions because they wouldn't be as dependent on the job. Amazon needs to do better, but working class Americans also need to do better with their finances so they don't spend themselves into awful situations like this. Ultimately the idea that the average working class American will never be able to afford stock is just a fairy tale peddled by Marxists. The average working class American is more than capable of amassing a multi million dollar net worth by retirement by making wise decisions and investing, instead of crapping away all their income on things they don't actually need.
- burke 9y ago
  > Americans also need to do better Blaming any problem of this magnitude on individuals is not reasonable. There's a systemic pressure toward overspending through advertising, etc., and we've created a society where many people make an amount of money, that, if spent "wisely", procures a stressful and unfulfilling existence. Clearly Marxism is not the right solution: our system isn't inherently and completely broken, but it needs adjustment. I think Piketty has the right idea. A progressive tax on capital would do a lot to equalize this inequality — if we could ever amass the political will to implement it — though it wouldn't correct our current situation where everyone is constantly manipulated to think they'll be happy if only they buy this one more object.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    > Blaming any problem of this magnitude on individuals is not reasonable. This is just anecdotal, but I see this a LOT. The stubborn insistence that blame is paramount in any discussion and that the world should be made fair before action can be taken to improve one's life is a pretty substantial barrier to said improvement. Sometimes the deck is stacked, and working on unstacking the deck can happen in parallel with reacting to the world as it is now. Out of college, I had friends who made half as much as me and spent twice as much; income aside, we were both exposed to pretty much exactly the same environment, and somehow we made purchasing decisions that were completely swapped from what you'd expect. As the parent comment said, "Amazon needs to do better" too, but putting personal behavior outside of the realm of control of the individual isn't helping anyone, it's harming them. I agree with your general point that simply wishing that people would do better for a behavorial issue at this scale is unlikely to do much, but I don't think that's implied by the GP comment's suggestion. There have been successful campaigns to cause large-scale behavioral shifts before[1], and recognizing personal choice as a potential mechanism of improvement doesn't mean we can't approach the problem in an intentional, structural manner. Just an aside, but in all of this I'm taking on faith the power of advertising that the HN community at large seems to consistently think that we're helpless before; this has never been my experience; I don't care much about ads, I don't see any mechanism in which they could drive my purchase decisions, etc etc. To wit, I buy the cheapest option (that I haven't already tried and disliked) for cheap items and extensively research medium to high priced ones. There's no question that brand advertising affects my level of brand awareness, but it's _really_ not difficult at all to remove that factor from your purchasing decisions. If anything, my prior would be that all the people who blindly purchase based on brand awareness are shifting the value prop towards brands that are _less_ well-known, since theoretically they need to compete on something else (price, features, quality, whatever). [1] Spend any time with Europeans and you'll appreciate how impressive the American anti-smoking campaign was.
bbddg 9y ago
Well maybe the problem is that you own part of the company instead of the people who actually work there.

baby 9y ago

In a few centuries students in history classes will look back and try to understand why we let our people die in the streets.

potatolicious 9y ago
I too am afraid that our future descendants will look at our actions with disdain. But I am even more afraid that our future descendants will live in the same rampant callousness and cruelty that we've created and perpetuated. If they live in a better world than ours and look at us like savages, then I think overall things will have gone pretty well.
drharby 9y ago
I disagree
- dvdhnt 9y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - drharby 9y ago
    They didn't - so no
piracykills 9y ago
I don't think so, reading real statistics on this kind of thing instead of alarmist and politically slanted headlines paints a very different picture of how the world is doing. https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  As global average quality of life trends upward, the American lower and middle class are dying quietly in the streets. https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/12/21/572080314/life-expectancy-drops-again-as-opioid-deaths-surge-in-u-s https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/12/21/5720803...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - piracykills 9y ago
    That's a very niche problem in comparison - we're talking hundreds of millions of people leaving poverty across the globe compared to under hundreds of thousands dying of opioid overdoses. Perhaps it's because I'm not American, but I just don't find it that concerning when put into the larger picture.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      Perhaps you not finding it concerning emphasizes the problem. As an American, it greatly concerns me. It’s also why populism and nationalism have taken hold in first world countries.
      - piracykills 9y ago
        That some tiny portion of the deaths in your country are from opioid overdoses? People voluntarily injecting themselves with drugs and fucking up? Why exactly does this concern you so much? It's hard to see it as representative of a larger systemic problem beyond the American drug enforcement and medical systems resulting in over-prescription of opioids and fenantly entering common usage. Not much beyond that, is there? I don't see a larger trend to extrapolate from that.
Domenic_S 9y ago
Who is dying in the street in substantial numbers?
- bitwize 9y ago
  Go to San Francisco. You'll meet them.
  - Notorious_BLT 9y ago
    You mean the progressive city that still refuses to build housing?
- ItsMe000001 9y ago
  Poor people die earlier. More importantly though their quality of life sucks, especially in a country with tens of millions without health insurance. They may have rotten teeth and loads of stress, but hey, they are not dead yet so what's the problem? Sorry that it's all The Guardian but they had a series that I happened to remember, and I think that publication has a good enough reputation: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-extreme-poverty-un-special-rapporteur https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-extr... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/21/sequester-cuts-make-america-third-world-country https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/21/seques... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/01/un-extreme-poverty-america-special-rapporteur https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/01/un-extreme-pov... Of course, if we find the slightest mistake or hyperbole (if there even is any) in an article or comment about the plight of the poor we can discuss THAT instead and dismiss the entire thought. Another form of bike-shedding, instead of using good faith for the discussion use every tiny opening of the "opponent" to sidetrack the discussion and to dismiss the issue. So, where are the people of the masses of dying in the streets? None? Even in San Francisco they look shabby but very much still alive? Well, case closed I guess.
  - Domenic_S 9y ago
    You're moving the goalposts. The person I replied to implied that people are literally dying in the gutters, so of course future humans will look at us with genuine confusion -- who steps over a dying person in the street? How does that make sense? It trivializes the problem and handwaves away the millions of people who help the poor/homeless, and the millions of dollars we spend on that. If future historians look at any part of this with confusion, it'll be the part where we ignore mental health and think dumping cash/housing/whatever on a person will solve everything.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 9y ago
we just halved poverty in the world in the past 20 years. Time to check your facts again.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  halved != eradicated. Given the incredible amount of energy and resources being wasted by some of the richest countries this level of inequality is far from acceptable.
progval 9y ago
You're assuming it will get better in the future.
pascalxus 9y ago
SF spends 240 million dollars every year to help the homeless. That's more than most city's entire budget. The reason that money doesn't help anyone is because it won't go very far in a city where housing costs 2000$ per square foot. And it really doesn't need to be like this at all. It's an entirely man made disaster of colossal proportions. There's plenty of blame to go around. You can thank all the NIMBYs and countless housing regulations that prevent cost effective shelter from being created. It's within our technological power to create housing for a tiny fraction of what it costs today in SF: just look at the tiny house movement. Just imagine how much cheaper it would be if something like that was built but stackable. Housing, A potentially multi-trillion dollar industry, completely unassailable, very few companies or investors are investing in this, all thanks to: Regulation. Regulations and land use policy hamstring developers, increasing costs endlessly. Instead of working against them, we should be working with them to streamline and reduce their costs and finding ways to create more competition between them, to ensure that people get the very lowest prices. It can be done. Places like Dallas are growing every bit as quickly as SF/bay area and can still create housing for 100$/sq foot. I suspect even lower prices are possible with the removal of regulation: which would finally allow humanity to innovate in this area, rather than creating yet more cat video apps. This harmful idea that real estate is something that should go up and up forever is wrong: morally and economically. In a world that is progressing, things should be getting cheaper, even real-estate. Right now, your options in SF are a 200$ tent under a bridge or a 2 million dollar condo. There, really ought to be more options between those two extremes.
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago
  > just look at the tiny house movement. Just imagine how much cheaper it would be if something like that was built but stackable. Say, did you ever read or see "Ready Player One"?
  - pascalxus 9y ago
    I see your point. but, I'd rather live in a small apartment trailer (which could have heating, water, electricity, etc) than a tent.

TaylorAlexander 9y ago

I think there are some differences between owning stock and owning the machines. Stock gives you abstract control through voting, and the board has much more power than you. When you own the machine, you can physically operate it yourself. It’s like owning a car versus owning stock in Uber - when you own a car you reap the benefits of cheap travel much more directly and in a very different way than getting a dividend check. I think stock schemes can work as an abstraction, but only when combined with other bylaws that grant clear powers to shareholders (like a bill of rights). I write a little about that in one of my speculative fiction stories on automated society here: http://tlalexander.com/corporation/ http://tlalexander.com/corporation/

noonespecial 9y ago
>When you own the machine, you can physically operate it yourself. Can I? I've got no clue how to run a Kiva, I just know that somewhere, there's one making me a few pennies right now being run and maintained by people who know what they're doing.
- TaylorAlexander 9y ago
  Following the car analogy, many people don’t know how to change their oil, but they could if they wanted. That is a freedom a piece of normal stock does not give you. If your stock truly represented an equal share of the operation, you could work with other shareholders and manage the local warehouse to your liking. It sounds like you’re satisfied with Amazon, so perhaps you won’t get involved. But it would give the warehouse workers a voice if they felt they were being abused.
  - noonespecial 9y ago
    I'm not exactly disagreeing. I'd absolutely explicitly dump my Amazon (the whole mutual fund its in actually) if a robot-owning stock with a "shareholder bill of rights" as you describe existed. A product/brand independent "means of production" type investment is an interesting idea. It still doesn't fix the fact that there are people who are just never going to have the resources to buy into such a thing, which I think is really the core of the issue.

arielweisberg 9y ago

That assumes the profits go to the shareholders. I don't think that's a safe assumption and I don't think that will necessarily persist.

aylmao 9y ago

> But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. Is it though? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't stock only generates value if it increases in price (or the company decides it wants to pay dividends), and not directly from the productivity of robots? To put it a bit more clearly, your stock only makes you money if Amazon keeps growing. Let say Amazon were to reach a theoretical maximum size: profits and value stop growing. It would still generate massive amounts of money but would it be obliged to give you a cut of it?

shamsalmon 9y ago
Due to population increase the revenues would grow. When a company stops growing and increasing revenue its not keeping up with population increase and may as well be dying. There are also stocks with high dividends, which are paid out based on profit and not by the stock increasing in value. This is obviously ignoring the fact many people either make horrible financial decision or are too poor to invest in stocks.
- aylmao 9y ago
  > Due to population increase the revenues would grow. When a company stops growing and increasing revenue its not keeping up with population increase and may as well be dying. I'd like to retort this because I think it's important to have a bit of perspective here: 1. Population growth doesn't imply market growth. If I sell polio treatment, my market are the number of people with polio, which thankfully hasn't been correlated with population growth. 2. Market growth doesn't imply revenue growth. Competition. 3. Revenue growth doesn't imply profit growth. Say, for example, I run a company building cheap computers for the children of low-income families. As I move into new countries and expand my revenue I might want to, instead of increasing profits, make my computers cheaper so more children have access to them. 2 and 3 are usually not true when companies are trying to maximize profits, but I don't think 1 should be at all rare. Anyway, this is besides where the discussion was meant to go, but thought I'd share.
eberkund 9y ago
If it stops growing and the "massive amounts of money" it generates result in a profit, then shareholders like the parent could vote that the company starts paying dividends to shareholders. So to answer your question: Yes.

SubiculumCode 9y ago

With truly advanced multi-purpose robots (like in sci-fi), it would take just one donation of a robot to a charity to start a 'robot self-replication for poverty movement', where one robot build another with its own labor, doubling, and doubling again, until every down and out has their own pool of robotic laborers.

bbddg 9y ago
This implies a world with unlimited energy and natural resources?
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  I didn't mean to imply doubling forever. Also, yes I assumed that the robot would have to be employed at least initially to earn a wage, so that it could buy materials and components off alibaba.
  - bbddg 9y ago
    How much do you think raw materials are going to cost in a world with free labor? What's to stop rich people from just buying up all the resources? With free labor they can use as much resources as they get their hands on. There are structural problems in our society that cannot be solved with new technology.
    - SubiculumCode 9y ago
      Space is big. The asteroid belt plus robotics. There is a lot of energy from the sun. There is a lot of iron.
      - bbddg 9y ago
        Fully Automated Space Communism.

ihm 9y ago

Around 80% of stock is owned by the top 10% wealthiest individuals[1]. More recent work[2] puts the percentage even higher. You might own some of the robots but most people don't. [1]: https://appam.confex.com/appam/2012/webprogram/ExtendedAbstract/Paper2134/Wealth%20Trends%201962%20to%202010%20Sept%202012%20Version%20WOLFF.pdf https://appam.confex.com/appam/2012/webprogram/ExtendedAbstr... [2]: http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-richest/ http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-ric...

gimmeDatCheddar 9y ago
But you know what most people DO own? Unnecessary consumer debt that stunts their ability to save and invest. When the average car payment in America is around $500 a month, it's clear evidence that people have a spending problem rather than an income problem. Here's an idea: Teach people not to finance $500 worth of car each month (plus gas, plus insurance, plus maintenance, plus healthcare costs) and suddenly people will be able to amass multiple millions of dollars in investments over their working career.
- hfdgiutdryg 9y ago
  Teach people not to finance $500 worth of car each month (plus gas, plus insurance, plus maintenance How? Keep in mind, I drive a car I bought for $1700 cash and I've restored and maintained it with my own hands. Most people don't have the time, knowledge, tools, or space to maintain an older car, so a new car with a warranty is a smart move. New cars are safer and more fuel efficient. They last longer than ever before. Not having a car is not an option for most Americans. I don't see how a car payment is indicative of poor decision-making.
  - gimmeDatCheddar 9y ago
    You can buy excellent cars that will last a long time for far less than $500 a month. $500 a month for much more car than you need is a very poor decision because you can get by with much less and invest the rest.
  - 9y ago

progval 9y ago

> I have Amazon stock in my 401k. It's weird seeing someone writing this in a thread about how Amazon exploits its workers for profits (ie. in part for its shareholders).

rwmj 9y ago
As a thought experiment I wonder if it will be better or worse when Amazon eventually automates all those jobs (yes, maybe even the programmers' jobs one day).
noonespecial 9y ago
Its not lost on me... I first thought "those bastards", then had a flash of insight, checked the breakdown of the biggest mutual fund I'm invested in and realized, I'm one of them.

gimmeDatCheddar 9y ago

The average working class American is financing their car. The average car payment is $500. That is way too much car, yet people are financing that. Over the average working career, this $500 per month represents a foregone multi-million dollar net worth at retirement. So the average working class American is poor or struggling for cash not because of income issues, but because of spending issues. We have a spending problem in this country. If everyone working in Amazon's warehouses prioritized wise financial decisions, like not financing a car for $500 a month or more, they'd be able to demand better work conditions because they wouldn't be as dependent on the job. Amazon needs to do better, but working class Americans also need to do better with their finances so they don't spend themselves into awful situations like this. Ultimately the idea that the average working class American will never be able to afford stock is just a fairy tale peddled by Marxists. The average working class American is more than capable of amassing a multi million dollar net worth by retirement by making wise decisions and investing, instead of crapping away all their income on things they don't actually need.

burke 9y ago
> Americans also need to do better Blaming any problem of this magnitude on individuals is not reasonable. There's a systemic pressure toward overspending through advertising, etc., and we've created a society where many people make an amount of money, that, if spent "wisely", procures a stressful and unfulfilling existence. Clearly Marxism is not the right solution: our system isn't inherently and completely broken, but it needs adjustment. I think Piketty has the right idea. A progressive tax on capital would do a lot to equalize this inequality — if we could ever amass the political will to implement it — though it wouldn't correct our current situation where everyone is constantly manipulated to think they'll be happy if only they buy this one more object.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  > Blaming any problem of this magnitude on individuals is not reasonable. This is just anecdotal, but I see this a LOT. The stubborn insistence that blame is paramount in any discussion and that the world should be made fair before action can be taken to improve one's life is a pretty substantial barrier to said improvement. Sometimes the deck is stacked, and working on unstacking the deck can happen in parallel with reacting to the world as it is now. Out of college, I had friends who made half as much as me and spent twice as much; income aside, we were both exposed to pretty much exactly the same environment, and somehow we made purchasing decisions that were completely swapped from what you'd expect. As the parent comment said, "Amazon needs to do better" too, but putting personal behavior outside of the realm of control of the individual isn't helping anyone, it's harming them. I agree with your general point that simply wishing that people would do better for a behavorial issue at this scale is unlikely to do much, but I don't think that's implied by the GP comment's suggestion. There have been successful campaigns to cause large-scale behavioral shifts before[1], and recognizing personal choice as a potential mechanism of improvement doesn't mean we can't approach the problem in an intentional, structural manner. Just an aside, but in all of this I'm taking on faith the power of advertising that the HN community at large seems to consistently think that we're helpless before; this has never been my experience; I don't care much about ads, I don't see any mechanism in which they could drive my purchase decisions, etc etc. To wit, I buy the cheapest option (that I haven't already tried and disliked) for cheap items and extensively research medium to high priced ones. There's no question that brand advertising affects my level of brand awareness, but it's _really_ not difficult at all to remove that factor from your purchasing decisions. If anything, my prior would be that all the people who blindly purchase based on brand awareness are shifting the value prop towards brands that are _less_ well-known, since theoretically they need to compete on something else (price, features, quality, whatever). [1] Spend any time with Europeans and you'll appreciate how impressive the American anti-smoking campaign was.

bbddg 9y ago

Well maybe the problem is that you own part of the company instead of the people who actually work there.