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Wow - that was a great read. I like how it started by saying, > Looking back, there were two kinds of people who lived in America in 2016: people who believed

by jMyles 9y ago

Wow - that was a great read. I like how it started by saying, > Looking back, there were two kinds of people who lived in America in 2016: people who believed Donald Trump, and people who believed data. ...only to show that, against the odds, people who believed "data" ended up being incorrect about some of the most crucial conclusions drawn by the use of that data. However, I have this itching feeling that I always have whenever I read an analysis on this topic, and it's this: Americans don't want those jobs back. We really don't. I think Dave Chappelle said it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 And that leads to an even bigger realization: people (and the body politic) don't want jobs at all. Jobs aren't useful. People generally only want the resources and independence that come with a job. We've been sold the idea that the connection between "a job" (ie, something that someone does for hours a day, 5 days a week, in the tack of a career) and resource (like food and shelter, ie, the Money) is a natural, wholesome consequence of a free market. But then, why don't animals have jobs? Why don't very wealthy people have jobs? Why don't very poor people have jobs? Why don't indigenous people have jobs? Why don't well-adjusted hippies (think Rainbow Gathering) have jobs? I think that we can find a truly free market, with the price signals and freedom from state intervention that free market fans always cheer, but whose central models are the Job and the Money. If the internet means anything truly useful to our species, I think it's best viewed as our chance to finally shed the Job and the Money.

will4274 9y ago
> _Americans don't want those jobs back_. We really don't. > I think Dave Chappelle said it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 > "I want to wear Nikes, I don't want to make them" I don't mean to sound like a dick, but it's very easy for a multimillionaire speaking to a upper middle class audience or for an upper middle class software developer on hackernews to agree with this sentiment. I think if you asked 100 unemployed Americans living in poverty, you might hear a different answer.
- jMyles 9y ago
  You think that they'd say that, given the choice over whether to be given Nikes, made entirely by automation, or to have to work to make them, that they'd choose the work? I'm not saying that there aren't classes issues in play here. I'm saying that I wish poor people didn't have to wish to make shoes. Surely if we can automated all the matter around us to do our will, we can also shape instill in our economies the basic tendencies toward compassion and freedom.
  - jerkstate 9y ago
    Automation is not a magic wand that means no labor, thought, decisions, or resources are used in the production of goods. Automation makes people more productive, given the same inputs, but requires knowledge to operate. It will be hundreds or thousands of years before automation is advanced enough to resemble a magic wand in the way you are describing, where no person is involved at any step of making shoes. Even then, there will be two kinds of people: those who are given magic wands and learn/are taught how to use them and keep them working, and those who need help obtaining and using magic wands. I don't think I have to tell you that there will still be a power dynamic.
    - jMyles 9y ago
      > It will be hundreds or thousands of years before automation is advanced enough But is there no gradient to be observed during that time? Aren't we already deep enough into automation to have this discussion? Did we have to ship those jobs to China? In a more just world, might the Chinese laborers be spared exposure to benzene sooner than a thousand years? > Even then, there will be two kinds of people: those who are given magic wands and learn/are taught how to use them and keep them working, and those who need help obtaining and using magic wands. There are two kinds of people in this world: people who try to convince everyone to think of things as simple dichotomies with no middle ground, and those who do not.
      - jerkstate 9y ago
        automation is clearly not sufficiently advanced that no Chinese laborers need be exposed to benzene to sate the global appetite for cheap sneakers. the trouble with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money; modern socialism tries to get around this problem by positing that there will eventually be infinite resources thanks to automation, so we should just start acting like that's already the case.
rleigh 9y ago
> I think Dave Chappelle said it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 > And that leads to an even bigger realization: people (and the body politic) don't want jobs at all. Jobs aren't useful. People generally only want the resources and independence that come with a job. I have to strongly disagree with this point. It's used a lot, particularly on HN, and I do wonder if any of the people making it have ever worked in a real manufacturing job in order to have developed this opinion through real-world experience, or it's just part of the current narrative they feel they have to parrot, and is merely uninformed. Working in a manufacturing job, doing something real, making an actual physical product, being part of a large team and something greater than yourself can be very rewarding and provide a lot of satisfaction and a great sense of pride and purpose. Leaving the plant at the end of a shift, seeing convoys of lorries leaving the gates with what you made on board can give you a quiet sense of accomplishment and pride: your personal efforts went into that, and without them they wouldn't be going, and you head home tired but happy. You were useful and contributed work of real value to a greater whole. As a current software developer, I get little of the same reward and satisfaction, despite working hard and being paid several times the salary. America (and the rest of the West) do need those jobs back. Manufacturing is the basis of our economies and civilisation. The wealth and prosperity it created is the reason for the quality of life we enjoy today, but this will rapidly decline once the source of it has been destroyed. Hollowing it out might have been for the benefit of some bankers and investors in the short term, but it's a long term disaster in the making which was obvious a couple of decades back at least. Without this industry we are little more than consumers subject to the will of others. We can only coast on the success of previous generations for so long; the accumulated wealth of those years will be quickly spent and sent overseas. The ability to manufacture is power, and we have given away that power and as a result impoverished millions of our own citizens and left ourselves vulnerable, and all for what exactly?
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  i believe that, back in the '80s and '90s, "visionary" economists and politicians saw that US manufacturing was facing a lot of challenges, so they imagined a new world wherein: 1. the US domestic economy would be based on services that would pay just as well as the old manufacturing industry had in the 50's and 60's 2. the US would be the global leader in the "financial industry" 3. the US would be an "ownership society." US investors would reap hefty profits and substantial income from the parts of the world that were industrializing and developing. but that plan, that vision, has worked rather poorly for the vast majority of US residents.

by jMyles 9y ago

will4274 9y ago

> _Americans don't want those jobs back_. We really don't. > I think Dave Chappelle said it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 > "I want to wear Nikes, I don't want to make them" I don't mean to sound like a dick, but it's very easy for a multimillionaire speaking to a upper middle class audience or for an upper middle class software developer on hackernews to agree with this sentiment. I think if you asked 100 unemployed Americans living in poverty, you might hear a different answer.

jMyles 9y ago
You think that they'd say that, given the choice over whether to be given Nikes, made entirely by automation, or to have to work to make them, that they'd choose the work? I'm not saying that there aren't classes issues in play here. I'm saying that I wish poor people didn't have to wish to make shoes. Surely if we can automated all the matter around us to do our will, we can also shape instill in our economies the basic tendencies toward compassion and freedom.
- jerkstate 9y ago
  Automation is not a magic wand that means no labor, thought, decisions, or resources are used in the production of goods. Automation makes people more productive, given the same inputs, but requires knowledge to operate. It will be hundreds or thousands of years before automation is advanced enough to resemble a magic wand in the way you are describing, where no person is involved at any step of making shoes. Even then, there will be two kinds of people: those who are given magic wands and learn/are taught how to use them and keep them working, and those who need help obtaining and using magic wands. I don't think I have to tell you that there will still be a power dynamic.
  - jMyles 9y ago
    > It will be hundreds or thousands of years before automation is advanced enough But is there no gradient to be observed during that time? Aren't we already deep enough into automation to have this discussion? Did we have to ship those jobs to China? In a more just world, might the Chinese laborers be spared exposure to benzene sooner than a thousand years? > Even then, there will be two kinds of people: those who are given magic wands and learn/are taught how to use them and keep them working, and those who need help obtaining and using magic wands. There are two kinds of people in this world: people who try to convince everyone to think of things as simple dichotomies with no middle ground, and those who do not.
    - jerkstate 9y ago
      automation is clearly not sufficiently advanced that no Chinese laborers need be exposed to benzene to sate the global appetite for cheap sneakers. the trouble with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money; modern socialism tries to get around this problem by positing that there will eventually be infinite resources thanks to automation, so we should just start acting like that's already the case.

rleigh 9y ago

> I think Dave Chappelle said it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inlDT62oGy8 > And that leads to an even bigger realization: people (and the body politic) don't want jobs at all. Jobs aren't useful. People generally only want the resources and independence that come with a job. I have to strongly disagree with this point. It's used a lot, particularly on HN, and I do wonder if any of the people making it have ever worked in a real manufacturing job in order to have developed this opinion through real-world experience, or it's just part of the current narrative they feel they have to parrot, and is merely uninformed. Working in a manufacturing job, doing something real, making an actual physical product, being part of a large team and something greater than yourself can be very rewarding and provide a lot of satisfaction and a great sense of pride and purpose. Leaving the plant at the end of a shift, seeing convoys of lorries leaving the gates with what you made on board can give you a quiet sense of accomplishment and pride: your personal efforts went into that, and without them they wouldn't be going, and you head home tired but happy. You were useful and contributed work of real value to a greater whole. As a current software developer, I get little of the same reward and satisfaction, despite working hard and being paid several times the salary. America (and the rest of the West) do need those jobs back. Manufacturing is the basis of our economies and civilisation. The wealth and prosperity it created is the reason for the quality of life we enjoy today, but this will rapidly decline once the source of it has been destroyed. Hollowing it out might have been for the benefit of some bankers and investors in the short term, but it's a long term disaster in the making which was obvious a couple of decades back at least. Without this industry we are little more than consumers subject to the will of others. We can only coast on the success of previous generations for so long; the accumulated wealth of those years will be quickly spent and sent overseas. The ability to manufacture is power, and we have given away that power and as a result impoverished millions of our own citizens and left ourselves vulnerable, and all for what exactly?

HillaryBriss 9y ago
i believe that, back in the '80s and '90s, "visionary" economists and politicians saw that US manufacturing was facing a lot of challenges, so they imagined a new world wherein: 1. the US domestic economy would be based on services that would pay just as well as the old manufacturing industry had in the 50's and 60's 2. the US would be the global leader in the "financial industry" 3. the US would be an "ownership society." US investors would reap hefty profits and substantial income from the parts of the world that were industrializing and developing. but that plan, that vision, has worked rather poorly for the vast majority of US residents.