5 ms·

Yeah, you'd have to curtail the freedom of some people to own robots and drastically limit how others could use them. This is a non-starter for most voters.

ardy42 8y ago
> This is a non-starter for most voters. Only to the degree that they've been trained to see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, and identify more with the interests of the owners than their own personal interests.
- dymk 8y ago
  How do you think a law would work, which would only allow floor workers to own/operate robots, but not the workers (the CEO/warehouse foreman) that oversee other workers?
  - ardy42 8y ago
    > How do you think a law would work, which would only allow floor workers to own/operate robots, but not the workers (the CEO/warehouse foreman) that oversee other workers? I don't think "most voters" who don't see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires would shed a tear if CEOs, business owners, members of the management and ownership class, etc. had their ability to own robots limited. At least after some consideration of what where most labor was replaced by automation would look like. So I object to the idea that such a law would be "a non-starter for most voters." I'm not a legislator who's spent a lot of time thinking how such a law would be implemented, but you could probably accomplish with some kind of per-capita ownership limit. A CEO could still own robots, but not any more than a pleb to make a difference. They'd have to employ the pleb's robots instead of buying all they need themselves. That gets around the problem of classifying people. There's still the problem of determining the overall number to be rationed, and that probably requires a bit more thought than I have time to give right now. Though part of it could probably be modeled after the present-day labor market.
    - merpnderp 8y ago
      Telling a person they can't own something because they might create too much value, sure seems antithetical to western values of personal freedom. And why not take your idea further. Only one person per truck? Per acre of farmland? Per airplane? Per computer? Per pencil? Per lathe? Why shed a tear over lost crappy factory jobs when those people might be better employed fixing the robots, at a higher wage and skill set?
      - int_19h 8y ago
        The modern Western ideas of personal freedom with respect to property arose in conjunction with a particular economic system that made sense at the time. But, as any economic system, it has its constraints. Right now, it works because ownership of capital is pointless without a labor force to make it produce things - so you can have capital concentrated a lot, but the workers still get a slice of the pie for working it, even if it's not a big one. Full automation essentially means that labor is no longer necessary - the owner of the capital can have it produce wealth directly (and robots can fix robots, after all - although the system breaks down long before that, since even when you have humans fixing robots, one human can fix a lot of robots - so you're still employing only a minuscule part of the labor pool). From a perspective that is concerned solely with economic efficiency, all those humans are now simply redundant - they can go and starve to death for all anybody cares. And from a perspective that is concerned purely with property rights, theirs is the freedom to do so, since any other course of action - say, expropriating some robots that would then feed them - would be in violation of those rights. Somehow, I don't think they will care for it, though. If you make enough people desperate, you get torches and pitchforks. And judging by how revolutions went historically, those torches and pitchforks won't be directed against the capitalist class first and foremost - they'll be directed against those immediately accessible that still have cushy jobs and the associated lifestyle, i.e. whatever remains of the high middle class by then. And if we don't want that to happen to us, we've got to start working out practical solutions, and using our political power to force them through.
        merpnderp 8y ago

ardy42 8y ago

> This is a non-starter for most voters. Only to the degree that they've been trained to see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, and identify more with the interests of the owners than their own personal interests.

dymk 8y ago
How do you think a law would work, which would only allow floor workers to own/operate robots, but not the workers (the CEO/warehouse foreman) that oversee other workers?
- ardy42 8y ago
  > How do you think a law would work, which would only allow floor workers to own/operate robots, but not the workers (the CEO/warehouse foreman) that oversee other workers? I don't think "most voters" who don't see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires would shed a tear if CEOs, business owners, members of the management and ownership class, etc. had their ability to own robots limited. At least after some consideration of what where most labor was replaced by automation would look like. So I object to the idea that such a law would be "a non-starter for most voters." I'm not a legislator who's spent a lot of time thinking how such a law would be implemented, but you could probably accomplish with some kind of per-capita ownership limit. A CEO could still own robots, but not any more than a pleb to make a difference. They'd have to employ the pleb's robots instead of buying all they need themselves. That gets around the problem of classifying people. There's still the problem of determining the overall number to be rationed, and that probably requires a bit more thought than I have time to give right now. Though part of it could probably be modeled after the present-day labor market.
  - merpnderp 8y ago
    Telling a person they can't own something because they might create too much value, sure seems antithetical to western values of personal freedom. And why not take your idea further. Only one person per truck? Per acre of farmland? Per airplane? Per computer? Per pencil? Per lathe? Why shed a tear over lost crappy factory jobs when those people might be better employed fixing the robots, at a higher wage and skill set?
    - int_19h 8y ago
      The modern Western ideas of personal freedom with respect to property arose in conjunction with a particular economic system that made sense at the time. But, as any economic system, it has its constraints. Right now, it works because ownership of capital is pointless without a labor force to make it produce things - so you can have capital concentrated a lot, but the workers still get a slice of the pie for working it, even if it's not a big one. Full automation essentially means that labor is no longer necessary - the owner of the capital can have it produce wealth directly (and robots can fix robots, after all - although the system breaks down long before that, since even when you have humans fixing robots, one human can fix a lot of robots - so you're still employing only a minuscule part of the labor pool). From a perspective that is concerned solely with economic efficiency, all those humans are now simply redundant - they can go and starve to death for all anybody cares. And from a perspective that is concerned purely with property rights, theirs is the freedom to do so, since any other course of action - say, expropriating some robots that would then feed them - would be in violation of those rights. Somehow, I don't think they will care for it, though. If you make enough people desperate, you get torches and pitchforks. And judging by how revolutions went historically, those torches and pitchforks won't be directed against the capitalist class first and foremost - they'll be directed against those immediately accessible that still have cushy jobs and the associated lifestyle, i.e. whatever remains of the high middle class by then. And if we don't want that to happen to us, we've got to start working out practical solutions, and using our political power to force them through.
      - merpnderp 8y ago