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> then we will continue down a path where humans are less and less valued as their skills atrophy and they can be replaced by automated systems Have we started

> then we will continue down a path where humans are less and less valued as their skills atrophy and they can be replaced by automated systems Have we started down this path? Are human less valued than they were 100 years ago? 50 years ago? Based on what? What I see is that there is plenty more work we’re not even trying to do, because we’re busy with the work we’re doing. Just in climate change-mitigating forestry and mental health services, to pick two, there are a billion jobs each waiting to be done. Programming probably also has a billion jobs available. Even cooking, we could move to a personal chef based food system and that would create a billion jobs. I see no evidence that there is “less for humans to do” today than there was at times past. I don’t count wage stagnation as evidence because I believe it’s the result of widespread racketeering.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> What I see is that there is plenty more work we’re not even trying to do, because we’re busy with the work we’re doing. Just in climate change-mitigating forestry and mental health services, to pick two, there are a billion jobs each waiting to be done. Programming probably also has a billion jobs available. Even cooking, we could move to a personal chef based food system and that would create a billion jobs. There's infinity of jobs waiting to be done. There isn't, and never was, a problem with lack of things for people to do. The problem was and is the lack of things to do for which someone else is willing to pay - which almost always requires that someone else to be able to turn the result they bought into more money for themselves. Mitigating climate change doesn't yield much money to anyone right now, so there aren't many people willing to pay to do it.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  > The problem was and is the lack of things to do for which someone else is willing to pay That’s not even the problem. Basically all businesses get started without enough customers to pay the bills. I think in all the cases I listed there are implicit clients who could pay for the work. What’s missing is a way to finance the customer development process. People with that skill tend to work on medium sized opportunities and up, and the labor problem is a group of small opportunities that aren’t worth developing on their own. You have to develop them in aggregate, which is Hard™️.
imtringued 8y ago
I've never understood this argument. Demand goes up when the price goes down and at $0 or even negative wages demand by employers is infinite. There is no guarantee that a job pays enough to get by.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

> What I see is that there is plenty more work we’re not even trying to do, because we’re busy with the work we’re doing. Just in climate change-mitigating forestry and mental health services, to pick two, there are a billion jobs each waiting to be done. Programming probably also has a billion jobs available. Even cooking, we could move to a personal chef based food system and that would create a billion jobs. There's infinity of jobs waiting to be done. There isn't, and never was, a problem with lack of things for people to do. The problem was and is the lack of things to do for which someone else is willing to pay - which almost always requires that someone else to be able to turn the result they bought into more money for themselves. Mitigating climate change doesn't yield much money to anyone right now, so there aren't many people willing to pay to do it.

erikpukinskis 8y ago
> The problem was and is the lack of things to do for which someone else is willing to pay That’s not even the problem. Basically all businesses get started without enough customers to pay the bills. I think in all the cases I listed there are implicit clients who could pay for the work. What’s missing is a way to finance the customer development process. People with that skill tend to work on medium sized opportunities and up, and the labor problem is a group of small opportunities that aren’t worth developing on their own. You have to develop them in aggregate, which is Hard™️.

imtringued 8y ago

I've never understood this argument. Demand goes up when the price goes down and at $0 or even negative wages demand by employers is infinite. There is no guarantee that a job pays enough to get by.