4 ms·

This didn't really work for Tesla. It turns out skilled labor is still really important even if you have a bunch of machines printing and milling material.

belltaco 7y ago
As Bill Gates said, we tend to over estimate change in the short term and underestimate change in the long term. The advances in machine learning in the last decade are significant.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  They are, but that doesn't change the reality that the economies making the most high tech goods the fastest and cheapest are the ones throwing the most human suffering at the problem, today.
notacoward 7y ago
What's true for high-tech manufacturing might not be true for farm labor, meat packing, hospitality and food service, construction, or the other kinds of jobs that many immigrants are doing. The pool of unskilled jobs with decent wages is shrinking and will continue to do so. Artificial labor-force limitation is a temporary palliative at best, and energy spent kicking others off the bottom rung of the ladder would be better spent climbing. Climbing, not kicking, is what capitalism is supposed to be about anyway.
- JPKab 7y ago
  I get your point, but there is an inherent contradiction in your statement: You simultaneously point out that low skilled jobs are being lost to automation, and advocate for bringing in more low skilled workers for this dwindling pool of jobs. Seems cruel.
  - notacoward 7y ago
    > there is an inherent contradiction in your statement > ... > Seems cruel. I see your point also. I assure you, I don't mean to be cruel. The problem is, what is cruel to one can be kind to another, and vice versa. That immigrant has hopes and dreams, and maybe a family, too. If the global pool of jobs is shrinking, and the global pool of workers is growing, the system will move toward equilibrium. Jobs will shift person by person, factory by factory, or industry by industry. Increasing the premium for our labor, and thus for the products of that labor, only ensures that it will be industry by industry. This process is already under way. I'm sorry, but it's the market that is cruel. So, since I'm away from my own home and have some time to spare, what does that mean in terms of KirinDave's idea to keep entry-level jobs for Americans? I'll be blunt: that's stupid. Americans, who have to earn a certain wage to maintain even the lowest standard of living, can never be as cost-effective as people to whom that same wage looks like a king's ransom. That's where "merit based" immigration comes in. It's about making the best and the brightest from all over the world part of our ecosystem instead of a competing one. It's a deliberate brain drain. It leaves the low-skill workers where they are, unable to compete job by job but also bereft of any leadership that would enable them to compete industry by industry. It's unfair - one might even say cruel - to them, but global fairness is not a goal. It's an effective way to promote Trump's and KirinDave's goal of propping up uneducated Americans' wages. I just happen to think that's a lousy goal, not least because it's not sustainable. The longer we put it off, the worse the eventual result will be.
    - KirinDave 7y ago
      > So, since I'm away from my own home and have some time to spare, what does that mean in terms of KirinDave's idea to keep entry-level jobs for Americans? I'll be blunt: that's stupid. Americans, who have to earn a certain wage to maintain even the lowest standard of living, can never be as cost-effective as people to whom that same wage looks like a king's ransom. That's uh.. not my idea? You mention me a lot here but you've comically misrepresented my position, which you can't really know because the only thing I've articulated on this subject in this thread is that Tesla tried and failed spectacularly to automate, and that the American (really Victorian) idea of trying to replace all human labor with machines (or at least make it LOOK like it's all machines) hasn't fared very well overall despite it being a near religious conviction by many western industrialists. Meanwhile, China's labor policies (which in my personal belief system lead to reprehensible limitations on human freedom and rights) lead to a country that is industrially crushing the rest of the world to a degree that we haven't seen since post-WW2 where American interests could push their products on others because everyone else's industrial bases were smoking craters due to war. > That's where "merit based" immigration comes in. It's about making the best and the brightest from all over the world part of our ecosystem instead of a competing one. It's a deliberate brain drain. You misspelled "richest", because that's actually the goal. We're getting tepid, moderately talented but quite wealthy Elon Musks. Once, we were significantly better at the "brain drain" and it showed during WW2. And perhaps that's for the best, because the circumstances that lead to the genuine brain drains of WW2 were quite dire. > It leaves the low-skill workers where they are, unable to compete job by job but also bereft of any leadership that would enable them to compete industry by industry. But at the end of the day, the notion that the folks you are leaving behind are not essential to society as a whole is a capitalist dogma not supported by reality. The idea that society isn't built on essential but socially dismissed and denigrated labor like construction, cleaning , and even sex work is a fantasty. It's the Victorian desire to have a "dumb waiter" all over again, only on a much larger scale. And this myth largely persists because western industrialists imagine a fantasy world in which Taiwan and China are full of magic robots and not millions of skilled (and socially oppressed) humans. > It's unfair - one might even say cruel - to them, but global fairness is not a goal. Indeed. The goal is to realize Burke's dream and roll back every social contract change post-French Revolution. I'm well read on the capitalist ethos. > It's an effective way to promote Trump's and KirinDave's goal of propping up uneducated Americans' wages. Trump's goal is to prop up the wages of under-educated Americans? What? The man and his party's policies have rendered over half of the farmers in America desperate, directly threatened the livelihood of many American manufacturing workers with his pointless tariffs, and outright declared war on American unions. He is as anti-worker as they come. The fact that you think otherwise is a reflection of the phenomenal branding engine. > I just happen to think that's a lousy goal, not least because it's not sustainable. The longer we put it off, the worse the eventual result will be. I'm not sure what you're advocating at all. The completely abandonment and disenfranchisement of every skilled laborer that doesn't meet your definition of "educated?" The radical purging or forced labor of anyone who doesn't meet specific economic or physical standards? Many US States already do that via their justice system. Does that not already satisfy you? If you want to talk about unsustainable systems, we need only look at the current political environment in America, where voters are so disenfranchised, misinformed and manipulated that a toxic hyperindustrialst grifter can hold power just because folks are so pissed at the status quo that hope of massive disruption is all they can hold on to. Eventually, folks are gonna stop believing in all the delays. Already, fascists interests in the US are gathering people who've hit that breaking point and organizing them to point at perceived enemies. Already, we see people who question truths known and trivially observable for thousands of years because they're so convinced the entire system is out to get them. Already, folks know that their punishments for challenging the rule of law are only truly enforced towards the poor and the forgotten.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  Please show me a berry picking robot that pays for itself in 10 years. They don't exist and probably won't exist for another 25 years at that price point. Nor is it clear they'd be faster than a group of humans doing the same work. What's more, it's just not clear to me why we'd do this. The only demand for this is by mega-farm-corps that want to eliminate all human factors to completely own the idea of making food under robotic patents. While I can appreciate such actors exist, it' not clear to me how it will be competitive with human sustenance farming in our lifespan. The low-hanging fruit of automation in the farm space has already been found. The new frontier there is in informatics and new configurations of farms (e.g., China's extremely efficient and inexpensive greenhouses, Japan's prototype vertical industrial farms). Most farming innovation now is about informatics, and only intersects with robotics tangentially. If society was such that people who were displaced by this process were not suddenly thrown into destitution and often slavery instead of leisure and plenty, maybe we'd see wider demand. Maybe. But that's not the case. Displacing workers is seen as a net good by capitalists and the displaced are also blamed and shunned by their governments and societies. As such, it's pretty unlikely the technology could see widespread adoption without more alignment of incentives.

belltaco 7y ago

As Bill Gates said, we tend to over estimate change in the short term and underestimate change in the long term. The advances in machine learning in the last decade are significant.

KirinDave 7y ago
They are, but that doesn't change the reality that the economies making the most high tech goods the fastest and cheapest are the ones throwing the most human suffering at the problem, today.

notacoward 7y ago

What's true for high-tech manufacturing might not be true for farm labor, meat packing, hospitality and food service, construction, or the other kinds of jobs that many immigrants are doing. The pool of unskilled jobs with decent wages is shrinking and will continue to do so. Artificial labor-force limitation is a temporary palliative at best, and energy spent kicking others off the bottom rung of the ladder would be better spent climbing. Climbing, not kicking, is what capitalism is supposed to be about anyway.

JPKab 7y ago
I get your point, but there is an inherent contradiction in your statement: You simultaneously point out that low skilled jobs are being lost to automation, and advocate for bringing in more low skilled workers for this dwindling pool of jobs. Seems cruel.
- notacoward 7y ago
  > there is an inherent contradiction in your statement > ... > Seems cruel. I see your point also. I assure you, I don't mean to be cruel. The problem is, what is cruel to one can be kind to another, and vice versa. That immigrant has hopes and dreams, and maybe a family, too. If the global pool of jobs is shrinking, and the global pool of workers is growing, the system will move toward equilibrium. Jobs will shift person by person, factory by factory, or industry by industry. Increasing the premium for our labor, and thus for the products of that labor, only ensures that it will be industry by industry. This process is already under way. I'm sorry, but it's the market that is cruel. So, since I'm away from my own home and have some time to spare, what does that mean in terms of KirinDave's idea to keep entry-level jobs for Americans? I'll be blunt: that's stupid. Americans, who have to earn a certain wage to maintain even the lowest standard of living, can never be as cost-effective as people to whom that same wage looks like a king's ransom. That's where "merit based" immigration comes in. It's about making the best and the brightest from all over the world part of our ecosystem instead of a competing one. It's a deliberate brain drain. It leaves the low-skill workers where they are, unable to compete job by job but also bereft of any leadership that would enable them to compete industry by industry. It's unfair - one might even say cruel - to them, but global fairness is not a goal. It's an effective way to promote Trump's and KirinDave's goal of propping up uneducated Americans' wages. I just happen to think that's a lousy goal, not least because it's not sustainable. The longer we put it off, the worse the eventual result will be.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    > So, since I'm away from my own home and have some time to spare, what does that mean in terms of KirinDave's idea to keep entry-level jobs for Americans? I'll be blunt: that's stupid. Americans, who have to earn a certain wage to maintain even the lowest standard of living, can never be as cost-effective as people to whom that same wage looks like a king's ransom. That's uh.. not my idea? You mention me a lot here but you've comically misrepresented my position, which you can't really know because the only thing I've articulated on this subject in this thread is that Tesla tried and failed spectacularly to automate, and that the American (really Victorian) idea of trying to replace all human labor with machines (or at least make it LOOK like it's all machines) hasn't fared very well overall despite it being a near religious conviction by many western industrialists. Meanwhile, China's labor policies (which in my personal belief system lead to reprehensible limitations on human freedom and rights) lead to a country that is industrially crushing the rest of the world to a degree that we haven't seen since post-WW2 where American interests could push their products on others because everyone else's industrial bases were smoking craters due to war. > That's where "merit based" immigration comes in. It's about making the best and the brightest from all over the world part of our ecosystem instead of a competing one. It's a deliberate brain drain. You misspelled "richest", because that's actually the goal. We're getting tepid, moderately talented but quite wealthy Elon Musks. Once, we were significantly better at the "brain drain" and it showed during WW2. And perhaps that's for the best, because the circumstances that lead to the genuine brain drains of WW2 were quite dire. > It leaves the low-skill workers where they are, unable to compete job by job but also bereft of any leadership that would enable them to compete industry by industry. But at the end of the day, the notion that the folks you are leaving behind are not essential to society as a whole is a capitalist dogma not supported by reality. The idea that society isn't built on essential but socially dismissed and denigrated labor like construction, cleaning , and even sex work is a fantasty. It's the Victorian desire to have a "dumb waiter" all over again, only on a much larger scale. And this myth largely persists because western industrialists imagine a fantasy world in which Taiwan and China are full of magic robots and not millions of skilled (and socially oppressed) humans. > It's unfair - one might even say cruel - to them, but global fairness is not a goal. Indeed. The goal is to realize Burke's dream and roll back every social contract change post-French Revolution. I'm well read on the capitalist ethos. > It's an effective way to promote Trump's and KirinDave's goal of propping up uneducated Americans' wages. Trump's goal is to prop up the wages of under-educated Americans? What? The man and his party's policies have rendered over half of the farmers in America desperate, directly threatened the livelihood of many American manufacturing workers with his pointless tariffs, and outright declared war on American unions. He is as anti-worker as they come. The fact that you think otherwise is a reflection of the phenomenal branding engine. > I just happen to think that's a lousy goal, not least because it's not sustainable. The longer we put it off, the worse the eventual result will be. I'm not sure what you're advocating at all. The completely abandonment and disenfranchisement of every skilled laborer that doesn't meet your definition of "educated?" The radical purging or forced labor of anyone who doesn't meet specific economic or physical standards? Many US States already do that via their justice system. Does that not already satisfy you? If you want to talk about unsustainable systems, we need only look at the current political environment in America, where voters are so disenfranchised, misinformed and manipulated that a toxic hyperindustrialst grifter can hold power just because folks are so pissed at the status quo that hope of massive disruption is all they can hold on to. Eventually, folks are gonna stop believing in all the delays. Already, fascists interests in the US are gathering people who've hit that breaking point and organizing them to point at perceived enemies. Already, we see people who question truths known and trivially observable for thousands of years because they're so convinced the entire system is out to get them. Already, folks know that their punishments for challenging the rule of law are only truly enforced towards the poor and the forgotten.
KirinDave 7y ago
Please show me a berry picking robot that pays for itself in 10 years. They don't exist and probably won't exist for another 25 years at that price point. Nor is it clear they'd be faster than a group of humans doing the same work. What's more, it's just not clear to me why we'd do this. The only demand for this is by mega-farm-corps that want to eliminate all human factors to completely own the idea of making food under robotic patents. While I can appreciate such actors exist, it' not clear to me how it will be competitive with human sustenance farming in our lifespan. The low-hanging fruit of automation in the farm space has already been found. The new frontier there is in informatics and new configurations of farms (e.g., China's extremely efficient and inexpensive greenhouses, Japan's prototype vertical industrial farms). Most farming innovation now is about informatics, and only intersects with robotics tangentially. If society was such that people who were displaced by this process were not suddenly thrown into destitution and often slavery instead of leisure and plenty, maybe we'd see wider demand. Maybe. But that's not the case. Displacing workers is seen as a net good by capitalists and the displaced are also blamed and shunned by their governments and societies. As such, it's pretty unlikely the technology could see widespread adoption without more alignment of incentives.