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Use your educated populace to design robots to dig ditches. It's not "math" that humans have to engage in undesirable labor, under brutal conditions. We have

Use your educated populace to design robots to dig ditches. It's not "math" that humans have to engage in undesirable labor, under brutal conditions. We have thousands of years of developing tools that are contrary to that statement. It is a collective social decision to say that an hour of someone's time is worth less than building a robot. That's the only reason why cashiers still exist.

bilbo0s 7y ago
It's still math. If you go that route, then the people who build and program the robots will necessarily be paid less. Today that is likely a top 10% job. (More likely a top 5% job if we're being honest.) In a world where everyone has a college degree and there are 30 times the number of people who can program those things because the tools have gotten just that easy... well, you do the math. At the extreme, you can't just pay 100% of the labor market more money because they have a college degree. It just doesn't work like that. Put in more base terms, there is only room for 1% of the people, in the top 1%. You may be able to, through the magic of increased production, decrease the price of everything in your economy. So that the other 99% of people can afford access to everything to which people in the top 1% have access. But even that is difficult in the extreme. It'd just be easier, over time, than is paying everyone in your economy more over time.
- jayd16 7y ago
  This is a real misunderstanding of economics. If you increase productivity through technology, it's possible for everyone to earn more real dollars (as a product of cost of living). It's not a zero sum game. Imagine it this way. Everyone today is making more than hunt from a cave money. Why is that? Because a single human can produce more than the bare minimum for survival.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    There are zero sum subgames, such as: - who gets to buy prime location property - who ends up in best schools - who gets to own mines and infrastructure - who gets to truly rule (too big governments are slow) - every instance of packing problem where supply is limited by real scarcity or scaling by communication
    - jayd16 7y ago
      Uh, alright but that has nothing to do with average real wages.
- ajross 7y ago
  > Put in more base terms, there is only room for 1% of the people, in the top 1%. That... seems to be a total misunderstanding of why people are concerned about income inequality. The fact that the sizes of the percentile buckets are fixes does not mean that the distribution between the buckets is zero sum. There's no "just math" reason for why we pay some jobs more than others. It's not even a "just market" reason. There are elaborate regulations on income (c.f. tax brackets, minimum wage, investment taxes, mortgage deductions...) all across the board. And those aren't working well, as evidenced by the numbers in the linked article. None of that stuff is "math". It's policy.
- imtringued 7y ago
  >At the extreme, you can't just pay 100% of the labor market more money because they have a college degree. It just doesn't work like that. Actually this is exactly what should happen. Maybe the increase in wages isn't as extreme as 100% but it should be at least 2% per year. The problem is that it didn't happen during the last decade.
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Sure, but it’s a collective social decision that’s generally seen as good for the average person. How popular do you think it would be if Walmart went on stage at the next shareholder meeting and said “yeah, automated terminals are working great, we aim to fire all our cashiers over the next few years”?
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  That’s just progress. We don’t miss the days of travel agents or horse buggies either. Railing against progress is simply tilting at windmills.
  - bluedino 7y ago
    Travel agents still exist. There are just fewer of them and they are target at a different market. People who don’t want to waste time reading hotel reviews and deal-hunting on travel sites.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      So do horse buggies. There are just far fewer of them and they are targeted at a smaller market.

bilbo0s 7y ago

It's still math. If you go that route, then the people who build and program the robots will necessarily be paid less. Today that is likely a top 10% job. (More likely a top 5% job if we're being honest.) In a world where everyone has a college degree and there are 30 times the number of people who can program those things because the tools have gotten just that easy... well, you do the math. At the extreme, you can't just pay 100% of the labor market more money because they have a college degree. It just doesn't work like that. Put in more base terms, there is only room for 1% of the people, in the top 1%. You may be able to, through the magic of increased production, decrease the price of everything in your economy. So that the other 99% of people can afford access to everything to which people in the top 1% have access. But even that is difficult in the extreme. It'd just be easier, over time, than is paying everyone in your economy more over time.

jayd16 7y ago
This is a real misunderstanding of economics. If you increase productivity through technology, it's possible for everyone to earn more real dollars (as a product of cost of living). It's not a zero sum game. Imagine it this way. Everyone today is making more than hunt from a cave money. Why is that? Because a single human can produce more than the bare minimum for survival.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  There are zero sum subgames, such as: - who gets to buy prime location property - who ends up in best schools - who gets to own mines and infrastructure - who gets to truly rule (too big governments are slow) - every instance of packing problem where supply is limited by real scarcity or scaling by communication
  - jayd16 7y ago
    Uh, alright but that has nothing to do with average real wages.
ajross 7y ago
> Put in more base terms, there is only room for 1% of the people, in the top 1%. That... seems to be a total misunderstanding of why people are concerned about income inequality. The fact that the sizes of the percentile buckets are fixes does not mean that the distribution between the buckets is zero sum. There's no "just math" reason for why we pay some jobs more than others. It's not even a "just market" reason. There are elaborate regulations on income (c.f. tax brackets, minimum wage, investment taxes, mortgage deductions...) all across the board. And those aren't working well, as evidenced by the numbers in the linked article. None of that stuff is "math". It's policy.
imtringued 7y ago
>At the extreme, you can't just pay 100% of the labor market more money because they have a college degree. It just doesn't work like that. Actually this is exactly what should happen. Maybe the increase in wages isn't as extreme as 100% but it should be at least 2% per year. The problem is that it didn't happen during the last decade.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

Sure, but it’s a collective social decision that’s generally seen as good for the average person. How popular do you think it would be if Walmart went on stage at the next shareholder meeting and said “yeah, automated terminals are working great, we aim to fire all our cashiers over the next few years”?

cycrutchfield 7y ago
That’s just progress. We don’t miss the days of travel agents or horse buggies either. Railing against progress is simply tilting at windmills.
- bluedino 7y ago
  Travel agents still exist. There are just fewer of them and they are target at a different market. People who don’t want to waste time reading hotel reviews and deal-hunting on travel sites.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    So do horse buggies. There are just far fewer of them and they are targeted at a smaller market.