4 ms·

it may be that, through the miracle of technology's abundance, we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, but only a smaller and smal

by javert 16y ago

it may be that, through the miracle of technology's abundance, we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, but only a smaller and smaller pool of people "own" the production engines. I think the first part of what you said is right: we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, absent a paradigm shift in which the economy crashes like in Weimar Germany. The second part of what you said -- about ownership of the "engines of production" -- is straight out of Marxism, which is, by the way, broken. More and more we live in an information economy; it's not about what you own, but what you know and what you can make. That minor nit aside--who cares who owns what, as long as it isn't stolen from others and as long as quality of life continues to rise for everybody who puts in their share of effort? What I mean to say is that the most important thing is that the system be fair, and let's be honest, fair does not mean an "equal distribution of wealth." In fact, it seems pretty clear (especially when "nobody's starving") that what is fair is letting people earn based on their productive capability and effort, whether they're Steve Jobs, an average software developer, or someone with only a high school diploma.

parenthesis 16y ago
Steve Jobs has "only a high school diploma".
- javert 16y ago
  I know, that's my point. Just kidding, I'd forgotten that fact. Wish I could say I'd worded things as I did on purpose, remembering that.
redwood 16y ago
<i>The second part of what you said -- about ownership of the "engines of production" -- is straight out of Marxism, which is, by the way, broken. More and more we live in an information economy; it's not about what you own, but what you know and what you can make.</i> I don't agree: while it's important to know a lot to be valuable today, the people who are in this extreme high echelon of wealth are accumulating wealth through corporate ownership and they seem to be owning a larger and larger percent of those corporations. Perhaps what you mean is that corporations, while dominant when it comes to dollars, are not necessarily continuing to be dominant wrt. the human experience. And this I agree with: the internet has opened the wealth of human knowledge to all of us. This freedom and the fact that so many of us spend our days doing what are effectively leisure of artistic pursuits means, even if we're not making money, we're contributing to man kind. And this is true: and not reflected in the wealth distribution, I agree.
- Daishiman 16y ago
  I disagree completely about 'what you can make'. This only applies to a few extremely qualified positions in the workforce. The large majority of jobs, while they do require a level of intellect, which may be at times large, are nowadays less dependent on individual thought and more about being able to follow processes and procedures, to the point where the skills themselves are mere commodities and original thought is not needed unless we're talking about the higher echelons of a company. I can't find the NYT article on the matter, but I can describe my experience as a systems administrator: While in theory Unix sysadmins are highly qualified people who should be thinking independently, I left the line of work largely because of the extreme tediousness and lack of independence. - 90% of the tasks that had to be done were extremely trivial but their automation had already been maximized (adding users in heterogenous systems, altering filesystems, touching files and installing software) - Most nontrivial errors were deferred to support lines. Decisions on how to proceed with most "important" issues were left up to project executives and people with no technical qualifications. - Most change issues were managed through tickets which had a list of steps to follow to the implementer. Most of the work there consisted of chasing the proper approvers so that I could do the work for them on time. What was left was a highly predictable, boring system where all the originality and intelligence was made at the procedure level, and we were expected to follow procedure at all times, even when it was not necessarily the best choice. Corporations do not generally want an inspired rank-and-file. Intelligent individuals want to question and are willing to make mistakes, and this clashes with organizations that want to automate what cannot be automated at a fundamental level. My skill set was reduced to just knowing the commands and locations to do stuff; creative problem determination was discarding as being dangerous and disrupting, and even though there were a hundred different ways to improve processes, the bureaucracy to do that made it an incovenience that I was not willing to put up with. Thankfully I left that position for places that did require much deeper through and rewarded creativity, but the reality is that a large chunk of work simply doesn't require that; some jobs have a ceiling as to how productive one can be, and IMO, the current trend of making everything dependent on processes doesn't help in bringing the best out of people. Think about this on retail jobs and food services: interaction with the customers is scripted at incredibly deep levels with little margin for the person to make his or her best judgement. The problem is that not everyone is in a condition to leave and operate their own establishment or find better positions, so we have a large mass of people whose skills are being purposely underutilized.
natrius 16y ago
We engineers live in an information economy. Many, if not most Americans do not (pardon my lack of statistics). They work in service jobs that will be trivially automatable in our lifetimes. Wealthy people will actually own the means of production in a very meaningful way, and those that aren't equipped by their genes, upbringing, or education to participate in the information economy will be unable to earn an income. Secondly, despite the information economy, it is still very much about what you own. If you are capable of making something amazing, you still need savings or investors who will feed and house you while you make those things and pay the still significant costs of infrastructure that many products require. Concentration of wealth matters. That doesn't necessarily mean that government intervention is a good idea.
- javert 16y ago
  Many, if not most Americans do not (pardon my lack of statistics). They work in service jobs that will be trivially automatable in our lifetimes. Most jobs that truly are "trivially automatable" have already been automatized. I think it's extremely unlikely that most or nearly most of Americans' jobs can be replaced by computers in our lifetimes, barring something like the Singularity happening (which I'm not holding my breath for). Wealthy people will actually own the means of production in a very meaningful way Like I said, this is a Marxist bromide. Fundamentally, the means of production is mens' minds. Marx mistakenly believed that production amounted to physical human labor + expensive heavy-industry capital (like factories), which leaves work requiring intelligence and skill (MOST work) out of the picture, and is inaccurate - and is becoming more and more innacurate. those that aren't equipped by their genes, upbringing, or education to participate in the information economy will be unable to earn an income. Everyone is equipped to participate, barring exceptionally low IQ. Human beings are not automatons; they are not determined by the environment or their parents or their genes; they exercise choice. Secondly, despite the information economy, it is still very much about what you own. If you are capable of making something amazing, you still need savings or investors who will feed and house you while you make those things and pay the still significant costs of infrastructure that many products require. Big projects typically require capital investment, but so what? That can be gotten if you have a good idea. Also, lots of people that work in service jobs and don't need heavy capital investment do important, creative work. My point here is that, no, it's not "very much about what you own." Most people in America are doing just fine, especially those with an education, and most people in America did not inherit a trust fund or something. Concentration of wealth matters. That doesn't necessarily mean that government intervention is a good idea. If it has no implications, then by definition, it doesn't matter. So if you claim that it matters, you should give an implication.
z0r 16y ago
Who cares who owns what, as long as it isn't stolen from others, indeed. But there are conflicting opinions about how predatory the current economic system is. How much wealth is stolen? It's not easy to answer unless you are an ideological zealot.
- javert 16y ago
  What are you talking about? It's illegal to steal money from other people, barring taxes -- so other than taxes, none of it is stolen. The only economic system that is not predatory is a free market, which is based on voluntary trade for mutual benefit; any other economic system involves coersion, which is required for something to be predatory. In the current economic system of the civilized world, government holds a monopoly on coercive power, so only the government and those influencing it can be/are predatory. Among the people who have the most wealth (at least in the US), most of them are prey, not predators, if you agree with my claim about the nature of predation. If you're going to make accusations, don't hint at them, make them.
  - cromulent 16y ago
    They (the most wealthy) are only prey by your logic if they have no influence on the government. I would suggest that they have disproportionate influence, in many cases. I think the perceptions raised by the OP support that suggestion, even if you only taking the aspirational voting into account and not economic leverage influence.

by javert 16y ago

parenthesis 16y ago

Steve Jobs has "only a high school diploma".

javert 16y ago
I know, that's my point. Just kidding, I'd forgotten that fact. Wish I could say I'd worded things as I did on purpose, remembering that.

redwood 16y ago

<i>The second part of what you said -- about ownership of the "engines of production" -- is straight out of Marxism, which is, by the way, broken. More and more we live in an information economy; it's not about what you own, but what you know and what you can make.</i> I don't agree: while it's important to know a lot to be valuable today, the people who are in this extreme high echelon of wealth are accumulating wealth through corporate ownership and they seem to be owning a larger and larger percent of those corporations. Perhaps what you mean is that corporations, while dominant when it comes to dollars, are not necessarily continuing to be dominant wrt. the human experience. And this I agree with: the internet has opened the wealth of human knowledge to all of us. This freedom and the fact that so many of us spend our days doing what are effectively leisure of artistic pursuits means, even if we're not making money, we're contributing to man kind. And this is true: and not reflected in the wealth distribution, I agree.

Daishiman 16y ago
I disagree completely about 'what you can make'. This only applies to a few extremely qualified positions in the workforce. The large majority of jobs, while they do require a level of intellect, which may be at times large, are nowadays less dependent on individual thought and more about being able to follow processes and procedures, to the point where the skills themselves are mere commodities and original thought is not needed unless we're talking about the higher echelons of a company. I can't find the NYT article on the matter, but I can describe my experience as a systems administrator: While in theory Unix sysadmins are highly qualified people who should be thinking independently, I left the line of work largely because of the extreme tediousness and lack of independence. - 90% of the tasks that had to be done were extremely trivial but their automation had already been maximized (adding users in heterogenous systems, altering filesystems, touching files and installing software) - Most nontrivial errors were deferred to support lines. Decisions on how to proceed with most "important" issues were left up to project executives and people with no technical qualifications. - Most change issues were managed through tickets which had a list of steps to follow to the implementer. Most of the work there consisted of chasing the proper approvers so that I could do the work for them on time. What was left was a highly predictable, boring system where all the originality and intelligence was made at the procedure level, and we were expected to follow procedure at all times, even when it was not necessarily the best choice. Corporations do not generally want an inspired rank-and-file. Intelligent individuals want to question and are willing to make mistakes, and this clashes with organizations that want to automate what cannot be automated at a fundamental level. My skill set was reduced to just knowing the commands and locations to do stuff; creative problem determination was discarding as being dangerous and disrupting, and even though there were a hundred different ways to improve processes, the bureaucracy to do that made it an incovenience that I was not willing to put up with. Thankfully I left that position for places that did require much deeper through and rewarded creativity, but the reality is that a large chunk of work simply doesn't require that; some jobs have a ceiling as to how productive one can be, and IMO, the current trend of making everything dependent on processes doesn't help in bringing the best out of people. Think about this on retail jobs and food services: interaction with the customers is scripted at incredibly deep levels with little margin for the person to make his or her best judgement. The problem is that not everyone is in a condition to leave and operate their own establishment or find better positions, so we have a large mass of people whose skills are being purposely underutilized.

natrius 16y ago

We engineers live in an information economy. Many, if not most Americans do not (pardon my lack of statistics). They work in service jobs that will be trivially automatable in our lifetimes. Wealthy people will actually own the means of production in a very meaningful way, and those that aren't equipped by their genes, upbringing, or education to participate in the information economy will be unable to earn an income. Secondly, despite the information economy, it is still very much about what you own. If you are capable of making something amazing, you still need savings or investors who will feed and house you while you make those things and pay the still significant costs of infrastructure that many products require. Concentration of wealth matters. That doesn't necessarily mean that government intervention is a good idea.

javert 16y ago
Many, if not most Americans do not (pardon my lack of statistics). They work in service jobs that will be trivially automatable in our lifetimes. Most jobs that truly are "trivially automatable" have already been automatized. I think it's extremely unlikely that most or nearly most of Americans' jobs can be replaced by computers in our lifetimes, barring something like the Singularity happening (which I'm not holding my breath for). Wealthy people will actually own the means of production in a very meaningful way Like I said, this is a Marxist bromide. Fundamentally, the means of production is mens' minds. Marx mistakenly believed that production amounted to physical human labor + expensive heavy-industry capital (like factories), which leaves work requiring intelligence and skill (MOST work) out of the picture, and is inaccurate - and is becoming more and more innacurate. those that aren't equipped by their genes, upbringing, or education to participate in the information economy will be unable to earn an income. Everyone is equipped to participate, barring exceptionally low IQ. Human beings are not automatons; they are not determined by the environment or their parents or their genes; they exercise choice. Secondly, despite the information economy, it is still very much about what you own. If you are capable of making something amazing, you still need savings or investors who will feed and house you while you make those things and pay the still significant costs of infrastructure that many products require. Big projects typically require capital investment, but so what? That can be gotten if you have a good idea. Also, lots of people that work in service jobs and don't need heavy capital investment do important, creative work. My point here is that, no, it's not "very much about what you own." Most people in America are doing just fine, especially those with an education, and most people in America did not inherit a trust fund or something. Concentration of wealth matters. That doesn't necessarily mean that government intervention is a good idea. If it has no implications, then by definition, it doesn't matter. So if you claim that it matters, you should give an implication.

z0r 16y ago

Who cares who owns what, as long as it isn't stolen from others, indeed. But there are conflicting opinions about how predatory the current economic system is. How much wealth is stolen? It's not easy to answer unless you are an ideological zealot.

javert 16y ago
What are you talking about? It's illegal to steal money from other people, barring taxes -- so other than taxes, none of it is stolen. The only economic system that is not predatory is a free market, which is based on voluntary trade for mutual benefit; any other economic system involves coersion, which is required for something to be predatory. In the current economic system of the civilized world, government holds a monopoly on coercive power, so only the government and those influencing it can be/are predatory. Among the people who have the most wealth (at least in the US), most of them are prey, not predators, if you agree with my claim about the nature of predation. If you're going to make accusations, don't hint at them, make them.
- cromulent 16y ago
  They (the most wealthy) are only prey by your logic if they have no influence on the government. I would suggest that they have disproportionate influence, in many cases. I think the perceptions raised by the OP support that suggestion, even if you only taking the aspirational voting into account and not economic leverage influence.