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Progress has been happening in our economy for over 200 years now. There is always the next boogeyman that is going to ruin the economy, yet it never materializ

by dlp211 6y ago

Progress has been happening in our economy for over 200 years now. There is always the next boogeyman that is going to ruin the economy, yet it never materializes. And if automation does in fact cause harm the way you suggest it will, and it might, then we do what we must as a society to alleviate that issue. Trying to hold back the inevitable is a bad economic strategy.

scarface74 6y ago
There is a huge difference. While progress before meant that workers could be more productive, the amount of workers you needed increased as the amount of goods that were produced increased. It took more people to produce more value. It doesn’t take any additional people if MS sells one copy of Windows or Office than if they sell a million. The same is true for Facebook, and AWS (of course the retail side needs more but that’s even becoming more automated). As I said below, Apple and Amazon are the only two of the five big tech companies that have products or service that requires a lot of people as they scale and Apple’s “employees” are contract workers overseas. That also means that the modern “factory workers” - software engineers, product managers, etc. produce an outsized value, are a larger multiplier and get paid a lot more.
- chii 6y ago
  and why couldn't more people be "modern factory workers"? Why can't there be a million times more software and services available? It doesn't have to be just MS and Apple and Amazon providing jobs.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    The entire concept of software and is that the marginal cost is 0. If it gets to the point where there is a one to one ratio between worker and service, it becomes yet another commoditized race to the bottom. There is also nothing stopping many of the three billion people in India and China from producing these services and now all of the protectionist policies in the world won’t protect “good American jobs”. But as far as Amazon and Apple, that’s just the point. Apple’s “manufacturing employees” are overseas and Amazon is trying to automate more so that they don’t need as many FCs.

by dlp211 6y ago

scarface74 6y ago

There is a huge difference. While progress before meant that workers could be more productive, the amount of workers you needed increased as the amount of goods that were produced increased. It took more people to produce more value. It doesn’t take any additional people if MS sells one copy of Windows or Office than if they sell a million. The same is true for Facebook, and AWS (of course the retail side needs more but that’s even becoming more automated). As I said below, Apple and Amazon are the only two of the five big tech companies that have products or service that requires a lot of people as they scale and Apple’s “employees” are contract workers overseas. That also means that the modern “factory workers” - software engineers, product managers, etc. produce an outsized value, are a larger multiplier and get paid a lot more.

chii 6y ago
and why couldn't more people be "modern factory workers"? Why can't there be a million times more software and services available? It doesn't have to be just MS and Apple and Amazon providing jobs.
- scarface74 6y ago
  The entire concept of software and is that the marginal cost is 0. If it gets to the point where there is a one to one ratio between worker and service, it becomes yet another commoditized race to the bottom. There is also nothing stopping many of the three billion people in India and China from producing these services and now all of the protectionist policies in the world won’t protect “good American jobs”. But as far as Amazon and Apple, that’s just the point. Apple’s “manufacturing employees” are overseas and Amazon is trying to automate more so that they don’t need as many FCs.