3 ms·

Well yes, we're more productive, so a lot less people work. E.g. people usually retire, young people usually don't work, people usually work fewer hours, etc. T

by edanm 6y ago

Well yes, we're more productive, so a lot less people work. E.g. people usually retire, young people usually don't work, people usually work fewer hours, etc. That doesn't mean we can just cut most of what is left and still have everything we want. I mean, do you think that most people are not really productive most of the time? As in not doing anything that will be missed? Can you point out those things? Again, we still need teachers, we still need fairly large amounts of people to continue producing forms of entertainment, we still need fairly large numbers of people to keep the internet working, etc. Where are there huge swathes of jobs that you are OK with just not having anymore?

fxtentacle 6y ago
"do you think that most people are not really productive most of the time?" lawyers, bankers, patent trolls, most government employees, middle management, motivational coaches, ... Hmm. Yes? But to get back to the original topic, I'd agree with Joker_vD that we have lots of services around where the economic damage of pausing them for a few months seems rather low. I mean closing schools for 3 months now is something you could easily catch up for in the upcoming year(s).
- edanm 6y ago
  > lawyers, bankers, patent trolls, most government employees, middle management, motivational coaches, ... I mean, I get where you're coming from, and I am sure there are at least some percentage of people that are not very productive. But I think that most of the time, what looks from the outside like a waste of resources, is born from not knowing many of the details. That's why every time some post on HN mentions that $RANDOM_STARTUP has $SUCH_AND_SUCH employees, there are always both comments stating that having so many employees don't make sense, and other people with experience explaining exactly why it makes sense. And no offense, but if you think that lawyers and bankers as a class are not necessary, then I think you simply don't know much about what they do or why they are doing productive work. And even if you think that the amount of lawyers/bankers/government is too high, and that we could make those jobs more productive (meaning fewer hours worked to achieve the same result), I'm pretty sure the way to get there isn't to just say "ok, let's just turn off these professions completely with almost no preparation. Good luck!". This is usually a process that happens over many years. > I mean closing schools for 3 months now is something you could easily catch up for in the upcoming year(s). I completely agree, and if we are only talking about 3 months I agree that it's relatively simple. But we're already what, 8 months into this? And it looks like we're going to be in this situation for another half a year, at the very least? To get back to your parent post, whether we can or can't organize our economy to have more people not working in general (and I argued that we can't!), the economy right now isn't organized that way, so for now at least people do need those jobs. And I think your parent post exaggerates just how many people are dying (e.g. seeing dead bodies on the street is an exaggeration, for the most part). Given our current economic system (which I'm in favor of, to be clear), the situation really is hard for many people. It's really true that people are losing their life's savings, and much worse, given the current situation. It isn't an easy thing to do, even if you agree that these drastic measures are necessary to prevent a worse outcome (which I agree with!) It's the very definition of a lose-lose situation.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  Also, military. Imagine if we could remove all of the military in the world? The savings would be quite large, I'd think. And the best thing, with no armies around, we would need no army for protection from other armies, so it all works out! It's but a pipe dream, of course, but a nice one. Again, the size of the modern military forces is another indicator of how much of population can be removed from doing any sort of productive work without crushing the economy. Throw in the military industrial complex which diverts lots of resources while producing mostly the tools of destruction that, again, are mostly either used up during the training or left unused and scrapped 50 years later. So, back to the original topic. Suspending all those services doesn't directly impact the ability of the "production of basic commodities" part of economy to keep providing those necessities, they impact it because of the way the flows of money set up. If all the restaurants in Seattle close, it's not like the farmers in Washington suddenly physically can't grow as much as potatoes and raise as much cattle as before. They can, so there is no reason for the restaurant workers to starve or go unsheltered, the production capacity hasn't decreased, it's just the way the distribution of goods is arranged that such deterioration in quality of life may happen.

by edanm 6y ago

fxtentacle 6y ago

"do you think that most people are not really productive most of the time?" lawyers, bankers, patent trolls, most government employees, middle management, motivational coaches, ... Hmm. Yes? But to get back to the original topic, I'd agree with Joker_vD that we have lots of services around where the economic damage of pausing them for a few months seems rather low. I mean closing schools for 3 months now is something you could easily catch up for in the upcoming year(s).

edanm 6y ago
> lawyers, bankers, patent trolls, most government employees, middle management, motivational coaches, ... I mean, I get where you're coming from, and I am sure there are at least some percentage of people that are not very productive. But I think that most of the time, what looks from the outside like a waste of resources, is born from not knowing many of the details. That's why every time some post on HN mentions that $RANDOM_STARTUP has $SUCH_AND_SUCH employees, there are always both comments stating that having so many employees don't make sense, and other people with experience explaining exactly why it makes sense. And no offense, but if you think that lawyers and bankers as a class are not necessary, then I think you simply don't know much about what they do or why they are doing productive work. And even if you think that the amount of lawyers/bankers/government is too high, and that we could make those jobs more productive (meaning fewer hours worked to achieve the same result), I'm pretty sure the way to get there isn't to just say "ok, let's just turn off these professions completely with almost no preparation. Good luck!". This is usually a process that happens over many years. > I mean closing schools for 3 months now is something you could easily catch up for in the upcoming year(s). I completely agree, and if we are only talking about 3 months I agree that it's relatively simple. But we're already what, 8 months into this? And it looks like we're going to be in this situation for another half a year, at the very least? To get back to your parent post, whether we can or can't organize our economy to have more people not working in general (and I argued that we can't!), the economy right now isn't organized that way, so for now at least people do need those jobs. And I think your parent post exaggerates just how many people are dying (e.g. seeing dead bodies on the street is an exaggeration, for the most part). Given our current economic system (which I'm in favor of, to be clear), the situation really is hard for many people. It's really true that people are losing their life's savings, and much worse, given the current situation. It isn't an easy thing to do, even if you agree that these drastic measures are necessary to prevent a worse outcome (which I agree with!) It's the very definition of a lose-lose situation.
Joker_vD 6y ago
Also, military. Imagine if we could remove all of the military in the world? The savings would be quite large, I'd think. And the best thing, with no armies around, we would need no army for protection from other armies, so it all works out! It's but a pipe dream, of course, but a nice one. Again, the size of the modern military forces is another indicator of how much of population can be removed from doing any sort of productive work without crushing the economy. Throw in the military industrial complex which diverts lots of resources while producing mostly the tools of destruction that, again, are mostly either used up during the training or left unused and scrapped 50 years later. So, back to the original topic. Suspending all those services doesn't directly impact the ability of the "production of basic commodities" part of economy to keep providing those necessities, they impact it because of the way the flows of money set up. If all the restaurants in Seattle close, it's not like the farmers in Washington suddenly physically can't grow as much as potatoes and raise as much cattle as before. They can, so there is no reason for the restaurant workers to starve or go unsheltered, the production capacity hasn't decreased, it's just the way the distribution of goods is arranged that such deterioration in quality of life may happen.