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And here lies the humanitarian problem with “software eats the world”.
by DSingularity 6y ago
And here lies the humanitarian problem with “software eats the world”.
- eru 6y agoWhat is problematic about this?
- Traster 6y agoIf 500 silicon valley engineers can replace 100,000 travel agents earning $50,000, then you have 500 silicon valley engineers earning $10m and 100,000 unemployed travel agents.
- jeofken 6y agoIn fact, the stable boy and hay industry has never recovered after the introduction of the Ford model T.
- Traster 6y agoWhich is fine, as long as you're not the stable boy, don't care about the stable boy, and don't live in a democracy where the stable boy gets a vote.
- ppod 6y agoRight, but the lesson is that we ought to look after the stable boy, not that the invention of cars was a bad idea.
- killtimeatwork 6y agoThe crucial side-effect of most productivity-increasing inventions is marginalization of most of the work force (barring the few lucky ones - the SV engineers in the case of XXI century), destruction of communities and concentration of wealth and power in fewer hands. The luddites were definitely onto something. Wendell Bell explored these ideas in detail in his writing, if anyone is interested in learning more.
- Traster 6y agoYeah which is why it's stated as a problem to be solved, not some immutable fact of life. The issue is that we've seen incredibly little progress in this area. There have been studies on the British coal mines that shuttered under Thatcher - the areas are still not back to the level of employment they had before the mines were shut. It's fine to say that shuttering those mines was a good thing - it probably was. It's also factual to say that those who felt the negative effects didn't benefit from the advantages of government policy, and ina human sense beyond employment numbers it means a lot of those people never worked again.
- jeofken 6y agoIf you mean force others to take care of the stable boy, then no, it can not be moral. What is moral and also efficient and kind is not standing in the way of him finding another occupation - to remove all regulation that hinders someone from providing value
- hoseja 6y agoWhich is fine, as long as you don't mind being outcompeted and replaced by a system that is able to phase out stable boys.
- jeofken 6y agoYou nailed it - statist democracy is having control over vast amounts of weapons, and forcing your way into the wallet of your neighbour, rather than competing and providing value to others.
- Kbelicius 6y agoFord model T did not compete with stable boys and hay industry. It competed with horses and no, they never recovered.
- im3w1l 6y ago500 sv engineers earning $500k. Most of the savings passed on to consumers.
- killtimeatwork 6y agoExpedia is based in Seattle, London and India. As far as I know, they don't pay SV FAANG salaries.
- eru 6y agoThe whole point is that the engineers all taken together would make less than the travel agents all taken together. That's where the consumer surplus and company profit come from. Second: freeing up the work of 99,500 people would be awesome! You know that nearly everyone used to be a farmer back in the day? Surprisingly, the world today is not made up of 70%+ unemployed farmers?