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We've mostly run out of things for horses to do, which is why we don't see so many anymore. Automation took longer but it's getting pretty close for a lot of si

We've mostly run out of things for horses to do, which is why we don't see so many anymore. Automation took longer but it's getting pretty close for a lot of simple jobs at the same time.

imtringued 6y ago
Money represents labor, not machine time. All goods and services are ultimately the product of labor.
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  I can hire a guy to wash my car, or I can drop money into a machine that’s open 24/7 and doesn’t get bored. Labor to build and maintain the machine isn’t zero but it is dramatically less.
wpietri 6y ago
You appear to be just repeating the claim I'm challenging. We've automated away all the simple jobs many times over. Almost all of agriculture, for example. Almost any job in the first industrial revolution. Practically any job that is embedded in a last name: Smith, Potter, Cooper, Mason, Taylor, Wright, Fletcher, Ward, Weaver, Chandler. But again, look around you: is this a world with nothing left to do?
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  When we invented machines that did many of the jobs horses did, we did not find other jobs for those horses to do. Now for the first time we are inventing cost-effective machines that can see and move things and apply tools without close supervision, which is all that people are doing in a lot of jobs. I’m not confident we’re going to find a similar amount of useful work that only a person could do.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    We didn't find other jobs for horses to do because horses were capital goods. That's like saying we haven't found new jobs for spinning jennies or steamboats. As to the other bit I'm not sure if that's "OMG machines will ruin us" or "OMG robots will ruin us", but the former is multiple centuries old, while the latter just turned 100. I get that you have personal fears here, but people have had personal fears about insufficient replacement work because machines since the Industrial Revolution. If you want people to take those fears seriously, you'll have to do better than "animals are people, probably". If you'd like to see it differently, try naming problems in people's lives and in the broader society. How many of those could be improved with the application of human time and attention? Lots, I say. It'll be a long time before we run out of things for people to do.

We've mostly run out of things for horses to do, which is why we don't see so many anymore. Automation took longer but it's getting pretty close for a lot of simple jobs at the same time.

imtringued 6y ago

Money represents labor, not machine time. All goods and services are ultimately the product of labor.

erik_seaberg 6y ago
I can hire a guy to wash my car, or I can drop money into a machine that’s open 24/7 and doesn’t get bored. Labor to build and maintain the machine isn’t zero but it is dramatically less.

wpietri 6y ago

You appear to be just repeating the claim I'm challenging. We've automated away all the simple jobs many times over. Almost all of agriculture, for example. Almost any job in the first industrial revolution. Practically any job that is embedded in a last name: Smith, Potter, Cooper, Mason, Taylor, Wright, Fletcher, Ward, Weaver, Chandler. But again, look around you: is this a world with nothing left to do?

erik_seaberg 6y ago
When we invented machines that did many of the jobs horses did, we did not find other jobs for those horses to do. Now for the first time we are inventing cost-effective machines that can see and move things and apply tools without close supervision, which is all that people are doing in a lot of jobs. I’m not confident we’re going to find a similar amount of useful work that only a person could do.
- wpietri 6y ago
  We didn't find other jobs for horses to do because horses were capital goods. That's like saying we haven't found new jobs for spinning jennies or steamboats. As to the other bit I'm not sure if that's "OMG machines will ruin us" or "OMG robots will ruin us", but the former is multiple centuries old, while the latter just turned 100. I get that you have personal fears here, but people have had personal fears about insufficient replacement work because machines since the Industrial Revolution. If you want people to take those fears seriously, you'll have to do better than "animals are people, probably". If you'd like to see it differently, try naming problems in people's lives and in the broader society. How many of those could be improved with the application of human time and attention? Lots, I say. It'll be a long time before we run out of things for people to do.