6 ms·

I think there's two distinct ideas being discussed. Can people be unemployed because of structural, societal, or political reasons? Sure, and I think most peopl

by bnralt 6y ago

I think there's two distinct ideas being discussed. Can people be unemployed because of structural, societal, or political reasons? Sure, and I think most people would agree. We have plenty of example of that happening - depressions, recessions, mass refugees, etc. But can people be unemployed because we run out of things for humans to do? That's what the video is arguing, but it won't be the case unless we've fully satisfied all of our desires. If we haven't, there are, by definition, still things to do. This idea was particularly popular during the recession (the video was made on the tale end of it). It was common to hear that the high level of unemployment was because automation had taken our jobs or because Americans didn't have the skills for the jobs that were needed. But much of this was nonsense, and we saw employment gradually rebound as we moved out of the recession. Not only nonsense, but dangerous nonsense, since it leads people to entirely misunderstand a solvable problem.

darawk 6y ago
> I think there's two distinct ideas being discussed. Can people be unemployed because of structural, societal, or political reasons? Sure, and I think most people would agree. We have plenty of example of that happening - depressions, recessions, mass refugees, etc. > But can people be unemployed because we run out of things for humans to do? That's what the video is arguing, but it won't be the case unless we've fully satisfied all of our desires. If we haven't, there are, by definition, still things to do. The question at hand though is exactly why is this true of humans but not horses?
- bnralt 6y ago
  Well, there's slight of hand here on CGP Grays part (and sleight of hand in other parts of the video as well), since horses are not doing work out of their own volition and to meet their own needs. Correct for that, and the same will be true for horses - they're not going to run out of work to do until they've fulfilled their desires. Now, I'm talking about typical desires as they stand now. Obviously you can have people creating increasingly exotic and bizarre desires to the point where it's impossible to satiate them all ("I want to own Antarctica"). It's also possible to hit resources limits, but that's a separate problem from "running out of work because of automation." Consider a case where person A builds widget X, and person B builds widget Y, and they trade with each other. Automation takes over, they lose their jobs. If they continue getting the widgets they used to trade for (which are now created automatically), they simply have the same wealth as before but more time. If they don't have the widgets, they're now detached from the new automated widgets both in production and consumption. There's no reason they couldn't carry on the same work as before and continue to trade with each other. This might require societal and political will (they might need some sort of support to reach their previous arrangement), but if the desire for their old work is there and not being met, then there is work to be done.
  - darawk 6y ago
    > Consider a case where person A builds widget X, and person B builds widget Y, and they trade with each other. Automation takes over, they lose their jobs. If they continue getting the widgets they used to trade for (which are now created automatically), they simply have the same wealth as before but more time. If they don't have the widgets, they're now detached from the new automated widgets both in production and consumption. There's no reason they couldn't carry on the same work as before and continue to trade with each other. This might require societal and political will (they might need some sort of support to reach their previous arrangement), but if the desire for their old work is there and not being met, then there is work to be done. I mean, sure this arrangement can happen. But why would it? Why would person A want to trade with person B when they can get their goods made by a robot cheaper and better?
    - bnralt 6y ago
      Well, that's the point. If they're getting their goods from a robot, their needs are being met. If they're not, they could trade with person B.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        Trade what to Person B?
      - darawk 6y ago
        But why are we assuming that they have needs that are not being met by the robots?
        badgerigar 6y ago
        Because they don't have jobs any more, and can no longer afford to pay for the robot labour.
  - ncallaway 6y ago
    This works right up until the inputs for Widget X and Widget Y require capital. Let's say Person A builds Widget X, and needs Input 1 to produce a Widget X. Person B builds Widget Y and needs Input 2 to produce Widget Y. Person A uses their capital from their job to purchase Input 1 and produces Widget X. Person B uses their capital Input 2 and produces Y. Person A and B trade widgets and are happy. But now, as before, automation takes the jobs of Person A and Person B. They lose their jobs, but retain their desire for the opposite widget. Person A no longer has the resources to acquire Input 1, and Person B can no longer acquire Input 2. Neither X nor Y get produced, and both have their needs but are unsatisfied. There is no guarantee that new automation will continue to fulfill all the desires that were fulfilled previously.
boring_twenties 6y ago
> That's what the video is arguing, but it won't be the case unless we've fully satisfied all of our desires. If we haven't, there are, by definition, still things to do. Obviously true, but that doesn't mean the things still left to do can be done by anyone. In a world where there's not enough food or housing, everyone can be gainfully employed, since just about everyone can learn to plant seeds or cut wood. In a world where all of our material desires are already met, plenty of people will still want e.g. new AAA-quality video games every year. But what are the people who aren't programmers or artists supposed to do?
- Swizec 6y ago
  > But what are the people who aren't programmers or artists supposed to do? Keep the programmers and artists happy. You can make a lot more and better AAA games if 50% of your time isn’t spent on life chores.
  - riskable 6y ago
    > You can make a lot more and better AAA games if 50% of your time isn’t spent on life chores. That's what the robots are for! And they never complain, never need to sleep, and are always one software upgrade away from amazing new capabilities.
    - dkersten 6y ago
      That, and human population is still growing, meaning there are more and more humans who need jobs, yet as robots improve, the types of jobs left for humans get fewer. At some point, the lines will cross. Maybe it won't be soon, but if population keeps growing and robots keep being able to do more jobs, then eventually it will happen.
      - Swizec 6y ago
        I just finished reading Bullshit Jobs. The author makes a good argument for the users that because we decided working is a moral good, we are also great at making up things for people to do. For example: the ballooning of admin jobs in academia that add no benefit to services rendered other than keeping other useless admins busy. According to the book, when you remove the bullshit jobs and bullshit work most of us already work 20 hour weeks or less.
joe_the_user 6y ago
But can people be unemployed because we run out of things for humans to do? -- You'll always have something that some other human wants the human X to do. Whether that other person can pay human X sufficient money to make that activity their job is the question. And it seems plausible you'll reach a point where the answer will be no for a lot of people. You can call that "structural" if you wish but it seems related to the marginal utility provided by a given person and that goes down as one finds automated alternatives.
- hooande 6y ago
  Anything that can be a job. Whatever people are willing to pay others to do, limited only by imagination. And just from the definition of money, it's unlikely to find a scenario where people can't pay other people to do arbitrary labor. There will always be people that have a majority of wealth, however that's denoted It's not possible for civilization as a whole to run out of jobs or money. both are human social concepts and can be re-imagined at any time
  - lukifer 6y ago
    > both are human social concepts and can be re-imagined at any time I think that's what's essentially being advocated (whether now or later): reimagining human social roles outside the wage/employment model (and perhaps distributing an "automation dividend" to ensure liquidity and market demand).
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    >limited only by imagination // And by availability of resources, such as energy. From the industrial revolution we've being living in a time of effectively limitless energy and without having considered the consequences of tapping that energy. Fossil fuels, and other resources are running out - or we can at least see the end of them - and the consequences of their use are starting to bite hard. Realistically we're looking at a 2degC average global temperature rise this century, and the destruction of ecosystems due to that relatively rapid rise is going to be massive. When the energy and resources, that we've used to support a consumption economy, grow more scarce that economy will no longer work. We won't be able to get ourselves out of low employment by just consuming more and so making more jobs. >There will always be people that have a majority of wealth, however that's denoted That may be true but we can narrow the spread of wealth by a very large factor; and morally we should do so.
statstutor 6y ago
> That's what the video is arguing, but it won't be the case unless we've fully satisfied all of our desires. If we haven't, there are, by definition, still things to do. If wealth continues to become increasingly centralised, the wealthy might be able to have all their desires fully satisfied, while the poor won't have enough power to demand that - which potentially creates a vicious cycle. Then the existence of sufficient jobs is fraught.
- scatters 6y ago
  Continues? The world is more equal than it ever has been, at least since the invention of agriculture.
  - thyrsus 6y ago
    In western economies, Piketty showed that equality peaked approximately in the 1950's, and has been dropping since. (Almost) no one recommends we have another world war to decrease the assets owned by the rich, but Piketty, like the original article, also recommends a wealth tax (this article includes the significant refinement that the tax be on corporations and not individuals; Piketty does not go into details for his wealth tax proposal). If you disagree with these points, please site evidence.
    - scatters 6y ago
      Western economies? What about the rest of the world? Citation: World Bank. "Poverty and Prosperity 2016 / Taking on Inequality"[1]. 1. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/25078/9781464809583.pdf https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/2...
      - OrbitRock 6y ago
        That’s largely an effect of bringing more regions of the world into the industrialized paradigm, whereas what the other commenter said describes what happens to people in industrialized countries.
Animats 6y ago
People can be unemployed because there's nothing they can do that generates enough value to pay them enough to live on.
- account42 6y ago
  And if that happens to enough people they can simply decide that they should get their share of the robots' output. Hopefully more people will agree with that before then.

by bnralt 6y ago

darawk 6y ago

> I think there's two distinct ideas being discussed. Can people be unemployed because of structural, societal, or political reasons? Sure, and I think most people would agree. We have plenty of example of that happening - depressions, recessions, mass refugees, etc. > But can people be unemployed because we run out of things for humans to do? That's what the video is arguing, but it won't be the case unless we've fully satisfied all of our desires. If we haven't, there are, by definition, still things to do. The question at hand though is exactly why is this true of humans but not horses?

bnralt 6y ago
Well, there's slight of hand here on CGP Grays part (and sleight of hand in other parts of the video as well), since horses are not doing work out of their own volition and to meet their own needs. Correct for that, and the same will be true for horses - they're not going to run out of work to do until they've fulfilled their desires. Now, I'm talking about typical desires as they stand now. Obviously you can have people creating increasingly exotic and bizarre desires to the point where it's impossible to satiate them all ("I want to own Antarctica"). It's also possible to hit resources limits, but that's a separate problem from "running out of work because of automation." Consider a case where person A builds widget X, and person B builds widget Y, and they trade with each other. Automation takes over, they lose their jobs. If they continue getting the widgets they used to trade for (which are now created automatically), they simply have the same wealth as before but more time. If they don't have the widgets, they're now detached from the new automated widgets both in production and consumption. There's no reason they couldn't carry on the same work as before and continue to trade with each other. This might require societal and political will (they might need some sort of support to reach their previous arrangement), but if the desire for their old work is there and not being met, then there is work to be done.
- darawk 6y ago
  > Consider a case where person A builds widget X, and person B builds widget Y, and they trade with each other. Automation takes over, they lose their jobs. If they continue getting the widgets they used to trade for (which are now created automatically), they simply have the same wealth as before but more time. If they don't have the widgets, they're now detached from the new automated widgets both in production and consumption. There's no reason they couldn't carry on the same work as before and continue to trade with each other. This might require societal and political will (they might need some sort of support to reach their previous arrangement), but if the desire for their old work is there and not being met, then there is work to be done. I mean, sure this arrangement can happen. But why would it? Why would person A want to trade with person B when they can get their goods made by a robot cheaper and better?
  - bnralt 6y ago
    Well, that's the point. If they're getting their goods from a robot, their needs are being met. If they're not, they could trade with person B.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      Trade what to Person B?
    - darawk 6y ago
      But why are we assuming that they have needs that are not being met by the robots?
      - badgerigar 6y ago
        Because they don't have jobs any more, and can no longer afford to pay for the robot labour.
- ncallaway 6y ago
  This works right up until the inputs for Widget X and Widget Y require capital. Let's say Person A builds Widget X, and needs Input 1 to produce a Widget X. Person B builds Widget Y and needs Input 2 to produce Widget Y. Person A uses their capital from their job to purchase Input 1 and produces Widget X. Person B uses their capital Input 2 and produces Y. Person A and B trade widgets and are happy. But now, as before, automation takes the jobs of Person A and Person B. They lose their jobs, but retain their desire for the opposite widget. Person A no longer has the resources to acquire Input 1, and Person B can no longer acquire Input 2. Neither X nor Y get produced, and both have their needs but are unsatisfied. There is no guarantee that new automation will continue to fulfill all the desires that were fulfilled previously.

boring_twenties 6y ago

> That's what the video is arguing, but it won't be the case unless we've fully satisfied all of our desires. If we haven't, there are, by definition, still things to do. Obviously true, but that doesn't mean the things still left to do can be done by anyone. In a world where there's not enough food or housing, everyone can be gainfully employed, since just about everyone can learn to plant seeds or cut wood. In a world where all of our material desires are already met, plenty of people will still want e.g. new AAA-quality video games every year. But what are the people who aren't programmers or artists supposed to do?

Swizec 6y ago
> But what are the people who aren't programmers or artists supposed to do? Keep the programmers and artists happy. You can make a lot more and better AAA games if 50% of your time isn’t spent on life chores.
- riskable 6y ago
  > You can make a lot more and better AAA games if 50% of your time isn’t spent on life chores. That's what the robots are for! And they never complain, never need to sleep, and are always one software upgrade away from amazing new capabilities.
  - dkersten 6y ago
    That, and human population is still growing, meaning there are more and more humans who need jobs, yet as robots improve, the types of jobs left for humans get fewer. At some point, the lines will cross. Maybe it won't be soon, but if population keeps growing and robots keep being able to do more jobs, then eventually it will happen.
    - Swizec 6y ago
      I just finished reading Bullshit Jobs. The author makes a good argument for the users that because we decided working is a moral good, we are also great at making up things for people to do. For example: the ballooning of admin jobs in academia that add no benefit to services rendered other than keeping other useless admins busy. According to the book, when you remove the bullshit jobs and bullshit work most of us already work 20 hour weeks or less.

joe_the_user 6y ago

But can people be unemployed because we run out of things for humans to do? -- You'll always have something that some other human wants the human X to do. Whether that other person can pay human X sufficient money to make that activity their job is the question. And it seems plausible you'll reach a point where the answer will be no for a lot of people. You can call that "structural" if you wish but it seems related to the marginal utility provided by a given person and that goes down as one finds automated alternatives.

hooande 6y ago
Anything that can be a job. Whatever people are willing to pay others to do, limited only by imagination. And just from the definition of money, it's unlikely to find a scenario where people can't pay other people to do arbitrary labor. There will always be people that have a majority of wealth, however that's denoted It's not possible for civilization as a whole to run out of jobs or money. both are human social concepts and can be re-imagined at any time
- lukifer 6y ago
  > both are human social concepts and can be re-imagined at any time I think that's what's essentially being advocated (whether now or later): reimagining human social roles outside the wage/employment model (and perhaps distributing an "automation dividend" to ensure liquidity and market demand).
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  >limited only by imagination // And by availability of resources, such as energy. From the industrial revolution we've being living in a time of effectively limitless energy and without having considered the consequences of tapping that energy. Fossil fuels, and other resources are running out - or we can at least see the end of them - and the consequences of their use are starting to bite hard. Realistically we're looking at a 2degC average global temperature rise this century, and the destruction of ecosystems due to that relatively rapid rise is going to be massive. When the energy and resources, that we've used to support a consumption economy, grow more scarce that economy will no longer work. We won't be able to get ourselves out of low employment by just consuming more and so making more jobs. >There will always be people that have a majority of wealth, however that's denoted That may be true but we can narrow the spread of wealth by a very large factor; and morally we should do so.

statstutor 6y ago

> That's what the video is arguing, but it won't be the case unless we've fully satisfied all of our desires. If we haven't, there are, by definition, still things to do. If wealth continues to become increasingly centralised, the wealthy might be able to have all their desires fully satisfied, while the poor won't have enough power to demand that - which potentially creates a vicious cycle. Then the existence of sufficient jobs is fraught.

scatters 6y ago
Continues? The world is more equal than it ever has been, at least since the invention of agriculture.
- thyrsus 6y ago
  In western economies, Piketty showed that equality peaked approximately in the 1950's, and has been dropping since. (Almost) no one recommends we have another world war to decrease the assets owned by the rich, but Piketty, like the original article, also recommends a wealth tax (this article includes the significant refinement that the tax be on corporations and not individuals; Piketty does not go into details for his wealth tax proposal). If you disagree with these points, please site evidence.
  - scatters 6y ago
    Western economies? What about the rest of the world? Citation: World Bank. "Poverty and Prosperity 2016 / Taking on Inequality"[1]. 1. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/25078/9781464809583.pdf https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/2...
    - OrbitRock 6y ago
      That’s largely an effect of bringing more regions of the world into the industrialized paradigm, whereas what the other commenter said describes what happens to people in industrialized countries.

Animats 6y ago

People can be unemployed because there's nothing they can do that generates enough value to pay them enough to live on.

account42 6y ago
And if that happens to enough people they can simply decide that they should get their share of the robots' output. Hopefully more people will agree with that before then.