4 ms·

> Unless we get something like UBI we'll always need shitty job to keep people busy I find myself often making this assumption too, but I wonder if it's warran

> Unless we get something like UBI we'll always need shitty job to keep people busy I find myself often making this assumption too, but I wonder if it's warranted? A "shit" job is often shorthand for a job you can grab someone off the street and more or less have them start working, an "unskilled" job. But the fact that pretty much anyone can do a job isn't the same as saying that someone doing a "shit" job is only capable of that kind of work. What if we did get to a point where nearly all the tedious, unskilled jobs were done by machines -- what exactly is the barrier to taking all the humans previously doing those jobs and leveling them up to do jobs machines can't do as well? I don't think it's human capability -- I'm quite skeptical of the idea that there's whole classes of people actually _unable_ to learn skills needed for better work. It seems the barrier is that generally it's not economically beneficial to do so -- training takes time and money. But if that's actually the problem, then its not an overall lack of money, it's a distribution question. Perhaps it's because I'm watching The Expanse now and remember the books, but I'm not completely sold on UBI. I think it gives up on the idea that masses of people can work better jobs. As a supplementary income program I can see it working, but as a replacement for having any job at all I'm not sure I'm on board.

lumost 6y ago
I think the question is what need does further economic development satisfy for the totality of the population. UBI can ensure no one has an unmet need for basics, but many people with nothing to do would likely lead to unmet fulfillment and security needs. UBI is unlikely to fund digital nomads in the short term, and unbounded travel isn't for everyone. The classic work for independence mindset that drove early settlers also becomes permanently non-viable. I'm a fan of UBI, but I think it brings us closer to asking the question of how do we structure a society where a 40 hour work week is optional? what will people who are satisfied with the basics do?
- Pokepokalypse 6y ago
  >what will people who are satisfied with the basics do? The devil makes work for idle hands.
- unix_fan 6y ago
  Why bother with the higher level jobs, when my basic needs are already met? I think the assumption relies too much on trusting human nature. from personal experience, I’ve known people Who have become complacent after receiving state aid for a while.. obviously, the level of education and culture are strong factors here.
- lm28469 6y ago
  > what will people who are satisfied with the basics do? Whatever they want, why would we care ? What would you do if work stopped everyday at 1 PM ? Go to the park, chill with friends, read a book, learn music, go for a walk in the woods, play with your kids, take a nap, go fishing, ... live life ? Are we really so alienated that we can't imagine what we'd do outside of work ?
lm28469 6y ago
> What if we did get to a point where nearly all the tedious, unskilled jobs were done by machines -- what exactly is the barrier to taking all the humans previously doing those jobs and leveling them up to do jobs machines can't do as well? Because history repeats itself. Yesterday's factory workers are now slaves of the service/gig economy. These things have been discussed in basically any economy book since the 60s. Automation in itself just moves the problem, if there are no societal changes to assist it you're just running in circles. Politicians of the 70s were promising 5 hours work days and 3 days of work per week thanks to automation, last time I checked we work as much as back then (if not more because retirement age is going up) > It seems the barrier is that generally it's not economically beneficial to do so It's not economical because in today's world you need an army of cheap labor to generate big money for the sharks on top. And this is exactly why you'll always have shitty jobs paying the bare minimum for insane amount of work, it'll take a looooong time before a 7$ an hour worker gets more expensive than a robot for any task remotely difficult. I'm not saying UBI would solve these issues, or any at all really, it's just something we should at least give a shot. But the problem is that in our societies being a worthy human being = working 8 hours a day 5 days a week, and as long as this is default we'll never get rid of shitty jobs, no matter how much we automate, we'll always have to find new occupations for people, and by definition these jobs will be more and more abstract, less and less stimulating, &c.
munificent 6y ago
> what exactly is the barrier to taking all the humans previously doing those jobs and leveling them up to do jobs machines can't do as well? One challenge with this that I rarely hear talked about is that many people aren't inclined to do those jobs. Here on HN, we tacitly assume that everyone loves intellectually challenging, mentally complex work, but that's simply not the case for many people. Lots of people prefer to use their hands, or their bodies, or to do jobs that are primarily social. Many (most?) people don't consider thinking to be a deep source of joy and satisfaction in their lives. When we automate away the skilled manual labor jobs, we implicitly say that the only kind of being human that has value is brain work, but that is an absolute aberration in human history. For most of Homo sapiens evolutionary history, it was just as important to have physical and manual skills.
Pokepokalypse 6y ago
A fact of life of job-training programs, is that you can't force someone to upskill. (see: coal miners). I think there's generally a strong culture of continuous personal improvement among millenials, and probably late gen-X-ers as well. But here I am, later in my career, and I don't honestly see the reward of upskilling. For the time, money, and effort it would take. There's not a lot of things I'd rather be doing than what I'm doing now. And some of those things are maybe 5-10 years of training down the road. And then I'd be starting out at a Junior-level in pay, which is completely un-doable in my situation. Of course, I'm not obsolete in what I'm doing yet. So I don't have THAT choice to make.
Chris2048 6y ago
> I'm quite skeptical of the idea that there's whole classes of people actually _unable_ to learn skills needed for better work According to Jordan Peterson, around 10% of the population has an IQ below 83, (at which point the army will no longer take you). > but as a replacement for having any job at all I find it unlikely UBI can properly account for the market if it's just a flat rate. Instead a more complex version of "food-stamps" might be better i.e. discount items of food, clothing, accommodation etc with category specific UBI. If people can live on basics without working, so be it - just as long as there is no competition with taxpayers. That said, there are some things that are still difficult: insurances, medical and crime for example.
visarga 6y ago
> what exactly is the barrier to taking all the humans previously doing those jobs and leveling them up to do jobs machines can't do as well? Suppose the cool jobs require knowledge of physics, linear algebra, coding, genetics - most people will be unable to do these jobs or unwilling. There are going to be human-in-the-loop kind of jobs for monitoring AI models though. And there are going to be new applications that will keep us busy, whenever we gain new abilities we also expand our ambitions - like the car industry, which killed the horse and buggy industry but created a huge number of new jobs.
cmxch 6y ago
> I'm quite skeptical of the idea that there's whole classes of people actually _unable_ to learn skills needed for better work Disability recipients fall into both categories. Some are not trainable for skilled work with current methods, while others are trainable but not desirable (lack of current work history, lack of hard/soft skills that only come from work). In short, they're getting some training but not getting the work from it. That has to change somehow. > It seems the barrier is that generally it's not economically beneficial to do so -- training takes time and money. Seeing that a lot with entry level IT. It is more economical to wait for the unicorn than to train the people that are available. What would have to happen to change that (short of a miraculous repeat of the late 1990s)?

lumost 6y ago

I think the question is what need does further economic development satisfy for the totality of the population. UBI can ensure no one has an unmet need for basics, but many people with nothing to do would likely lead to unmet fulfillment and security needs. UBI is unlikely to fund digital nomads in the short term, and unbounded travel isn't for everyone. The classic work for independence mindset that drove early settlers also becomes permanently non-viable. I'm a fan of UBI, but I think it brings us closer to asking the question of how do we structure a society where a 40 hour work week is optional? what will people who are satisfied with the basics do?

Pokepokalypse 6y ago
>what will people who are satisfied with the basics do? The devil makes work for idle hands.
unix_fan 6y ago
Why bother with the higher level jobs, when my basic needs are already met? I think the assumption relies too much on trusting human nature. from personal experience, I’ve known people Who have become complacent after receiving state aid for a while.. obviously, the level of education and culture are strong factors here.
lm28469 6y ago
> what will people who are satisfied with the basics do? Whatever they want, why would we care ? What would you do if work stopped everyday at 1 PM ? Go to the park, chill with friends, read a book, learn music, go for a walk in the woods, play with your kids, take a nap, go fishing, ... live life ? Are we really so alienated that we can't imagine what we'd do outside of work ?

lm28469 6y ago

> What if we did get to a point where nearly all the tedious, unskilled jobs were done by machines -- what exactly is the barrier to taking all the humans previously doing those jobs and leveling them up to do jobs machines can't do as well? Because history repeats itself. Yesterday's factory workers are now slaves of the service/gig economy. These things have been discussed in basically any economy book since the 60s. Automation in itself just moves the problem, if there are no societal changes to assist it you're just running in circles. Politicians of the 70s were promising 5 hours work days and 3 days of work per week thanks to automation, last time I checked we work as much as back then (if not more because retirement age is going up) > It seems the barrier is that generally it's not economically beneficial to do so It's not economical because in today's world you need an army of cheap labor to generate big money for the sharks on top. And this is exactly why you'll always have shitty jobs paying the bare minimum for insane amount of work, it'll take a looooong time before a 7$ an hour worker gets more expensive than a robot for any task remotely difficult. I'm not saying UBI would solve these issues, or any at all really, it's just something we should at least give a shot. But the problem is that in our societies being a worthy human being = working 8 hours a day 5 days a week, and as long as this is default we'll never get rid of shitty jobs, no matter how much we automate, we'll always have to find new occupations for people, and by definition these jobs will be more and more abstract, less and less stimulating, &c.

munificent 6y ago

> what exactly is the barrier to taking all the humans previously doing those jobs and leveling them up to do jobs machines can't do as well? One challenge with this that I rarely hear talked about is that many people aren't inclined to do those jobs. Here on HN, we tacitly assume that everyone loves intellectually challenging, mentally complex work, but that's simply not the case for many people. Lots of people prefer to use their hands, or their bodies, or to do jobs that are primarily social. Many (most?) people don't consider thinking to be a deep source of joy and satisfaction in their lives. When we automate away the skilled manual labor jobs, we implicitly say that the only kind of being human that has value is brain work, but that is an absolute aberration in human history. For most of Homo sapiens evolutionary history, it was just as important to have physical and manual skills.

Pokepokalypse 6y ago

A fact of life of job-training programs, is that you can't force someone to upskill. (see: coal miners). I think there's generally a strong culture of continuous personal improvement among millenials, and probably late gen-X-ers as well. But here I am, later in my career, and I don't honestly see the reward of upskilling. For the time, money, and effort it would take. There's not a lot of things I'd rather be doing than what I'm doing now. And some of those things are maybe 5-10 years of training down the road. And then I'd be starting out at a Junior-level in pay, which is completely un-doable in my situation. Of course, I'm not obsolete in what I'm doing yet. So I don't have THAT choice to make.

Chris2048 6y ago

> I'm quite skeptical of the idea that there's whole classes of people actually _unable_ to learn skills needed for better work According to Jordan Peterson, around 10% of the population has an IQ below 83, (at which point the army will no longer take you). > but as a replacement for having any job at all I find it unlikely UBI can properly account for the market if it's just a flat rate. Instead a more complex version of "food-stamps" might be better i.e. discount items of food, clothing, accommodation etc with category specific UBI. If people can live on basics without working, so be it - just as long as there is no competition with taxpayers. That said, there are some things that are still difficult: insurances, medical and crime for example.

visarga 6y ago

> what exactly is the barrier to taking all the humans previously doing those jobs and leveling them up to do jobs machines can't do as well? Suppose the cool jobs require knowledge of physics, linear algebra, coding, genetics - most people will be unable to do these jobs or unwilling. There are going to be human-in-the-loop kind of jobs for monitoring AI models though. And there are going to be new applications that will keep us busy, whenever we gain new abilities we also expand our ambitions - like the car industry, which killed the horse and buggy industry but created a huge number of new jobs.

cmxch 6y ago

> I'm quite skeptical of the idea that there's whole classes of people actually _unable_ to learn skills needed for better work Disability recipients fall into both categories. Some are not trainable for skilled work with current methods, while others are trainable but not desirable (lack of current work history, lack of hard/soft skills that only come from work). In short, they're getting some training but not getting the work from it. That has to change somehow. > It seems the barrier is that generally it's not economically beneficial to do so -- training takes time and money. Seeing that a lot with entry level IT. It is more economical to wait for the unicorn than to train the people that are available. What would have to happen to change that (short of a miraculous repeat of the late 1990s)?