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I agree with you, but my idea is that automation makes goods more consistent and readily available, lowering prices. If average human wages are dropping, along
by washedup 15y ago
I agree with you, but my idea is that automation makes goods more consistent and readily available, lowering prices. If average human wages are dropping, along with prices of goods/services because of automation, then we are just as well off. If the price of consumption falls faster than human wages, we are better off (from a consumer prospective)
- prodigal_erik 15y agoI'm all for automation reducing society's opportunity costs for making stuff. But if the market wage for the median person's labor drops to zero, they will be much worse off, and using wages to ration out the newly abundant goods (as well as living space) isn't going to work. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm weighs pretty heavily in my thinking as a plausible future, and we're just starting to see the first pebbles of the avalanche as grocery stores replace clerks with vending machines. "Grocery clerk" is a lousy use of human lifetime, but our treatment of the unemployable is currently even worse than that.