7 ms·

Economic advantages along with a huge number of jobs destroyed

• jliptzin 5y ago
  Huge number of *shitty jobs destroyed Isn't that kind of the point of technological progress?
  • bufferoverflow 5y ago
    Shitty or not, they are jobs. You failed to address what will happen to these drivers. Average age: 46.
    • burrows 5y ago
      They will lose their jobs and will have to find new sources of incomes.
      • chii 5y ago
        The horses that used to pull carriages were slaughtered for meat or glue after the advent of the car.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
  • kadoban 5y ago
    Yes, but since we live in a bootstrappy wonderland, the current holders of those shitty jobs will be ~destroyed as well.
    • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      The Luddites did ok. Why would it be different this time?
      • carlmr 5y ago
        Actually a lot of them didn't, hence the protests. Innovation can take away your job in a span of ten years while not creating new jobs for generations to come.
        • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
          > Innovation can take away your job in a span of ten years while not creating new jobs for generations to come. That case isn't true. The new generations had jobs well enough (increased productivity grew the economy much faster than before), they weren't committed to weaving clothes by hand. The Luddites themselves didn't fair as well in the short term, but many of them would have aged out of the work force in a few years anyways (manual weaving is pretty unforgiving on the body). Truck drivers are rapidly aging as well, if self driving vehicles move retirement up by 5 or so years, it isn't going that huge of a deal (we can rely even on America's social safety net), and their kids didn't want to be truck drivers anyways.
          • carlmr 5y ago
            >Truck drivers are rapidly aging as well, if self driving vehicles move retirement up by 5 or so years, it isn't going that huge of a deal That's quite optimistic. When did politicians ever talk about moving up the retirement age in the last decades. The internet brought insane growth through productivity gains in all industries. Even more than I'd expect from self-driving cars. And we haven't talked about moving up the retirement age. Also the question is what these people do now? In the next twenty years of unemployment until they reach the current retirement age?
        • bduerst 5y ago
          Luddites to the weaving loom, Blacksmiths to the steel mill, farm hands to the combustion engine, secretaries to the email, travel agencies to the search engine, etc. Technology has a robust history of displacing jobs, and humans have a robust history of learning new skills. Change is never comfortable, but predictable.
      • babypuncher 5y ago
  • dfxm12 5y ago
    Yes, but, it unfortunately only leads to social progress if everything else keeps up - you'd be surprised how many social programs currently have work requirements ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Unemployment benefits, some type of UBI, education/job training affordability, social security, etc. are all things that need to be reevaluated if a whole job category is going to be removed. Job automation is great, but there are externalities that should be accounted for ahead of time. You can ask, "who pays for this?" Well, the obvious answer is the companies that will be enriching themselves due to society's sacrifice. Although, that has happened during the pandemic, so it's clear corporations aren't going to do so out of some sense of civic duty.
• munk-a 5y ago
  This argument didn't stop cab driving from transitioning from a serious employment opportunity to employment as a service contractors - so I don't know if that's enough to hold back the tide for the taxi side of things... on the trucking side I think there will probably be a big reckoning at some point though. Teamsters unions mean business.