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You're missing the point. At SOME point, even YOU won't be able to find a job, due to robotics and automation, compounded by extremely high unemployment making

You're missing the point. At SOME point, even YOU won't be able to find a job, due to robotics and automation, compounded by extremely high unemployment making even basic jobs like plumbing impossible to get. If that happens, we either just let everyone starve until the population drops to equilibrium, or restructure society to support people when there's no jobs for 99% of us.

spywaregorilla 4y ago
That's great, but we're nowhere near that point. That is basically a post scarcity society.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  For all intents and prepared we already live in a post-scarcity society. We're just too shitty to make an effort to distribute the wealth, the food, the products etc.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    s/prepared/purposes Curse autocomplete/swipe keyboards
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Not even close. Producing enough total food to feed everyone is not post scarcity. A massive energy crisis in europe is plenty evidence for this.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      We produce significantly more food that is needed to feed everyone. Energy crisis in Europe is entirely man-made because, as I said, we are shitty.
- diputsmonro 4y ago
  If our enormous economic engines were devoted towards efficiency rather than profit motive, I think we would be there. How many appliances do we build to last for a few years and then break? How many economic resources could we save by building fewer products to last longer? If the economic engine were tilted towards quality rather than churn, we could be much more efficient about our use of resources.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    No, we're nowhere near it. Last mile labor needs are unavoidable at this time and energy and materials are still very much scarce. Durable products would be nice.
  - incrudible 4y ago
    The profit motive promotes efficiency by driving all prices towards marginal cost, as long as competition exists. Highly durable goods are not per se an efficient use of resources, but we probably disagree on the meaning of that word anyway.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  If you wait until a post-scarcity to implement a UBI you will have violent collapse of society long before you reach post-scarcity. We walk a razor's edge of oppression - too little and society doesn't have enough peasants to grind into the machine to make the gears work, too much and the peasants destroy the machine.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    And if you implement UBI now, you'll just shoot yourself in the foot and become less economically competitive because you're in a globalized economy. You cannot do this while you're still dependent on trade with other countries, which we are. You can do UBI when it really wouldn't matter if we didn't employ people in low wage jobs.
robotresearcher 4y ago
On the other hand we currently have the highest levels of automation and AI ever experienced, and near-record-low unemployment. Is the idea that it suddenly tips?
- ckw 4y ago
  It tipped decades ago: in the United States, the labor force participation rate for men has been in secular decline since 1950 (and perhaps earlier—-the Fred data only goes back to 1948): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 For women, since about 2000: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002 Combined: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART
  - robotresearcher 4y ago
    What's the large gap between labor force participation rate and unemployment rate? Is it the rising number of elderly people? https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
    - ckw 4y ago
      Here’s the graph limited to ages 25-54: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060 The shape is the same, with a peak at ~1999. There is a large difference between the labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate because the LFPR can’t be gamed. A stark way to think about it is to consider that, if every person currently looking for work were to fail to such an extent that they just gave up, the unemployment rate would drop to zero.
      - robotresearcher 4y ago
        OK, makes sense. Using your preferred metric, we have about the same LFPR we had in 1980. It has gradually varied since then between about 81% and 85%. > The shape is the same, with a peak at ~1999. The trend is up since 2015, apart from the Covid dip. Automation and AI have not had a dramatic effect yet on LFPR. Maybe there's a tipping point to come.
astrange 4y ago
The idea that high unemployment is likely is just an artifact of bad monetary policy in 2010. The entire time, automation people like Yang have been claiming unemployment was already happening, and yet it was constantly going down. Unemployment in the US is now lower than it’s been in decades.
- thedorkknight 4y ago
  It's not so much that it's a bad artifact of something in the past, it's more speculation about what will happen to employment of humans if/when companies can just create human-level AI that operates 1000x faster than fleshy humans for digital/white collar work, and just buy a Boston Dynamics style robot with a similar AI in it for blue collar work

spywaregorilla 4y ago

That's great, but we're nowhere near that point. That is basically a post scarcity society.

dmitriid 4y ago
For all intents and prepared we already live in a post-scarcity society. We're just too shitty to make an effort to distribute the wealth, the food, the products etc.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  s/prepared/purposes Curse autocomplete/swipe keyboards
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Not even close. Producing enough total food to feed everyone is not post scarcity. A massive energy crisis in europe is plenty evidence for this.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    We produce significantly more food that is needed to feed everyone. Energy crisis in Europe is entirely man-made because, as I said, we are shitty.
diputsmonro 4y ago
If our enormous economic engines were devoted towards efficiency rather than profit motive, I think we would be there. How many appliances do we build to last for a few years and then break? How many economic resources could we save by building fewer products to last longer? If the economic engine were tilted towards quality rather than churn, we could be much more efficient about our use of resources.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  No, we're nowhere near it. Last mile labor needs are unavoidable at this time and energy and materials are still very much scarce. Durable products would be nice.
- incrudible 4y ago
  The profit motive promotes efficiency by driving all prices towards marginal cost, as long as competition exists. Highly durable goods are not per se an efficient use of resources, but we probably disagree on the meaning of that word anyway.
idiotsecant 4y ago
If you wait until a post-scarcity to implement a UBI you will have violent collapse of society long before you reach post-scarcity. We walk a razor's edge of oppression - too little and society doesn't have enough peasants to grind into the machine to make the gears work, too much and the peasants destroy the machine.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  And if you implement UBI now, you'll just shoot yourself in the foot and become less economically competitive because you're in a globalized economy. You cannot do this while you're still dependent on trade with other countries, which we are. You can do UBI when it really wouldn't matter if we didn't employ people in low wage jobs.

robotresearcher 4y ago

On the other hand we currently have the highest levels of automation and AI ever experienced, and near-record-low unemployment. Is the idea that it suddenly tips?

ckw 4y ago
It tipped decades ago: in the United States, the labor force participation rate for men has been in secular decline since 1950 (and perhaps earlier—-the Fred data only goes back to 1948): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 For women, since about 2000: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002 Combined: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART
- robotresearcher 4y ago
  What's the large gap between labor force participation rate and unemployment rate? Is it the rising number of elderly people? https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
  - ckw 4y ago
    Here’s the graph limited to ages 25-54: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060 The shape is the same, with a peak at ~1999. There is a large difference between the labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate because the LFPR can’t be gamed. A stark way to think about it is to consider that, if every person currently looking for work were to fail to such an extent that they just gave up, the unemployment rate would drop to zero.
    - robotresearcher 4y ago
      OK, makes sense. Using your preferred metric, we have about the same LFPR we had in 1980. It has gradually varied since then between about 81% and 85%. > The shape is the same, with a peak at ~1999. The trend is up since 2015, apart from the Covid dip. Automation and AI have not had a dramatic effect yet on LFPR. Maybe there's a tipping point to come.

astrange 4y ago

The idea that high unemployment is likely is just an artifact of bad monetary policy in 2010. The entire time, automation people like Yang have been claiming unemployment was already happening, and yet it was constantly going down. Unemployment in the US is now lower than it’s been in decades.

thedorkknight 4y ago
It's not so much that it's a bad artifact of something in the past, it's more speculation about what will happen to employment of humans if/when companies can just create human-level AI that operates 1000x faster than fleshy humans for digital/white collar work, and just buy a Boston Dynamics style robot with a similar AI in it for blue collar work