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We can vote. We can unionize. We can push for better healthcare, education, labor, etc., policy. The status quo is the problem here, IMO, which I believe is the

We can vote. We can unionize. We can push for better healthcare, education, labor, etc., policy. The status quo is the problem here, IMO, which I believe is the source of much of the anxiety many of us experience in this era.

cmh89 4y ago
It speaks strongly to how hostile capitalism is to human happiness that the thought of making work easier and faster scares us. Future benefits of technology will primarily be enjoyed by the 1% with the other 99% becoming poorer and working (hours wise) more.
- prepend 4y ago
  Yet capitalism is responsible for the greatest elimination of poverty in human history (comparing people in extreme poverty 50 years ago until today). I think it’s a transitional economic force though. Like it works for getting super poor, super inefficient systems up to moderate and then starts scooping up and concentrating. I feel like being able to complain about capitalism is a luxury created by capitalism and people who are too poor complain about other things (like starving to death). Similarly to the shift from dying from infectious disease to dying from chronic disease due to eliminating or reducing preventable disease. It’s not that vaccines cause cancer and diabetes, it’s that vaccines stop people dying earlier of vaccine preventable diseases.
- awesomegoat_com 4y ago
  Happiness cannot be measured and managers cannot manage something that cannot be measured. You see?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > Future benefits of technology will primarily be enjoyed by the 1% with the other 99% becoming poorer and working (hours wise) more. The history of technology & capitalism is quite the reverse. A few years back, a steamboat from the 1850s was discovered buried in the muck in the Missisoupi. Archeologists rushed to dig it up and discover what it was carrying. They had the same notion you did. They were shocked that the steamboat was not carrying luxury items at all. It was loaded to the gills with manufactured stuff for ordinary folks. Things like factory made shoes, textiles, tools, pots, pans, dishes, bottled food, nails, hardware, etc. You see the same thing today with, for example, the iphone. That machine was made for everyone, not just the 1%. And it made Apple the richest company in the world. Look at what wealthy tech companies make - they make stuff for ordinary people.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > That machine was made for everyone, not just the 1%. Umm, what? The iPhone is meant to be a status symbol, not "for everyone".
    - dh2022 4y ago
      iPhone was a status symbol in 2007-2008.
    - nikau 4y ago
      iPhone is "affordable luxury" like coach handbags and other junk that targets the average consumer.
  - cmh89 4y ago
    You've misunderstood my comment. I'm not talking about stuff. I'm talking about quality of life. The next generation will have a lower quality of life than ours. They will have less wealth, they will work more, they will experience less.
    - prepend 4y ago
      I don’t know if this is true. I’m happy making a 20 year bet on some long term betting system, pick your platform and I’ll wager $20 in 2023 dollars that median wage, wealth, and quality of life will be greater in 2043. Just looking back to 2003 compared to now and there’s so much more information and opportunity compared to 20 years ago. It’s not uniform and there are certainly some parts worse (housing) but I think that just the example of smart phones shows a huge leap of businesses and life improvements available now. I expect improvements to be available 20 years from now.
      - cmh89 4y ago
        > I’ll wager $20 in 2023 dollars that median wage, wealth, and quality of life will be greater in 2043. For who? Real wages have been falling for decades. 'Quality of life' is amorphous. Do we have a higher quality of life than people did 20 years ago? We're fatter, we have less wealth, we spend more time commuting, it's basically impossible to buy a house for most people. I'd disagree with your assessment that we are better off than we were in 2003.
- fourseventy 4y ago
  Capitalism is the most successful economic system ever created and is responsible for more human happiness, prosperity and health than anything else. I'm not sure where all the anti-capitalism rhetoric is coming from lately. You really think there is more human happiness in North Korea or in Russia under Stalin? Maybe read up on your history.
  - xp84 4y ago
    I can't speak for GP but: (frame of reference: I'm a political moderate and not a socialist) I appreciate that capitalism has been better than any of its competitors in every case to date in raising living standards. There's no question. But I still think it isn't equipped to handle automation and AI on a very large scale. If I'm right it'll become painfully obvious as soon as something approaching or close-enough to AGI appears. And the trajectory we're on seems to make that appear to be something we'll see in the 2020s rather than the 2100s or beyond as I previously thought. If by 2029 90% of the knowledge work humans do today can be done more cheaply by a LLM, that's a tremendous shock to the system. Especially if they'll be able to start to write code efficiently and create new AI models to solve problems, we could rapidly see easier problems like self-driving cars solved in a few years. Which leaves as available human jobs "politician" (presumably robots are banned from holding office) as well as any forms of skilled and unskilled manual labor that require walking around. If computer vision etc become good enough it's not hard to conceive of a bipedal android that can do tasks like build houses, deliver packages from a truck, etc. In this situation, the vast majority of Americans would not have "jobs" in that no business wants their labor when a machine is cheaper and better. Capitalism dictates that those 90% starve. See the problem? Note: I'm not saying the above will come true. Just that if the technology part does come through, I'm arguing capitalism as-is simply will not work anymore. And the breakdown would hurt everyone. The wealthy won't have any consumers to sell to when all consumers are unemployed. Capitalism works imho because of scarcity. When 'labor' isn't really scarce anymore due to AI, that is a fundamental change that is bound to totally transform the game. It's like playing Mario Bros with gravity turned to 10000% so you can't jump. The game controls and level design then no longer make sense.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    That doesn't mean it's without faults that cause real harm to people.
cmiles74 4y ago
IMHO, a union would make a big difference here. I get that the "future of the economy is uncertain", it also strikes me as unreasonable that every time the stock market moves around I have to worry about losing my job. > Amazon is undergoing the largest layoffs in company history after it went on a hiring spree during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company’s global workforce swelled to more than 1.6 million by the end of 2021, up from 798,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019.
- lozenge 4y ago
  Unions can improve pay and conditions, they can't really do anything about market forces. Here in the UK the unions are medium-strong and haven't prevented self checkouts, ticket sellers being replaced with machines, etc. What you need is strong labor laws. A universal three or six month notice period in favour of the employee would do wonders to prevent overhiring and overfiring.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  I think the root cause is one layer of abstraction away from the stock market: the federal reserve. It's federal reserve policy, primarily interest rates, that drive these boom and bust cycles. The stock market/companies are just riding the wave.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    Sure, the last few years are an extreme example. But I don't believe it's just the Fed, there are other factors at play.
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      I've only been old/educated enough to follow it since around 2000, and there's been a direct correlation between fed policy and the markets. After 9/11 they dropped rates which created the housing bubble, then when they tried to raise interest rates the housing bubble popped in 2008, so they lowered rates again. We've been at near 0 percent interest for years, creating the current bubble/inflation. They are now putting downward pressure on the money supply which is causing the banks to crash, housing is not far behind, etc. This isn't to suggest there's no other factors, but monetary policy is a major driving force in the boom/bust cycle.
miguelazo 4y ago
Telling how the supporting comments on this subthread were downvoted so thoroughly. Even as tech workers are finally having the jackboot of American hypercapitalism pressed against their own throats they defend the neoliberal model. It’s really pathetic, but most are so thoroughly politically illiterate that I can’t [totally] blame them, even though they built their own bubbles in many cases.
- STM32F030R8 4y ago
  > The jackboot of hypercapitalism pressed against their own throats… Tech workers are the most privileged class of workers in the whole world. No one will take you seriously when you say these things. Also the metaphor doesn’t make sense. I wish we could keep this Reddit style, front page politics off our tech website.
  - miguelazo 4y ago
    >Tech workers are the most privileged class of workers in the whole world Which is why it only takes a layoff or threat of layoff for many of them to feel like the world is ending. Not to minimize the impact that a layoff can have on someone. HN is not just a "tech website". Never has been. You seem to not understand what hacker means.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    This is a website that caters to tech workers; how exactly do you propose to keep politics involving tech workers out of a discussion site filled with tech workers talking about things in the tech worker industry? It's impossible.

cmh89 4y ago

It speaks strongly to how hostile capitalism is to human happiness that the thought of making work easier and faster scares us. Future benefits of technology will primarily be enjoyed by the 1% with the other 99% becoming poorer and working (hours wise) more.

prepend 4y ago
Yet capitalism is responsible for the greatest elimination of poverty in human history (comparing people in extreme poverty 50 years ago until today). I think it’s a transitional economic force though. Like it works for getting super poor, super inefficient systems up to moderate and then starts scooping up and concentrating. I feel like being able to complain about capitalism is a luxury created by capitalism and people who are too poor complain about other things (like starving to death). Similarly to the shift from dying from infectious disease to dying from chronic disease due to eliminating or reducing preventable disease. It’s not that vaccines cause cancer and diabetes, it’s that vaccines stop people dying earlier of vaccine preventable diseases.
awesomegoat_com 4y ago
Happiness cannot be measured and managers cannot manage something that cannot be measured. You see?
WalterBright 4y ago
> Future benefits of technology will primarily be enjoyed by the 1% with the other 99% becoming poorer and working (hours wise) more. The history of technology & capitalism is quite the reverse. A few years back, a steamboat from the 1850s was discovered buried in the muck in the Missisoupi. Archeologists rushed to dig it up and discover what it was carrying. They had the same notion you did. They were shocked that the steamboat was not carrying luxury items at all. It was loaded to the gills with manufactured stuff for ordinary folks. Things like factory made shoes, textiles, tools, pots, pans, dishes, bottled food, nails, hardware, etc. You see the same thing today with, for example, the iphone. That machine was made for everyone, not just the 1%. And it made Apple the richest company in the world. Look at what wealthy tech companies make - they make stuff for ordinary people.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > That machine was made for everyone, not just the 1%. Umm, what? The iPhone is meant to be a status symbol, not "for everyone".
  - dh2022 4y ago
    iPhone was a status symbol in 2007-2008.
  - nikau 4y ago
    iPhone is "affordable luxury" like coach handbags and other junk that targets the average consumer.
- cmh89 4y ago
  You've misunderstood my comment. I'm not talking about stuff. I'm talking about quality of life. The next generation will have a lower quality of life than ours. They will have less wealth, they will work more, they will experience less.
  - prepend 4y ago
    I don’t know if this is true. I’m happy making a 20 year bet on some long term betting system, pick your platform and I’ll wager $20 in 2023 dollars that median wage, wealth, and quality of life will be greater in 2043. Just looking back to 2003 compared to now and there’s so much more information and opportunity compared to 20 years ago. It’s not uniform and there are certainly some parts worse (housing) but I think that just the example of smart phones shows a huge leap of businesses and life improvements available now. I expect improvements to be available 20 years from now.
    - cmh89 4y ago
      > I’ll wager $20 in 2023 dollars that median wage, wealth, and quality of life will be greater in 2043. For who? Real wages have been falling for decades. 'Quality of life' is amorphous. Do we have a higher quality of life than people did 20 years ago? We're fatter, we have less wealth, we spend more time commuting, it's basically impossible to buy a house for most people. I'd disagree with your assessment that we are better off than we were in 2003.
fourseventy 4y ago
Capitalism is the most successful economic system ever created and is responsible for more human happiness, prosperity and health than anything else. I'm not sure where all the anti-capitalism rhetoric is coming from lately. You really think there is more human happiness in North Korea or in Russia under Stalin? Maybe read up on your history.
- xp84 4y ago
  I can't speak for GP but: (frame of reference: I'm a political moderate and not a socialist) I appreciate that capitalism has been better than any of its competitors in every case to date in raising living standards. There's no question. But I still think it isn't equipped to handle automation and AI on a very large scale. If I'm right it'll become painfully obvious as soon as something approaching or close-enough to AGI appears. And the trajectory we're on seems to make that appear to be something we'll see in the 2020s rather than the 2100s or beyond as I previously thought. If by 2029 90% of the knowledge work humans do today can be done more cheaply by a LLM, that's a tremendous shock to the system. Especially if they'll be able to start to write code efficiently and create new AI models to solve problems, we could rapidly see easier problems like self-driving cars solved in a few years. Which leaves as available human jobs "politician" (presumably robots are banned from holding office) as well as any forms of skilled and unskilled manual labor that require walking around. If computer vision etc become good enough it's not hard to conceive of a bipedal android that can do tasks like build houses, deliver packages from a truck, etc. In this situation, the vast majority of Americans would not have "jobs" in that no business wants their labor when a machine is cheaper and better. Capitalism dictates that those 90% starve. See the problem? Note: I'm not saying the above will come true. Just that if the technology part does come through, I'm arguing capitalism as-is simply will not work anymore. And the breakdown would hurt everyone. The wealthy won't have any consumers to sell to when all consumers are unemployed. Capitalism works imho because of scarcity. When 'labor' isn't really scarce anymore due to AI, that is a fundamental change that is bound to totally transform the game. It's like playing Mario Bros with gravity turned to 10000% so you can't jump. The game controls and level design then no longer make sense.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  That doesn't mean it's without faults that cause real harm to people.

cmiles74 4y ago

IMHO, a union would make a big difference here. I get that the "future of the economy is uncertain", it also strikes me as unreasonable that every time the stock market moves around I have to worry about losing my job. > Amazon is undergoing the largest layoffs in company history after it went on a hiring spree during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company’s global workforce swelled to more than 1.6 million by the end of 2021, up from 798,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019.

lozenge 4y ago
Unions can improve pay and conditions, they can't really do anything about market forces. Here in the UK the unions are medium-strong and haven't prevented self checkouts, ticket sellers being replaced with machines, etc. What you need is strong labor laws. A universal three or six month notice period in favour of the employee would do wonders to prevent overhiring and overfiring.
Consultant32452 4y ago
I think the root cause is one layer of abstraction away from the stock market: the federal reserve. It's federal reserve policy, primarily interest rates, that drive these boom and bust cycles. The stock market/companies are just riding the wave.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  Sure, the last few years are an extreme example. But I don't believe it's just the Fed, there are other factors at play.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    I've only been old/educated enough to follow it since around 2000, and there's been a direct correlation between fed policy and the markets. After 9/11 they dropped rates which created the housing bubble, then when they tried to raise interest rates the housing bubble popped in 2008, so they lowered rates again. We've been at near 0 percent interest for years, creating the current bubble/inflation. They are now putting downward pressure on the money supply which is causing the banks to crash, housing is not far behind, etc. This isn't to suggest there's no other factors, but monetary policy is a major driving force in the boom/bust cycle.

miguelazo 4y ago

Telling how the supporting comments on this subthread were downvoted so thoroughly. Even as tech workers are finally having the jackboot of American hypercapitalism pressed against their own throats they defend the neoliberal model. It’s really pathetic, but most are so thoroughly politically illiterate that I can’t [totally] blame them, even though they built their own bubbles in many cases.

STM32F030R8 4y ago
> The jackboot of hypercapitalism pressed against their own throats… Tech workers are the most privileged class of workers in the whole world. No one will take you seriously when you say these things. Also the metaphor doesn’t make sense. I wish we could keep this Reddit style, front page politics off our tech website.
- miguelazo 4y ago
  >Tech workers are the most privileged class of workers in the whole world Which is why it only takes a layoff or threat of layoff for many of them to feel like the world is ending. Not to minimize the impact that a layoff can have on someone. HN is not just a "tech website". Never has been. You seem to not understand what hacker means.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  This is a website that caters to tech workers; how exactly do you propose to keep politics involving tech workers out of a discussion site filled with tech workers talking about things in the tech worker industry? It's impossible.