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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 w

by 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.

by cmh89 4y ago

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.