4 ms·
The scariest thing of all is how the average citizen is in a certain sense not reaping the benefits of automation. You would think that automating your job wou
by lp4vn 4y ago
The scariest thing of all is how the average citizen is in a certain sense not reaping the benefits of automation.
You would think that automating your job would make you free to work less. No, of course not, you end up either unemployed or working at least as much as you used to or more.
A lot of the comments here on this thread are already pessimistic in relation to the automation because people low key know that in the last decades almost all societal changes have come to the detriment of general population.
- betaby 4y agoWestern ideology is mostly about taxing the salaries. While xUSSR was mostly about redistribution of the goods. But then again xUSSR "did't work" and capitalism "worked". How it even possible to reap anything from the automation if tax base is people's salaries and VAT?
- bradDonniger 4y agoUSSR style communism was really an authoritarian dictatorship. In capitalist west, capitalism was also about distribution of goods but literally being nice about it. Working together. The language is meaningless gibberish. The tone and emotional spin, roleplay are what’s important. In the US we’re enabling iron fisted oligarchs like the USSR once had. Those who refuse to share without extreme deference and idolatry, not because they’re that important to the well being of billions (they’re not) but because they’re important to the political actors that insulate them from taxation.
- ben_w 4y agoNothing's so clear-cut as history lessons might have you believe. The USSR et al had many more problems than most people in the west, at least of my generation, properly appreciate — the Holomodor and the irony of the Berlin Wall's official name (≈ anti-fascist protection barrier) being the most pertinent in my mind. Conversely, while the USA was a symbol of hope and freedom in my childhood, that childhood was oblivious to the official segregation of the USA even in the 60s, let alone the unofficial segregation whose continued existence was the basis for the term "woke" prior to it being appropriated by all the political talking heads to mean everything and nothing. The oligarchy in the USA today is not one I favour, but it is kinder than the… I was going to reference the events of the Homestead strike, but it turns out I must remember my own words, for that too is less clear-cut than I had heard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike But yeah, reality is a complicated mess. My opinion is that laissez-faire capitalism is BS, that the Roosevelt New Deal marked an end to that era for the same reason that the equivalent living conditions ended Soviet-style communism; that other forms of communism and capitalism exist; that both over-simplify human nature and that a superior alternative to both can be designed with careful effort; that such a thing probably won't be taken seriously until the current system is utterly broken because of those with power in the current system; and that by default AI and robotics is a lot closer to communism than anything else because "from each according to ability" requires much less personal consideration when everyone has a dozen droid servitors at their disposal.
- peterbell_nyc 4y agoPresumably the model for sufficiently wealthy countries would be to effectively tax the corporations either based in those countries or that wanted to sell to people in those countries. You then redistribute a subset of that as UBI or some other form of payment for either the subset affected by unemployability or to everyone.
- Melatonic 4y agoIn addition to UBI if we effectively taxed corporations we could have massive job programs for workers that either do get automated out of a job or work in a job that becomes obsolete. Just because you specialized in one thing and that thing becomes obsolete when you turn age 40 does not mean you do not have all kinds of other skills that will make it easier to start anew.
- bloppe 4y agoProperty tax and inheritance tax can both be thought of as wealth tax, and are quite common. More general wealth taxes. Many European countries currently have or used to have more general wealth taxes. Lots of Americans support a general wealth tax. See Bernie Sanders.
- betaby 4y agoI fail to see how wealth tax (my car and home is my wealth I suppose) going to 'reap' the automation advances. Please elaborate.
- cwmoore 4y agoI fail to see how your example of basic requirements for normal life is wealth. Tax second and third homes, places with eleven bedrooms when the owners live elsewhere. People who own the robots that replace workers. Are you just trolling? This seems like a bad faith comment of unimaginable ignorance.
- user432678 4y ago> While xUSSR was mostly about redistribution of the goods Yeah, ask my grand grand father how great that worked. Oh sorry, you can’t, he was shot in the gulag in 1937 for anti revolution activities (and rehabilitated in 60s, saying it was a terrible mistake, that’s a relief, right?).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- flangola7 4y agoThe failures of the USSR does not mean the US is succeeding. It is possible for more than one thing to be bad. Power/wealth imbalances are bad wherever they appear. The USSR no longer exists, but the US does, and its imbalance is growing worse rapidly.
- user432678 4y agoI haven’t said US is succeeding. In fact I don’t like US either.
- pydry 4y agoThe USSR succumbed to the resource curse and an unstoppable arms race. In the 50s when they were still on somewhat friendly terms American newspapers were openly fretting that the Soviet economy was too efficient and growing too fast. Its intrinsic economic woes were overplayed by western elites who were terrified of communist contagion. Western ideology is about the primacy of property ownership. It's not economically efficient in the slightest but it's the only game in town these days.
- machina_ex_deus 4y agoAutomation economic benefits should've manifested as deflation. That's what you'd expect to happen: the costs of doing things are coming down, so should the price. But the prevailing economic theory is that "deflation is bad". The Fed and the financial class have been printing money relentlessly and have been squeezing all the juice of the economic benefits of automation by taxing it with inflation. The zero rates of the last 20 years have not reflected price stability, they reflected moving goalposts and strong technological deflation (which should've benefited the common people) coupled to high monetary inflation which was only allowed because of the technological deflation. When you look at where did most of the money gained from technological innovation went - where all the newly found wealth was spent - the answer is obviously houses. The landlord / banking class have been printing money relentlessly inflating a bubble of the assets they hold, and they could only afford to do it because they absorbed the rising economic power of technology. You slave away while they get to print money. We have effectively two tiered society. For the common people, a dollar is a dollar. For the financial class, a dollar is actually ten dollars, held with leverage and then bailed out by the Fed when it blows up.