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>Actors protesting AI protections remind me of factory workers protesting against automation setting in. And in hindsight: rightly so. Automation and outsourc

by tw04 3y ago

>Actors protesting AI protections remind me of factory workers protesting against automation setting in. And in hindsight: rightly so. Automation and outsourcing gutted the middle class in the US to the benefit of a handful of folks that didn't need anymore money. What's the end-game of automating every human job away if the spoils of that automation aren't shared widely?

andsoitis 3y ago
> Automation and outsourcing gutted the middle class in the US What statistics can we look at that shows that the middle class is smaller and less well off than before (“gutted”)?
- tw04 3y ago
  The statistics that track the middle class in the US? You say that as if you doubt the middle class is shrinking - it's been studied exhaustively and isn't something that's up for debate. It's both shrinking, and their total share of wealth has decreased dramatically and shifted to the top 1%. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a...
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  The one where my life as a child was awesome, but now I live in a nightmare hellscape, I guess. N = 1, as they say.
  - bamfly 3y ago
    My (Boomer) parents made a bunch of serious and expensive mistakes, and my dad didn't properly start a career until he was almost 30. He had a high school diploma. He was literally raised in a barn (the girls got to sleep in the very-small house). My mom had a junior college degree but never worked for pay again after they got married. He was upper-middle-management at a huge company when he was forced into retirement by the "professional" managers who had come in and filled everyone's work-days with meetings and had no fucking clue how any of the actual work got done. Between pension and savings, they were millionaires by then, back when that still kinda halfway meant something, so it was fine. I grew up with everydamnthing I could want, really. Follow the same life course—put in the same amount of effort, make the same sorts of mistakes—today and you'll work until you can't anymore, and be destitute when you do. And probably not have a family. Assuming you don't succumb to depression and OD on opioids in your 40s, or end up in prison. I doubt my kids will own a home. Like, ever. And they're pretty damn bright. Unless they go full off-the-grid in the middle of nowhere or something. The future looks pretty fucking feudal. It's definitely worse now than it was decades back.
bamfly 3y ago
The luddites lost, sure—but industrialization did make an absolute shit-ton of people miserable until the labor movement clawed back some of those productivity gains for the workers and curbed the worst abuses committed by capital. If we don't see another wave of reforms soon—which is sure to require labor action!—a whole bunch of folks are in for another rough time (stretching to entire lives, as it did last time) which will not automatically get better through capitalism pixie dust or whatever. The last time we saw a huge shift in human participation in the economy, it sucked absolute ass until a bunch of workers screamed and bled and died to make it somewhat better. That's what'll happen again if we don't catch it early. "It'll get better on its own, because markets" is magical thinking.
- 128bytes 3y ago
  i don't think a little syndicalism is going to cut it this time, because it's about a lot more than labor now
  - JieJie 3y ago
    Don't leave me hanging, given that we are in a "for all the marbles" point in the game of civilization, what's the next move? I want to believe there's something better than, "Stop the world, I want to get off." What is the compelling alternative to this somewhat unrestricted growth we have currently going on? I know there's lots of "if only we just..."s, but what's the implementation plan? How do we install socialism on hardware that was built to run capitalism and seems to be running super well, except for all the pollution it causes? I support the artists and writers, the creatives and creators, hell, I even support the social media influencers, but this strike is a stopgap, if that. What's our plan? What can we offer the capitalists to get them on board with it, other than the guillotine option? Is that all we really have to offer? I have to believe we have more than, "be nicer to people, or we'll kill you".
    - 128bytes 3y ago
      Oh you've misunderstood, I'm not a socialist. I do not support writers and creatives who profit from intellectual 'property', they are themselves a part of the problem. I reject the notion that workers are free from blame for their participation in the system. A good first step to solving much of society's problems, including this is to nuke the financial sector from orbit, companies like Netflix and Universal will then go bankrupt and their employees will be forced to do something that is more beneficial for society, instead of contributing to the useless glut of for-profit entertainment. Furthermore, transhumanists should be persecuted for their anti-human beliefs especially for creating human likeness, until their beliefs are erradicated. None of these are easy solutions, but if solutions were easy we would not have reached this point.
wiseowise 3y ago
> What's the end-game of automating every human job away if the spoils of that automation aren't shared widely? Space exploration.
restion 3y ago
automation and outsourcing gave lower prices on products for literally everyone
- tw04 3y ago
  The average price of a home as a percentage of income has not lowered at all. Who cares if you can get a shitty Walmart branded TV that will last for 5 years before you have to throw it away, when you have no house to put it in?
  - ahahahahah 3y ago
    Sure, but the size of that home has certainly increased significantly. The quality of that home has also increased. The quality of the neighborhood likely has as well. Could the explanation possibly be that people generally settle on it being worth spending a certain percentage of their income on a home? If that were the case, no matter if people in general are becoming more or less well off or if homes are getting more or less expensive, the percentage of their income that people spend on them may hover around the same area.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Housing is expensive because local politics encourages exclusionary zoning. It has nothing to do with labor rights and everything to do with NIMBYs
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    That is a sign that we need more automation in housing production, not less.

by tw04 3y ago

andsoitis 3y ago

> Automation and outsourcing gutted the middle class in the US What statistics can we look at that shows that the middle class is smaller and less well off than before (“gutted”)?

tw04 3y ago
The statistics that track the middle class in the US? You say that as if you doubt the middle class is shrinking - it's been studied exhaustively and isn't something that's up for debate. It's both shrinking, and their total share of wealth has decreased dramatically and shifted to the top 1%. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a...
singleshot_ 3y ago
The one where my life as a child was awesome, but now I live in a nightmare hellscape, I guess. N = 1, as they say.
- bamfly 3y ago
  My (Boomer) parents made a bunch of serious and expensive mistakes, and my dad didn't properly start a career until he was almost 30. He had a high school diploma. He was literally raised in a barn (the girls got to sleep in the very-small house). My mom had a junior college degree but never worked for pay again after they got married. He was upper-middle-management at a huge company when he was forced into retirement by the "professional" managers who had come in and filled everyone's work-days with meetings and had no fucking clue how any of the actual work got done. Between pension and savings, they were millionaires by then, back when that still kinda halfway meant something, so it was fine. I grew up with everydamnthing I could want, really. Follow the same life course—put in the same amount of effort, make the same sorts of mistakes—today and you'll work until you can't anymore, and be destitute when you do. And probably not have a family. Assuming you don't succumb to depression and OD on opioids in your 40s, or end up in prison. I doubt my kids will own a home. Like, ever. And they're pretty damn bright. Unless they go full off-the-grid in the middle of nowhere or something. The future looks pretty fucking feudal. It's definitely worse now than it was decades back.

bamfly 3y ago

The luddites lost, sure—but industrialization did make an absolute shit-ton of people miserable until the labor movement clawed back some of those productivity gains for the workers and curbed the worst abuses committed by capital. If we don't see another wave of reforms soon—which is sure to require labor action!—a whole bunch of folks are in for another rough time (stretching to entire lives, as it did last time) which will not automatically get better through capitalism pixie dust or whatever. The last time we saw a huge shift in human participation in the economy, it sucked absolute ass until a bunch of workers screamed and bled and died to make it somewhat better. That's what'll happen again if we don't catch it early. "It'll get better on its own, because markets" is magical thinking.

128bytes 3y ago
i don't think a little syndicalism is going to cut it this time, because it's about a lot more than labor now
- JieJie 3y ago
  Don't leave me hanging, given that we are in a "for all the marbles" point in the game of civilization, what's the next move? I want to believe there's something better than, "Stop the world, I want to get off." What is the compelling alternative to this somewhat unrestricted growth we have currently going on? I know there's lots of "if only we just..."s, but what's the implementation plan? How do we install socialism on hardware that was built to run capitalism and seems to be running super well, except for all the pollution it causes? I support the artists and writers, the creatives and creators, hell, I even support the social media influencers, but this strike is a stopgap, if that. What's our plan? What can we offer the capitalists to get them on board with it, other than the guillotine option? Is that all we really have to offer? I have to believe we have more than, "be nicer to people, or we'll kill you".
  - 128bytes 3y ago
    Oh you've misunderstood, I'm not a socialist. I do not support writers and creatives who profit from intellectual 'property', they are themselves a part of the problem. I reject the notion that workers are free from blame for their participation in the system. A good first step to solving much of society's problems, including this is to nuke the financial sector from orbit, companies like Netflix and Universal will then go bankrupt and their employees will be forced to do something that is more beneficial for society, instead of contributing to the useless glut of for-profit entertainment. Furthermore, transhumanists should be persecuted for their anti-human beliefs especially for creating human likeness, until their beliefs are erradicated. None of these are easy solutions, but if solutions were easy we would not have reached this point.

wiseowise 3y ago

> What's the end-game of automating every human job away if the spoils of that automation aren't shared widely? Space exploration.

restion 3y ago

automation and outsourcing gave lower prices on products for literally everyone

tw04 3y ago
The average price of a home as a percentage of income has not lowered at all. Who cares if you can get a shitty Walmart branded TV that will last for 5 years before you have to throw it away, when you have no house to put it in?
- ahahahahah 3y ago
  Sure, but the size of that home has certainly increased significantly. The quality of that home has also increased. The quality of the neighborhood likely has as well. Could the explanation possibly be that people generally settle on it being worth spending a certain percentage of their income on a home? If that were the case, no matter if people in general are becoming more or less well off or if homes are getting more or less expensive, the percentage of their income that people spend on them may hover around the same area.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Housing is expensive because local politics encourages exclusionary zoning. It has nothing to do with labor rights and everything to do with NIMBYs
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  That is a sign that we need more automation in housing production, not less.