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Your Luddite take is profoundly wrong, and has been consistently proven wrong at every single technological turn in history. We have more robots than even toda

Your Luddite take is profoundly wrong, and has been consistently proven wrong at every single technological turn in history. We have more robots than even today, and yet a labor SHORTAGE. Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone. We will end the misery caused to millions from injury and tragedy, and the billions of dollars lost. We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery. New jobs will emerge to replace long distance trucking and taxi driver (two jobs that didn't really exist just 100 years ago). Humanity will benefit.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
You’re not thinking through what you’re talking about, unfortunately that’s typical. Think about it, how can there be a “SHORTAGE of jobs”, when we have over 8 billion people on this planet? Are we running out of people in general? No. Is everyone employed and happy? No. So we are short of the kind of increasingly mythical people with 20 years experience in some tech that came out yesterday, we’re short of people with IQ 180 and above with five diplomas, people with certain increasingly higher level of requirements. PRECISELY the kind I’m talking about. Most people do not qualify for those jobs. They never will. They can’t. They’re not seeking those jobs as they don’t understand them (the employers often also don’t), and if they saught them they would not be given to them. Do you understand what I’m talking about? More and more people will be in the pool that do not qualify. The more “shitty jobs” you take out of the jobs pool we have available for humans, the more “shitty unemployed people” there will be. Eventually there will be billions of “shitty unemployed people”, because what passes as moderately intelligent person today will be just another shitty person 10-20 years from now, who better brush up and get those five diplomas and his IQ to 180 and otherwise how dare they ask for a job? There is no such situation where dumb people rule over smart machines. If the machines are better then the people become useless. Many aren’t good at much. They’re decent people but just happen to be best at “store clerk”. Those are maybe some of your friends, parents, siblings, children. Your wife. They don’t get math, and find it hard to remember too much. Those people are doomed. And that’s most people. Your elitist attitude is only further stressed by the incorrect reference to the Luddites. They embraced technology with open arms. Their bosses told them no one will be fired, only promoted, everyone will be rich. Then they got fired. They protested and were subdued with violence and prison time. That’s the story of the Luddites. They didn’t hate machines. But the machines made them useless. So they were gone from the picture. You think you’re not like them, you’re better. You’re one of the smart ones. But you’re precisely them. Your don’t know your history so you’re doomed to repeat it. I’m not against machines. I love machines. I make machines. I program machines. I evolve machines. I’m sympathetic to any system in this universe, be it smart, dumb, protein, silicon and metal. But it’s incredibly awkward to me to see people cheer for their own obsoletion. We really have no idea what we’re doing. We’re simply the scorpion riding on the frog’s back and following our nature. We can’t escape our nature.
- fiksie 3y ago
  Your points are: - People are doomed after driverless system breakthrough - 5 diploma requirement for a new job - only rich with benefit from technology - whoever thinks this is not neat thinks they are smarter than average Joe How does one even address this?
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    Those are not my points. I know it’s a long comment bordering on a post transitioning into a rambling, but if you don’t want to spend the time to read it and understand it, at least don’t produce a superficial strawman version of it. The most important part to understand is that systems operate on a “use it or lose it” principle. This is why no one looks like Arnold while sitting in a chair all day, even if they eat all the protein. If we stop being useful nothing can stop what we created from chewing us up and spitting us out. And all this while everyone involved may have the best of intentions even. And most people can’t adapt that fast or at all to this situation. It has happened before, many times and it keeps happening at larger and larger scales, in shorter and shorter periods of time. The Aztec and Inca didn’t adapt to the European tech and get “jobs”. They went extinct.
  - jumpkick 3y ago
    The first point you’ve extracted is too narrowly focused. I’m not OP but I believe they were making a general point about increasing automation, not a specific point about driverless cars. I agree with everything the OP has written. I had a similar revelation myself not long ago. I think that I’m one of the smart ones and that I’ll okay, I’ll thrive even. But what about stupid people? Stupid people deserve to have happy lives too.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  Your reasoning seems logical at first glance so I can understand why you would come to your conclusions. History shows you to be wrong. It doesn't take a high IQ to use a machine to hugely increase your productivity. And in some cases the machine is easier to operate. I'll take a car over a horse any day. Salaries for low skill jobs in the US are going up. UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The labor shortage is not just for highly skilled, high IQ people. New technology has only ever resulted in people doing more productive work. That might change. No one can predict the future. But based on history we will continue to see quality of life improve thanks to productivity increases, and employment to stay high. The one change I would like to see is workers organizing to capture more of the profit and productivity changes they help create. UPS drivers did it. More of that means we all share in the wealth of productivity increases.
decremental 3y ago
[dead]
ForHackernews 3y ago
Do we have a labor shortage, or do we have a shortage at the wages companies are prepared to pay? There's a largely unexamined assumption built into capitalism that there exists a market clearing wage where humans will be incentivized to provide labor and owners will reap a profit. But what if that assumption is breaking down? My most "valuable" skill is writing software, but it may soon be the case that ChatGPT 9 can do that much better and cheaper than me. What happens when we have nothing profitable to offer capitalism?
- ghaff 3y ago
  >Do we have a labor shortage, or do we have a shortage at the wages companies are prepared to pay? There are a ton of services that I'd be happy to have people perform for me, but there's some upper limit to what I'm willing/able to pay. This applies directly or through some (capitalist) intermediary. If it's going to cost me $1,000 for you to cut my lawn, I'll either do it myself or just let it grow.
  - ForHackernews 3y ago
    Exactly. So what happens when the amount they're willing to pay is much lower than what it costs to live? If the robo lawnmowers will cut grass (and the occasional hand or foot) for $1/hour, what happens to the people who work as landscapers? Maybe you could argue they'll shift higher up the value chain, designing gardens or planting flowers and we'll all have prettier gardens... but I'm not sure the story of the last 50 years has been a race to the top.
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      The profits have raced to the top, but the net wealth generated has also been massive. This is hopeful because a few gradual policy changes over the decades could keep the wealth creation part and help with the distribution part. You can’t distribute what’s not there.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  That’s indeed one of many ways people are driven out a job market that seemingly is hungry for jobs. Posting unrealistic job offers can be a way to cover legal requirements or excuse yourself for automating everything. Or it can be business owners legitimately searching the space if humans can provide better value than machines, and increasingly finding that… no. I wonder what would happen if people kept posting jobs for human calculators up to 2023. “Must work without sleep, perform all calculations up to at least 9 digits, make no mistakes and provide instant answers. Management occasionally may curse and be violent towards the calculator, when the numbers are bad for business (must keep quiet and take it). Salary: $12 (per year)”.
__s 3y ago
How was it a Luddite take? Luddites argued that robots undercut quality by offering a price that couldn't be competed with, but ultimately with an inferior product. The person you're replying to is suggesting humans are unskilled apes incapable of competing with robots on both price & quality
- mistrial9 3y ago
  importantly "Luddites" stood up for themselves as humans doing skilled work for income
sofixa 3y ago
> We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery Just moving parking to the periphery won't make American cities better or more walkable. > Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone If you're assuming that self-driving cars will be perfect and segregated, conditions will always be perfect (e.g. no pedestrians or bikes slipping), etc. etc. etc. Why would you? > Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity The vast majority of driving can be replaced by already existing, proven and drastically more efficient tech - public transit.
- gmadsen 3y ago
  the vast majority of collisions are human error. it doesn't need to reduce 100% to be useful
- bookofjoe 3y ago
  I've noted this here before, it's worth repeating: We will continue to accept our current 42,000 human-driven-car-related deaths/per year (2022) in the U.S. rather than 420 self-driving-car-related deaths annually for many years. Autonomy is a fierce thing that humans can't bear to part with. >The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released its latest projections for traffic fatalities in 2022, estimating that 42,795 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. This represents a small decrease of about 0.3% as compared to 42,939 fatalities reported for 2021. https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crash-death-estimates-2022#:~:text=The%20National%20Highway%20Traffic%20Safety,42%2C939%20fatalities%20reported%20for%202021 https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crash-death-est.... Apr 20, 2023
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  It also won't cure cancer or make me toast in the morning, but being able to move parking has big meaningful advantages that are likely to be leveraged! If you think you can convince the 3rd largest country by landmass in the world to just swap over to trains and buses - great. In the meantime, let's approach other solutions too. Self driving cars are here, are actively used in areas without trains, and seem like they solve some real problems and maybe create a few new ones.
mistrial9 3y ago
> a labor SHORTAGE this is moronic. If anyone reading this has had the experience of being abused for low-skill work, wages stolen, unfair terms with no insurance or benefits, or in a new twist, a contractor who was unexpectedly terminated with no warning.. please add your insights the actual history of labor is that Slave Labor, Peasants and Indentured Workers, are the biggest part of large scale industry since the Pyramids. Actual people use and abuse "workers" to the fullest extent possible.. This "shortage" language in the USA has an agenda, and is flatly manipulative IMHO
nemothekid 3y ago
>We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery. I seriously doubt that technology will fix what is ultimately a political problem. Somebody will benefit, but I’m unsure it will be fair to say humanity will benefit
jackmott42 3y ago
We have a shortage of fulfilling jobs too, and a shortage of jobs that pay enough to ever afford a home. Ever wonder why people are bored enough to make up Qanon conspiracies, believe them, and start an insurrection over total nonsense? Too many people with nothing to do and nothing to live for.
reaperducer 3y ago
Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone. We will end the misery caused to millions from injury and tragedy, and the billions of dollars lost. We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery.... Humanity will benefit. They said all these things about the Segway, too. I think it's been ten years since I've seen anyone except a cop using a Segway. (And I'm not sure how my local PD is still using them [as of yesterday], since I thought they were discontinued.)
samstave 3y ago
The job shift should go toward reducing waste and environmental impacts of our technological trash that we produce en mass due to global consumerism... We should have every petroleum company on the planet employing people to recover and capture their waste(s) in all formats. Honestly - we need to kill the capitalist oil industry - its a global need that should simply be communized not capitalized. (just like nuclear energy)
talldatethrow 3y ago
There will always be a labor shortage in a way, but that doesn't translate to wages. In 1990, my dad started earning 4x minimum wage. He was a recent immigrant that barely spoke English, but he could be the foreman of a shop in the SF Bay area that built cabinets because he was a bright guy. Now 30 years later, he is the senior project manager for a much more successful version of the same company. He is an expert in his field. He works on $2million CABINET projects for Google campus or Rivian's offices. He makes $70 an hour. A little over 4x minimum wage. Something had gone wrong.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

You’re not thinking through what you’re talking about, unfortunately that’s typical. Think about it, how can there be a “SHORTAGE of jobs”, when we have over 8 billion people on this planet? Are we running out of people in general? No. Is everyone employed and happy? No. So we are short of the kind of increasingly mythical people with 20 years experience in some tech that came out yesterday, we’re short of people with IQ 180 and above with five diplomas, people with certain increasingly higher level of requirements. PRECISELY the kind I’m talking about. Most people do not qualify for those jobs. They never will. They can’t. They’re not seeking those jobs as they don’t understand them (the employers often also don’t), and if they saught them they would not be given to them. Do you understand what I’m talking about? More and more people will be in the pool that do not qualify. The more “shitty jobs” you take out of the jobs pool we have available for humans, the more “shitty unemployed people” there will be. Eventually there will be billions of “shitty unemployed people”, because what passes as moderately intelligent person today will be just another shitty person 10-20 years from now, who better brush up and get those five diplomas and his IQ to 180 and otherwise how dare they ask for a job? There is no such situation where dumb people rule over smart machines. If the machines are better then the people become useless. Many aren’t good at much. They’re decent people but just happen to be best at “store clerk”. Those are maybe some of your friends, parents, siblings, children. Your wife. They don’t get math, and find it hard to remember too much. Those people are doomed. And that’s most people. Your elitist attitude is only further stressed by the incorrect reference to the Luddites. They embraced technology with open arms. Their bosses told them no one will be fired, only promoted, everyone will be rich. Then they got fired. They protested and were subdued with violence and prison time. That’s the story of the Luddites. They didn’t hate machines. But the machines made them useless. So they were gone from the picture. You think you’re not like them, you’re better. You’re one of the smart ones. But you’re precisely them. Your don’t know your history so you’re doomed to repeat it. I’m not against machines. I love machines. I make machines. I program machines. I evolve machines. I’m sympathetic to any system in this universe, be it smart, dumb, protein, silicon and metal. But it’s incredibly awkward to me to see people cheer for their own obsoletion. We really have no idea what we’re doing. We’re simply the scorpion riding on the frog’s back and following our nature. We can’t escape our nature.

fiksie 3y ago
Your points are: - People are doomed after driverless system breakthrough - 5 diploma requirement for a new job - only rich with benefit from technology - whoever thinks this is not neat thinks they are smarter than average Joe How does one even address this?
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  Those are not my points. I know it’s a long comment bordering on a post transitioning into a rambling, but if you don’t want to spend the time to read it and understand it, at least don’t produce a superficial strawman version of it. The most important part to understand is that systems operate on a “use it or lose it” principle. This is why no one looks like Arnold while sitting in a chair all day, even if they eat all the protein. If we stop being useful nothing can stop what we created from chewing us up and spitting us out. And all this while everyone involved may have the best of intentions even. And most people can’t adapt that fast or at all to this situation. It has happened before, many times and it keeps happening at larger and larger scales, in shorter and shorter periods of time. The Aztec and Inca didn’t adapt to the European tech and get “jobs”. They went extinct.
- jumpkick 3y ago
  The first point you’ve extracted is too narrowly focused. I’m not OP but I believe they were making a general point about increasing automation, not a specific point about driverless cars. I agree with everything the OP has written. I had a similar revelation myself not long ago. I think that I’m one of the smart ones and that I’ll okay, I’ll thrive even. But what about stupid people? Stupid people deserve to have happy lives too.
tchaffee 3y ago
Your reasoning seems logical at first glance so I can understand why you would come to your conclusions. History shows you to be wrong. It doesn't take a high IQ to use a machine to hugely increase your productivity. And in some cases the machine is easier to operate. I'll take a car over a horse any day. Salaries for low skill jobs in the US are going up. UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The labor shortage is not just for highly skilled, high IQ people. New technology has only ever resulted in people doing more productive work. That might change. No one can predict the future. But based on history we will continue to see quality of life improve thanks to productivity increases, and employment to stay high. The one change I would like to see is workers organizing to capture more of the profit and productivity changes they help create. UPS drivers did it. More of that means we all share in the wealth of productivity increases.

decremental 3y ago

[dead]

ForHackernews 3y ago

Do we have a labor shortage, or do we have a shortage at the wages companies are prepared to pay? There's a largely unexamined assumption built into capitalism that there exists a market clearing wage where humans will be incentivized to provide labor and owners will reap a profit. But what if that assumption is breaking down? My most "valuable" skill is writing software, but it may soon be the case that ChatGPT 9 can do that much better and cheaper than me. What happens when we have nothing profitable to offer capitalism?

ghaff 3y ago
>Do we have a labor shortage, or do we have a shortage at the wages companies are prepared to pay? There are a ton of services that I'd be happy to have people perform for me, but there's some upper limit to what I'm willing/able to pay. This applies directly or through some (capitalist) intermediary. If it's going to cost me $1,000 for you to cut my lawn, I'll either do it myself or just let it grow.
- ForHackernews 3y ago
  Exactly. So what happens when the amount they're willing to pay is much lower than what it costs to live? If the robo lawnmowers will cut grass (and the occasional hand or foot) for $1/hour, what happens to the people who work as landscapers? Maybe you could argue they'll shift higher up the value chain, designing gardens or planting flowers and we'll all have prettier gardens... but I'm not sure the story of the last 50 years has been a race to the top.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    The profits have raced to the top, but the net wealth generated has also been massive. This is hopeful because a few gradual policy changes over the decades could keep the wealth creation part and help with the distribution part. You can’t distribute what’s not there.
3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
That’s indeed one of many ways people are driven out a job market that seemingly is hungry for jobs. Posting unrealistic job offers can be a way to cover legal requirements or excuse yourself for automating everything. Or it can be business owners legitimately searching the space if humans can provide better value than machines, and increasingly finding that… no. I wonder what would happen if people kept posting jobs for human calculators up to 2023. “Must work without sleep, perform all calculations up to at least 9 digits, make no mistakes and provide instant answers. Management occasionally may curse and be violent towards the calculator, when the numbers are bad for business (must keep quiet and take it). Salary: $12 (per year)”.

__s 3y ago

How was it a Luddite take? Luddites argued that robots undercut quality by offering a price that couldn't be competed with, but ultimately with an inferior product. The person you're replying to is suggesting humans are unskilled apes incapable of competing with robots on both price & quality

mistrial9 3y ago
importantly "Luddites" stood up for themselves as humans doing skilled work for income

sofixa 3y ago

> We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery Just moving parking to the periphery won't make American cities better or more walkable. > Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone If you're assuming that self-driving cars will be perfect and segregated, conditions will always be perfect (e.g. no pedestrians or bikes slipping), etc. etc. etc. Why would you? > Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity The vast majority of driving can be replaced by already existing, proven and drastically more efficient tech - public transit.

gmadsen 3y ago
the vast majority of collisions are human error. it doesn't need to reduce 100% to be useful
bookofjoe 3y ago
I've noted this here before, it's worth repeating: We will continue to accept our current 42,000 human-driven-car-related deaths/per year (2022) in the U.S. rather than 420 self-driving-car-related deaths annually for many years. Autonomy is a fierce thing that humans can't bear to part with. >The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released its latest projections for traffic fatalities in 2022, estimating that 42,795 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. This represents a small decrease of about 0.3% as compared to 42,939 fatalities reported for 2021. https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crash-death-estimates-2022#:~:text=The%20National%20Highway%20Traffic%20Safety,42%2C939%20fatalities%20reported%20for%202021 https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crash-death-est.... Apr 20, 2023
vorpalhex 3y ago
It also won't cure cancer or make me toast in the morning, but being able to move parking has big meaningful advantages that are likely to be leveraged! If you think you can convince the 3rd largest country by landmass in the world to just swap over to trains and buses - great. In the meantime, let's approach other solutions too. Self driving cars are here, are actively used in areas without trains, and seem like they solve some real problems and maybe create a few new ones.

mistrial9 3y ago

> a labor SHORTAGE this is moronic. If anyone reading this has had the experience of being abused for low-skill work, wages stolen, unfair terms with no insurance or benefits, or in a new twist, a contractor who was unexpectedly terminated with no warning.. please add your insights the actual history of labor is that Slave Labor, Peasants and Indentured Workers, are the biggest part of large scale industry since the Pyramids. Actual people use and abuse "workers" to the fullest extent possible.. This "shortage" language in the USA has an agenda, and is flatly manipulative IMHO

nemothekid 3y ago

>We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery. I seriously doubt that technology will fix what is ultimately a political problem. Somebody will benefit, but I’m unsure it will be fair to say humanity will benefit

jackmott42 3y ago

We have a shortage of fulfilling jobs too, and a shortage of jobs that pay enough to ever afford a home. Ever wonder why people are bored enough to make up Qanon conspiracies, believe them, and start an insurrection over total nonsense? Too many people with nothing to do and nothing to live for.

reaperducer 3y ago

Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone. We will end the misery caused to millions from injury and tragedy, and the billions of dollars lost. We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery.... Humanity will benefit. They said all these things about the Segway, too. I think it's been ten years since I've seen anyone except a cop using a Segway. (And I'm not sure how my local PD is still using them [as of yesterday], since I thought they were discontinued.)

samstave 3y ago

The job shift should go toward reducing waste and environmental impacts of our technological trash that we produce en mass due to global consumerism... We should have every petroleum company on the planet employing people to recover and capture their waste(s) in all formats. Honestly - we need to kill the capitalist oil industry - its a global need that should simply be communized not capitalized. (just like nuclear energy)

talldatethrow 3y ago

There will always be a labor shortage in a way, but that doesn't translate to wages. In 1990, my dad started earning 4x minimum wage. He was a recent immigrant that barely spoke English, but he could be the foreman of a shop in the SF Bay area that built cabinets because he was a bright guy. Now 30 years later, he is the senior project manager for a much more successful version of the same company. He is an expert in his field. He works on $2million CABINET projects for Google campus or Rivian's offices. He makes $70 an hour. A little over 4x minimum wage. Something had gone wrong.