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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

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.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
What quality of life? Most families need three or more jobs to cover basic needs of life like housing, healthcare, food and travel. Salaries are rising. The value of those salaries is dropping. We are more interconnected and more surrounded by tech. This is not the same as higher quality of life. It means more tech. Which is the subject. Oh I can watch someone pretend to be NPC on the other side of the globe on a pocket box. Quality of life. I think it’s telling people want a vacation away from tech and “modern life”. Why would they go for lower quality of life as a vacation?
- tchaffee 3y ago
  I already mentioned the problem of masssive wealth gaps indirectly. Us workers need to organize to recapture the profit that used to be shared with us. UPS workers just negotiated $170,000 TC. I think that's enough to live a nice life, especially if two people are contributing to a household. Productivity has increased by a lot. It's up to voters and workers to get their fair share of those gains. The uber wealthy are not going to willingly give it up.
ForHackernews 3y ago
> UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The key being that UPS drivers are unionized. If your argument is that the increasingly obsolete humans need to band together and take wealth back from the owners of the robots, then I agree.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  The problem is that history shows there is no such thing as humans banding together and taking things back. As a group. The group has new “benevolent leaders” emerge, then they take everything and stop being benevolent very quickly, if not instantly. Animal Farm anyone? Animal Farm. Still relevant.
  - ForHackernews 3y ago
    That sounds to me like you're repeating dogma, but even if it's true, that's fine by me. I'd rather my union steward was getting rich (for some low value of 'rich') than my CEO. Only one of them is on my side.
    - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      It’s interesting, because this is how your response sounded to me. Is there no dogma about how everyone should group together and take back the means of production? There is a very large, prominent movement about this response to capitalism. My point is, that theory and practice differ, and when they differ it’s not the practice that is wrong, but the theory. Every time people banded together to take the means of production, it resulted simply in destruction, instant corruption and a new autocratic regime built around the toughest thugs. The utopia does not occur. So clearly this is not the solution for solving our problems. There are problems. And there are solutions. But you need to search elsewhere. Your union leader is not necessarily on your side. Even if they are, not for long. The system decides how they act, and power corrupts. Watch the strike in Hollywood. Watch how the previous strike in 2007 caused the present situation in 2023, and watch how the union will end up dissolving itself as more and more people will start leaving it. I’m not happy about this. I think workers need to be able to band together in groups and negotiate in groups (called companies, for example). I’m not convinced it should be one all encompassing mob-like group with no alternatives, but that’s just me.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
EGreg 3y ago
Past results are not an indicator of future performance. There is no economic law that guarantees human labor will always be in demand. 70 years ago one man could sustain an entire household on one paycheck, his work was valued and the company man worked decades until he got a pension. Today, both sexes work long hours just to afford a tiny apartment, they have to switch jobs every couple years and even started doing the gig economy on the side to get by. Until robots replace them. Sure, some humans will be more productive, but then we’ll need less of them. And with AI, it’s easier to just have the AI learn the new “irreplaceable” skills much faster than retraining millions of humans. Horses and oxen were very useful throughout history, until the car and tractor was invited. Today the number of horses and oxen is at an all-time low. No amount of unionizing by horses would change that.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  > Past results are not an indicator of future performance. Sure, but we can't predict the future, so it's the best model we have. > Today, both sexes work long hours just to afford a tiny apartment, they have to switch jobs every couple years and even started doing the gig economy on the side to get by. What you've missed is that productivity (as measured by GDP) has gone way up. Someone captured those profits. Which is why we see such massive wealth gaps. > Sure, some humans will be more productive, but then we’ll need less of them. This has never happened before. I could be wrong and maybe it will happen, but the most technologically advanced country in the world has companies competing for workers and salaries going up. This is in the face of massive automation. > And with AI, it’s easier to just have the AI learn the new “irreplaceable” skills much faster than retraining millions of humans. > No amount of unionizing by horses would change that. If horses were the ones buying your products and creating your wealth, then they would actually have a pretty big say. What us workers fail to understand is just how essential we are to the economy. We need to organize and demand our fair share of the productivity gains.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    > What you've missed is that productivity (as measured by GDP) has gone way up. Someone captured those profits. Which is why we see such massive wealth gaps. Exactly! That is what happens under capitalism. Which is why we need safety nets in place that can grow and be funded by taxes on automation. The safety nets should redistribute money equally to all citizens. We can also fund them by other pigovian taxes, like those on fossil fuels at the point of extraction — Alaska does exactly this with its Permanent Fund. > This has never happened before AI that can replace humans at most tasks within a couple years of R&D hasn’t happened before. But when it came to machine labor, the farms were all automated and the factories were all automated. We know what happens. It’s not like humans got the windfall — because the only way regular get money in capitalism is through wages. > If horses were the consumer The ones unionizing are the labor producers, so not a valid analogy

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

What quality of life? Most families need three or more jobs to cover basic needs of life like housing, healthcare, food and travel. Salaries are rising. The value of those salaries is dropping. We are more interconnected and more surrounded by tech. This is not the same as higher quality of life. It means more tech. Which is the subject. Oh I can watch someone pretend to be NPC on the other side of the globe on a pocket box. Quality of life. I think it’s telling people want a vacation away from tech and “modern life”. Why would they go for lower quality of life as a vacation?

tchaffee 3y ago
I already mentioned the problem of masssive wealth gaps indirectly. Us workers need to organize to recapture the profit that used to be shared with us. UPS workers just negotiated $170,000 TC. I think that's enough to live a nice life, especially if two people are contributing to a household. Productivity has increased by a lot. It's up to voters and workers to get their fair share of those gains. The uber wealthy are not going to willingly give it up.

ForHackernews 3y ago

> UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The key being that UPS drivers are unionized. If your argument is that the increasingly obsolete humans need to band together and take wealth back from the owners of the robots, then I agree.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
The problem is that history shows there is no such thing as humans banding together and taking things back. As a group. The group has new “benevolent leaders” emerge, then they take everything and stop being benevolent very quickly, if not instantly. Animal Farm anyone? Animal Farm. Still relevant.
- ForHackernews 3y ago
  That sounds to me like you're repeating dogma, but even if it's true, that's fine by me. I'd rather my union steward was getting rich (for some low value of 'rich') than my CEO. Only one of them is on my side.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    It’s interesting, because this is how your response sounded to me. Is there no dogma about how everyone should group together and take back the means of production? There is a very large, prominent movement about this response to capitalism. My point is, that theory and practice differ, and when they differ it’s not the practice that is wrong, but the theory. Every time people banded together to take the means of production, it resulted simply in destruction, instant corruption and a new autocratic regime built around the toughest thugs. The utopia does not occur. So clearly this is not the solution for solving our problems. There are problems. And there are solutions. But you need to search elsewhere. Your union leader is not necessarily on your side. Even if they are, not for long. The system decides how they act, and power corrupts. Watch the strike in Hollywood. Watch how the previous strike in 2007 caused the present situation in 2023, and watch how the union will end up dissolving itself as more and more people will start leaving it. I’m not happy about this. I think workers need to be able to band together in groups and negotiate in groups (called companies, for example). I’m not convinced it should be one all encompassing mob-like group with no alternatives, but that’s just me.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

EGreg 3y ago

Past results are not an indicator of future performance. There is no economic law that guarantees human labor will always be in demand. 70 years ago one man could sustain an entire household on one paycheck, his work was valued and the company man worked decades until he got a pension. Today, both sexes work long hours just to afford a tiny apartment, they have to switch jobs every couple years and even started doing the gig economy on the side to get by. Until robots replace them. Sure, some humans will be more productive, but then we’ll need less of them. And with AI, it’s easier to just have the AI learn the new “irreplaceable” skills much faster than retraining millions of humans. Horses and oxen were very useful throughout history, until the car and tractor was invited. Today the number of horses and oxen is at an all-time low. No amount of unionizing by horses would change that.

tchaffee 3y ago
> Past results are not an indicator of future performance. Sure, but we can't predict the future, so it's the best model we have. > Today, both sexes work long hours just to afford a tiny apartment, they have to switch jobs every couple years and even started doing the gig economy on the side to get by. What you've missed is that productivity (as measured by GDP) has gone way up. Someone captured those profits. Which is why we see such massive wealth gaps. > Sure, some humans will be more productive, but then we’ll need less of them. This has never happened before. I could be wrong and maybe it will happen, but the most technologically advanced country in the world has companies competing for workers and salaries going up. This is in the face of massive automation. > And with AI, it’s easier to just have the AI learn the new “irreplaceable” skills much faster than retraining millions of humans. > No amount of unionizing by horses would change that. If horses were the ones buying your products and creating your wealth, then they would actually have a pretty big say. What us workers fail to understand is just how essential we are to the economy. We need to organize and demand our fair share of the productivity gains.
- EGreg 3y ago
  > What you've missed is that productivity (as measured by GDP) has gone way up. Someone captured those profits. Which is why we see such massive wealth gaps. Exactly! That is what happens under capitalism. Which is why we need safety nets in place that can grow and be funded by taxes on automation. The safety nets should redistribute money equally to all citizens. We can also fund them by other pigovian taxes, like those on fossil fuels at the point of extraction — Alaska does exactly this with its Permanent Fund. > This has never happened before AI that can replace humans at most tasks within a couple years of R&D hasn’t happened before. But when it came to machine labor, the farms were all automated and the factories were all automated. We know what happens. It’s not like humans got the windfall — because the only way regular get money in capitalism is through wages. > If horses were the consumer The ones unionizing are the labor producers, so not a valid analogy