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Humans seek work that provides satisfaction and meaning in their life. For every technological advancement, artisans are the first to be made obsolete. Sure w

Humans seek work that provides satisfaction and meaning in their life. For every technological advancement, artisans are the first to be made obsolete. Sure we have landfills full of unworn textiles, the market says its good, but overall, we keep destroying what allows humans to seek meaning. Our governments and society have made it clear, if you don't produce value, you don't deserve dignity. We have outsourced art to computers, so people who don't understand art can have it at their fingertips. Now we're outsourcing engineering so those who don't understand it can have it done for cheap. We hear stories of those who don't understand therapy suggesting AI can be a therapist, of those who don't understand medicine suggesting AI can replace a doctor. What will be left? Where will we be? Just stranded without dignity or purpose, left to rot when we no longer produce value. I ask this question often, with multiple contexts, but to what end? Who benefits from these advancements? The CEO and shareholders, sure, but just because something can be found for cheaper, doesn't mean it improves lives. Our clothes barely last a year, our shoes fall apart. Our devices come with pre-destined expiration dates. Where will we be in the future? Those born into money can continue passing it around, a cargo cult for the numbers going up. But what about everyone else?

ardaoweo 3y ago
If we got universal basic income, people could do whatever they want. I for one would be content spending my time gardening and trekking in the nature. I despise office work and do it only for money. It's forcing the rich to give us UBI that is the problem.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  Sure but UBI would never afford a garden. It would be bare minimum to survive, if that. We'd need a complete restructuring of society to even approach dignity via UBI.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    Right! So lets get after it Start a local cooperative and build value from the bottom up
  - pj_mukh 3y ago
    Unless of course the robots built the gardens thereby driving the cost of gardens down to amounts accessible by UBI. Or so goes the theory.
- pzo 3y ago
  There will be only just few countries that are winners in this game. Do you believe e.g. USA will provide UBI for other countries or even only neighbours like Mexico? I don't think so. And once there is big unemployment that USA border will be filled even more with migrants or people unhappy with the situation.
xtreme 3y ago
Buying handcrafted artisan stuff is a luxury few can afford. I come from a poor family and I was always grateful for mass produced mediocre stuff that we could actually afford.
- dandelionsnow 3y ago
  Handcrafted artisinal stuff is a luxury because that's the only niche that makes economic sense for it now, given mass production and other recent developments (too lazy to list, sorry). Consider how you can't really get by in most of America without a car because we designed our cities to require them. It would be a mistake to conclude that, because life is harder in a car-optimized society without a car, society must be better off optimizing for cars.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  Sure but the same optimizations that bring the costs down, bring down the average laborers value. I'm not saying that things were sunshine and rainbows pre-industrialization, but there's some level of analysis to be done on the durability and value of a handcrafted piece of clothing, the care that goes into maintaining it, the value of a local economy, and the other side where you're forced to buy cheap items that degrade at a far faster rate. If a town's local businesses are put out by a new walmart's ability to carry low prices, does the town truly come out ahead with those low prices? Or does Walmart simply extract more money from the town than it returns, leaving the town worse off?
  - MacsHeadroom 3y ago
    > bring down the average laborers value. Labor has never been to afford so much luxury as the modern day.
  - esoterica 3y ago
    Those optimizations increase the value of labor by greatly increasing the amount of output per unit of labor. Do you understand how much wealthier the modern worker is than the pre Industrial Revolution peasant?
golergka 3y ago
> What will be left? Where will we be? Just stranded without dignity or purpose, left to rot when we no longer produce value. Nobody stops you from paying $1000 for a shirt made by artisans right now. Do you want to? > Our governments and society have made it clear, if you don't produce value, you don't deserve dignity. It's not somebody else who decided that. It's you.
- ethanwillis 3y ago
  > Nobody stops you from paying $1000 for a shirt made by artisans right now. Do you want to? If you don't do <insert extreme edge case> then your point is invalid. /s. Look, you dont have to pay $1000 for a shirt made by an artisan to get a quality shirt. It can be a bit more expensive, but much cheaper than that. And this can be true while being fair/reasonable to the artisan and also to the person acquiring it. > It's not somebody else who decided that. It's you. And what about my decisions? Or your decisions. Or anyone who is reading this's decisions? Surely the person you're replying to isn't some dictator who is deciding everything. It's not just the parent comment then. It's not just "It's you"
  - x-complexity 3y ago
    > > Nobody stops you from paying $1000 for a shirt made by artisans right now. Do you want to? > If you don't do <insert extreme edge case> then your point is invalid. /s. > Look, you dont have to pay $1000 for a shirt made by an artisan to get a quality shirt. It can be a bit more expensive, but much cheaper than that. And this can be true while being fair/reasonable to the artisan and also to the person acquiring it. In the ideal case, this would be true: Following classical economics, there would be some predictable demand left as you go up the price curve, assuming genuine quality & labour. However, this doesn't seem to be the case. The existence of low-cost mass-produced options leads to the satiation of demand above that spot of the curve. There still exists demand, but it's weirdly lower than predicted. People can shop down the price curve, but relatively fewer would do the opposite.
    - ethanwillis 3y ago
burningChrome 3y ago
I often ask a similar question of what happens when we, as humans, have offloaded everything to technology, to AI to Robots? What kind of a society will we have then? When you no longer have to think about how to do something, or how to build or repair something, or create something original from your imagination. I shudder to think the direction this is all leading to.
- jajko 3y ago
  Think about it in cycles. Handcrafted products were frowned upon since you could see imperfections and flaws. Now they are the thing, cheap perfect same mass machine-produced things often look bland and cheap, you pay massive premium over it. No reason this won't repeat in some form again. True art will be rare and treasured, few artists will be rockstars. Till next fad we can't even see coming again mixes it all up. But yeah these transitions do make tons of people miserable, losing jobs. Also overall middle class is disappearing, but thats the trend for quite some time. But it always paid off to anticipate what next generation of showels will be.
- brigadier132 3y ago
  I think what it leads to is a world without scarcity. I think all this fretting about meaning is missing the forest from the trees. Things like meaning are important but making sure everyone can eat three meals a day, that your family has access to superhuman doctors, that different diseases are cured are all much more important.
- LegibleCrimson 3y ago
  I'm kind of an AI pessimist, but I think that sounds like it could be a wonderful society. When the only work you need to do is work that you actually want to do. It could free up people to actually chase their dreams and achieve what they want to, without having to constantly chase subsistence. The reason I'm a pessimist is that I mostly see society preserving the status quo. I don't see AI democratizing things and freeing us, because we have fetishized the concepts of work and profit that we can't imagine a society that functions properly without demanding those two things be put above all else. I don't envision a dystopia or a utopia, I envision a future where AI disenfranchises people who should be taken care of, bolsters profits of the already powerful, and replaces the most fulfilling human pursuits without actually saving people from unfulfilling toil, mostly because society will bend backwards to try to preserve the status quo.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Buttons840 3y ago
Just pick a path, doctor, artist, therapist, any path will do. You'll soon realize you're better than the AI, but nobody will give a shit, they'd rather have the cheap AI knockoff.
gen220 3y ago
I have the same questions. I’ve decided the best thing I can do is vote with my wallet (i.e. as a consumer) and vote with my time (i.e. as a producer). Consume commodities that are regenerative and products that are durable. Whenever possible, buy local to keep cash flows (wealth transfer) local. Invest your time in contributing to products that encourage other people to do the same. Yvon Chouniard said (I’m completely paraphrasing) something like “in the 21st century, the most powerful vehicle for transforming the world is the American corporation. Whether or not it should be, it is. If you think the world should be different, step 1 is starting a business”. As a producer (engineer, for me), the best thing I can do is build tools to help people wean themselves off of Capital.
- esoterica 3y ago
  Autarkies are impoverished, societies that trade freely are wealthy. Your economic impulses are deeply misguided. If everyone only bought local the world would be much poorer. It’s better (consumer choice, comparative advantage) to buy from the world and to let the world buy from you. The money doesn’t disappear when you spend it outside your locality, it flows both ways.
  - gen220 3y ago
    I’m sorry, but by whose definition are “they” “impoverished”? And what constitutes “autarky” and “local”? I’m not advocating to abolish global trade or whatever, if you think I was gesturing in that direction. Buying (food, especially) locally means supporting a robust food chain that’s less dependent on refrigeration, global shipping, and a geographic arbitrage on agricultural labor. It’s better for the environment and connects you to your community and sense of place and seasons. It means I can know what went into the food, in terms of soil, labor, and pesticides — something that I have no knowledge of at the grocery store. A pound of apples, meat, or whatever from 1-2 counties away is more financially expensive, but if you can afford it there’s many non-financial benefits. I’d rather purchase from a CSA than a national grocer, because that money mostly goes back into my local community. You’re right the money doesn’t disappear when you spend it outside your locality, but it comes back in ways that are increasingly exploitative and/or depressing (chain stores offering no meaningful careers or opportunities for ownership, rent-seeking financialization, warehouses that bring noise pollution and packaging waste, etc.). Again, if you can afford it, IDK why you wouldn’t prefer to spend the marginal dollar locally (i.e. private / family-owned businesses in a few counties’ radius). It’s consumer choice and comparative advantage that actually lead people like me to shop locally...
onthecanposting 3y ago
The economy clothes aren't great, but you can get a quality tailored suit for $4000. That's about 6 weeks pay for a PFC in the US Army. A roman legionnaire would pay about a gold ounce for a quality (at the time) set of clothing, however, at the cost of about 6 months pay. They don't build 'em like they used to, but those of us in the rank and file are getting better off. We can't all be "I think I will just buy Hawaii" rich like Zuckerberg, but quality of life is, overall, improving.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  I think there's a good point in-between a $4000 dollar tailored suit and a $0.13 tshirt made of plastic that is designed for the landfill. I'm unsure why we default to extremes on that regard. A decent made T-Shirt should cost about $40, but right now the $40 shirt costs $.10 to make. Therein lies the self-consuming nature of how things are going right now.
  - LunaSea 3y ago
    The problem is that we are missing the proof of this supposed quality difference. Price does not necessarily imply quality (branding is much more of a factor). Even if price did imply quality for certain brands, the question would be how much more qualitative? Will it hold 10x more wash cycles or last 10x longer? In which case a consumer could make an actually informed decision on quality vs. price.
plz-remove-card 3y ago
> Humans seek work that provides satisfaction and meaning in their life. > we keep destroying what allows humans to seek meaning. > Our governments and society have made it clear, if you don't produce value, you don't deserve dignity. Those points are really interesting to me, I think you're right and I've never looked at it that way before.
andruby 3y ago
Long ago most humans spent their time and energy on farming so they wouldn't starve. We automated that with a couple of Agricultural Revolutions. Then the majority of us spent our time and energy in factories. That got automated during the Industrial Revolution. So we moved to service and knowledge jobs. And now we're potentialy seeing the start of automation in those knowledge jobs. Will this be a painful revolution as the Industrial one? Where will we spend our time and energy on next? > Where will we be in the future? A German named Karl wrote a book with an answer to that question 150 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital
- seadan83 3y ago
  TL;DR Premise is kinda all wrong, but IMO some interesting questions nonetheless are posed at the end of your comment. First agricultural revolution was farming, that allowed for cities. Second agricultural revolution overlaps with the industrial revolution. That was the transition from having only bio-mechanical energy available to also mechanical energy (the only source of power was no longer just muscles, but then things like steam power). The industrial revolution ended in the mid 1800s - a full century before the transition to service and knowledge jobs. Still, by the end of the second agricultural revolution, 50% of the labor force are still farmers. The industrial revolution was done decades before manufacturing labor participation peaked (in the US). The industrial revolution was NOT the shift into factories, it was the advent of steam engine and steam power. You didn't have to pull a cart with a horse anymore, there were steam engines (trains). This is WAY before the model T comes out. The idea that the majority of laborers hopped (in discrete steps) from farming, to factories, to service jobs is wrong. The percentage shift is smaller and more gradual than would be commonly believed, and plays over relatively long periods of time, most of those time periods playing out over just the last 400 years. > Long ago most humans spent their time and energy on farming so they wouldn't starve. We automated that with a couple of Agricultural Revolutions. This statements is misleading to the point of being incorrect. This resource states there were three major agricultural revolutions [1] Other resources refer to "The agricultural revolution", which was the second. "The Second Agricultural Revolution was both a contributing factor and consequence of the Industrial Revolution, which took place in the 1700s-1800s. As labor productivity and agricultural technology use increased and the population boomed due to a growing food supply, many people were left without land or work in rural areas. Thus, they migrated to the city, typically to find work in manufacturing." [1] Note, by 1800 in the US, still 80% of the labor force worked as farmers. [2] Thus, there was a shedding from 80%+ to 80%, and many of those left for other work, namely cities. It's not the case though that the agricultural revolution caused humans to go from 90% farming to 10% farming, with everyone there going into manufacturing - it's much small numbers and much more gradual shift that occurred over a few centuries (notably, just the last 3) The breakdown: - first agricultural revolution allowed humans to farm and not be nomadic (12k years ago, I'm still shocked by how relatively recent this was) - second agricultural revolution leveraged the industrial revolution, where a lot fewer people were needed for farming (but still a large number were required) - third agriculatural revolution was in the 1900s and lead to much better crop yields - arguably there is a 4th agricultural revolution underway today. I was talking to a farmer a year ago and they stated how amazing the tractors are now. They literally drive themselves & combine GPS data and automated controls to control the fertilization and watering down to the square foot. Still today, 20% of the total global population is doing subsistence agriculture. [3] I would guess that a large fraction are still growing their own gardens for food supplementation. > That got automated during the Industrial Revolution. So we moved to service and knowledge jobs. "The Industrial Revolution was the transition from creating goods by hand to using machines. Its start and end are widely debated by scholars, but the period generally spanned from about 1760 to 1840" [4] The industrial revolution is the transition from near exclusive muscle power (humans/oxen/horses) to steam power, machine power. From 1800 to 1860 the percentage of people (in the US) that were farmers went from 80% to 50%. It takes a lot longer before that percentage falls below 20%. The transition to service and knowledge jobs wasn't until the 1960s, that's about 200 years after the industrial revolution. Still though, I can't find a single resource that shows US manufacturing percentage was ever greater than 30% of the workforce. The resources I find show there was a consistent increase in manufacturing output until essentially the late 1900s (speaking of the the US only), while at the same time there was a reduction in the percentage workforce in manufacturing. > And now we're potentialy seeing the start of automation in those knowledge jobs. Potentially is the operative word. "ThePrimeTime" aka "Primeagen" recently did a video on Devin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80MPXoRHvK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80MPXoRHvK8 (start at 8:50, until about 9:45 mark) His assessment, until Devin is 100x more powerful, two orders of magnitude better, only then will Devin even potentially start taking over jobs from humans. I generally agree with that take. I think we get there in maybe 20 to 40 years from now. Personally, that idea seems similar to me as the idea that cars are imminently about to be self driving and you can lease your self driving car as a taxi during work-hours. That idea was floated by Musk since 2014, and every year since, that was going to be a reality within one year. [5] -------------------------- I think your last questions though are very interesting, namely these: "Will this be a painful revolution as the Industrial one? Where will we spend our time and energy on next?" Though, I find your premises to be inaccurate, and your timeline for when this next revolution is off by at least 30 years. It's yet to even start. I'll note we're still living through the automation of the service industry, that revolution is not yet done - computers have not yet eaten the world. As an example, the first successful 'pets.com' is still less than 20 years old, and that is just the act of automating a store-front to purchase cat food - plenty of examples of industries and services that are still largely paper based. A couple years ago I interviewed for a startup that was automating food chain supply, they noted that industry is still almost entirely paper based, and that is in 2021! [1] https://populationeducation.org/a-timeline-of-the-three-major-agricultural-revolutions-in-history/ https://populationeducation.org/a-timeline-of-the-three-majo... [2] https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=11&psid=3837 https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=11... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture [4] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/industrialization-labor-and-life/ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/industrial... [5] https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-promising-self-driving-cars https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-promising-self-driving-...
mercenario 3y ago
> What will be left? Where will we be? Just stranded without dignity or purpose, left to rot when we no longer produce value. Look at the unemployment rate history. Look at poverty rate history. Your argument is completely nonsense.
roguas 3y ago
> Just stranded without dignity or purpose, Perhaps dignity is seeking value that is scalable to entire humanity, hm? Isn't it dignified? If we cannot find value for fellow humans we can relax I guess? > We have outsourced art to computers, so people who don't understand art Ok, I am seeing a lot of bad faith arguments. Just because somebody doesn't have time to learn to craft and cruft of some very tedious discipline, doesn't really mean they don't understand it. You don't need to throw rocks all day to get an understanding of physics. But people had to do it in the past, now we calculate, simulate and then just do one throw. Also I am speaking as part time designer/artist. New AI tools are great, I could achieve similar results, but difficult bets were made, when i started. Now I just roll in images, some of them finetuned on my work, some are mix, some are completely nuanced. Many artists after initial sobbing(I was enthusiastic from getgo) started to learn and explore this tools. People bring amazing things to life, that just were impossible with their limited resources (take a look, anime done with very small crew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWZOEFvczzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWZOEFvczzA). I much dislike the mindset of "they took our jobs".

ardaoweo 3y ago

If we got universal basic income, people could do whatever they want. I for one would be content spending my time gardening and trekking in the nature. I despise office work and do it only for money. It's forcing the rich to give us UBI that is the problem.

MSFT_Edging 3y ago
Sure but UBI would never afford a garden. It would be bare minimum to survive, if that. We'd need a complete restructuring of society to even approach dignity via UBI.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Right! So lets get after it Start a local cooperative and build value from the bottom up
- pj_mukh 3y ago
  Unless of course the robots built the gardens thereby driving the cost of gardens down to amounts accessible by UBI. Or so goes the theory.
pzo 3y ago
There will be only just few countries that are winners in this game. Do you believe e.g. USA will provide UBI for other countries or even only neighbours like Mexico? I don't think so. And once there is big unemployment that USA border will be filled even more with migrants or people unhappy with the situation.

xtreme 3y ago

Buying handcrafted artisan stuff is a luxury few can afford. I come from a poor family and I was always grateful for mass produced mediocre stuff that we could actually afford.

dandelionsnow 3y ago
Handcrafted artisinal stuff is a luxury because that's the only niche that makes economic sense for it now, given mass production and other recent developments (too lazy to list, sorry). Consider how you can't really get by in most of America without a car because we designed our cities to require them. It would be a mistake to conclude that, because life is harder in a car-optimized society without a car, society must be better off optimizing for cars.
MSFT_Edging 3y ago
Sure but the same optimizations that bring the costs down, bring down the average laborers value. I'm not saying that things were sunshine and rainbows pre-industrialization, but there's some level of analysis to be done on the durability and value of a handcrafted piece of clothing, the care that goes into maintaining it, the value of a local economy, and the other side where you're forced to buy cheap items that degrade at a far faster rate. If a town's local businesses are put out by a new walmart's ability to carry low prices, does the town truly come out ahead with those low prices? Or does Walmart simply extract more money from the town than it returns, leaving the town worse off?
- MacsHeadroom 3y ago
  > bring down the average laborers value. Labor has never been to afford so much luxury as the modern day.
- esoterica 3y ago
  Those optimizations increase the value of labor by greatly increasing the amount of output per unit of labor. Do you understand how much wealthier the modern worker is than the pre Industrial Revolution peasant?

golergka 3y ago

> What will be left? Where will we be? Just stranded without dignity or purpose, left to rot when we no longer produce value. Nobody stops you from paying $1000 for a shirt made by artisans right now. Do you want to? > Our governments and society have made it clear, if you don't produce value, you don't deserve dignity. It's not somebody else who decided that. It's you.

ethanwillis 3y ago
> Nobody stops you from paying $1000 for a shirt made by artisans right now. Do you want to? If you don't do <insert extreme edge case> then your point is invalid. /s. Look, you dont have to pay $1000 for a shirt made by an artisan to get a quality shirt. It can be a bit more expensive, but much cheaper than that. And this can be true while being fair/reasonable to the artisan and also to the person acquiring it. > It's not somebody else who decided that. It's you. And what about my decisions? Or your decisions. Or anyone who is reading this's decisions? Surely the person you're replying to isn't some dictator who is deciding everything. It's not just the parent comment then. It's not just "It's you"
- x-complexity 3y ago
  > > Nobody stops you from paying $1000 for a shirt made by artisans right now. Do you want to? > If you don't do <insert extreme edge case> then your point is invalid. /s. > Look, you dont have to pay $1000 for a shirt made by an artisan to get a quality shirt. It can be a bit more expensive, but much cheaper than that. And this can be true while being fair/reasonable to the artisan and also to the person acquiring it. In the ideal case, this would be true: Following classical economics, there would be some predictable demand left as you go up the price curve, assuming genuine quality & labour. However, this doesn't seem to be the case. The existence of low-cost mass-produced options leads to the satiation of demand above that spot of the curve. There still exists demand, but it's weirdly lower than predicted. People can shop down the price curve, but relatively fewer would do the opposite.
  - ethanwillis 3y ago

burningChrome 3y ago

I often ask a similar question of what happens when we, as humans, have offloaded everything to technology, to AI to Robots? What kind of a society will we have then? When you no longer have to think about how to do something, or how to build or repair something, or create something original from your imagination. I shudder to think the direction this is all leading to.

jajko 3y ago
Think about it in cycles. Handcrafted products were frowned upon since you could see imperfections and flaws. Now they are the thing, cheap perfect same mass machine-produced things often look bland and cheap, you pay massive premium over it. No reason this won't repeat in some form again. True art will be rare and treasured, few artists will be rockstars. Till next fad we can't even see coming again mixes it all up. But yeah these transitions do make tons of people miserable, losing jobs. Also overall middle class is disappearing, but thats the trend for quite some time. But it always paid off to anticipate what next generation of showels will be.
brigadier132 3y ago
I think what it leads to is a world without scarcity. I think all this fretting about meaning is missing the forest from the trees. Things like meaning are important but making sure everyone can eat three meals a day, that your family has access to superhuman doctors, that different diseases are cured are all much more important.
LegibleCrimson 3y ago
I'm kind of an AI pessimist, but I think that sounds like it could be a wonderful society. When the only work you need to do is work that you actually want to do. It could free up people to actually chase their dreams and achieve what they want to, without having to constantly chase subsistence. The reason I'm a pessimist is that I mostly see society preserving the status quo. I don't see AI democratizing things and freeing us, because we have fetishized the concepts of work and profit that we can't imagine a society that functions properly without demanding those two things be put above all else. I don't envision a dystopia or a utopia, I envision a future where AI disenfranchises people who should be taken care of, bolsters profits of the already powerful, and replaces the most fulfilling human pursuits without actually saving people from unfulfilling toil, mostly because society will bend backwards to try to preserve the status quo.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Buttons840 3y ago

Just pick a path, doctor, artist, therapist, any path will do. You'll soon realize you're better than the AI, but nobody will give a shit, they'd rather have the cheap AI knockoff.

gen220 3y ago

I have the same questions. I’ve decided the best thing I can do is vote with my wallet (i.e. as a consumer) and vote with my time (i.e. as a producer). Consume commodities that are regenerative and products that are durable. Whenever possible, buy local to keep cash flows (wealth transfer) local. Invest your time in contributing to products that encourage other people to do the same. Yvon Chouniard said (I’m completely paraphrasing) something like “in the 21st century, the most powerful vehicle for transforming the world is the American corporation. Whether or not it should be, it is. If you think the world should be different, step 1 is starting a business”. As a producer (engineer, for me), the best thing I can do is build tools to help people wean themselves off of Capital.

esoterica 3y ago
Autarkies are impoverished, societies that trade freely are wealthy. Your economic impulses are deeply misguided. If everyone only bought local the world would be much poorer. It’s better (consumer choice, comparative advantage) to buy from the world and to let the world buy from you. The money doesn’t disappear when you spend it outside your locality, it flows both ways.
- gen220 3y ago
  I’m sorry, but by whose definition are “they” “impoverished”? And what constitutes “autarky” and “local”? I’m not advocating to abolish global trade or whatever, if you think I was gesturing in that direction. Buying (food, especially) locally means supporting a robust food chain that’s less dependent on refrigeration, global shipping, and a geographic arbitrage on agricultural labor. It’s better for the environment and connects you to your community and sense of place and seasons. It means I can know what went into the food, in terms of soil, labor, and pesticides — something that I have no knowledge of at the grocery store. A pound of apples, meat, or whatever from 1-2 counties away is more financially expensive, but if you can afford it there’s many non-financial benefits. I’d rather purchase from a CSA than a national grocer, because that money mostly goes back into my local community. You’re right the money doesn’t disappear when you spend it outside your locality, but it comes back in ways that are increasingly exploitative and/or depressing (chain stores offering no meaningful careers or opportunities for ownership, rent-seeking financialization, warehouses that bring noise pollution and packaging waste, etc.). Again, if you can afford it, IDK why you wouldn’t prefer to spend the marginal dollar locally (i.e. private / family-owned businesses in a few counties’ radius). It’s consumer choice and comparative advantage that actually lead people like me to shop locally...

onthecanposting 3y ago

The economy clothes aren't great, but you can get a quality tailored suit for $4000. That's about 6 weeks pay for a PFC in the US Army. A roman legionnaire would pay about a gold ounce for a quality (at the time) set of clothing, however, at the cost of about 6 months pay. They don't build 'em like they used to, but those of us in the rank and file are getting better off. We can't all be "I think I will just buy Hawaii" rich like Zuckerberg, but quality of life is, overall, improving.

MSFT_Edging 3y ago
I think there's a good point in-between a $4000 dollar tailored suit and a $0.13 tshirt made of plastic that is designed for the landfill. I'm unsure why we default to extremes on that regard. A decent made T-Shirt should cost about $40, but right now the $40 shirt costs $.10 to make. Therein lies the self-consuming nature of how things are going right now.
- LunaSea 3y ago
  The problem is that we are missing the proof of this supposed quality difference. Price does not necessarily imply quality (branding is much more of a factor). Even if price did imply quality for certain brands, the question would be how much more qualitative? Will it hold 10x more wash cycles or last 10x longer? In which case a consumer could make an actually informed decision on quality vs. price.

plz-remove-card 3y ago

> Humans seek work that provides satisfaction and meaning in their life. > we keep destroying what allows humans to seek meaning. > Our governments and society have made it clear, if you don't produce value, you don't deserve dignity. Those points are really interesting to me, I think you're right and I've never looked at it that way before.

andruby 3y ago

Long ago most humans spent their time and energy on farming so they wouldn't starve. We automated that with a couple of Agricultural Revolutions. Then the majority of us spent our time and energy in factories. That got automated during the Industrial Revolution. So we moved to service and knowledge jobs. And now we're potentialy seeing the start of automation in those knowledge jobs. Will this be a painful revolution as the Industrial one? Where will we spend our time and energy on next? > Where will we be in the future? A German named Karl wrote a book with an answer to that question 150 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital

seadan83 3y ago
TL;DR Premise is kinda all wrong, but IMO some interesting questions nonetheless are posed at the end of your comment. First agricultural revolution was farming, that allowed for cities. Second agricultural revolution overlaps with the industrial revolution. That was the transition from having only bio-mechanical energy available to also mechanical energy (the only source of power was no longer just muscles, but then things like steam power). The industrial revolution ended in the mid 1800s - a full century before the transition to service and knowledge jobs. Still, by the end of the second agricultural revolution, 50% of the labor force are still farmers. The industrial revolution was done decades before manufacturing labor participation peaked (in the US). The industrial revolution was NOT the shift into factories, it was the advent of steam engine and steam power. You didn't have to pull a cart with a horse anymore, there were steam engines (trains). This is WAY before the model T comes out. The idea that the majority of laborers hopped (in discrete steps) from farming, to factories, to service jobs is wrong. The percentage shift is smaller and more gradual than would be commonly believed, and plays over relatively long periods of time, most of those time periods playing out over just the last 400 years. > Long ago most humans spent their time and energy on farming so they wouldn't starve. We automated that with a couple of Agricultural Revolutions. This statements is misleading to the point of being incorrect. This resource states there were three major agricultural revolutions [1] Other resources refer to "The agricultural revolution", which was the second. "The Second Agricultural Revolution was both a contributing factor and consequence of the Industrial Revolution, which took place in the 1700s-1800s. As labor productivity and agricultural technology use increased and the population boomed due to a growing food supply, many people were left without land or work in rural areas. Thus, they migrated to the city, typically to find work in manufacturing." [1] Note, by 1800 in the US, still 80% of the labor force worked as farmers. [2] Thus, there was a shedding from 80%+ to 80%, and many of those left for other work, namely cities. It's not the case though that the agricultural revolution caused humans to go from 90% farming to 10% farming, with everyone there going into manufacturing - it's much small numbers and much more gradual shift that occurred over a few centuries (notably, just the last 3) The breakdown: - first agricultural revolution allowed humans to farm and not be nomadic (12k years ago, I'm still shocked by how relatively recent this was) - second agricultural revolution leveraged the industrial revolution, where a lot fewer people were needed for farming (but still a large number were required) - third agriculatural revolution was in the 1900s and lead to much better crop yields - arguably there is a 4th agricultural revolution underway today. I was talking to a farmer a year ago and they stated how amazing the tractors are now. They literally drive themselves & combine GPS data and automated controls to control the fertilization and watering down to the square foot. Still today, 20% of the total global population is doing subsistence agriculture. [3] I would guess that a large fraction are still growing their own gardens for food supplementation. > That got automated during the Industrial Revolution. So we moved to service and knowledge jobs. "The Industrial Revolution was the transition from creating goods by hand to using machines. Its start and end are widely debated by scholars, but the period generally spanned from about 1760 to 1840" [4] The industrial revolution is the transition from near exclusive muscle power (humans/oxen/horses) to steam power, machine power. From 1800 to 1860 the percentage of people (in the US) that were farmers went from 80% to 50%. It takes a lot longer before that percentage falls below 20%. The transition to service and knowledge jobs wasn't until the 1960s, that's about 200 years after the industrial revolution. Still though, I can't find a single resource that shows US manufacturing percentage was ever greater than 30% of the workforce. The resources I find show there was a consistent increase in manufacturing output until essentially the late 1900s (speaking of the the US only), while at the same time there was a reduction in the percentage workforce in manufacturing. > And now we're potentialy seeing the start of automation in those knowledge jobs. Potentially is the operative word. "ThePrimeTime" aka "Primeagen" recently did a video on Devin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80MPXoRHvK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80MPXoRHvK8 (start at 8:50, until about 9:45 mark) His assessment, until Devin is 100x more powerful, two orders of magnitude better, only then will Devin even potentially start taking over jobs from humans. I generally agree with that take. I think we get there in maybe 20 to 40 years from now. Personally, that idea seems similar to me as the idea that cars are imminently about to be self driving and you can lease your self driving car as a taxi during work-hours. That idea was floated by Musk since 2014, and every year since, that was going to be a reality within one year. [5] -------------------------- I think your last questions though are very interesting, namely these: "Will this be a painful revolution as the Industrial one? Where will we spend our time and energy on next?" Though, I find your premises to be inaccurate, and your timeline for when this next revolution is off by at least 30 years. It's yet to even start. I'll note we're still living through the automation of the service industry, that revolution is not yet done - computers have not yet eaten the world. As an example, the first successful 'pets.com' is still less than 20 years old, and that is just the act of automating a store-front to purchase cat food - plenty of examples of industries and services that are still largely paper based. A couple years ago I interviewed for a startup that was automating food chain supply, they noted that industry is still almost entirely paper based, and that is in 2021! [1] https://populationeducation.org/a-timeline-of-the-three-major-agricultural-revolutions-in-history/ https://populationeducation.org/a-timeline-of-the-three-majo... [2] https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=11&psid=3837 https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=11... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture [4] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/industrialization-labor-and-life/ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/industrial... [5] https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-promising-self-driving-cars https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-promising-self-driving-...

mercenario 3y ago

> What will be left? Where will we be? Just stranded without dignity or purpose, left to rot when we no longer produce value. Look at the unemployment rate history. Look at poverty rate history. Your argument is completely nonsense.

roguas 3y ago

> Just stranded without dignity or purpose, Perhaps dignity is seeking value that is scalable to entire humanity, hm? Isn't it dignified? If we cannot find value for fellow humans we can relax I guess? > We have outsourced art to computers, so people who don't understand art Ok, I am seeing a lot of bad faith arguments. Just because somebody doesn't have time to learn to craft and cruft of some very tedious discipline, doesn't really mean they don't understand it. You don't need to throw rocks all day to get an understanding of physics. But people had to do it in the past, now we calculate, simulate and then just do one throw. Also I am speaking as part time designer/artist. New AI tools are great, I could achieve similar results, but difficult bets were made, when i started. Now I just roll in images, some of them finetuned on my work, some are mix, some are completely nuanced. Many artists after initial sobbing(I was enthusiastic from getgo) started to learn and explore this tools. People bring amazing things to life, that just were impossible with their limited resources (take a look, anime done with very small crew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWZOEFvczzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWZOEFvczzA). I much dislike the mindset of "they took our jobs".