5 ms·
No amount of automation has ever seemed to result in a net reduction in work to do thus far
by klysm 2y ago
No amount of automation has ever seemed to result in a net reduction in work to do thus far
- Imnimo 2y agohttps://ourworldindata.org/working-more-than-ever https://ourworldindata.org/working-more-than-ever
- echoangle 2y agoWhy would it? It’s not like the amount of work to do is fixed and once it’s done, everyone can relax for the rest of the year. There’s always work to do and progress just speeds up as work becomes more efficient.
- MiguelX413 2y agoWhy not just stop once we've done the same work as in the past?
- xboxnolifes 2y agoBecause, thus far, people have always wanted more.
- brewtide 2y agoShiny new phones every year, bigger better faster shinier cars, Fancier meals, must have gadgets, keeping a keen eye on the Jones's, better fuller lawn without weeds, that paved driveway you've always wanted, a faster computer, better heating systems, brand name clothing... When needs and wants get all mixed up, there is always more to be done.
- red-iron-pine 2y agojust say it man: capitalism creates new needs to justify working you extra hard
- echoangle 2y agoIs there nothing to improve in your life? Was there nothing to improve in the 50s? Would you like supersonic commercial flights for everyone and photorealistic computer games? Electric cars and larger houses? You can also do better and improve the life of everyone. That’s not even considering the improvements impoverished countries around the world have experienced in the recent decades, have a look at Africa.
- plsbenice34 2y agoMy desire to work less eclipses any desire for any of those things. I do not believe that lives are being improved. It only benefits the rich that don't have to work because there is no downside for them and they only gain more power through the system
- echoangle 2y agoI would rather work full time now than part time in the 50s, I think. I haven’t lived in the 50s though so I can’t say for sure.
- coldtea 2y ago>Is there nothing to improve in your life? Yes: less work primarily.
- TomatoCo 2y agoSounds like a labor version of Jevon's Paradox, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox where increases in efficiency cause a resource to be consumed more, not less.
- jlarocco 2y agoThat kind of misrepresents the situation because our social and economic systems screw over the employees whose jobs are automated away. Initially there's the same amount of work, but if they don't find something else to do, they won't be able to pay their bills or buy food, and they'll be out on the street. So we end up with crappy, low pay service jobs that only exist so people have some way to scrape out a living. The business owners benefit from automation, the employees lose.
- barbariangrunge 2y agoNobody is hiring armies of workers just so those workers can “scrape out a living.” Companies cut jobs, they rarely create them for charity
- imiric 2y agoBecause the gains from increased productivity have been reaped by executives, not workers. You keep working the same hours to make your bosses more money, when you could be working less instead. This income gap has been widening since the 1970s[1,2]. [1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide... [2]: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
- Aerroon 2y agoThis cannot be true. Imagine your job is producing chairs. You make 1 chair per day. Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase, instead the executives pocket all of it! But what about the 3 extra chairs? Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day. Wealth is about stuff, not money. If more stuff is produced (that is useful) then people become wealthier. So unless those executives are somehow taking all those extra chairs themselves there must be done other beneficiary from the extra productivity. It's far more likely that regular people have a growing desire for more stuff than the executives using up all those extra products themselves.
- barbariangrunge 2y agoWhat about advertising?
- Aerroon 2y agoI don't think advertising is what creates a desire for a product. I think that desire exists beforehand and advertising mobilizes it. I didn't know I wanted a smartphone. Ads didn't make me want a smartphone. But when I got a smartphone I knew I wanted one.
- selcuka 2y ago> Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase You are looking from a single worker's perspective. A more realistic example is 4 workers used to make 4 chairs per day, and now 3 workers can make the same number of chairs. Boss makes more money. No net gain for the remaining 3 workers (and the laid off worker has to find another job, potentially for a lower salary).
- pjerem 2y agoThat’s because we use automation to solve problems and create needs we never had. I mean, nowadays we solved pretty any need the average human had 100 years ago. Our leaders are convinced that we must grow and grow, but we basically have everything we need to be a happy species in the long term. What we are doing now is working (here 6 days a week) to solve inexistant problems marketers are creating while going full throttle both in burn-out and in the environmental wall. In the meantime, while we are working hard releasing SaaS softwares, there have never been fewer farmers which, historically, have been the job of pretty any human in the last millennia. If we don’t change this paradigm, we are at risk of dying stupidly from climate induced famine or wars just because we needed the latest smartphone. Don’t get me wrong : I understand how at the end of the day, in the current system, all of this supports our basic needs. But we need to think about another system because we are going to destroy environment and human psyche.