3 ms·

Cheaper prices don't matter at all when no one has any income due to all of the jobs being automated

stevehawk 7mo ago
but elon said he would share the excesses with us!
TGower 7mo ago
This is true. It's by no means garunteed that we will get to a point where effectively all the jobs are being automated. If we eventually get there, it seems likely the path will be gradual and prosperous enough that we can handle the transition in a way that provides for everyone. The dangers of the alternative route are real, but hopefully obvious enough that we can collectively avoid them.
- bluefirebrand 7mo ago
  > it seems likely the path will be gradual and prosperous enough that we can handle the transition in a way that provides for everyone What are you talking about man, we don't even provide for everyone right now even though we actually could
  - TGower 7mo ago
    Right now it is difficult for the average person to put themselves in the shoes of a homeless person. There are a litany of ready made excuses not to do so: "Oh it's the drugs", "They aren't even going to the shelter", "They must have mental illness", a variety of ways to say "I could never end up like that, if it was me I'd do better and pull myself out". These excuses evaporate in the face of a real automation wave where a large portion of friends and family you know to be hard working and intelligent are finding it impossible to find a job.
    - throw4847285 7mo ago
      This already happened. When deindustrialization first hit in the US it devastated the black community. The result? A litany of pundits decrying Black criminality, bad family structures, cultural pathologies. It's no coincidence that The Bell Curve came out around then. A decade or two later, all of sudden the same phenomena are happening in working class white communities. Drug addiction, family dissolution, abject poverty. So clearly the people of the US finally realized that what was happening was due primarily to material concerns, and that people need to be able to earn a living in order to live. Right? No. Instead we got right wing populism, scapegoating of immigrants, further concentration of wealth, and no end in sight.
      - TGower 7mo ago
        With those past examples the majority of people thought "It's not my problem, I won't be affected", and they were mostly right. With an automation wave of the scale needed to get to effectively no jobs, that's just not the case. They will see that it is indeed coming for them, their friends, and family. They will act accordingly. Altruism not required, just self interest.
        ankaz 7mo ago
        [dead]
    - irishcoffee 7mo ago
      You really think altruism is what pops out the other end of "nobody has a fucking job" state of affairs? Alrighty.
    - cardanome 7mo ago
      The average person is pretty empathetic. The oligarchs of the current Epstein-regime that start wars and fund genocide, not so much. They are trained to dehumanize people. Without radical change of the current system any technological advancement will only make the rich richer.
    - Timon3 7mo ago
- kjkjadksj 7mo ago
  You think the leaders of our planet would just wake up one day and walk back all the crap they’ve said for decades about dismantling the welfare state? And for what because we won’t be working? The whitehouse just added work requirements to medicare. That is the opposite of abundance providing for all.
qwerasdf5 7mo ago
If 'no one has any income', then prices become 0.
- ryandrake 7mo ago
  There will always be a relative few people with income. The business owners, property owners, asset holders, landlords, and so on. Those are the people who prices are set for, and who will participate in the economy. The rest of us? A lot of us are already essentially economically irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and more and more are becoming so every day, even as they nominally get richer.

but elon said he would share the excesses with us!

This is true. It's by no means garunteed that we will get to a point where effectively all the jobs are being automated. If we eventually get there, it seems likely the path will be gradual and prosperous enough that we can handle the transition in a way that provides for everyone. The dangers of the alternative route are real, but hopefully obvious enough that we can collectively avoid them.

bluefirebrand 7mo ago
> it seems likely the path will be gradual and prosperous enough that we can handle the transition in a way that provides for everyone What are you talking about man, we don't even provide for everyone right now even though we actually could
- TGower 7mo ago
  Right now it is difficult for the average person to put themselves in the shoes of a homeless person. There are a litany of ready made excuses not to do so: "Oh it's the drugs", "They aren't even going to the shelter", "They must have mental illness", a variety of ways to say "I could never end up like that, if it was me I'd do better and pull myself out". These excuses evaporate in the face of a real automation wave where a large portion of friends and family you know to be hard working and intelligent are finding it impossible to find a job.
  - throw4847285 7mo ago
    This already happened. When deindustrialization first hit in the US it devastated the black community. The result? A litany of pundits decrying Black criminality, bad family structures, cultural pathologies. It's no coincidence that The Bell Curve came out around then. A decade or two later, all of sudden the same phenomena are happening in working class white communities. Drug addiction, family dissolution, abject poverty. So clearly the people of the US finally realized that what was happening was due primarily to material concerns, and that people need to be able to earn a living in order to live. Right? No. Instead we got right wing populism, scapegoating of immigrants, further concentration of wealth, and no end in sight.
    - TGower 7mo ago
      With those past examples the majority of people thought "It's not my problem, I won't be affected", and they were mostly right. With an automation wave of the scale needed to get to effectively no jobs, that's just not the case. They will see that it is indeed coming for them, their friends, and family. They will act accordingly. Altruism not required, just self interest.
      - ankaz 7mo ago
        [dead]
  - irishcoffee 7mo ago
    You really think altruism is what pops out the other end of "nobody has a fucking job" state of affairs? Alrighty.
  - cardanome 7mo ago
    The average person is pretty empathetic. The oligarchs of the current Epstein-regime that start wars and fund genocide, not so much. They are trained to dehumanize people. Without radical change of the current system any technological advancement will only make the rich richer.
  - Timon3 7mo ago
kjkjadksj 7mo ago
You think the leaders of our planet would just wake up one day and walk back all the crap they’ve said for decades about dismantling the welfare state? And for what because we won’t be working? The whitehouse just added work requirements to medicare. That is the opposite of abundance providing for all.

qwerasdf5 7mo ago

If 'no one has any income', then prices become 0.

ryandrake 7mo ago
There will always be a relative few people with income. The business owners, property owners, asset holders, landlords, and so on. Those are the people who prices are set for, and who will participate in the economy. The rest of us? A lot of us are already essentially economically irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and more and more are becoming so every day, even as they nominally get richer.