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Except that there is a lot of hardship during the transition. Literal kids starving in the streets. The entire midwest is a testament to what happens when short

Except that there is a lot of hardship during the transition. Literal kids starving in the streets. The entire midwest is a testament to what happens when short sighted policy assumes systems are self healing. There are generational assets like well built factories and railroads that took immense capital and literally cost lives of willing and unwilling laborers to build that are just wasting away and returning to nature and for what? No everyone wants a manufacturing rebuild? How about we take all the capital wasted on SaaS and data centers and rebuild the factories in Akron, OH or Thomasville, NC. Instead we are giving billions to the uber founder so he can "launch the next industrial revolution".

tim333 2mo ago
Though a lot of that was a political choice to outsource to China and similar. We've had a lot of new tech since 1900 - cars, electric motors, internet, computers and the like and I'm not sure it's led to inevitable unemployment as opposed to people doing different jobs. The times there were mass unemployment like the great depression were more down to dumb economics and politics rather than tech. Even with AGI robots smarter than us I think there's a good chance it would go like the Antebellum South with robots replacing the slaves and humans planning their debutantes balls.
- palmotea 2mo ago
  > Though a lot of that was a political choice to outsource to China and similar. We've had a lot of new tech since 1900 - cars, electric motors, internet, computers and the like and I'm not sure it's led to inevitable unemployment as opposed to people doing different jobs. The times there were mass unemployment like the great depression were more down to dumb economics and politics rather than tech. None of those technological shifts affected so many of the jobs at once, nor did they simultaneously threaten many of the alternative jobs for those affected. > Even with AGI robots smarter than us I think there's a good chance it would go like the Antebellum South with robots replacing the slaves and humans planning their debutantes balls. Ok. So you have a small number of planters with big estates, what happens to all the other people (e.g. the "slaves" and other worksers, after the planters no longer need them)? Wealth is not distributed evenly enough for such a fantasy. Dario Amodei and Sam Altman will be able to go play planter. Me? Not so much.
  - red-iron-pine 2mo ago
    all of the memes showing up on 8chan, dark net forums, corners of reddit, make it clear what they're about: Zachariah 13:8 > in all the land, two-thirds will be cut off and perish, but one-third will be left alive e.g. game reviewer ssethtzentach added it to his most recent video, etc. the messaging is following a similar trend as qanon, you can tell there is a broad effort to get this trickling into popular consciousness, though it's hard to tell if this is to get people to accept it or fight it
  - ethbr1 2mo ago
    > Ok. So you have a small number of planters with big estates, what happens to all the other people (e.g. the "slaves" and other worksers, after the planters no longer need them)? It's an apt metaphor, but probably not in the way parent intended it. History says there will certainly be hoarders of wealth... and then everyone else.
- digitaltrees 2mo ago
  Yes it was political. But only possible by the shipping container which was a technology shift. It’s not purely that people shift to other jobs, it’s what jobs and where. A union manufacturing job and retail cashier job at dollar tree are not equivalent. And when the whole core of a company moves they aren’t replaced. The real number is work force participation. It’s down. Alot. Economic share of wages is down. Alot.
  - ethbr1 2mo ago
    There's two concepts unaccounted for by the "but different jobs" pro-AI economic rewriting story. 1. As you say, new jobs of what sort, with what labor power, and at what pay? Offshoring manufacturing was as much about breaking US labor unions as anything else. No unions in China, and no bad press about feuding with US workers. Just 'oops, new economic reality, things change, so sorry'. Making high value add jobs disappear and replacing them with only low value add jobs isn't a net gain. 2. What mechanism do people see realistically distributing hypothetical bountiful gains from AI-boosted productivity? Let's imagine AI works out perfectly: productivity gains through the roof, entire industries automated, record corporate profits across the board. What plausible path do people see from that (and the unemployment it spiked) to most people being given a chunk of the profits? Remember: they're already legally spoken for by the shareholders. Introducing new corporate tax rates at the federal level? Ha! And even if UBI manages the get through in some form... how much do you think that will be? Which is to say, how much of their wealth do you think the richest will be willing to part with to redistribute? Because history says as little as they can get away with.
    - digitaltrees 2mo ago
      I agree with most of your points and think you’re asking the right questions. Unfortunately, our opinions don’t really matter. The only thing I would say is that shareholders don’t have an exclusive legal right to profit. That is a policy choice and one that has shifted over time (American law has moved to the extreme shareholder maximizing end of the spectrum) and is currently different in other countries (Germany has a corporate governance structure that Requires an employee and union board of directors so it isn’t just shareholders interests that are represented in governance decisions.

tim333 2mo ago

Though a lot of that was a political choice to outsource to China and similar. We've had a lot of new tech since 1900 - cars, electric motors, internet, computers and the like and I'm not sure it's led to inevitable unemployment as opposed to people doing different jobs. The times there were mass unemployment like the great depression were more down to dumb economics and politics rather than tech. Even with AGI robots smarter than us I think there's a good chance it would go like the Antebellum South with robots replacing the slaves and humans planning their debutantes balls.

palmotea 2mo ago
> Though a lot of that was a political choice to outsource to China and similar. We've had a lot of new tech since 1900 - cars, electric motors, internet, computers and the like and I'm not sure it's led to inevitable unemployment as opposed to people doing different jobs. The times there were mass unemployment like the great depression were more down to dumb economics and politics rather than tech. None of those technological shifts affected so many of the jobs at once, nor did they simultaneously threaten many of the alternative jobs for those affected. > Even with AGI robots smarter than us I think there's a good chance it would go like the Antebellum South with robots replacing the slaves and humans planning their debutantes balls. Ok. So you have a small number of planters with big estates, what happens to all the other people (e.g. the "slaves" and other worksers, after the planters no longer need them)? Wealth is not distributed evenly enough for such a fantasy. Dario Amodei and Sam Altman will be able to go play planter. Me? Not so much.
- red-iron-pine 2mo ago
  all of the memes showing up on 8chan, dark net forums, corners of reddit, make it clear what they're about: Zachariah 13:8 > in all the land, two-thirds will be cut off and perish, but one-third will be left alive e.g. game reviewer ssethtzentach added it to his most recent video, etc. the messaging is following a similar trend as qanon, you can tell there is a broad effort to get this trickling into popular consciousness, though it's hard to tell if this is to get people to accept it or fight it
- ethbr1 2mo ago
  > Ok. So you have a small number of planters with big estates, what happens to all the other people (e.g. the "slaves" and other worksers, after the planters no longer need them)? It's an apt metaphor, but probably not in the way parent intended it. History says there will certainly be hoarders of wealth... and then everyone else.
digitaltrees 2mo ago
Yes it was political. But only possible by the shipping container which was a technology shift. It’s not purely that people shift to other jobs, it’s what jobs and where. A union manufacturing job and retail cashier job at dollar tree are not equivalent. And when the whole core of a company moves they aren’t replaced. The real number is work force participation. It’s down. Alot. Economic share of wages is down. Alot.
- ethbr1 2mo ago
  There's two concepts unaccounted for by the "but different jobs" pro-AI economic rewriting story. 1. As you say, new jobs of what sort, with what labor power, and at what pay? Offshoring manufacturing was as much about breaking US labor unions as anything else. No unions in China, and no bad press about feuding with US workers. Just 'oops, new economic reality, things change, so sorry'. Making high value add jobs disappear and replacing them with only low value add jobs isn't a net gain. 2. What mechanism do people see realistically distributing hypothetical bountiful gains from AI-boosted productivity? Let's imagine AI works out perfectly: productivity gains through the roof, entire industries automated, record corporate profits across the board. What plausible path do people see from that (and the unemployment it spiked) to most people being given a chunk of the profits? Remember: they're already legally spoken for by the shareholders. Introducing new corporate tax rates at the federal level? Ha! And even if UBI manages the get through in some form... how much do you think that will be? Which is to say, how much of their wealth do you think the richest will be willing to part with to redistribute? Because history says as little as they can get away with.
  - digitaltrees 2mo ago
    I agree with most of your points and think you’re asking the right questions. Unfortunately, our opinions don’t really matter. The only thing I would say is that shareholders don’t have an exclusive legal right to profit. That is a policy choice and one that has shifted over time (American law has moved to the extreme shareholder maximizing end of the spectrum) and is currently different in other countries (Germany has a corporate governance structure that Requires an employee and union board of directors so it isn’t just shareholders interests that are represented in governance decisions.