5 ms·

Well the alternative is "If only we all did our jobs less efficiently everyone would be better off". Which is clearly stupid.

by jbb555 13y ago

henrik_w 13y ago
From the article: "Innovation has brought great benefits to humanity. Nobody in their right mind would want to return to the world of handloom weavers. But the benefits of technological progress are unevenly distributed, especially in the early stages of each new wave, and it is up to governments to spread them."
- furyg3 13y ago
  > "Innovation has brought great benefits to humanity. Nobody in their right mind would want to return to the world of handloom weavers. " Interestingly even this is the opposite of what we're seeing. It may be more expensive (cost), worse (quality), and less efficient (time and materials) but: I like to brew my own beer instead of buying it. I like to build my own cabinet instead of shopping at Ikea. I like to take a day off to raise my child instead of sending them to daycare. To fix my car, make my own lamp, walk the dog, etc. I just went to an open air museum where perfectly right-minded people were looming their own textiles (for free!). I recently met a regional queen in Indonesia who wove her own, as well, because it was cultural, not because her family needed the money.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    Well, you do this for fun. For every person like you who likes to brew his/her own beer, there are other people who just want to buy a beer to have something to drink while they're socializing with friends. The real benefit of innovation is that you're free to choose which things you care about enough to do them by yourself, and have all the others mass-produced and cheaply available.
    - VLM 13y ago
      I think you're in a circular loop. Once those "just wanna drink a beer" people have their jobs automated away, they will never again have money to participate in the economy again. At which point they will have to take up barter or crime. They might trade home grown weed for someones home brewed beer, but one thing I know is they won't be part of the monetary economy buying a beer anymore.
      - TeMPOraL 13y ago
        > Once those "just wanna drink a beer" people have their jobs automated away, they will never again have money to participate in the economy again. This is the whole topic of this article. The economy is broken wrt. progress and needs to be fixed. Two pillars of our economic system - scarcity and endless growth - are both being destroyed as we speak.
        VLM 13y ago
        I'd agree with your two and add two of my own: 1) The existence of the middle class 2) The general public gets to participate in commodity markets. Not the trading commodity market, but the consumer markets. No more buying food, medical care, housing, clothing, no longer participants in the system. The monetary economy is for other people, the rich, not everyone or even the majority.
        xixi77 13y ago
        Middle class is going away for sure. It has always been a historical abnormality anyway. As for the latter -- people have been participating in monetary economy long before industrial revolution, and will be participating whichever way the society evolves -- it is just simply more convenient than barter. If someone can produce beer himself cheaper than it is available on the market, why would he not sell it and earn some money? And if he cannot make it cheaper, why would he not buy it instead (or not drink it at all if he is too poor, or steal money & buy beer, or...) -- the point is that whatever he does, making it himself is never a good idea unless he enjoys it as a (somewhat expensive) hobby.
Fede_V 13y ago
There is no need to strawman the article. You can be a huge advocate for technology, while still be concerned about the poisonous effects that winner-takes-all dynamics can have on societies.
gaius 13y ago
It really depends how you measure efficiency and value. Everyone likes the idea of their town having a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker, but they actually shop in an out of town megamart. Which is fine, it's more efficient in terms of calories per unit of currency, but there is also value in the lifestyle you want to live, which I think people only tend to realize too late.
parasight 13y ago
That's not an alternative. I think the alternative will be something like an unconditional basic income. There will be new jobs of course but there won't be enough new jobs to compensate the amount of jobs that will get lost in the process. And that's not a bad thing. I don't think we are born to have a job. Society has to adapt.
- Buttons840 13y ago
  A tangential thought: if there was a guaranteed basic income, I suppose they could do away with minimum wage? This would open the possibility that some companies could pay less, but would have to compensate by making their employees really happy, otherwise they'd just go back to the basic income.

Well the alternative is "If only we all did our jobs less efficiently everyone would be better off". Which is clearly stupid.

by jbb555 13y ago

Well the alternative is "If only we all did our jobs less efficiently everyone would be better off". Which is clearly stupid.

henrik_w 13y ago

From the article: "Innovation has brought great benefits to humanity. Nobody in their right mind would want to return to the world of handloom weavers. But the benefits of technological progress are unevenly distributed, especially in the early stages of each new wave, and it is up to governments to spread them."

furyg3 13y ago
> "Innovation has brought great benefits to humanity. Nobody in their right mind would want to return to the world of handloom weavers. " Interestingly even this is the opposite of what we're seeing. It may be more expensive (cost), worse (quality), and less efficient (time and materials) but: I like to brew my own beer instead of buying it. I like to build my own cabinet instead of shopping at Ikea. I like to take a day off to raise my child instead of sending them to daycare. To fix my car, make my own lamp, walk the dog, etc. I just went to an open air museum where perfectly right-minded people were looming their own textiles (for free!). I recently met a regional queen in Indonesia who wove her own, as well, because it was cultural, not because her family needed the money.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  Well, you do this for fun. For every person like you who likes to brew his/her own beer, there are other people who just want to buy a beer to have something to drink while they're socializing with friends. The real benefit of innovation is that you're free to choose which things you care about enough to do them by yourself, and have all the others mass-produced and cheaply available.
  - VLM 13y ago
    I think you're in a circular loop. Once those "just wanna drink a beer" people have their jobs automated away, they will never again have money to participate in the economy again. At which point they will have to take up barter or crime. They might trade home grown weed for someones home brewed beer, but one thing I know is they won't be part of the monetary economy buying a beer anymore.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      > Once those "just wanna drink a beer" people have their jobs automated away, they will never again have money to participate in the economy again. This is the whole topic of this article. The economy is broken wrt. progress and needs to be fixed. Two pillars of our economic system - scarcity and endless growth - are both being destroyed as we speak.
      - VLM 13y ago
        I'd agree with your two and add two of my own: 1) The existence of the middle class 2) The general public gets to participate in commodity markets. Not the trading commodity market, but the consumer markets. No more buying food, medical care, housing, clothing, no longer participants in the system. The monetary economy is for other people, the rich, not everyone or even the majority.
        xixi77 13y ago
        Middle class is going away for sure. It has always been a historical abnormality anyway. As for the latter -- people have been participating in monetary economy long before industrial revolution, and will be participating whichever way the society evolves -- it is just simply more convenient than barter. If someone can produce beer himself cheaper than it is available on the market, why would he not sell it and earn some money? And if he cannot make it cheaper, why would he not buy it instead (or not drink it at all if he is too poor, or steal money & buy beer, or...) -- the point is that whatever he does, making it himself is never a good idea unless he enjoys it as a (somewhat expensive) hobby.

Fede_V 13y ago

There is no need to strawman the article. You can be a huge advocate for technology, while still be concerned about the poisonous effects that winner-takes-all dynamics can have on societies.

gaius 13y ago

It really depends how you measure efficiency and value. Everyone likes the idea of their town having a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker, but they actually shop in an out of town megamart. Which is fine, it's more efficient in terms of calories per unit of currency, but there is also value in the lifestyle you want to live, which I think people only tend to realize too late.

parasight 13y ago

That's not an alternative. I think the alternative will be something like an unconditional basic income. There will be new jobs of course but there won't be enough new jobs to compensate the amount of jobs that will get lost in the process. And that's not a bad thing. I don't think we are born to have a job. Society has to adapt.

Buttons840 13y ago
A tangential thought: if there was a guaranteed basic income, I suppose they could do away with minimum wage? This would open the possibility that some companies could pay less, but would have to compensate by making their employees really happy, otherwise they'd just go back to the basic income.