3 ms·

I have an intuitive understanding that these "socialist" publications about the danger and perils of sharing economy are absolutely useless. Either developed c

by vdaniuk 12y ago

I have an intuitive understanding that these "socialist" publications about the danger and perils of sharing economy are absolutely useless. Either developed countries implement some variation of basic income or the social order will go down in flames. Unskilled labour, such as taxi drivers, will be commoditized and become interchangable. If anti-Uber initiatives and quasi-unions will get more power it will only increase the incentives to getting self-controlled cars on the roads. The automation-worker conflict can't be won by humans and can't be wished away. Socialists (an outdated term for the society to come) should choose their battles much more wisely and concentrate efforts on developing and implementing of sustainable models of creating and redistributing wealth geared towards 90% of population. Anti-Uber sentiment and the likes aren't sustainable and will fail.

Zigurd 12y ago
> Either developed countries implement some variation of basic income or the social order will go down in flames. And they better start soon. Unless there is a path to obtaining material comfort outside of a free-market economy, the only people with comfortable lives will be those who start their lives with capital, those who win the genetic lottery, and those who have a strong guild-like organization putting a thumb on the scales on their behalf. This will become evident in Europe when QE-like measures fail to do anything about unemployment. > Anti-Uber sentiment and the likes aren't sustainable and will fail. Obviously. Uber will evolve into a marketplace for renting out privately owned self-driving vehicles. The humans are not needed.
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  >And they better start soon. Unless there is a path to obtaining material comfort outside of a free-market economy, the only people with comfortable lives will be those who start their lives with capital, those who win the genetic lottery, and those who have a strong guild-like organization putting a thumb on the scales on their behalf. Absoltely. However, developing countries will be hit sooner and much harder. Factories and large industries will be brought back to developed countries and automated with extreme efficiency. China, India, Southeast Asia, any country where economies are reliant on cheap labour and export of manufuctured goods to developed countries will be ravaged with rapid increase of unemployment. Governments are clueless, social safety nets are nearly absent, educational facilities are subpar. There is currently very little that can be done by individual countries to even mitigate the fallout, forget about fixing it. The storm is coming. Only really cheap energy and resources can literally save the world. That's why I am hopeful for asteroid mining and nuclear/fusion energy. However, the fair distribution of the newly created wealth is extremely important too. But humanity as a collective is really bad at that.
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    From your other comments I'm surprised you are so techno-optimistic. Avoiding a super-crash at the end of the oil age, and the bad news about the population curve means we're screwed without putting safe nuclear energy into assembly-line production a couple decades ago. Asteroid mining will require huge amounts of energy and we'll be lucky not to be living like peasants when oil gets tight.
wslh 12y ago
I also have an intuitive understanding that the sharing economy is not fully positive.
anon1385 12y ago
I would call myself a socialist and my biggest reason for disliking Uber is that it is filling the highways with drivers who no longer have valid insurance, and whose vehicles are not adhering to the level of maintenance checks usually required for commercial vehicles that spend all day on the road. So anti-Uber sentiment can exist for much more mundane reasons like insurance coverage. The comoditization of labour (skilled and unskilled - don't think that you are immune) is already well underway anyway, and Uber makes little difference to the process. The number of Uber drivers is tiny compared to the number of warehouse pickers, fast food workers, cleaners, social carers, designers, labourers, mechanics etc etc who are on zero hours contracts or have been reclassified as self employed contractors. The main reason to talk about Uber is that it's in the public consciousness at the moment, not because transport drivers are a special case. I guess it also has a lot of high profile backers. So we can talk about how Paul Graham thinks European countries lack 'entrepreneurial spirit' because they want drivers on their roads to be insured. Uber is a case where the capitalists got their order of attack slightly off. They needed to 'disrupt' the idea of insurance first, because at the moment there is a widespread understanding of the need for driver insurance and going against that just makes you look like a massive asshole. It's always helpful in a debate when your opponent keeps scoring own-goals, as Ubers cheerleaders do. The example of Uber is appealing, because it's probably an easy victory. Maybe Uber will get insurance laws rewritten and in a few years we will all be enjoying the freedom of driving on roads without the regulative burden of mandatory insurance. That won't be an easy argument to win though, even with massive wealth of their backers and assistance from lobbyists like ALEC . So I strongly disagree with your description of anti-uber sentiment as doomed to failure.
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  Uber doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. I don't care if you or anyone are a socialist, a capitalist or a subscriber of other garden variety ideology. Either you act on strategy that sustainably benefits the poor and the middle class or you attack "capitalists". When a self-professed socialist regurgitates same points about the evil ways of Uber (which may be absolutely true), he or she doesn't help the poor. Or even drivers in the long-term. Concentrate on the important issues. Even if you win against Uber, cars will be automated sooner. That's all. Anti-Uber articles certainly increase the author pageviews though. Oh, and I am perfectly sure that my job as an entrepreneur, programmer and marketer will be automated, too. A little bit later, but the Singularity won't spare anyone's job.

by vdaniuk 12y ago

Zigurd 12y ago

> Either developed countries implement some variation of basic income or the social order will go down in flames. And they better start soon. Unless there is a path to obtaining material comfort outside of a free-market economy, the only people with comfortable lives will be those who start their lives with capital, those who win the genetic lottery, and those who have a strong guild-like organization putting a thumb on the scales on their behalf. This will become evident in Europe when QE-like measures fail to do anything about unemployment. > Anti-Uber sentiment and the likes aren't sustainable and will fail. Obviously. Uber will evolve into a marketplace for renting out privately owned self-driving vehicles. The humans are not needed.

vdaniuk 12y ago
>And they better start soon. Unless there is a path to obtaining material comfort outside of a free-market economy, the only people with comfortable lives will be those who start their lives with capital, those who win the genetic lottery, and those who have a strong guild-like organization putting a thumb on the scales on their behalf. Absoltely. However, developing countries will be hit sooner and much harder. Factories and large industries will be brought back to developed countries and automated with extreme efficiency. China, India, Southeast Asia, any country where economies are reliant on cheap labour and export of manufuctured goods to developed countries will be ravaged with rapid increase of unemployment. Governments are clueless, social safety nets are nearly absent, educational facilities are subpar. There is currently very little that can be done by individual countries to even mitigate the fallout, forget about fixing it. The storm is coming. Only really cheap energy and resources can literally save the world. That's why I am hopeful for asteroid mining and nuclear/fusion energy. However, the fair distribution of the newly created wealth is extremely important too. But humanity as a collective is really bad at that.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  From your other comments I'm surprised you are so techno-optimistic. Avoiding a super-crash at the end of the oil age, and the bad news about the population curve means we're screwed without putting safe nuclear energy into assembly-line production a couple decades ago. Asteroid mining will require huge amounts of energy and we'll be lucky not to be living like peasants when oil gets tight.

wslh 12y ago

I also have an intuitive understanding that the sharing economy is not fully positive.

anon1385 12y ago

I would call myself a socialist and my biggest reason for disliking Uber is that it is filling the highways with drivers who no longer have valid insurance, and whose vehicles are not adhering to the level of maintenance checks usually required for commercial vehicles that spend all day on the road. So anti-Uber sentiment can exist for much more mundane reasons like insurance coverage. The comoditization of labour (skilled and unskilled - don't think that you are immune) is already well underway anyway, and Uber makes little difference to the process. The number of Uber drivers is tiny compared to the number of warehouse pickers, fast food workers, cleaners, social carers, designers, labourers, mechanics etc etc who are on zero hours contracts or have been reclassified as self employed contractors. The main reason to talk about Uber is that it's in the public consciousness at the moment, not because transport drivers are a special case. I guess it also has a lot of high profile backers. So we can talk about how Paul Graham thinks European countries lack 'entrepreneurial spirit' because they want drivers on their roads to be insured. Uber is a case where the capitalists got their order of attack slightly off. They needed to 'disrupt' the idea of insurance first, because at the moment there is a widespread understanding of the need for driver insurance and going against that just makes you look like a massive asshole. It's always helpful in a debate when your opponent keeps scoring own-goals, as Ubers cheerleaders do. The example of Uber is appealing, because it's probably an easy victory. Maybe Uber will get insurance laws rewritten and in a few years we will all be enjoying the freedom of driving on roads without the regulative burden of mandatory insurance. That won't be an easy argument to win though, even with massive wealth of their backers and assistance from lobbyists like ALEC . So I strongly disagree with your description of anti-uber sentiment as doomed to failure.

vdaniuk 12y ago
Uber doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. I don't care if you or anyone are a socialist, a capitalist or a subscriber of other garden variety ideology. Either you act on strategy that sustainably benefits the poor and the middle class or you attack "capitalists". When a self-professed socialist regurgitates same points about the evil ways of Uber (which may be absolutely true), he or she doesn't help the poor. Or even drivers in the long-term. Concentrate on the important issues. Even if you win against Uber, cars will be automated sooner. That's all. Anti-Uber articles certainly increase the author pageviews though. Oh, and I am perfectly sure that my job as an entrepreneur, programmer and marketer will be automated, too. A little bit later, but the Singularity won't spare anyone's job.