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And here we are on Hacker News, the site run by Y-Combinator, not having a clue how to solve the problem of "not enough manual labour to maintain civilisation's

And here we are on Hacker News, the site run by Y-Combinator, not having a clue how to solve the problem of "not enough manual labour to maintain civilisation's infrastructure". It's like nobody ever watched Wall-E.

guard-of-terra 12y ago
As a matter of fact, we don't. I've yet to see a working post-employment society; and the society we have today is unable to function when unemployed to employed are five to one. Your nurse will have to pay like 90% tax, but this way you can never afford to hire her in the first place. The whole thing breaks down. Our economy taxes individual profits, because corporations evade taxes; but then if nobody has to work, we can't have revenue from taxes and can't pay anyone anything.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Our system changes to adapt. We'll see what adjustments the post-employment age pushed us to adopt. I think it'll have to be something palatable to the hard-working older folks (who vote and can't stomach socialism)
  - guard-of-terra 12y ago
    We're pretty sure our system works well when we have enough children and it predictably works as it did for all the XX century. But if we don't have enough children we don't know what happens. Maybe it is "pushed to adopt". Maybe it implodes. Who knows. I happened to be born in the USSR. And then it failed to "change to adapt" and instead imploded on us into something as bad as two Great Depressions. Today I won't count on this adaptability business and I don't recommend anyone to do so. As for hard-working older folks who vote. The problem here is older folks who don't work but still vote. They vote themself a lot of socialism that taxes everybody else and also makes it counterproductive for hard-working older folts to work, since they get benefits anyway, which might be cancelled if they continue to work.
  - judk 12y ago
    What? Old folks love socialism, they just hate the name. Are you familiar with Social Security and Medicare?

guard-of-terra 12y ago

As a matter of fact, we don't. I've yet to see a working post-employment society; and the society we have today is unable to function when unemployed to employed are five to one. Your nurse will have to pay like 90% tax, but this way you can never afford to hire her in the first place. The whole thing breaks down. Our economy taxes individual profits, because corporations evade taxes; but then if nobody has to work, we can't have revenue from taxes and can't pay anyone anything.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Our system changes to adapt. We'll see what adjustments the post-employment age pushed us to adopt. I think it'll have to be something palatable to the hard-working older folks (who vote and can't stomach socialism)
- guard-of-terra 12y ago
  We're pretty sure our system works well when we have enough children and it predictably works as it did for all the XX century. But if we don't have enough children we don't know what happens. Maybe it is "pushed to adopt". Maybe it implodes. Who knows. I happened to be born in the USSR. And then it failed to "change to adapt" and instead imploded on us into something as bad as two Great Depressions. Today I won't count on this adaptability business and I don't recommend anyone to do so. As for hard-working older folks who vote. The problem here is older folks who don't work but still vote. They vote themself a lot of socialism that taxes everybody else and also makes it counterproductive for hard-working older folts to work, since they get benefits anyway, which might be cancelled if they continue to work.
- judk 12y ago
  What? Old folks love socialism, they just hate the name. Are you familiar with Social Security and Medicare?