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> It is laudable to provide people with the dignity of a job It's more dignifying to give someone a living wage, freeing their time so they can pursue useful w

> It is laudable to provide people with the dignity of a job It's more dignifying to give someone a living wage, freeing their time so they can pursue useful work, than it is to waste their time by assigning them a dirt-shoveling make-work job that, in the end, grinds everything around them to a halt.

gaius 12y ago
What useful work could a manual labourer do, if you automated his job away tomorrow? It sounds harsh but not everyone can be a Javascript developer or whatever the current fashionable thing is. And what's to stop that useful thing being automated away next?
- tormeh 12y ago
  The Free Market has been faced with this problem countless times, and each time the answer has been "the service sector". First we moved from agriculture to industry until agriculture, previously humanity's main occupation, became a small part of the economy. Now we move from manufacturing to services. It's not even a new phenomenon. It's been going on for a couple of decades now.
  - mtbcoder 12y ago
    I'm not following how the "service sector" is any kind of answer to the problems and issues we are facing with regards to automation and labour.
    - aceperry 12y ago
      It's not necessarily the answer, or even a good answer. But the service sector has been growing for a long time. And it has become one of the huge growth areas due to the software revolution. Just look at the types of jobs produced by Uber/Lyft/et al, and the many delivery services that are popping up. They're mostly low paying jobs for the most part, which in my mind, is not the answer to the destruction of jobs happening now.
      - mtbcoder 12y ago
        I agree, but I'm not questioning whether or not the service sector is growing. The rise of the freelancer/contractor in any given industry seems to have grown exponentially just in the last decade alone. If we assume this to be the "answer" the free market has, I simply do not see how this is sustainable on a large scale. It seems to me that we would rapidly have an excess of service providers in an ever-shrinking pool of service consumers. Furthermore it would introduce a whole new set of issues from exploitation to underbidding/cutting.
  - mordae 12y ago
    Not really, even the service sector is being heavily optimized these days. What are we going to do once we optimize away banks and real estate agents?
    - tormeh 12y ago
      Live entertainment and ever fancier dining, I suppose. Also pointless luxury goods and fashion. We'll find something to spend our money on and the jobs will move there.
  - jjoonathan 12y ago
    I would love to believe that the service sector will be able to absorb the displaced labor without creating insane, poisonous power dynamics that put large sections of the population into an unnecessarily horrible position. For the very reason that I would love to believe this, I am cautious. Do you know of any other reasons why I should let myself hold this belief? I don't find these very convincing: * Faith * Optimism * Vague comparisons to historical events that differ in every detail imaginable
    - tormeh 12y ago
      You're asking if the new jobs of tomorrow will suck harder than the McDonald's of today, and I really don't know. It's easy to assume that more essential, "useful", jobs will be better paid, but if you ask farmers you'll find out that that's not necessarily true. That said, while Notch may feel like he is king of the world right now, most indie game developers don't, I think.
      - jjoonathan 12y ago
        Yup. Supply and demand is the name of the game, "useful" doesn't have anything to do with it.
- polyomino 12y ago
  What does useful mean in this case? They could do anything they want.
- xj9 12y ago
  Oh I dunno, learn to read, find out what modern work they find interesting, get an education, &c. Just because somebody is only qualified to do manual labor now doesn't mean they don't have other talents/abilities. I did manual labor for a long time before I made the gamble to jump into software development. I had the luck to see it work out, but society can provide resources to help people move into more fulfilling and less physically-taxing careers. I'll be honest, I love a good day of manual labor, but it isn't physically sustainable. Robots are a much better fit.
  - gaius 12y ago
    That is certainly one point of view but the legions of highly educated unemployed in Western nations suggest that it isn't actually true.
    - sp332 12y ago
      The difference between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree is halving the unemployment rate. http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
      - jjoonathan 12y ago
        Yes, but if we could snap our fingers and educate everybody would the unemployment rate of the newly educated people halve? In other words, can the skilled labor market absorb the excess from the unskilled market without seeing a partially or fully compensating reduction in prices? It's not impossible but I have my doubts.
        sp332 12y ago
        No, I don't think that educating more people will make educated people worth as little as uneducated people are now. Educated people are (on average!) more productive, so the economy will be larger and the average paycheck should go up.
- brandonmenc 12y ago
  I should've been more explicit. I meant that it's better to just give them the money than to make them work for it.
  - jimjimjim 12y ago
    Unfortunately no, people need to feel like they are physically making a difference to there own lives. If people don't have a mechanism to improve their situation relative to those that they compare themselves to a general sense of futility will eventually development. and with that and too much idle time comes all the things that governments don't want when controlling populations e.g class envy, unrest, civil disturbances, crime. etc all imho ofcourse
    - brandonmenc 12y ago
      Recipients of a basic income would still be able to work and improve their situation.
- nostromo 12y ago
  That laborer could write music perhaps? Or maybe become a painter? Or perhaps he or she could just focus on the happiness of their family and friends. "I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine."
  - intended 12y ago
    In India? Even in first world countries, incomes for poets and musicians are not distributed on a bell curve. There's the very wealthy, and the paupers elsewhere. And as other posters have pointed out - the goal for education is to be employable. Witness all those pol sci majors who have themselves to blame for not choosing an employable profession. So the idea that someone can study music is a luxury. Further this is India. Construction and road workers live under crushing poverty, where the daily calorie deficit alone makes survival difficult. There's a deficit of teachers for children let alone adults. And America is today starting to ape the educational pressures of India and China, where taking up a non STEM field was a sign of failure.

gaius 12y ago

What useful work could a manual labourer do, if you automated his job away tomorrow? It sounds harsh but not everyone can be a Javascript developer or whatever the current fashionable thing is. And what's to stop that useful thing being automated away next?

tormeh 12y ago
The Free Market has been faced with this problem countless times, and each time the answer has been "the service sector". First we moved from agriculture to industry until agriculture, previously humanity's main occupation, became a small part of the economy. Now we move from manufacturing to services. It's not even a new phenomenon. It's been going on for a couple of decades now.
- mtbcoder 12y ago
  I'm not following how the "service sector" is any kind of answer to the problems and issues we are facing with regards to automation and labour.
  - aceperry 12y ago
    It's not necessarily the answer, or even a good answer. But the service sector has been growing for a long time. And it has become one of the huge growth areas due to the software revolution. Just look at the types of jobs produced by Uber/Lyft/et al, and the many delivery services that are popping up. They're mostly low paying jobs for the most part, which in my mind, is not the answer to the destruction of jobs happening now.
    - mtbcoder 12y ago
      I agree, but I'm not questioning whether or not the service sector is growing. The rise of the freelancer/contractor in any given industry seems to have grown exponentially just in the last decade alone. If we assume this to be the "answer" the free market has, I simply do not see how this is sustainable on a large scale. It seems to me that we would rapidly have an excess of service providers in an ever-shrinking pool of service consumers. Furthermore it would introduce a whole new set of issues from exploitation to underbidding/cutting.
- mordae 12y ago
  Not really, even the service sector is being heavily optimized these days. What are we going to do once we optimize away banks and real estate agents?
  - tormeh 12y ago
    Live entertainment and ever fancier dining, I suppose. Also pointless luxury goods and fashion. We'll find something to spend our money on and the jobs will move there.
- jjoonathan 12y ago
  I would love to believe that the service sector will be able to absorb the displaced labor without creating insane, poisonous power dynamics that put large sections of the population into an unnecessarily horrible position. For the very reason that I would love to believe this, I am cautious. Do you know of any other reasons why I should let myself hold this belief? I don't find these very convincing: * Faith * Optimism * Vague comparisons to historical events that differ in every detail imaginable
  - tormeh 12y ago
    You're asking if the new jobs of tomorrow will suck harder than the McDonald's of today, and I really don't know. It's easy to assume that more essential, "useful", jobs will be better paid, but if you ask farmers you'll find out that that's not necessarily true. That said, while Notch may feel like he is king of the world right now, most indie game developers don't, I think.
    - jjoonathan 12y ago
      Yup. Supply and demand is the name of the game, "useful" doesn't have anything to do with it.
polyomino 12y ago
What does useful mean in this case? They could do anything they want.
xj9 12y ago
Oh I dunno, learn to read, find out what modern work they find interesting, get an education, &c. Just because somebody is only qualified to do manual labor now doesn't mean they don't have other talents/abilities. I did manual labor for a long time before I made the gamble to jump into software development. I had the luck to see it work out, but society can provide resources to help people move into more fulfilling and less physically-taxing careers. I'll be honest, I love a good day of manual labor, but it isn't physically sustainable. Robots are a much better fit.
- gaius 12y ago
  That is certainly one point of view but the legions of highly educated unemployed in Western nations suggest that it isn't actually true.
  - sp332 12y ago
    The difference between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree is halving the unemployment rate. http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
    - jjoonathan 12y ago
      Yes, but if we could snap our fingers and educate everybody would the unemployment rate of the newly educated people halve? In other words, can the skilled labor market absorb the excess from the unskilled market without seeing a partially or fully compensating reduction in prices? It's not impossible but I have my doubts.
      - sp332 12y ago
        No, I don't think that educating more people will make educated people worth as little as uneducated people are now. Educated people are (on average!) more productive, so the economy will be larger and the average paycheck should go up.
brandonmenc 12y ago
I should've been more explicit. I meant that it's better to just give them the money than to make them work for it.
- jimjimjim 12y ago
  Unfortunately no, people need to feel like they are physically making a difference to there own lives. If people don't have a mechanism to improve their situation relative to those that they compare themselves to a general sense of futility will eventually development. and with that and too much idle time comes all the things that governments don't want when controlling populations e.g class envy, unrest, civil disturbances, crime. etc all imho ofcourse
  - brandonmenc 12y ago
    Recipients of a basic income would still be able to work and improve their situation.
nostromo 12y ago
That laborer could write music perhaps? Or maybe become a painter? Or perhaps he or she could just focus on the happiness of their family and friends. "I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine."
- intended 12y ago
  In India? Even in first world countries, incomes for poets and musicians are not distributed on a bell curve. There's the very wealthy, and the paupers elsewhere. And as other posters have pointed out - the goal for education is to be employable. Witness all those pol sci majors who have themselves to blame for not choosing an employable profession. So the idea that someone can study music is a luxury. Further this is India. Construction and road workers live under crushing poverty, where the daily calorie deficit alone makes survival difficult. There's a deficit of teachers for children let alone adults. And America is today starting to ape the educational pressures of India and China, where taking up a non STEM field was a sign of failure.