7 ms·

Jobs, automation, Engels’ pause and the limits of history

66 points by Futurebot 12y ago

toyg 12y ago
It's an interesting but interlocutory piece. Nobody is wrong but nobody is right either, and it all turns out for the best... except it really doesn't. The author seriously downplays the huge political effort that was required to change living standard and grow wages; among other things, modern representative democracy was "invented" and violently forced upon the ruling classes, but it doesn't really get a mention (whereas slavery and socialism do -- probably because they feel like they've been dealt with for good). It feels like the author is trying to sweep hard truths under the carpet of the last few paragraphs: "the problems [...] will naturally involve the issue of wealth distribution" and "such a world is likely to demand more than [...] incremental reform". Coupled with "Best to be prepared", it sounds like a call to batter up for an upcoming political storm, but it doesn't really suggest which "not-incremental reform" should be attempted, nor does it say anything about who should ask for such reforms and how.
- simonh 12y ago
  I wouldn't say socialism has been 'dealt with', modern representative democracy in the European mould is heavily informed by socialist principles. I think you mean communism, evidenced by the article's mentions of Engels and Marx, which has pretty clearly failed in spectacular fashion everywhere it's been tried. I found the point that building out the infrastructure for industrialisation was incredibly capital intensive and so labour wage rises weren't really an option interesting, because of course that's exactly how it played out in industrialising communist countries as well. It's just that the state held on to the capital instead of industrialists (or rather the industrialists holding the capital were part of the state). Interestingly, China now seems to be going through the equivalent of the late 19th century phase where labour wages begin to rise roughly in line with productivity. They've largely built out their core infrastructure and mopped up most of the spare labour pool. China's development has been a huge factor in the economic conditions in the west. I'm wondering how the balancing out of the Chinese economy with ours will affect us.
  - kokey 12y ago
    If you look at average wages in China, I think they have a long way to go to mop up labour slack. The problem is it's reaching a point where it's becoming more complex to mop up the rest by growing their more productive and experienced workforce, which is the new, growing, more powerful middle class. This can work out well, or not, and will impact us greatly either way.
    - crdoconnor 12y ago
      >If you look at average wages in China, I think they have a long way to go to mop up labour slack. Average wages in the Pearl River Delta don't seem to reflect this. Skilled wages are skyrocketing and even unskilled wages have upward pressure on them. The seemingly endless flow of cheap migrant labor is drying up.
      - greenrd 12y ago
        Isn't this because China has had internal migration controls for over 70 years, which are unheard of outside communist countries? Actually I think it's unheard of outside China.
        simonh 12y ago
        Not really. The controlls are there to protect municipalities from having obligations to provide welfare and services to migrants. It doesn't actually prevent the migrants from travelling for work.
  - roel_v 12y ago
    "They've largely built out their core infrastructure and mopped up most of the spare labour pool." What? There are 750 million (that is twice the population of the US, or 1.5 times the population of the EU) subsistence farmers in China. And that's only counting subsistence farmers as spare labor.
- blfr 12y ago
  The standards of living were growing before democratization. For example, the colonies that would become the US had richer inhabitants even before the split[1]. In Europe, this growth could have well been delayed by revolutions, not hastened. [1] http://www.nber.org/papers/w19861 http://www.nber.org/papers/w19861
  - douche 12y ago
    I'm sure the widespread death and destruction and disruption of trade caused by the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars were a significant brake on the improvement of standards of living.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    The colonies that would become the US had more land-per-person in a late-agrarian, almost-early-industrial economy, versus Europe having far less land-per-(white)-person.
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  It's yet another in a LONG long line of articles that tries to shift the blame for stagnating wages on to: * technological progress instead of: * steady de-unionization and * obfuscated trade policies designed to fuck normal people (NAFTA, CAFTA and now TTIP AND TPP). tl;dr - "dem robots took 'er jerbs" and "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain writing trade policy".
  - geogra4 12y ago
    Correct. Just sweeping under the rug the labour history that made the mid 20th century so egalitarian with respect to wealth. If we want a more egalitarian distribution of wealth, we have to demand it. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Hunger_March https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Hunger_March
    - icebraining 12y ago
      While I'm fully supportive of unionization and organized labour, that doesn't seem like a particularly good example. What exactly did they gain from the march, besides getting shot at? The 1941 Rouge River strike it mentions in passing seems like a much better example.
      - geogra4 12y ago
        Fair enough. There are hundreds of episodes to pick from in labour history.
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    Technological progress sits hand in hand with globalization, which fits into the conflicts of the 20th century. All this stuff started as walking away from nationalism and imperialism after WW2 and shifting to America's form of economic imperialism. Free trade equalizes the players... if you don't have capital, you get the shaft. NAFTA was bad for factory workers in the US, and it devastated the agricultural economy of Mexico.
  - marcosdumay 12y ago
blfr 12y ago
You can draw a different lesson from the 20th century history. [...] generally speaking, when you look at the 20th century, it's the era of the masses, mass politics, mass economics. Every human being has value, has political, economic, and military value, simply because he or she is a human being, and this goes back to the structures of the military and of the economy, where every human being is valuable as a soldier in the trenches and as a worker in the factory. But in the 21st century, there is a good chance that most humans will lose, they are losing, their military and economic value. This is true for the military, it's done, it's over. The age of the masses is over. We are no longer in the First World War, where you take millions of soldiers, give each one a rifle and have them run forward. And the same thing perhaps is happening in the economy. Maybe the biggest question of 21st century economics is what will be the need in the economy for most people in the year 2050. http://edge.org/conversation/yuval_noah_harari-daniel_kahneman-death-is-optional http://edge.org/conversation/yuval_noah_harari-daniel_kahnem...
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  We are entering a where people have huge potentials. It's not that everybody adds some value, but that anybody could add a huge amount of value, and we have no means of knowing who. It may end before it fully starts, if computers do replace us. If not, things may get quite interesting (in a good way).
- greenrd 12y ago
  Surely we are sending in the drones precisely because humans are so valuable? The military are ultimately accountable to the voters and the voters don't like American casualties. And voters are also able to influence humans' economic value, by fiscal expansion, job creation programmes, etc. If they care to.
padobson 12y ago
10 years ago, if you were able to watch high quality TV and use the commode at the same time, odds are you were in a household with an income in the top 98% of any given developed economy. Today, I know inner-city kids that can do this with Netflix and a tablet. So I absolutely agree that we can't predict what kind of change is coming, which is why I disagree with this statement: Creativity, subjective cultural judgment and empathy would still be there, but we can’t all become entertainers, art critics and psychologists. Entertainers and therapists have historically only had the affluent as their clients, but distribution technology and efficiencies in other realms makes hiring these professionals more accessible all the time. Seeing a therapist or discovering a new pop star is no longer something relegated to the wealthy. And I've always made my biggest earnings gains by making entrepreneurial moves. Automation and globalization absolutely benefit the entrepreneur. A person flipping burgers for $8/hr could buy a grill and 5x their income and easily run the administrative part of their new venture from a smart phone. If you're living in an economy that gives an advantage to the owners of the means of production, then the means of production is a good investment. Plus you could also use it to watch TV on the commode.
- moe 12y ago
  A person flipping burgers for $8/hr could buy a grill and 5x their income and easily run the administrative part of their new venture from a smart phone. Umm. Yes. All those stupid burger flippers, why don't they just buy grills... Oh, maybe it's because McDonalds can leverage automation and globalization a lot better than your entrepreneurial burger flipper. There's a tiny bit more to a Burger venue than buying a grill. "Running the administrative part from your smartphone" doesn't exactly tip the scale.
  - danuker 12y ago
    Indeed, but also, McDonalds has teams of lawyers and clerks to deal with complicated food regulation. The very same regulation encouraged by their lobbying: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000373&year=2014 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00000037...
dataker 12y ago
Growing up in a developing nation, it's somewhat weird to see these discussions. Many 'techstarts' never had to see real poverty, so their arguments on automation become somewhat limited. Some American entrepreneurs dislike horizontal growth, but it might have much more impact(socially and even financially).
CSMastermind 12y ago
This reads like a CGP Grey video. > the terrifying scenario in which half of all jobs are quickly lost to automation This completely ignores the very long development that such advances will take and the fact that most jobs won't just be displaced over night. For years we've been able to replace toll collectors with baskets and yet there are still toll collectors employed. Change will happen but it won't be sudden and there will be plenty of time to adapt. Anyone who believes we're going to have fully self driving cars in the next 7 years is living at the "peak of inflated expectations" on the Gartner hype cycle.
- falcor84 12y ago
  According to the Gartner hype cycle you mention[1], Autonomous Vehicles are indeed currently at the Peak of Inflated Expectations, and are expected to reach the Plateau of Productivity within 5-10 years. So you're not even wrong. [1] http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2819918 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2819918
  - CSMastermind 12y ago
    I hadn't seen that before. Thanks for the link!
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  This is a kind of short-term thinking that gets humans into trouble. The writing on the wall is clear and the time to deal with it is now, not when you'll start having widespread riots.
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  What, do you consider 7 years as "long term" for social evolution? And yes, count me along the people that expect fully self driving cars to be available in 7 years. I also expect truck driving to be an extinct profession by about there (10 years at most). City driving will probably live longer, and people'll probably keep driving their own cars.
  - 12y ago
sudioStudio64 12y ago
The main problem in the US is that we are no longer getting our money's worth from the elites. The deal has always been...you run things and get the most rewards, but everyone does better over time. They need to uphold their side of the bargain.
- rebootthesystem 12y ago
  The deal? What deal? What side of what bargain? Sorry, this point of view is delusional at best.
  - sudioStudio64 12y ago
    The US has always been a society run by elites. First it was the landed gentry. Since then it has been a political and financial elite. Keeping in mind that times when they were actually fulfilling their role of stewarding the country well...it wasn't done in a way that was good for everyone...but it was a type of social compact where the elites were granted a great deal of autonomy in running the country and everyone's situations improved. That being said, since the late seventies they have been accumulating wealth at an ever increasing rate and not raising the wages of their employees, investing in education of their employees children, or investing in infrastructure. Instead of raising wages as profits rose they started offering cheap credit. At some point that trend has to be reversed and the people that run this place will have to care about the people that live in it. There's an upper boundary on how much suffering people are willing to put up with. Also, I love how you think I'm delusional even though you didn't seem to understand what I was saying. I'm really tempted to be rude to you. Seriously. But I'm trying to tone down my online responses to match what I would say in real life. People need to remember that in the end they are speaking to another person.
    - rebootthesystem 12y ago
      No, no. What is delusional (and there might be a better word but I'll stick to that one for now) is proposing or promulgating the idea that there was or is a "deal". No such thing. Rich people never got together to work out a "deal" or be granted a "deal". That is purely a fabrication. And mind you, I am not attacking you but rather the ideology that you and others have subscribed to. It's utter nonsense. Sorry. Feel free to be rude if you need to get it out of your system. The beauty of reality is that it doesn't change based on emotion, yelling or screaming. A circle is still a circle. My position is factually correct and shooting the messenger will not change reality. I could literally stop right now, tell you "you are right; we are run by a bunch of evil elites" and that would not change the facts of the matter. A circle, is still a circle. "when they were actually fulfilling their role of stewarding the country" Again, this is delusional. What role? Who gave them that role? Did they accept that role? Sorry brother, your choice of words might just be a bit misguided. Again, you are not delusional, the ideas you are putting forth through your choice of words are. Maybe this ideology would like them to have had this role (or have it now). Did they sign-up for it at some secret meeting? "a type of social compact where the elites were granted a great deal of autonomy in running the country" One more time. What grant? Who granted it? Was there a contract? Did all the "elites" from east to west coast circulate a secret telegram agreeing to some kind of a deal in order to be granted privileges? And, did these contracts get ratified on a yearly basis for over 200 years in order to reach today's elite? Please think. You are probably repeating something you were taught. And, if it was taught by a liberal leaning institution it is likely that they also told you that the US is evil and we all deserve to die. It's OK to listen to all points of view. That's how we learn. What isn't OK is to do so and not use critical thinking to evaluate the validity of what is being proposed. "and the people that run this place will have to care about the people that live in it." We agree on that one 100%. However, it isn't the elites, it's the hordes of crooked and incompetent politicians who are destroying this nation from the inside out. And the hordes of ignorant voters who let them get away with it. Their only motivation is to stay in office and enjoy the ride on the taxpayer's back. They don't care about you, me or our children. That's the problem. "accumulating wealth at an ever increasing rate and not raising the wages of their employees" One thing has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. Executive compensation and employee wages are controlled by different variables and different market forces. Nobody is going to pay a welder $100 per hour because it would be a violation of fiduciary responsibility to do so when the market does not support such a wage due to either local forces or the fact that in a global economy you can get a welder in China (or wherever) for $5 per hour. The executives running that company are paid based on the performance of the enterprise, investor or stockholder returns, etc. Different metrics. It's like proposing that you should pay your gardener twice as much as prevailing market rates because you got a new job and your salary doubled. And, BTW, not to be an evil elite, you ought to also call your cable company and ask them to charge you twice as much. And your electricity rate should be twice as much. In fact, you should pay twice as much for everything or you are evil. Why? Because it isn't fair that you are accumulating more wealth now and the employees who service you directly or indirection won't see their salaries improved. Of course this is a flawed and ridiculous exampled but it does illustrate the point about the ends of the scale not being drive by the same variables. Making such a connection is nothing short of nonsense. Any entrepreneur knows this. If you are running a business, large or small, one of your goals is to not pay more than the lowest possible market rate for anything you need. Why? Because your customers will get on Amazon and look to pay the lowest possible price for the widget you and a hundred other manufacturers make. And so, it's a closed feedback loop where you, the entrepreneur or executive, are controlled by a range of market variables in your decision making. You simply can't pay your welders twice as much because sales improved. That is not how the real world works. Many years ago Apple was nearly out of business. Today they are one of the richest (if not the richest) companies in the world. Was Steve Jobs evil elite for not doubling or tripling his programmer's wages as the company skyrocketed and he got filthy rich? No. Of course not. Nobody would propose that when it comes to Steve Jobs but most of the same people would crucify executives running companies like GE, Ford, GM and others under much lesser growth scenarios. This is due to three things: 1- Ignorance of the business process; 2- Academic indoctrination; 3- Attacking the "elites" as a tool for political alignment and gains. I could go on but I'll stop here. All I ask is that you try to reason through some of what you are saying. Show me ONE, just ONE country run by poor people. And, if you find one, show me the degree of economic, educational, industrial, scientific, health and standard-of-living success they've had. Now compare it to any other society where, yes, if you have financial resources you can move in circles often denied to the masses. Not under some "grant", "deal" or "plan" but simply because that's the way it works. Obama does not invite you or me to the White House. He invites actors, singers, entertainers, industry leaders and political heavy-weights. Why? Because he is par of the "elite" now and that's the way it works. Yes, there's a side of society most of us will never see or experience. It's the people buying $250K cars when we might struggle buying a $250K house. Get over it. That does not make them evil and it does not create a secret society of evil-doers under some equally secret pact to act with the goal to oppress the little guy. That, my friend, is delusional. Going back to the grind brother...
nickstefan12 12y ago
Interesting thought: what if it's the effeciency of technology rather than the automation that is the real problem to old school economics? In order for me to be able to pay rent and eat food, and still have money left over, means that I'm "making a profit" in the business of me. In perfect competition, companies don't make any money. Technology is taking us closer to perfect competition between laborers. Everyone is now in competition with everyone and isn't this what we would expect in perfect competition: no one saves any money, you only get paid enough to eat and live. Software engineers are fine for now, but look at the competition between soft skill positions, it's so fierce that people are barely making it. My point is that it isn't automation, it's the lowering of friction between different laborers, and the commoditization of knowledge workers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

66 points by Futurebot 12y ago

toyg 12y ago

It's an interesting but interlocutory piece. Nobody is wrong but nobody is right either, and it all turns out for the best... except it really doesn't. The author seriously downplays the huge political effort that was required to change living standard and grow wages; among other things, modern representative democracy was "invented" and violently forced upon the ruling classes, but it doesn't really get a mention (whereas slavery and socialism do -- probably because they feel like they've been dealt with for good). It feels like the author is trying to sweep hard truths under the carpet of the last few paragraphs: "the problems [...] will naturally involve the issue of wealth distribution" and "such a world is likely to demand more than [...] incremental reform". Coupled with "Best to be prepared", it sounds like a call to batter up for an upcoming political storm, but it doesn't really suggest which "not-incremental reform" should be attempted, nor does it say anything about who should ask for such reforms and how.

simonh 12y ago
I wouldn't say socialism has been 'dealt with', modern representative democracy in the European mould is heavily informed by socialist principles. I think you mean communism, evidenced by the article's mentions of Engels and Marx, which has pretty clearly failed in spectacular fashion everywhere it's been tried. I found the point that building out the infrastructure for industrialisation was incredibly capital intensive and so labour wage rises weren't really an option interesting, because of course that's exactly how it played out in industrialising communist countries as well. It's just that the state held on to the capital instead of industrialists (or rather the industrialists holding the capital were part of the state). Interestingly, China now seems to be going through the equivalent of the late 19th century phase where labour wages begin to rise roughly in line with productivity. They've largely built out their core infrastructure and mopped up most of the spare labour pool. China's development has been a huge factor in the economic conditions in the west. I'm wondering how the balancing out of the Chinese economy with ours will affect us.
- kokey 12y ago
  If you look at average wages in China, I think they have a long way to go to mop up labour slack. The problem is it's reaching a point where it's becoming more complex to mop up the rest by growing their more productive and experienced workforce, which is the new, growing, more powerful middle class. This can work out well, or not, and will impact us greatly either way.
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    >If you look at average wages in China, I think they have a long way to go to mop up labour slack. Average wages in the Pearl River Delta don't seem to reflect this. Skilled wages are skyrocketing and even unskilled wages have upward pressure on them. The seemingly endless flow of cheap migrant labor is drying up.
    - greenrd 12y ago
      Isn't this because China has had internal migration controls for over 70 years, which are unheard of outside communist countries? Actually I think it's unheard of outside China.
      - simonh 12y ago
        Not really. The controlls are there to protect municipalities from having obligations to provide welfare and services to migrants. It doesn't actually prevent the migrants from travelling for work.
- roel_v 12y ago
  "They've largely built out their core infrastructure and mopped up most of the spare labour pool." What? There are 750 million (that is twice the population of the US, or 1.5 times the population of the EU) subsistence farmers in China. And that's only counting subsistence farmers as spare labor.
blfr 12y ago
The standards of living were growing before democratization. For example, the colonies that would become the US had richer inhabitants even before the split[1]. In Europe, this growth could have well been delayed by revolutions, not hastened. [1] http://www.nber.org/papers/w19861 http://www.nber.org/papers/w19861
- douche 12y ago
  I'm sure the widespread death and destruction and disruption of trade caused by the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars were a significant brake on the improvement of standards of living.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  The colonies that would become the US had more land-per-person in a late-agrarian, almost-early-industrial economy, versus Europe having far less land-per-(white)-person.
crdoconnor 12y ago
It's yet another in a LONG long line of articles that tries to shift the blame for stagnating wages on to: * technological progress instead of: * steady de-unionization and * obfuscated trade policies designed to fuck normal people (NAFTA, CAFTA and now TTIP AND TPP). tl;dr - "dem robots took 'er jerbs" and "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain writing trade policy".
- geogra4 12y ago
  Correct. Just sweeping under the rug the labour history that made the mid 20th century so egalitarian with respect to wealth. If we want a more egalitarian distribution of wealth, we have to demand it. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Hunger_March https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Hunger_March
  - icebraining 12y ago
    While I'm fully supportive of unionization and organized labour, that doesn't seem like a particularly good example. What exactly did they gain from the march, besides getting shot at? The 1941 Rouge River strike it mentions in passing seems like a much better example.
    - geogra4 12y ago
      Fair enough. There are hundreds of episodes to pick from in labour history.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  Technological progress sits hand in hand with globalization, which fits into the conflicts of the 20th century. All this stuff started as walking away from nationalism and imperialism after WW2 and shifting to America's form of economic imperialism. Free trade equalizes the players... if you don't have capital, you get the shaft. NAFTA was bad for factory workers in the US, and it devastated the agricultural economy of Mexico.
- marcosdumay 12y ago

blfr 12y ago

You can draw a different lesson from the 20th century history. [...] generally speaking, when you look at the 20th century, it's the era of the masses, mass politics, mass economics. Every human being has value, has political, economic, and military value, simply because he or she is a human being, and this goes back to the structures of the military and of the economy, where every human being is valuable as a soldier in the trenches and as a worker in the factory. But in the 21st century, there is a good chance that most humans will lose, they are losing, their military and economic value. This is true for the military, it's done, it's over. The age of the masses is over. We are no longer in the First World War, where you take millions of soldiers, give each one a rifle and have them run forward. And the same thing perhaps is happening in the economy. Maybe the biggest question of 21st century economics is what will be the need in the economy for most people in the year 2050. http://edge.org/conversation/yuval_noah_harari-daniel_kahneman-death-is-optional http://edge.org/conversation/yuval_noah_harari-daniel_kahnem...

marcosdumay 12y ago
We are entering a where people have huge potentials. It's not that everybody adds some value, but that anybody could add a huge amount of value, and we have no means of knowing who. It may end before it fully starts, if computers do replace us. If not, things may get quite interesting (in a good way).
greenrd 12y ago
Surely we are sending in the drones precisely because humans are so valuable? The military are ultimately accountable to the voters and the voters don't like American casualties. And voters are also able to influence humans' economic value, by fiscal expansion, job creation programmes, etc. If they care to.

padobson 12y ago

10 years ago, if you were able to watch high quality TV and use the commode at the same time, odds are you were in a household with an income in the top 98% of any given developed economy. Today, I know inner-city kids that can do this with Netflix and a tablet. So I absolutely agree that we can't predict what kind of change is coming, which is why I disagree with this statement: Creativity, subjective cultural judgment and empathy would still be there, but we can’t all become entertainers, art critics and psychologists. Entertainers and therapists have historically only had the affluent as their clients, but distribution technology and efficiencies in other realms makes hiring these professionals more accessible all the time. Seeing a therapist or discovering a new pop star is no longer something relegated to the wealthy. And I've always made my biggest earnings gains by making entrepreneurial moves. Automation and globalization absolutely benefit the entrepreneur. A person flipping burgers for $8/hr could buy a grill and 5x their income and easily run the administrative part of their new venture from a smart phone. If you're living in an economy that gives an advantage to the owners of the means of production, then the means of production is a good investment. Plus you could also use it to watch TV on the commode.

moe 12y ago
A person flipping burgers for $8/hr could buy a grill and 5x their income and easily run the administrative part of their new venture from a smart phone. Umm. Yes. All those stupid burger flippers, why don't they just buy grills... Oh, maybe it's because McDonalds can leverage automation and globalization a lot better than your entrepreneurial burger flipper. There's a tiny bit more to a Burger venue than buying a grill. "Running the administrative part from your smartphone" doesn't exactly tip the scale.
- danuker 12y ago
  Indeed, but also, McDonalds has teams of lawyers and clerks to deal with complicated food regulation. The very same regulation encouraged by their lobbying: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000373&year=2014 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00000037...

dataker 12y ago

Growing up in a developing nation, it's somewhat weird to see these discussions. Many 'techstarts' never had to see real poverty, so their arguments on automation become somewhat limited. Some American entrepreneurs dislike horizontal growth, but it might have much more impact(socially and even financially).

CSMastermind 12y ago

This reads like a CGP Grey video. > the terrifying scenario in which half of all jobs are quickly lost to automation This completely ignores the very long development that such advances will take and the fact that most jobs won't just be displaced over night. For years we've been able to replace toll collectors with baskets and yet there are still toll collectors employed. Change will happen but it won't be sudden and there will be plenty of time to adapt. Anyone who believes we're going to have fully self driving cars in the next 7 years is living at the "peak of inflated expectations" on the Gartner hype cycle.

falcor84 12y ago
According to the Gartner hype cycle you mention[1], Autonomous Vehicles are indeed currently at the Peak of Inflated Expectations, and are expected to reach the Plateau of Productivity within 5-10 years. So you're not even wrong. [1] http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2819918 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2819918
- CSMastermind 12y ago
  I hadn't seen that before. Thanks for the link!
TeMPOraL 12y ago
This is a kind of short-term thinking that gets humans into trouble. The writing on the wall is clear and the time to deal with it is now, not when you'll start having widespread riots.
marcosdumay 12y ago
What, do you consider 7 years as "long term" for social evolution? And yes, count me along the people that expect fully self driving cars to be available in 7 years. I also expect truck driving to be an extinct profession by about there (10 years at most). City driving will probably live longer, and people'll probably keep driving their own cars.
- 12y ago

sudioStudio64 12y ago

The main problem in the US is that we are no longer getting our money's worth from the elites. The deal has always been...you run things and get the most rewards, but everyone does better over time. They need to uphold their side of the bargain.

rebootthesystem 12y ago
The deal? What deal? What side of what bargain? Sorry, this point of view is delusional at best.
- sudioStudio64 12y ago
  The US has always been a society run by elites. First it was the landed gentry. Since then it has been a political and financial elite. Keeping in mind that times when they were actually fulfilling their role of stewarding the country well...it wasn't done in a way that was good for everyone...but it was a type of social compact where the elites were granted a great deal of autonomy in running the country and everyone's situations improved. That being said, since the late seventies they have been accumulating wealth at an ever increasing rate and not raising the wages of their employees, investing in education of their employees children, or investing in infrastructure. Instead of raising wages as profits rose they started offering cheap credit. At some point that trend has to be reversed and the people that run this place will have to care about the people that live in it. There's an upper boundary on how much suffering people are willing to put up with. Also, I love how you think I'm delusional even though you didn't seem to understand what I was saying. I'm really tempted to be rude to you. Seriously. But I'm trying to tone down my online responses to match what I would say in real life. People need to remember that in the end they are speaking to another person.
  - rebootthesystem 12y ago
    No, no. What is delusional (and there might be a better word but I'll stick to that one for now) is proposing or promulgating the idea that there was or is a "deal". No such thing. Rich people never got together to work out a "deal" or be granted a "deal". That is purely a fabrication. And mind you, I am not attacking you but rather the ideology that you and others have subscribed to. It's utter nonsense. Sorry. Feel free to be rude if you need to get it out of your system. The beauty of reality is that it doesn't change based on emotion, yelling or screaming. A circle is still a circle. My position is factually correct and shooting the messenger will not change reality. I could literally stop right now, tell you "you are right; we are run by a bunch of evil elites" and that would not change the facts of the matter. A circle, is still a circle. "when they were actually fulfilling their role of stewarding the country" Again, this is delusional. What role? Who gave them that role? Did they accept that role? Sorry brother, your choice of words might just be a bit misguided. Again, you are not delusional, the ideas you are putting forth through your choice of words are. Maybe this ideology would like them to have had this role (or have it now). Did they sign-up for it at some secret meeting? "a type of social compact where the elites were granted a great deal of autonomy in running the country" One more time. What grant? Who granted it? Was there a contract? Did all the "elites" from east to west coast circulate a secret telegram agreeing to some kind of a deal in order to be granted privileges? And, did these contracts get ratified on a yearly basis for over 200 years in order to reach today's elite? Please think. You are probably repeating something you were taught. And, if it was taught by a liberal leaning institution it is likely that they also told you that the US is evil and we all deserve to die. It's OK to listen to all points of view. That's how we learn. What isn't OK is to do so and not use critical thinking to evaluate the validity of what is being proposed. "and the people that run this place will have to care about the people that live in it." We agree on that one 100%. However, it isn't the elites, it's the hordes of crooked and incompetent politicians who are destroying this nation from the inside out. And the hordes of ignorant voters who let them get away with it. Their only motivation is to stay in office and enjoy the ride on the taxpayer's back. They don't care about you, me or our children. That's the problem. "accumulating wealth at an ever increasing rate and not raising the wages of their employees" One thing has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. Executive compensation and employee wages are controlled by different variables and different market forces. Nobody is going to pay a welder $100 per hour because it would be a violation of fiduciary responsibility to do so when the market does not support such a wage due to either local forces or the fact that in a global economy you can get a welder in China (or wherever) for $5 per hour. The executives running that company are paid based on the performance of the enterprise, investor or stockholder returns, etc. Different metrics. It's like proposing that you should pay your gardener twice as much as prevailing market rates because you got a new job and your salary doubled. And, BTW, not to be an evil elite, you ought to also call your cable company and ask them to charge you twice as much. And your electricity rate should be twice as much. In fact, you should pay twice as much for everything or you are evil. Why? Because it isn't fair that you are accumulating more wealth now and the employees who service you directly or indirection won't see their salaries improved. Of course this is a flawed and ridiculous exampled but it does illustrate the point about the ends of the scale not being drive by the same variables. Making such a connection is nothing short of nonsense. Any entrepreneur knows this. If you are running a business, large or small, one of your goals is to not pay more than the lowest possible market rate for anything you need. Why? Because your customers will get on Amazon and look to pay the lowest possible price for the widget you and a hundred other manufacturers make. And so, it's a closed feedback loop where you, the entrepreneur or executive, are controlled by a range of market variables in your decision making. You simply can't pay your welders twice as much because sales improved. That is not how the real world works. Many years ago Apple was nearly out of business. Today they are one of the richest (if not the richest) companies in the world. Was Steve Jobs evil elite for not doubling or tripling his programmer's wages as the company skyrocketed and he got filthy rich? No. Of course not. Nobody would propose that when it comes to Steve Jobs but most of the same people would crucify executives running companies like GE, Ford, GM and others under much lesser growth scenarios. This is due to three things: 1- Ignorance of the business process; 2- Academic indoctrination; 3- Attacking the "elites" as a tool for political alignment and gains. I could go on but I'll stop here. All I ask is that you try to reason through some of what you are saying. Show me ONE, just ONE country run by poor people. And, if you find one, show me the degree of economic, educational, industrial, scientific, health and standard-of-living success they've had. Now compare it to any other society where, yes, if you have financial resources you can move in circles often denied to the masses. Not under some "grant", "deal" or "plan" but simply because that's the way it works. Obama does not invite you or me to the White House. He invites actors, singers, entertainers, industry leaders and political heavy-weights. Why? Because he is par of the "elite" now and that's the way it works. Yes, there's a side of society most of us will never see or experience. It's the people buying $250K cars when we might struggle buying a $250K house. Get over it. That does not make them evil and it does not create a secret society of evil-doers under some equally secret pact to act with the goal to oppress the little guy. That, my friend, is delusional. Going back to the grind brother...

nickstefan12 12y ago

Interesting thought: what if it's the effeciency of technology rather than the automation that is the real problem to old school economics? In order for me to be able to pay rent and eat food, and still have money left over, means that I'm "making a profit" in the business of me. In perfect competition, companies don't make any money. Technology is taking us closer to perfect competition between laborers. Everyone is now in competition with everyone and isn't this what we would expect in perfect competition: no one saves any money, you only get paid enough to eat and live. Software engineers are fine for now, but look at the competition between soft skill positions, it's so fierce that people are barely making it. My point is that it isn't automation, it's the lowering of friction between different laborers, and the commoditization of knowledge workers.

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