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The way we do economics depends pretty heavily on there being enough jobs for everyone, or nearly enough anyway. And our culture reinforces this fact (a strong

The way we do economics depends pretty heavily on there being enough jobs for everyone, or nearly enough anyway. And our culture reinforces this fact (a strong desire to work is honorable, a belief that most work is mostly bullshit is not) which will make it harder for our society to agree to rethink our economics, even if what we're doing is clearly not working. And it doesn't help that our political system seems broken as well, in much of the West. So yes, the overall good to society can be denied, if it turns out that we aren't smart enough to reap the benefits of our technology, and instead get to watch our economy collapse and our society eat itself, right before the owners of the robots decide to murder the rest of us since we were complaining too much.

jdreaver 12y ago
> The way we do economics depends pretty heavily on there being enough jobs for everyone... That's the way many economists interpret the economy, but modern macroeconomics economics can hardly be called an accurate and reliable representation of the real world. > And our culture reinforces this fact (a strong desire to work is honorable ... Then culture will have to change.
- deciplex 12y ago
  Yes, culture will have to change. But the technological advances are coming an awful lot faster than cultures usually change, historically speaking. And even if we make it through to the other side, it's probably going to be painful. You act as though the Puritan work ethic is just a thing we can evaluate the efficiency of, and keep or discard based on the results of that evaluation. I wish this were so, but my wishing doesn't make it so.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    There are many subcultures. The Puritan ethic is probably quite small these days. A subculture can thrive alongside. How about this scenario: A rich person builds a town where a new ethic holds sway, using her money to 'fend off' the rest of the world and executing a new model culture, based on automation, creativity and leisure. Folks learn to envy its benefits; the young decide to emulate it. Soon only old Puritans live outside the new plan, in ghettos where they pretend to work and exchange money in a dusty farce of the old economy.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> The way we do economics depends pretty heavily on there being enough jobs for everyone, or nearly enough anyway The way the current capitalist economy is premised on a vey narrow exclusively capitalist class, and a very broad primarily working class from which the capitalist class extracts value. (While there are some redistributive mechanisms in place, they largely are downward transfers from the more successful members of the working class to the less successful members of that class -- or those that are effectively excluded from participation in either capital or labor because of lack of resources for the former and lack of marketable skills for the latter -- because capital income is tax favored over labor income.) However, the more capital intensive the production of value is, the less well this basic structure works -- the less the marginal production increase of additional units of labor provides given existing capital, the less real income can be earned from labor. Unless you more equally distribute effective ownership of capital (either by direct redistribution of capital assets, or socialization of the gains of capital through tax and benefit policy, or some other means) the whole system falls apart. > right before the owners of the robots decide to murder the rest of us since we were complaining too much. That's also a means of leveling the ownership of capital, if you think about it (but its only a short-term solution to the problems faced by the owners of robots if they don't still have a leveling mechanism working between them.)

jdreaver 12y ago

> The way we do economics depends pretty heavily on there being enough jobs for everyone... That's the way many economists interpret the economy, but modern macroeconomics economics can hardly be called an accurate and reliable representation of the real world. > And our culture reinforces this fact (a strong desire to work is honorable ... Then culture will have to change.

deciplex 12y ago
Yes, culture will have to change. But the technological advances are coming an awful lot faster than cultures usually change, historically speaking. And even if we make it through to the other side, it's probably going to be painful. You act as though the Puritan work ethic is just a thing we can evaluate the efficiency of, and keep or discard based on the results of that evaluation. I wish this were so, but my wishing doesn't make it so.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  There are many subcultures. The Puritan ethic is probably quite small these days. A subculture can thrive alongside. How about this scenario: A rich person builds a town where a new ethic holds sway, using her money to 'fend off' the rest of the world and executing a new model culture, based on automation, creativity and leisure. Folks learn to envy its benefits; the young decide to emulate it. Soon only old Puritans live outside the new plan, in ghettos where they pretend to work and exchange money in a dusty farce of the old economy.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> The way we do economics depends pretty heavily on there being enough jobs for everyone, or nearly enough anyway The way the current capitalist economy is premised on a vey narrow exclusively capitalist class, and a very broad primarily working class from which the capitalist class extracts value. (While there are some redistributive mechanisms in place, they largely are downward transfers from the more successful members of the working class to the less successful members of that class -- or those that are effectively excluded from participation in either capital or labor because of lack of resources for the former and lack of marketable skills for the latter -- because capital income is tax favored over labor income.) However, the more capital intensive the production of value is, the less well this basic structure works -- the less the marginal production increase of additional units of labor provides given existing capital, the less real income can be earned from labor. Unless you more equally distribute effective ownership of capital (either by direct redistribution of capital assets, or socialization of the gains of capital through tax and benefit policy, or some other means) the whole system falls apart. > right before the owners of the robots decide to murder the rest of us since we were complaining too much. That's also a means of leveling the ownership of capital, if you think about it (but its only a short-term solution to the problems faced by the owners of robots if they don't still have a leveling mechanism working between them.)