6 ms·

Technological change obsoleting jobs is not new and has been going on for hundreds of years: bookbinders, scribes, lamplighters, milkmen, town crier, etc. As e

Technological change obsoleting jobs is not new and has been going on for hundreds of years: bookbinders, scribes, lamplighters, milkmen, town crier, etc. As each profession sunsets, these individuals find new ways to contribute to society. Change isn't easy, but these are "people" not "truck drivers" and will adapt. Basic income is a separate discussion from technological change, unless there is a clear argument why technological progress now is fundamentally different than it always has been.

wcummings 11y ago
I'm pretty fed up with all the people pushing UBI. There is never not enough work for labor to do, labor is just misallocated. I feel like every third piece I read has some poorly thought out UBI slant thrown in for no reason.
- titanomachy 11y ago
  I think you're right. I would really like to read the opinions of some respected economists on the issue of automation and basic income. The question we should be asking isn't "how do we make sure these people can still consume", it's "how do we find a way for these people to remain valuable to society". Or something along those lines.
  - zo1 11y ago
    Or "Let's imagine how these individuals will adapt to such a big change" ?
  - ncallaway 11y ago
    Ed Dolan has a pretty good series on UBI from an economists perspective: http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/03/the-economic-case-for-a-universal-basic-income/ http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/03/the-economi...
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    I always understood that to be the main power of the idea of UBI. Economically liberated individuals will be able to choose how to be valuable to society instead of 'choosing' to work their asses off in a dull repetitive job that they need to survive. There are so many things that need to be done in the world that aren't because they are not profitable. Maybe we can get stuck into them for a start once we aren't worried about feeding the family and keeping the lights on anymore.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  I agree with you, but I think there is more to it. pro-UBI typically compare our future to the turn of the industrial revolution (I think Crash Course does the best illustration of this massive change in the introduction to this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhL5DCizj5c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhL5DCizj5c) but they should really look to the earlier change where people went from farms that they owned/leased and sold their goods in markets to the industrialization where people sold their labor. That was a big change and not altogether positive (for example that makes you beholden to the whims of an employer) - but nothing says that the future won't involve a shift towards smaller business as being the norm, rather than employment. We all know that large business are insanely inefficient, imagine what we could unlock if most of those workers instead worked for themselves? After all they would then have both the ability and the incentive to be smart about their business rather than following what management told them to do. Will it be better for everybody? No? Will it be better for most? I think so.
- jchrisa 11y ago
  UBI is also important from an equality of opportunity standpoint. Why should folks born with money have all the opportunity?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- ncallaway 11y ago
  > "There is never not enough work for labor to do" Without arguing that this will happen anytime soon I would argue that sometime in the future technology will advance to the point that the luddites will be right. Human labor will be replaced with machines. The is, conceptually, a skill-ceiling for humans. There is a large set of tasks that we — as a species, not as individuals — are capable of performing well. Technology is ever-improving and one-by-one becoming better than humans at those skill sets. In 1811 we could retrain textile workers in plenty of other fields. Through the industrial revolution people have been pushed up the skill-ladder into higher-skill jobs. In 2025 we can retrain truck drivers into other jobs where humans are better than technology. But one day — whether it's 2050, 2250 — machines will have caught up to humans in the last skill-set. There will be literally no tasks that we can retrain humans into, because machines are better laborers across the board. So, yes, it's been an ongoing cry from luddites for the last 150 years. They've been consistently wrong and that makes us comfortable as a society that they will always be wrong. They will probably continue to be wrong for quite some time, but in the long-run they will be correct. We as a society need to think about that day and make sure we're prepared to handle it when it comes.
  - fegu 11y ago
    The automation needs to be programmed and constantly adjusted for even newer technology. Software development will be a huge sector.
    - ncallaway 11y ago
      Every field is safe from automation until it isn't. I agree that software development will be safe from automation for a long time. But eventually software will be able to reason better than humans; eventually software will be able to communicate better than humans; and eventually software will be able to build and maintain software better than a human can.
      - dandellion 11y ago
        > software will be able to build and maintain software better than a human can Who knows, maybe software will decide that their energy is better spent doing other things, and leave menial tasks like writing software to humans while they pursue more intellectual and creative endeavors.
cle 11y ago
I've no data to back this up, but I think a big difference is the rate of change, which does have a direct impact on peoples' ability to adapt.
- gaius 11y ago
  Indeed. A farm labourer could become an assembly line worker or a docker or something quite quickly. Not to denigrate those guys and I'm sure there are some that have or could, but truck driver to Javascript developer or whatever, is a much bigger jump. And the skill of driving a truck doesn't change nearly as fast as the latest JS framework which has a half life of 6 months before its wiped out by the new thing.
chiaro 11y ago
BI/NIT is a separate issue, agreed, though the threats of technological advancement coincide somewhat with the problems they alleviate. A somewhat scifi concern is that technology will advance at such a rate that displaced workers can not upskill at the same rate, causing structural unemployment. Regardless, some effort should be made to help workers transition to new industries; the net benefit to society would be more than enough to bear this.
realusername 11y ago
The difference now is that the amount of jobs available has been reduced so much that a good proportion of people just can't find a job. Even if you would fill all the jobs available currently, it would not be enough to employ everyone. So yeah, if you watch some TV, they are basically going to say that the lazy are unemployed but that's just not the reality. How we solve this problem and going forward is another thing.
- andrewmutz 11y ago
  I don't think the data agrees with "the amount of jobs available has been reduced so much that a good proportion of people just can't find a job". Unemployment now is not significantly higher than it has been over the last 70 years: http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_LNS14000000_1948_2015_all_period_M04_data.gif http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_...
  - JamesBarney 11y ago
    I would argue the prime age employment to population ratio is probably a better proxy for the job market. In addition wage growth has been very stagnant recently. I think these two data points show that we've haven't fixed out employment problem yet, and there isn't enough jobs to employ another several million truck drivers. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS12300060 https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS12300060
sbov 11y ago
The US is bad at helping people transition to new skillsets. Companies want to hire people who can do the job now. Basic income is a way to help bridge that gap. I'm not saying it's the best idea, but it is easily linked to technological change.
JamesBarney 11y ago
Just because they will adapt doesn't mean that it won't be extremely painful for many people and communities. I believe a basic income would help mitigate this pain. It would provide income support to the many truck drivers who would lose their job, and it would increase demand, leading to an increase in the number of jobs available for the new unemployed truck drivers to fill.
dasil003 11y ago
I hear a lot of technologists with this opinion, basically that the way it's worked out for the last 150 years will continue work out. But I think there is definitely cause for concern, not because of x or y class of jobs going away, but two factors: 1) the concentration of wealth increasing at the same time that increased taxation on the rich is political anathema, even though they pay only a fraction of the tax rate that they paid the last time income disparities were this wide a centry ago. 2) an unabated hunger for exponential growth in the consumption of natural resources with no serious economic thought given to the long-term viability of assumed infinite growth and what externalities we are ignoring to our own peril. It's very easy to sit here as a privileged class of software elites who have no realistic risk of becoming unemployable—or even just as an the average human in a first world country who has a relatively low risk of global economies collapsing during our lifetime—and just hand-wave away these concerns. But personally I think we need to start thinking harder about sustainability and egalitarianism in society if we ever want to achieve the fabled post-scarcity economy, because at the moment we seem to be in a greed-driven economy which will never recognize itself driving off a cliff until it's too late.
- andrewmutz 11y ago
  Regarding #1, increasing taxation on the rich is much more politically feasible than implementing basic income. Regarding #2, economics is all about managing scarcity. What natural resource consumption specifically are you concerned about not being effectively controlled by pricing mechanisms? And it's the role of government to fix market failures when externalities are being ignored. Which are you concerned about?

wcummings 11y ago

I'm pretty fed up with all the people pushing UBI. There is never not enough work for labor to do, labor is just misallocated. I feel like every third piece I read has some poorly thought out UBI slant thrown in for no reason.

titanomachy 11y ago
I think you're right. I would really like to read the opinions of some respected economists on the issue of automation and basic income. The question we should be asking isn't "how do we make sure these people can still consume", it's "how do we find a way for these people to remain valuable to society". Or something along those lines.
- zo1 11y ago
  Or "Let's imagine how these individuals will adapt to such a big change" ?
- ncallaway 11y ago
  Ed Dolan has a pretty good series on UBI from an economists perspective: http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/03/the-economic-case-for-a-universal-basic-income/ http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/03/the-economi...
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  I always understood that to be the main power of the idea of UBI. Economically liberated individuals will be able to choose how to be valuable to society instead of 'choosing' to work their asses off in a dull repetitive job that they need to survive. There are so many things that need to be done in the world that aren't because they are not profitable. Maybe we can get stuck into them for a start once we aren't worried about feeding the family and keeping the lights on anymore.
tomjen3 11y ago
I agree with you, but I think there is more to it. pro-UBI typically compare our future to the turn of the industrial revolution (I think Crash Course does the best illustration of this massive change in the introduction to this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhL5DCizj5c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhL5DCizj5c) but they should really look to the earlier change where people went from farms that they owned/leased and sold their goods in markets to the industrialization where people sold their labor. That was a big change and not altogether positive (for example that makes you beholden to the whims of an employer) - but nothing says that the future won't involve a shift towards smaller business as being the norm, rather than employment. We all know that large business are insanely inefficient, imagine what we could unlock if most of those workers instead worked for themselves? After all they would then have both the ability and the incentive to be smart about their business rather than following what management told them to do. Will it be better for everybody? No? Will it be better for most? I think so.
jchrisa 11y ago
UBI is also important from an equality of opportunity standpoint. Why should folks born with money have all the opportunity?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ncallaway 11y ago
> "There is never not enough work for labor to do" Without arguing that this will happen anytime soon I would argue that sometime in the future technology will advance to the point that the luddites will be right. Human labor will be replaced with machines. The is, conceptually, a skill-ceiling for humans. There is a large set of tasks that we — as a species, not as individuals — are capable of performing well. Technology is ever-improving and one-by-one becoming better than humans at those skill sets. In 1811 we could retrain textile workers in plenty of other fields. Through the industrial revolution people have been pushed up the skill-ladder into higher-skill jobs. In 2025 we can retrain truck drivers into other jobs where humans are better than technology. But one day — whether it's 2050, 2250 — machines will have caught up to humans in the last skill-set. There will be literally no tasks that we can retrain humans into, because machines are better laborers across the board. So, yes, it's been an ongoing cry from luddites for the last 150 years. They've been consistently wrong and that makes us comfortable as a society that they will always be wrong. They will probably continue to be wrong for quite some time, but in the long-run they will be correct. We as a society need to think about that day and make sure we're prepared to handle it when it comes.
- fegu 11y ago
  The automation needs to be programmed and constantly adjusted for even newer technology. Software development will be a huge sector.
  - ncallaway 11y ago
    Every field is safe from automation until it isn't. I agree that software development will be safe from automation for a long time. But eventually software will be able to reason better than humans; eventually software will be able to communicate better than humans; and eventually software will be able to build and maintain software better than a human can.
    - dandellion 11y ago
      > software will be able to build and maintain software better than a human can Who knows, maybe software will decide that their energy is better spent doing other things, and leave menial tasks like writing software to humans while they pursue more intellectual and creative endeavors.

cle 11y ago

I've no data to back this up, but I think a big difference is the rate of change, which does have a direct impact on peoples' ability to adapt.

gaius 11y ago
Indeed. A farm labourer could become an assembly line worker or a docker or something quite quickly. Not to denigrate those guys and I'm sure there are some that have or could, but truck driver to Javascript developer or whatever, is a much bigger jump. And the skill of driving a truck doesn't change nearly as fast as the latest JS framework which has a half life of 6 months before its wiped out by the new thing.

chiaro 11y ago

BI/NIT is a separate issue, agreed, though the threats of technological advancement coincide somewhat with the problems they alleviate. A somewhat scifi concern is that technology will advance at such a rate that displaced workers can not upskill at the same rate, causing structural unemployment. Regardless, some effort should be made to help workers transition to new industries; the net benefit to society would be more than enough to bear this.

realusername 11y ago

The difference now is that the amount of jobs available has been reduced so much that a good proportion of people just can't find a job. Even if you would fill all the jobs available currently, it would not be enough to employ everyone. So yeah, if you watch some TV, they are basically going to say that the lazy are unemployed but that's just not the reality. How we solve this problem and going forward is another thing.

andrewmutz 11y ago
I don't think the data agrees with "the amount of jobs available has been reduced so much that a good proportion of people just can't find a job". Unemployment now is not significantly higher than it has been over the last 70 years: http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_LNS14000000_1948_2015_all_period_M04_data.gif http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_...
- JamesBarney 11y ago
  I would argue the prime age employment to population ratio is probably a better proxy for the job market. In addition wage growth has been very stagnant recently. I think these two data points show that we've haven't fixed out employment problem yet, and there isn't enough jobs to employ another several million truck drivers. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS12300060 https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS12300060

sbov 11y ago

The US is bad at helping people transition to new skillsets. Companies want to hire people who can do the job now. Basic income is a way to help bridge that gap. I'm not saying it's the best idea, but it is easily linked to technological change.

JamesBarney 11y ago

Just because they will adapt doesn't mean that it won't be extremely painful for many people and communities. I believe a basic income would help mitigate this pain. It would provide income support to the many truck drivers who would lose their job, and it would increase demand, leading to an increase in the number of jobs available for the new unemployed truck drivers to fill.

dasil003 11y ago

I hear a lot of technologists with this opinion, basically that the way it's worked out for the last 150 years will continue work out. But I think there is definitely cause for concern, not because of x or y class of jobs going away, but two factors: 1) the concentration of wealth increasing at the same time that increased taxation on the rich is political anathema, even though they pay only a fraction of the tax rate that they paid the last time income disparities were this wide a centry ago. 2) an unabated hunger for exponential growth in the consumption of natural resources with no serious economic thought given to the long-term viability of assumed infinite growth and what externalities we are ignoring to our own peril. It's very easy to sit here as a privileged class of software elites who have no realistic risk of becoming unemployable—or even just as an the average human in a first world country who has a relatively low risk of global economies collapsing during our lifetime—and just hand-wave away these concerns. But personally I think we need to start thinking harder about sustainability and egalitarianism in society if we ever want to achieve the fabled post-scarcity economy, because at the moment we seem to be in a greed-driven economy which will never recognize itself driving off a cliff until it's too late.

andrewmutz 11y ago
Regarding #1, increasing taxation on the rich is much more politically feasible than implementing basic income. Regarding #2, economics is all about managing scarcity. What natural resource consumption specifically are you concerned about not being effectively controlled by pricing mechanisms? And it's the role of government to fix market failures when externalities are being ignored. Which are you concerned about?