
Where Is Technology Taking the Economy? - inetsee
http://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2017/11/where-is-technology-taking-the-economy.html
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jesperlang
There's a lot of talk about how AI will "steal jobs". But I think one aspect
that doesn't get enough attention is how our physical bodies seem to have
major problems adapting (fast enough) to where technology is taking us. Take
for example how immobile jobs , combined with bad food (industrialized
processed food) and driving has all sorts of negative physical impact. To add
to this, self-driving cars will remove the need of a driving skill. Or how
address books removed the need to remember phone numbers. I remember in the
90s (4th grade) when could recall the phone number of everyone in my class.
Today I honestly don't know anyone's phone number but my own.

How do we account for the fact that the human body and mind seem to need a
certain amount/kind of stimulation to not entirely fall apart? Should we just
settle with the new bodies technology gives us? Should we settle with simple
compensatory measures like going to the gym for lack of moving otherwise?

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albertgoeswoof
> I remember in the 90s (4th grade) when could recall the phone number of
> everyone in my class.

Seems like a waste of brainpower to me.

I remember in the 90s when I couldn't listen to music I wanted without paying
£12.99 for a CD. Or when I couldn't do my maths homework because I lost my
textbook which my parents had to replace at a cost of £30. Or when I was
really upset after going to meet a friend who never showed up and couldn't
talk to me to say why until the next day at school (his parent's car had
broken down).

Technology is AMAZING, people will be fat even without self driving cars, it's
greed and laziness that causes fat to accumulate, not tech.

~~~
randallsquared
> it's greed and laziness that causes fat to accumulate

Are Americans much greedier and lazier than they were 40 years ago? Are
American animals?

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corysama
All living things are greedy and lazy. It's not good, but it's also not evil.
It's just physics. Humans aren't unusually greedy or lazy. They are just the
only ones that beat themselves up over it. Particularly the American ones.

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telesilla
"In the distributive era free-market efficiency will no longer be justifiable
if it creates whole classes of people who lose."

I lean towards the positive side of Universal Basic Income (my core argument
is that no kid grows up thinking they want to be inactive) so it's heartening
to see more of these arguments come to the fore.

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sperling75
UBI is lazy tech guilt thinking. Not to mention it's arrogant. The idea that
we've solved all that needs to be done is remarkable. Just look around you. Do
you think we are in a place without problems that need resolving? Or work to
be done? It's truly a problem of goals of humanity that lead to this disaster
of demoralizing pay people to exist UBI thinking. Pay people for education
first. We aren't even doing this!! Pay people to resolve climate change. Pay
for more research. Pay for xyz that drives humans to new levels while enabling
them to valuably contribute to our society. I'm going to write further on this
but the UBI mindset is nothing more than lazy arrogant tech people who have no
historical frame.

~~~
golemotron
The guilt thing is real. Every thoughtful person in tech knows that what we
produce devalues human skill and produces net job loss.

~~~
sperling75
Yes but the lack of jobs is a political problem. It's a problem of vision and
goals. Just like a housing crisis. These can be resolved by changing the rules
and goals of the group.

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golemotron
People are not things to be engineered. This is our largest collective
blindspot. Some people may look at what you see as utopia and say "no,
thanks." This can happen for something as simple as UBI. In fact, I'm sure it
will.

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metavrsl
I think it makes sense to have something other than a pure universal basic
income for redistribution of wealth. You want to design an incentive based
system to encourage people to contribute to their community, pursue higher
education and learning, as well as work.

Some kind of income supplement if you work at least 15 hours per week makes
sense, along with a bonus for 'community contribution' of some kind. It makes
sense to reduce the overall amount worked, but to still encourage work, and to
improve the skillset of workers.

Pure universal basic income has dubious incentives. It's a solution, but I
don't think it's close to the best one. Of course, any system, including the
idea I'm proposing will be gamed, and have unfortunate side effects from its
policies.

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ckocagil
Contribute how? In the long run all jobs will disappear. The latest job to
become obsolete will be scientific research.

~~~
croon
Or artists, or prostitutes, or athletes.

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4dayworkweek
A 4 day work week is the answer. Ford changed the work week from 6 days to 5
days. It's time for another major corporation to set an example and make this
move. Pay employees the same they make now for 5 days. For many professions,
the same work can be done in 4 days, and for other menial jobs you give peole
the opportunity to grow.

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godelmachine
I'd like to read more on how Ford managed to change the work week from 6 days
to 5 days. Would you kindly direct me to some articles/ books/ PDF's?
Sincerely,

~~~
ethbro
[http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-factory-
work...](http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-factory-workers-
get-40-hour-week)

In short, Ford likely realized in the 1920s that with the usage of mass
manufacturing / shifts, worker effort was more important than hours spent
working, and could afford to make the change.

This eventually became codified in the US via the Fair Labor Standard Act of
1938 [1], which defined overtime as anything over 40 hours a week.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act_of_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act_of_1938)

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crdoconnor
>Throughout the Industrial Revolution there were periodic panics about the
impact of automation on jobs, going back to the so-called Luddites, - textile
workers who in the 1810s smashed the new machines that were threatening their
jobs.

This is such a common misconception that the wikipedia entry for luddite
mentions it in the first paragraph.

They destroyed weaving machinery for the same reason French taxi drivers shut
down roads in 2016.

Revisionist historians depict luddites as anti-technology for the same reason
Forbes chose to depict the French taxi drivers as anti-smartphone.

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AJRF
Where it’s alway taken us. Forward.

~~~
ashark
Widespread private car ownership, to take one example, has arguably _harmed_
average quality of life.

Pollution, reduced freedom to walk/bike, extra time having to work out as a
result of those last two things (or simply reduced health), and, at an average
income, total time lost to the car, including working to pay for it, for
insurance, for gas, for maintenance, et c., being so high that it often
results in a net _loss_ of time versus foot-powered transportation ( _without_
even considering how much denser cities would be without cars), all conspire
to create a world where many are pressured to own a car (life is harder
without it, areas with good schools may be inaccessible without it,
geographical distribution of jobs in cities may be inconvenient to put it
mildly, and public transit has largely gone to hell, all because of the side-
effects of widespread car ownership) but they actually _lose out_ in terms of
time-saved, and a number of other factors, compared with a world where car
ownership was restricted.

Just setting technology loose, even with something as seemingly great as the
automobile, isn't always a straightforward win for the average person.

