
Industrial Revolution Comparisons Aren't Comforting - ohjeez
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-16/industrial-revolution-comparisons-aren-t-comforting
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ACow_Adonis
I recently had a two week break between jobs and happened to pick up
Picketty's "Capital in the 21st Century".

It's a bit of a slog of a book, partly because of the reiteration of numbers
and historical contexts, but I think there's nothing in there that shouldn't
be above the capabilities of the hacker news crowd if they have the
time/tenacity.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that it's better name would probably be
"Capital across 3 centuries with a weird period of two world wars and a
depression".

You don't have to agree with the last chapter or two, but it really does
provide a great historical introduction and overview and discussion around
what's actually happened in economies over the last few hundred years, if not
being a bit number/graphy.

Not only will it give you some context for what the industrial revolution and
historical economies/societies were like, but you'll also understand why the
20th century was different, rather than typical, and why certain generations
have some of the beliefs they do about how tech/capital/economics/society
works.

To bring it back into direct relation to the article title: the industrial
revolutions weren't exactly the greatest time for the common man, and what we
might think of as gains to such was actually the optimism and atypical effects
of rebuilding after the period of 1910-1940s...

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_rpd
> an estimated 38 percent of the EU budget will be going to farm subsidies.
> Farms as a share of total employment are quite small (about 2 percent)

That really is astonishing. However, I suspect the comfort drawn from
industrial revolution comparisons is the idea that the automation revolution
will be merely as disruptive as the industrial revolution rather than
rendering half the population incapable of competing in all likely future
versions of the job marketplace.

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afarrell
I remember that about 12 years ago I was reading a lot of articles worry about
what would happen to the economy when the Baby Boomers retired and we suddenly
had to deal with:

1) The loss of their productive capacity.

2) Their increased needs for medical care.

3) The increased taxes as the Social Security Administration (possibly
alongside China) is no longer a net-buyer of US treasury bonds.

Perhaps the two effects will cancel each other out and the Productivity gains
will allow for nurses and more informal carers to have lower enough costs of
living.

Perhaps automated cars/busses and grocery delivery will allow more elderly
people to maintain their independence.

If not and prices of goods rise due to trade barriers, I feel really sorry for
the Baby Boomers living on fixed incomes.

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petra
He mentioned that wages went down 10%. But is it the whole story ? what about
longer hours at terrible factories, child labor, leaving your country home to
live in some awfull dense city residence, possible lack of stability due to
not owning land, etc ?

~~~
shostack
The compounding effects are interesting to consider.

Wages have been depressed and housing costs have increased, particularly in
areas people want to move to due to more job opportunities.

Owning a home has been a forcing mechanism for savings for the US for some
time. You get a highly-leveraged mortgage, build equity (ie. forced savings)
and hopefully see your investment appreciate, and ultimately own your home
clear and free for retiring there, or selling and downsizing to fund
retirement.

I wonder what will happen in 20-30 years time as we see more and more people
unable to own a home. Their earning power will diminish as they age and
retire, yet their house costs will continue growing if they rent.

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ENTP
Just this morning I was thinking about how automated cars would eventually
evolve to automated buses. Then, over time, all public transport becomes
automated. We end up being minuscule parts of a large transportation machine,
a bit like electrons flowing through the internet...

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Buses make a great case for having electric, AI-driven vehicles. It's like one
of the ideal applications of these concepts.

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skylan_q
I can't wait for automation to take away the jobs of people who write
"automation will take away our jobs" articles.

We're not far off, right?

[http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/about.php](http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/about.php)

Then again, maybe these _are_ generated articles. Hmmm....

