So much for humanity benefitting from technology. Instead of our workdays becoming fewer and shorter, a tiny number of people who don’t work at all will become richer while our lives become more alienated from our labor. This is the opposite of what we tell each other technology is supposed to accomplish. If it’s not a problem, why do we keep lying about?
> Instead of our workdays becoming fewer and shorter,
If that happened any increase in productivity would be offset by the reduced time worked, so no one would get richer (very simplistically).
At the end of the day, humans are competitive, so of course hours worked will never really reduce, but it's that competition which drives innovation
And we're all getting richer. Sure there's more billionaires then ever, but if we're all getting richer so what? (and yes we are getting richer: the economic progress in Asia and Africa over the last two decades has been incredible. And the west continues to develop also. The world is richer than it has ever been)
Normally, it would be poor form to pick apart someone's well thought-out reasoning, but your reasonings are not well thought-out: they're middle class talking points, and effectively propaganda, lacking any overarching cohesion.
> If that happened any increase in productivity would be offset by the reduced time worked, so no one would get richer (very simplistically).
This is a useless point for the common man. "Productivity," in statistical economics jargon, means "how much profit is squeezed out of an employee." It's a substitute for the much more charged "surplus value of labor." When productivity goes up and wages stagnate, as we've seen happen, it means the common employee is not getting richer, but instead being fleeced -- usually do to a moral depression that does not leave him able to negotiate (struggle/fight/etc.) for higher wealth (both material and non-material).
This false equilibrium falls apart when you can simply deduct hours worked, and lower wages just enough to have a better productivity-to-hours ratio. Cannily, this is what has happened to most large low-skilled labor markets, where MBA "consultants" come in to grift and sell management/the executive team on how to make more money -- at the cost of everything else. See: McDonalds and Walmart as a prime example.
This also has the added bonus that you can now decide not to offer full-time benefits (human rights), because your workers are no longer "full time."
I.e. economic propaganda does not reflect real life.
> Humans are competitive
Humans with way less, are also hungry. Humans with way more, are also desensitized-degenerates that need hyper-stimulating avenues of pleasure like extreme avarice to sate their desires.
Most people do not work because they want to, but because they need to. The only "competitive" people you'll see in the work-force are the greedy. Who've passed the point where money no longer really means anything, but still have decided to dedicate their life watching that number go up. They are degenerates. Using them to paint all of humanity with a broad stroke is ill thought-out.
> And we're all getting richer. Sure there's more billionaires then ever, but if we're all getting richer so what? (and yes we are getting richer: the economic progress in Asia and Africa over the last two decades has been incredible. And the west continues to develop also. The world is richer than it has ever been)
Colonialization of foreign lands, effectively enslaving these people to be a part of the dominating civilization's "economic machine" is not a good thing. These people had a way of life before Western Civilization (TM) came in and obliterated their culture. They were presumably content, otherwise they would've sought out "innovation," "competition," and "productivity" on their own -- without the help of colonizers.
If the pieces of what I've quoted are authentic, and genuinely from the heart, then it is an example of moral bankruptcy (most likely due to environmental causes -- rather than individual).
There are other things in the world besides money. The only civilization that keeps on beating the war-drum of money money money is the Western Civilization. Everyone else has other things that are important to them (notably: family, social connections, spirituality, living a good life, being a decent human being, and so on). But in fairness, these are all slowly disappearing, as the U.S. keeps on pumping inflation out to the world, and forcing everyone else to "join" or "suffer" economically (materially).
Didn’t get time to read your ranting monologue but the false definition of productivity (profit per worker not output or revenue per worker) shows that it has no credible basis - just like most rants.
You are describing some speculative future that doesn't really correlate with historical progress. Same could've been said about the industrial revolution, but somehow it did end up dramatically benefitting all of humanity.
Again, that is the story we well, but it’s a very reckless claim. Generations in early industrialization who still remembered life as a peasant almost universally preferred life as a peasant. Industrialization’s need for labor forced other peasants from their land to build competing modern nation states. Very few people asked for this and only a small wealthy few would tell you that dragging these people into brutal toiling factory labor improved everybody’s lives, but those are the people who funded the history books.
I don't think anyone is arguing that the transitory periods aren't difficult, but the reality is that very few people would choose to trade their current existence for the life of a pre-industrialization peasant if they actually knew what that implied.
The Industrial Revolution also played a heavy hand in WW1 and Industrial Warfare.
I don't think anyone is saying progress is wrong. Unfettered capitalism which robs people of their rights and alienates people from society is disastrous.
Putting an algorithm to treat people like machines is not innovation. Uber Eats is not our generations "spinning jenny". They should be forced to provide basic working benefits.
That’s right. But the employer-dependent health insurance arrangement in the U.S. was implemented as an alternative to the various political dynamics that regulate most countries’ healthcare systems and it has successfully done so.
The problem, in other words, is that a truly free-market healthcare system would be politically infeasible in a major first-world nation. So instead of a public healthcare system that would provide minimal healthcare services to all citizens, they tied it to employment, effectively moving it from the consumer market to the labor market. So this arrangement, like most neoliberal policies including Obamacare, has served merely to buy more time for the ruling class. And worst of all it has worked.
Whether it’s hospitals, hosipital owners, doctors, or other healthcare industry benefactors, someone is making a killing beyond just the insurance companies. Ballooning administration is not only a cause but a symptom, which is why free market solutions can’t overcome the problem. Establishing new healthcare institutions will depend on the existing healthcare industry, which will expect the same profits or it won’t cooperate. There is no way around the fact that free-market healthcare is just deeply immoral and inhumane.
Your entire argument is based on the assumption that healthcare is a free-market which it is obviously not. The mechanisms of price discovery are not present to all players in the market. When there is an unbalance in information in any market it will always be detrimental to the player with less information. The way to fix the problem is to create a free-market.
There never will be a free market due to inability to negotiate prices and obtain quotes.
A person who had a stroke is not going to be evaluating offers from various surgeons. Nor are 99% of people going to know what healthcare they need or don’t need.
That is the service a managed care organization provided (aka insurance company).
Spending for emergency health care is between 2%-7% of total US health care spending depending on who you ask. It's an important consideration of course, but the vast majority of health care can exist in a market to one extent or another.
My entire argument is based on the fact that a free-market healthcare system is not even an option. Frankly, a free-market economy of any sort is a utopian fantasy. Healthcare is just a useful case study of the problems.
My point is that we do not and have not had a free market in health care. So to say that free market healthcare can't work then using the current system as an example is a flawed argument to the point that it is nonsensical.
The incentives for the current system are to continually increase cost. The only way to fix that is with a free market or price controls. Price controls cause a whole different set of problems. The best solution is a free market for the routine and elective parts of healthcare with insurance to cover the rare unexpected events. Everybody gets to manage their risk how they please and healthcare cost comes down due to market forces.
Especially since no amount of technology has lessened the amount that most of us (especially those doing these jobs being complained about) still have to work to earn a living.
See: Owning huge amounts of land is uniquely antisocial.
The point here is to maintain a society and some things must come first, namely material things which paintings are not. Of course, art history shows us time and time again the vital importance of material sustenance in creating and preserving works of art. If you really care about art, you have to care about the material foundations that make rich and meaningful social livelihoods possible.
You emphasize "antisocial", and I am not sure why. I looked it up to double-check, and the main definition is "contrary to the laws and customs of society; devoid of or antagonistic to sociable instincts or practices." Could you please explain what you mean by "uniquely antisocial"?
>"If you really care about art, you have to care about the material foundations that make rich and meaningful social livelihoods possible."
I care about all the tiers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and I think that many paintings are worth a lot more than most 10k acres. The paintings also have the benefits of being able to contribute to shared experiences all over the world, and fulfilling more challenging needs.
I'll take the 10k acres, wherever it may be: meadow, forest, desert, wherever, and enjoy not only the ability to sustain myself, but the beauty and meaning that one can only find in nature. The same beauty and meaning that every artist from the first ape to feel artistry to now has tried, and failed, to fully capture.
Anyone know if Nouveau can operate in integrated-only mode? And if so how can that be confirmed? The only reason I use Nvidia drivers is to use integrated-only graphics mode.
The only construction project Google ever did in my city was use ancient (loud as hell) equipment to rip these big grooves down mile after mile of perfectly good neighborhood streets in all of our poor communities to cheaply install their “fiber internet” experiment that they abandoned 1 year later. And our streets are still covered with the rubber crap they filled the grooves with. More of it comes up every time it rains. It gets all over our pets and everything. I hate Google so much.
Surely, someone did at some point do some work on the roads in your neighborhood outside of the example you're bringing up? Well, that's taxpayer money, and Google is a big taxpayer.
“Will make them millionaires” should be replaced with “will afford them a home in a city with decent paying jobs.” For all intents and purposes, they are interchangeable and that’s the problem. This article makes me sick.
So much for humanity benefitting from technology. Instead of our workdays becoming fewer and shorter, a tiny number of people who don’t work at all will become richer while our lives become more alienated from our labor. This is the opposite of what we tell each other technology is supposed to accomplish. If it’s not a problem, why do we keep lying about?