I don't want to be mean about it but blows my mind that some progressives are so single-minded about protecting menial dead end jobs from automation. this is literally equivalent to the "if you get rid of slavery how are slaves going to eat and take care of themselves" argument from the 1800s.
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@sun well, automation replacing people will create a huge spike in unemployment and this won't be solved in 1-2 years which in turn will have a huge impact on economy etc... you know the jazz. While I fully agree with your statement, I also fully understand people who are afraid of the upcoming future.
@dammn yeah that's fair and it's a real concern.
@sun true, but if things change too quickly, there will be mass unemployment before new roles can be found
@sun I'm not in progressive circles but i haven't seen them fighting for menial jobs at all but advocating for effective safety nets and cracking down on the overt corruption. Ironically it seems that UBI is the likely compromise between Progressives and power.
An exception would probably be customer service because people would much rather talk to an underpaid offshore human than an opaque and obtuse chatbot.
The Pope's encyclical talked about this, arguing that unions aren't enough to safeguard people in current times.
@sun it's part of why I (and probably many others) cringe at how AI entrepreneurs talk about the "AI era". they boast about how they're disrupting the world and it's all so exciting, but to most people, it comes off as more of a threat.
@genmaicha I agree with this concern but I just never see it articulated. please, just address the issue, people
I don't want to be mean about it but blows my mind that some progressives are so single-minded about protecting menial dead end jobs from automation. this is literally equivalent to the "if you get rid of slavery how are slaves going to eat and take care of themselves" argument from the 1800s.
@gabriel @sun its a lot of misguided internalization of capitalism 
they still believe human value is "does labor for a billionaire" so preserving the human suffering to make lines go up is preserving virtue. if you don't believe that dancing for the rich is virtuous the argument doesn't follow at all. social credit (now "UBI") was C H Douglas having a crack at economics and realizing that economics is actually deeply retarded at the conceptual level and tried to engineer one instead. we now do it but its called the "federal reserve" and the inflation is given to banks (who are so good at efficientlly allocating capital they efficiently allocate all of it away and need bailouts about once a decade.)
they still believe human value is "does labor for a billionaire" so preserving the human suffering to make lines go up is preserving virtue. if you don't believe that dancing for the rich is virtuous the argument doesn't follow at all. social credit (now "UBI") was C H Douglas having a crack at economics and realizing that economics is actually deeply retarded at the conceptual level and tried to engineer one instead. we now do it but its called the "federal reserve" and the inflation is given to banks (who are so good at efficientlly allocating capital they efficiently allocate all of it away and need bailouts about once a decade.)
@sun it's like the argument against data centers. it gets diluted into an argument that has mass appeal but is simply incorrect
@gabriel I tried to qualify with "some" because yeah there are definitely people that do talk about this and never stopped talking about it. I brought it up because I keep running into it on Other Decentralized Social Network.
I feel the same way about UBI, it seems possibly economically haunted though, but something has to be done in the near term.
I feel the same way about UBI, it seems possibly economically haunted though, but something has to be done in the near term.
@icedquinn @gabriel this is exactly how I see it, thanks for articulating it clearly.
@sun the weird thing is that I do see the right doing the same dance you describe, just from a different angle.
They don't understand how inflation and the cost of living rising has effectively priced people out of human labor outside of highly profitable (and often anti-social) rackets.
This segment of the right wants the young and the non-rich to effectively eat the (financial and social) costs associated with all of the above and thank them for the opportunity to build character.
I've been thinking for a while that the next big "culture war flashpoint" is going to be old vs young.
@gabriel I do feel like I see that developing, you can see the clear differences in mindset and behavior coming from just what is fucking economically possible to do.
@sun I've seen a lot of hub-bub about stuff like art and coding jobs being taken by AI but I can't say I've seen anyone raise a stink to defend the existence of warehouse jobs.
On some level I get it though. People need to make money in order to live, and if you keep taking away ways for them to make money what are they to do?
On some level I get it though. People need to make money in order to live, and if you keep taking away ways for them to make money what are they to do?
@pettanko yes I want to see people say "yeah these jobs suck but what are people going to do in the short term" but a lot of the discussion seems to be framed as a human dignity issue, like the value of the work. which just seems like a completely wrong framing. people do that work because they need to eat, not because that work is soul-affirming
@sun "Work is soul-affirming, work gives you human dignity" certainly isn't a take I expected to see from progressives.
@sun While I'm not an AI hater, I think there's a lot of problems within it and that the government and AI companies are ignoring it for the short-term profit of it and if shit hits the fan, it will affect a lot of areas on the global economy
I personally can see AI creating an worse bubble than the one in 2008 but I'm saying that for the past 5 years and things doesn't improve, so right now I'm basically coasting and following along
I personally can see AI creating an worse bubble than the one in 2008 but I'm saying that for the past 5 years and things doesn't improve, so right now I'm basically coasting and following along
@pettanko I think quinn was really right about american progressives having internalized capitalism