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from the how-many-robots-does-it-take-to-screw-in-a-lightbulb dept.
Digital technology has been a fantastic creator of economic wealth, particularly in the twenty years since the Internet and World Wide Web were unveiled to the masses. And with non-trivial applications of artificial intelligence (such as Apple's Siri) finally reaching the mainstream consumer market, one is tempted to agree with pundits asserting that the Second Machine Age is just getting underway.
But Yale ethicist Wendell Wallach argues that growth in wealth has been accompanied by an equally dramatic rise in income inequality; for example, stock ownership is now concentrated in the hands of a relative few (though greater than 1 percent). The increase in GDP has not led to an increase in wages, nor in median inflation-adjusted income. Furthermore, Wallach says technology is a leading cause of this shift, as it displaces workers in occupation after occupation more quickly than new career opportunities arise.
This piece led to the latest iteration of the 'will robots take all of our jobs' debate, this time on Business Insider, with Jim Edwards arguing that the jobs lost tended to be of the mindless and repetitive variety, while the increase in productive capacity has led to the creation of many new positions. This repeated earlier cycles of the industrial revolution and will be accelerated in the decades ahead. Edwards illustrated his point with a chart of UK unemployment with a trend line (note: drawn by Edwards) in a pronounced downward direction over the past 30 years. John Tamny made a similar point in Forbes last month.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 09 2015, @01:06PM
Also, given that I had specifically referenced homesteads, assuming my ignorance of the Homestead Act was obviously wrong.
The only reason the US government had that land to give away to homesteaders was because they had taken it from the people who had lived there previously, as part of their approximately 300-year campaign of genocide against native peoples.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday June 09 2015, @02:43PM
No, it was ignorance on the part of the Natives. They did not know the game was rigged and many tribes did not have a concept of land ownership. On the East Coast there was ownership in that areas were specifically utilized by non-warring peoples and had been that way for countless generations.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 09 2015, @03:34PM
Oh yes they did. Or at least ownership over the various rights to use land - they fought wars with each other as well as the US over that ownership, and included rights to land in treaties with the US government. The stories of deals like selling Manhattan for beads had to do with the fact that the Dutch were making that deal with the Carnasee on Long Island, not the Manhattans, so the Carnasee leaders were obviously quite happy to sell what they didn't own.
Native American leaders were in no way ignorant of the threat they faced. The reasons they lost amounted to:
1. They weren't immune to European diseases (that alone wiped out something like 95% of their population in the 1500s, and is probably why they couldn't resist the English or Dutch or Spanish the same way they successfully resisted the Icelanders).
2. They were outgunned militarily. Even relatively late in the conflict e.g. Little Big Horn, most of their warriors were armed with bows, not guns. That wasn't because they didn't want guns, but because the only way they could get their hands on guns and ammunition was to kill or capture a white person who had them.
3. The US routinely violated treaties made with them. Or in some cases would invite a leader to a meeting to discuss a treaty and promptly shoot him when he arrived.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:09PM
I meant individual land-ownership but, obviously, was remiss in my submission. My sincere apologies. I had thought it clear but it certainly was not.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."