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Portentous changes to the work economies of India and the USA due to job automation by machines and robots continue to make headlines. Varieties of hardware and software automation are seeing implementation burgeon in both countries, as companies seek efficiency by replacing humans with machines. Wage erosion in areas previously unaffected by automation - including varieties of programming - is getting commoner while new, albeit highly specialized, engineering jobs are created. Both articles encourage educational changes mindful of these realities, though how colleges either side of the world can adapt to the blistering pace of automation is unclear.
The latest tranche of job automation news comes hot on the heels of Davos' prediction that machine automation will result in a net loss globally of over 5 million jobs prior to 2020.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 10 2016, @06:37PM
...I see the greedheads are out in force.
I will ask you all one thing, and ONLY one (Buzzard, you can skip this since I already have your answer): do you truly want to live in a world where money is God and "growth" is the One Commandment? Because if we go down that route, you will be BEGGING to die. Oh, I know, you think you're so smart and logical and clearheaded and strong, and *deserving* and that you'll be one of the elite. Don't kid yourself; you'll suffer a hideous fate just like anyone else who isn't super-rich.
You are being used by the elite, people. That means you KHallow, you JMorris, you Buzzard, and any of the other gibbertarian idiots I've had to shovel up after. You know the price of everything and the value of nothing. What use is money in the grave? Do you think you're going to buy your way out of your own personal hells with it? I can't comprehend how you put abstract (and worse, disproven!) ideas and fiat currency above other human beings.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 10 2016, @11:21PM
I will ask you all one thing, and ONLY one (Buzzard, you can skip this since I already have your answer): do you truly want to live in a world where money is God and "growth" is the One Commandment?
There are several things to note here. We aren't heading that way even with capitalism. Money is just not that valuable. The wealthiest in society will always be the people who either create hugely valuable capital or who appropriate that capital from someone else.
Second, it's worth noting here that there is both plenty of room for growth and plenty of evidence that capitalism is far from unique in seeking growth (for example, welfare states need several workers to every dependent, producing a huge incentive to grow the number of workers by birthrate or immigration).
Third, yet again, we don't have a better proposal on the table. Capitalism works.
Do you think you're going to buy your way out of your own personal hells with it?
Why would I fall into a "personal hell" in the first place?
I can't comprehend how you put abstract (and worse, disproven!) ideas and fiat currency above other human beings.
Once again, you admit that you don't really understand the arguments of the people you disagree with. Understanding is necessary first before you go any further.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 10 2016, @11:51PM
You and yours have failed capitalism, then, by allowing it to decay and teratogenize itself into what it's become in this country.
And the reason why is your economic theories assume that humans are rational actors. Good God, nothing could be further from the truth! Yet you insist on this, and ignore it when people point out that this isn't the case and that not setting up safeguards to prevent its ill effects allows for hideous, slow-genocidal loopholes in the system. The more heartless among you seem to outright state that you would rather see people die that get something "they didn't earn."
Buzzard is on record here saying he'd wade through any amount of blood and climb over any number of corpses to keep what's his; I can dig my post history up and find that if necessary. THAT is what this boils down to eventually; "Fuck you, I got mine." And THAT is why you and people who think and act like you are going to fall into your own personal hells. Death strips all these illusions, and believe me, fiat money is illusionary even among a world of hollow dreams. Keeping what's "yours" is going to do you less good than, and have approximately the same effect as, lighting a blowtorch in the inside of a volcano.
People. Over. Profits.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 11 2016, @01:06AM
You and yours have failed capitalism, then, by allowing it to decay and teratogenize itself into what it's become in this country.
Labeling it "failed" doesn't make it so.
And the reason why is your economic theories assume that humans are rational actors.
We use models with rational actors for the same reason we continue to use Newtonian physics. Because it works for a useful scope. Models don't have to be perfect in order to be useful. When the irrationality of participants matters, we can use models that incorporate that irrationality.
People. Over. Profits.
Which is an argument for capitalism, let us note. After all, don't you want to use the systems that work better for people?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 11 2016, @02:09AM
You're dead inside. There's no human left there any longer, just a zombie. You are worse than blind; you pulled your own eyeballs out. I won't even bother trying to reason with you for the same reason I wouldn't give a dead man medicine. You remind me of the worst apologists I've had to deal with, and for largely the same reasons.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday February 11 2016, @05:51AM
Yes, everyone whose opinion differs from your own is a sociopathic monster who should be removed from society by force. The benevolent Azuma Hazuki has perfect knowledge of all things and it is his divine right to make all decisions about what's best for everyone.
Or ... you know, maybe someone has a different way of approaching problems that may be entirely valid and isn't driven by greed or malice or whatever villainous motivations you may conjure up. It's possible that even you, with your obviously unimpeachable moral character, may accidentally be wrong on occasion. So maybe it's prudent to give others the benefit of the doubt and not dismiss their arguments out of hand and actually engage with them about what you obviously believe so strongly in. Maybe you could change their minds or, in the unbelievably unlikely scenario that someone else may be better informed, learn something yourself.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 11 2016, @06:35AM
That's both a strawman and a false equivalence, and you know it. Believe me, if he and his kind get their way, they would BEG to be "removed by force" from what they will bring about.
I have dealt with this...person...before. His plans, and those of the people who think like him, simply are not sustainable in the long run. Nor are they based on anything more than the most cursory observations of reality. Nor are they even close to being in line with human nature; humans are at once far less rational and far more cooperative than this selective, self-destructive parody of Adam Smith's economics would have one believe. This is not, as he tried to analogize, the equivalent of using Newtonian mechanics because "they work well enough;" it's using Ptolemy's epicycles because "we've always done it this way."
We are out of time. Civilization, technology, the sheer size of the human race...all these things no longer give us such margin for error. The old systems are worse than unsuitable: they have been coopted by the greedheads. They will cause the human race to commit mass suicide. We need to decentralize, we need to provide for all, and we need to do it in a way that's much more in harmony with the laws of nature than we do now. We have the technology: what we lack is the collective moral fiber.
You say I should learn more, as if I haven't read about and seen firsthand the effects of this way of thinking. No. I know more than I need to know about this. The time is fast coming where we as a nation make a choice: people, or profits? What we choose will determine whether we turn this world into heaven or hell.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 11 2016, @03:49PM
I have dealt with this...person...before. His plans, and those of the people who think like him, simply are not sustainable in the long run. Nor are they based on anything more than the most cursory observations of reality. Nor are they even close to being in line with human nature; humans are at once far less rational and far more cooperative than this selective, self-destructive parody of Adam Smith's economics would have one believe. This is not, as he tried to analogize, the equivalent of using Newtonian mechanics because "they work well enough;" it's using Ptolemy's epicycles because "we've always done it this way."
The obvious rebuttal is this shit works a lot better in the real world than fairy tales do.
We are out of time. Civilization, technology, the sheer size of the human race...all these things no longer give us such margin for error. The old systems are worse than unsuitable: they have been coopted by the greedheads. They will cause the human race to commit mass suicide. We need to decentralize, we need to provide for all, and we need to do it in a way that's much more in harmony with the laws of nature than we do now. We have the technology: what we lack is the collective moral fiber.
Sounds like an argument for doing things that work rather than things that don't work, doesn't it? This "mass suicide" accusation is pure bullshit. Humanity has been steadily improving ever since the end of the Second World War. That's about 70 years. Capitalism and global trade, the bogeymen, made it so.
You say I should learn more, as if I haven't read about and seen firsthand the effects of this way of thinking.
Yes, and I still do. You wouldn't have written what you have so far, if you really had seen firsthand the effects of this way of thinking. But as it turns out, it's very easy to ignore the well being of billions of people.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 11 2016, @05:09PM
Don't you goddamned dare try and turn that on me, KHallow. "We've only gotten better" in some respects, yes. But who is "we?" Who has *not* gotten better? Why? And how sustainable is this?
You seem to think I'm advocating for communism. Dear God, no, we've seen what THAT does too; communism and capitalism both fail, and they both fail for the exact same reason: people suck ass.
We need something like a technologically-advanced version of (most of) what the Nordic countries do. They're gonna crash soon if they 1) stay on oil and 2) don't do something about the failure of their immigrant population to assimilate peacefully.
My proposition is simple: decentralize. Get onto sustainable power, water, and food sources. Trim out a huge amount of government AND private sector cruft, the rent-seeking parasites in both, and separate them much further than they are now. No more government-to-industry-to-government career logrolling. No more corporations writing laws. Citizens United overturned and every SCOTUS justice who voted for it impeached and forced to live on welfare the rest of their lives. Implement basic income, very basic. Lower the corporate tax rate but close ALL loopholes, and any corporation that does not repatriate its funds within a grace period loses its charter as well as its assets. No more palling around with dictators. No more treating the world map like a game of Risk.
I know you want to think of me as some naive, privilged, historically-illiterate millennial idiot with a liberal arts degree. I know you would love to stick me in some little box that says "ignore this woman and her ideas." Sorry, but growing up in the bronx and south queens digging around in trash cans for food does not fit that narrative, nor does getting a STEM degree off a scholarship. Nor does the amount of history I've read.
Now I fully expect none of this is going to make a difference, that deep down you really do only think "fuck you, I got mine, everyone else can die." If that's the case there's nothing I or anyone else can do for you; your fate is sealed.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Thursday February 11 2016, @07:55PM
I think both of you guys are far less apart on your solutions than you seem to think. And your motives are both obviously well intentioned.
Khallow is right in that capitalism is the only known effective means (short of gross restrictions of human rights) to promote the creation of the things that people want/need, but Azuma is also right in that the consolidation of power is a natural consequence of capitalism that must be controlled to prevent unchecked corruption. These aren't mutually exclusive concepts. There is a balance to be found if we can stay civil in the discussions and limit the questioning of motives to a minimum.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 11 2016, @08:34PM
Actually I'm very capitalist, but in the way one B. Sanders is: I believe there are some things that should not be left up to the invisible middle finger^W^Whand of the so-called free market. Not only because there isn't truly any such thing in reality as a free market any more than there is an analog signal with infinite bandwidth or an infinitely and perfectly-round sphere; because even if there was, it's a philosophy that puts money over people.
The whole POINT of any economic system, capitalist or otherwise, is to ensure progress and human flourishing. When a system becomes destructive of these ends (sound familiar...?) we should have the right to change or even abolish it.
Put another way: the current system pretends to be coolheaded, logical, and rational, but it is both purely dogmatic AND deliberately refuses to understand that the things it dismisses as "externalities" are in fact extremely important and central to the system's workings. "Nature has value too!" and "You can't put a price on human life!" aren't even scratching the surface of this.
And its partisans are, in my experience, precisely as bad about acknowledging this and taking criticism as the average Presuppositionalist is of his theology. THAT is why I get salty: ain't nobody got time fo' dat no mo', not when the fucking antarctic ice shelves are melting.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @08:40AM
Actually I'm very capitalist, but in the way one B. Sanders is: I believe there are some things that should not be left up to the invisible middle finger^W^Whand of the so-called free market.
Well, then you aren't very capitalist.
Not only because there isn't truly any such thing in reality as a free market any more than there is an analog signal with infinite bandwidth or an infinitely and perfectly-round sphere; because even if there was, it's a philosophy that puts money over people.
A free market is an asymptotic ideal. It still makes sense to discuss how close a market is to this ideal.
The whole POINT of any economic system, capitalist or otherwise, is to ensure progress and human flourishing. When a system becomes destructive of these ends (sound familiar...?) we should have the right to change or even abolish it.
The thing is, the current system doesn't qualify as destructive. First, we are witnessing the greatest elevation of humanity out of poverty and ignorance ever. Second, as I note, it works for what it does and we've already found that mild levels of regulation eliminate most of the problems of externalities and other well-known problems.
And its partisans are, in my experience, precisely as bad about acknowledging this and taking criticism as the average Presuppositionalist is of his theology. THAT is why I get salty: ain't nobody got time fo' dat no mo', not when the fucking antarctic ice shelves are melting.
OTOH, if you aren't dead in the biological sense, then you have plenty of time to pull your head out of your ass.
THAT is why I get salty: ain't nobody got time fo' dat no mo', not when the fucking antarctic ice shelves are melting.
Even if things are as bad as claimed, you'll be able to outrun the rise in sea level by walking a few hours a year.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:19PM
Everything you said in here just digs your own grave deeper. You're not even worth trying to reason with; this is the same shit Martin Shkreli would say and you can go to the same part of Hell as him as far as I'm concerned.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...