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posted by mattie_p on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-really-do-it dept.

By now, you have had the chance to read the updates of both NCommander and Barrabas. Nonetheless, you may still be wondering quite a few things about the site and its staff. Here is your chance to ask us anything. These questions can be general in nature, in which case the staff will select a spokesperson to answer it, or it may be specific to an individual. If the question is for an individual, please ensure you identify that person specifically enough.

We will select the best questions from the thread and provide answers to the community. These questions may not be the highest rated, although we will probably use those first.

In keeping with tradition, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Barrabas on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:59PM

    by Barrabas (22) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:59PM (#2946) Journal

    How should the economic issues of labor surplus due to automation be solved?

    I actually have a proposal for solving this.

    One great aspect of being in this community is that you get exposed to new ideas, see problems ahead of time, and can brainstorm solutions. Then a bunch of really smart people will give you feedback.(*)

    Briefly, it appears that the world is on the brink of becoming a post-scarcity society. The short story Manna [marshallbrain.com] by Marshall Brain nicely illustrates the ramifications of this. It's short and an easy read, so consider checking it out.

    There is a considerable weight of opinion among economists, if not outright consensus, that the post-scarcity model is inevitable. The problem is that no one knows how to get from here to there - there's no "transition" plan.

    This change may have already begun, viz. the popularity of the phrase "another jobless recovery". When you only need 90% of the workforce to create the goods and services for 100% of the population, what do you do with the remaining 10%?

    I have an idea of how to solve this. Sadly, only a fully fleshed-out proposal with reasoning and reference would do the subject justice, and this is not the place or the time to do it.

    Perhaps we can start a discussion in a few months, but not here and not today.

    (*) I don't want my comic picked apart by nerds. I'm taking it to a comic book convention. - Fry

  • (Score: 1) by mhajicek on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:11AM

    by mhajicek (51) on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:11AM (#2989)

    Looking forward to hearing your ideas when the time comes. I've been thinking about this for some time, but most of the people I have to talk with seem to think the future will be much like the past.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:22AM (#9520)

    Toppling the ruling class

    There is a considerable weight of opinion among economists, if not outright consensus, that the post-scarcity model is inevitable.
    There's a fellow who said something related:
    "The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet." --William Gibson

    Note that Socialist candidate for Seattle's city council Kshama Sawant (an Economics professor) campaigned on these issues (and won).

    The problem is that no one knows how to get from here to there
    FDR had this figured out following the previous bust of the boom and bust Capitalism model:
    After someone reaches the income level of Very Comfortable (at that time it was $30,000), the marginal tax rate becomes 100 percent.
    (He settled for 94 percent; Reaganomics reversed things and look how that has turned out.)

    When you only need 90% of the workforce to create the goods and services for 100% of the population, what do you do with the remaining 10%?
    You give everyone a paycheck and send them home.
    When there isn't enough work for everyone, everyone simply does a little less of the existing work.
    They do this at a cooperative that has been around since 1956 [googleusercontent.com]
      (orig) [rdwolff.com] (and which is now much bigger).

    The elephant in the room in the USA since 1968 has been that worker productivity has gone up but wages haven't [thinkprogress.org].
    France figured this out years ago and shortened the work week there (and keeping wages up).
    The problem we have in the USA is money in the electoral process [movetoamend.org].

      -- gewg_