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Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
The kitchen assistant, known as 'Flippy', was designed by a startup called Miso Robotics which specializes in "technology that assists and empowers chefs to make food consistently and perfectly, at prices everyone can afford."
[...] Flippy uses feedback-loops that reinforce its good behavior so it gets better with each flip of the burger. Unlike an assembly line robot that needs to have everything positioned in an exact ordered pattern, Flippy's machine learning algorithms allow it to pick uncooked burgers from a stack or flip those already on the grill. Hardware like cameras helps Flippy see and navigate its surroundings while sensors inform the robot when a burger is ready or still raw. Meanwhile, an integrated system that sends orders from the counter back to the kitchen informs Flippy just how many raw burgers it should be prepping.
Source: http://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/burger-robot-flipping-meat-0432432/
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 17 2017, @10:24AM (9 children)
SS never had money in reserve. It was always transferred via the virtual bond mechanism to the general fund and spent immediately. And we can see from the "useless wars and tax cuts to the rich" that you don't believe that a good portion of the resulting spending was an investment either.
Would you? Medicare and Medicaid are not sustainable in the long term because their costs grow much faster than the economy does and are projected [washingtonpost.com] to continue to do so as far as the eye can see.
Over the same period, GDP is expected [cbo.gov] to grow a little over 2% per year. Dying in the streets and whatnot will be one of the consequences IMHO of these programs if we do give up on the programs later rather than sooner.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 17 2017, @04:20PM (8 children)
I thought you said there are no problems and that sitting with our thumbs up our asses is a virtue? Now you tell me we're heading for people dying in the streets if we don't take action? Gee, which one is it?
You seem confused. Or like you've argued yourself into a corner and would sincerely like for me to ignore the man behind the curtain.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 17 2017, @10:58PM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 17 2017, @11:49PM (6 children)
But it's there now. Inaction didn't give us control over fire either.
I'm not convinced those are a problem. You claim there are no problems, but in the next breath complain that those are problems. You seem confused again. Also besieged by decision paralysis.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 18 2017, @04:34AM (5 children)
You still playing games here. Social Security is not a one time interference with society, but an eighty year old interference with society. Laissez faire strategy would remove Social Security.
So what? The problems are there whether or not you are convinced. US budgets and demographics is not weather prediction.
I think there's a simpler explanation. You ran out of ammunition. Now we're to the perfunctory, ad hominem, pop psychology stage of the argument. So sounds like time for a review of this sprawling thread.
We first start with your nostalgic post about the vapid promises [soylentnews.org] of youth and those mean regressions with their horrible mental failwaves who are toiling hard to hold you back. This would be excellent troll material BTW should you ever go that route.
I guess from that starting point, it's really hard to have a serious discussion here. My message to take home is that economics is not wish fulfillment. It's not magically generating ponies for everyone. It's not preserving 1964 for all time. It's not vapid promises that you'll never have to exert yourself in the future. When we do try to use economics to create these fantasies we quickly find there are consequences. Even the rather minimal, ongoing interventions of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid has resulted in massive liabilities that the US will either pay or more likely, renege on, without a benefit of corresponding stature.
For me, history is a guide to what will happen with these calls to "do something" about automation, globalism, etc. They will eventually fail in a way that threatens society just as these past programs have done for US society. I certainly don't trust you or anyone who favors your viewpoint to manage a successful basic income scheme, for example. It'll just be another screw up in a long lineage of screw ups. At the very least, some consideration of how to prevent failure should be baked into the system from the start.
For example, there's going to be more voters who would directly benefit from raising a basic income arbitrarily than not. That in turn would lead to a lot of harmful economic destruction which is completely ignored by proponents of basic income. I don't want a system that pays people to destroy society by voting themselves more money without limit.
So to conclude, I don't want to hear about how people with different opinions are holding you back or how the economy should be about supporting your magic assumptions. I want to hear how you're going to deal with the inevitable problems that come from taking stuff from some people and giving it to others in order that we're supporting society (particularly its future!) rather than creates a destructive positive feedback loop of economic cannibalism. It's a reasonable thing to ask!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday September 18 2017, @04:52AM (4 children)
I did not go ad hominem. I pointed out an inconsistency IN YOUR ARGUMENT. That is completely fair and in bounds for debate. You made two diametrically opposed claims. You, however did go ad-hominem rather than attempt to defend either position. Very telling.
You like sitting in shit with your thumbs up[ your butt, so kindly go off into a corner and do just that with the other degenerates.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 18 2017, @05:38AM (3 children)
And saying something doesn't make it so. I corrected your misimpression by pointing out that my view was not inconsistent. Laissez faire doesn't not presuppose that active interference continues. Thus, it's not out of the ordinary for a laissez faire strategy to involve removal of active interference.
The ad hominem is in "You seem confused again. Also besieged by decision paralysis." Consider in particular the latter accusation. What are the choices that I'm alleged to be paralyzed about? You have yet to come up with it.
Strong indication you aren't ready to think about these things. Perhaps later?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday September 18 2017, @07:15AM (2 children)
You claimed at one point that things are fine as they are (not as they would be if we undid things) and then claimed we have a problem that requires an action. That certainly seems confused, and such wishing and washing is common to decision paralysis. Your walk-back above really doesn't explain that at all.
If you're going to start using alternative definitions of words, there's no point in talking at all.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 18 2017, @11:33AM (1 child)
Context. I was speaking of different things - for example global labor markets versus unintended consequences of some US feelgood initiatives of the past 80 years.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday September 18 2017, @03:14PM
Nope, my memory is better than that.