How Robots Will Steal Your Job
Arthur T. Murray
>
> [...] According to Brain's projections, laid out in an essay,
> "Robotic Nation," humanoid robots will be widely available by
> the year 2030, and able to replace jobs currently filled by
> people in areas such as fast-food service, housecleaning and
> retail. Unless ways are found to compensate for these lost jobs,
> Brain estimates that more than half of Americans could be
> unemployed by 2055. [...]
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm -- by Marshall Brain.
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/weblog.html -- AI has been solved.
> [...] Cobbling together bits about how things work provided
> Brain enough inspiration to attempt his first novel, which
> will be released free in serial form online starting Aug. 15.
[...]
Les Cargill
With all due respect, Wired hasn't been readable, relevant nor
interesting since about 1999. It's Slashdot with graphics. Either
of them are to technology as "Weekly World News" reports of
donuts bearing the image of Christ are to religion.
There's nothing wrong with that, other than the sheer eye-glaze
factor.
But with respect to robots, becoming a video game dungeon master
is a much more inexpensive means of dominating large hunks 'o
silicon without bothering to try to implement it on a large scale
in industry.
Ray Kurzweil is an obvious appliance fetishist. His writings
bear this bias. And where are the hover-cars? I was told
there would be hover-cars by now.
--
Les Cargill
Robert J. Kolker
Les Cargill wrote:
> Ray Kurzweil is an obvious appliance fetishist. His writings
> bear this bias. And where are the hover-cars? I was told
> there would be hover-cars by now.
The same place where all the capes and epulettes are. See the costumes
in -Things to Come-, a motion picture based on an H.G.Wells novel.
Raymond Massey looks great in a cape with epulettes on his shoulders.
Bob Kolker
Robert J. Kolker
ch...@example.org wrote:
> and Kurzweil is over-rated anyway. The label of genius is more appropriate
> when applied, to say, Feynman.
Kurzweil is a talented engineer and inventor. He has designed several
all electronic musical instruments, some of them virtually
indistinguishable from their non-electronic counterparts (piano). He has
also designed devices to aid the blind. Steve Wonder has a reading
machine built by Kurzweil.
Bob Kolker
josX
> http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59882,00.html
>
> [...] According to Brain's projections, laid out in an essay,
> "Robotic Nation," humanoid robots will be widely available by
> the year 2030, and able to replace jobs currently filled by
> people in areas such as fast-food service, housecleaning and
> retail. Unless ways are found to compensate for these lost jobs,
> Brain estimates that more than half of Americans could be
> unemployed by 2055. [...]
Hey ho hey ho
let us move that dirt
let us clean that dirt
hey ho hey ho
this is so much fun !!
We want to be slaves forever !!
Sigh, homo sapiens is. Truly weird.
Here is an idea for the work hungry: somewhere in a useless piece of
desert, make a project to make a road accross from one side to the
other. Then make "the people who want to work" work on the project. In
the night send in drones to destroy the work done during the day.
Some people can be employed at night to fight off some robots.
Some other people can be employed to create the destruction drones. Yet
others can make sure this whole interconnected group gets properly
fed and payed etc (monitor the relevant robotics).
Work! It will be fun! Maybe these people can be put unto some island
as to not disturb the kids though.
;-)
To increase the experience some form of exploitation could be
implemented, with overseeers getting more pay for doing less.
The resulting "mess" keeps it interesting while all fight for
top slot.
I can think of a lot more pleasurable ways to spend time then
to toil for some boss person in some whatever farm. Especially
if we don't have to because machines do the work.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
So here alternative idea: change the system.
regards, fellow weirdo's
--
(read each line, repetition helps!)
Robots don't steal your work, they do it for you.
If you don't want robotics doing any work, go back to the pre-ape
state, because even apes use some simple machinery. "Those twigs
are stealing the work !" Riiight.
lol
truly weird
:)
oh well, the island could be an fun tourist attraction. Good luck
with the toiling there, people certainly have the right to create
such a game if they want to. But please make it voluntary ok ?
Les Cargill
>
> Les Cargill <lcar...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> >
> > Ray Kurzweil is an obvious appliance fetishist. His writings
> > bear this bias. And where are the hover-cars? I was told
> > there would be hover-cars by now.
> >
>
Not at all. Kurzweil is one of the what, three people? alive
today who understand the invention process.
One of the only devices that ever just totally frightened me
was the original OCR-with-a-vocoder devices he first sold. That
was probably a good ten years ahead of the curve.
> The label of genius is more appropriate
> when applied, to say, Feynman.
>
Hard to say. Feynman was not a per-se inspirational figure, something I
usually associate with genius. He did have quite a cult of
personality as an intellectual, and was worthy of it.
Feynman was as much perspiration as
inspiration - he drilled a largish bag of mathematical tricks into an
artform. If Michelangelo is the template for genuis, Feynman was
heavy on the stonecutter side and light on the Sistine Chapel side.
> --
> regards, chris
--
Les Cargill
Les Cargill
>
> ch...@example.org wrote:
>
> > and Kurzweil is over-rated anyway. The label of genius is more appropriate
> > when applied, to say, Feynman.
>
> Kurzweil is a talented engineer and inventor. He has designed several
> all electronic musical instruments, some of them virtually
> indistinguishable from their non-electronic counterparts (piano).
I assure you - they are quite distinquishable. They are just much
easier to get signals into a PA from than a real piano.
These classes of device are called "ROMplers" - a sampler which
has samples in ROM. They are wonderful, but not the real
thing.
Billy Joel has a "Storytellers" floating around. Joel on a
Kurzweil, a real pianist on a real piano. You can definitely
tell the difference in both dimensions. Still, you see Kurzweil
instruments in lots of different applications.
> He has
> also designed devices to aid the blind. Steve Wonder has a reading
> machine built by Kurzweil.
>
> Bob Kolker
--
Les Cargill
Les Cargill
>
> Les Cargill wrote:
>
> > Ray Kurzweil is an obvious appliance fetishist. His writings
> > bear this bias. And where are the hover-cars? I was told
> > there would be hover-cars by now.
>
> The same place where all the capes and epulettes are.
Soap operas?
> See the costumes
> in -Things to Come-, a motion picture based on an H.G.Wells novel.
> Raymond Massey looks great in a cape with epulettes on his shoulders.
>
...and whatsisname, the guy who's not Gary Cooper in "Beau Geste".
Lantern
>>Unless ways are found to compensate for these lost jobs, Brain estimates that
more than half of Americans could be
unemployed by 2055. [...]>>
To compensate for jobs lost to robots doesn't sound too difficult. We just need
different ways of taxing... especially taxes on wages. Why not taxes on
productivity and innovation?..The dam robots are going to sooooo productive
there will be plenty of everything at low costs... the robots will be doing
most of the work... more and more people will not have to work. (you read it
here:)
Research1
Our sons and daughters rise to the level of their educations to meet
their own needs.
Our kids have to live eat ,sleep and work somewhere.
There is nothing new under the sun.
When the robots become self aware...
Oh the horror of it......the horror of it......
one man's opinion
MC_/_CET
On 15 Aug 2003 04:21:06 -0800, uj...@victoria.tc.ca (Arthur T. Murray)
wrote:
>> http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59882,00.html
Don Stockbauer
Push the ON-OFF button.
Have a nice day.
A Ralph Edwards production.
- Donsky Oatsky
Brandon J. Van Every
> How you will steal a robot's job:
>
> Push the ON-OFF button.
Of course, even granting the robot has an on-off button that you can push,
you're talking about tampering with someone else's industrial property. So
now there's going to be a security gate and an armed guard to keep you from
that tampering. Similarly for sabotage. Although it would be interesting
if service industry robots were routinely hauled out of Mickey Dee's and
smashed up in the street by gangs. Maybe this would lead to the notion of
"service automats" rather than robots per se. They take instructions and
provide services, but aren't so easily anthropomorphized and thus are never
recognized as "workers" holding "jobs." They would of course eliminate
jobs.
--
Cheers, www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Mark Monson
"Research1" <marcel...@omnicast.net> wrote in message
news:32grjvs23kds41hn0...@4ax.com...
> The robots dont steal jobs.
> Our sons and daughters rise to the level of their educations to meet
> their own needs.
> Our kids have to live eat ,sleep and work somewhere.
> There is nothing new under the sun.
> When the robots become self aware...
> Oh the horror of it......the horror of it......
This is the old fallacy of mechanization putting people out of work.
When power looms first made hand weaving unnecessary, the weavers attacked
the machines.
In a true free market, where natural resources are open to all, the benefits
of technology will be enjoyed by all. Tools that allow a worker to produce
more for the same effort, will result in either more goods for the same
effort, or less effort for the same goods. In either case, the increased
productive efficiency benefits the workers.
Mark Monson
jonah thomas
> In a true free market, where natural resources are open to all, the benefits
> of technology will be enjoyed by all. Tools that allow a worker to produce
> more for the same effort, will result in either more goods for the same
> effort, or less effort for the same goods. In either case, the increased
> productive efficiency benefits the workers.
People keep repeating this old chestnut as if they actually believed it.
I'm starting to think a lot of people actually do believe it.
First, new technology does benefit the capitalists who put it in place,
usually. If they think it won't benefit them, it won't happen. One
possible exception is office automation which people *believed* would
increase productivity but which may actually not have done so despite
massive investment. Sometimes capitalists think that new technology
will be productive and then it isn't, and sometimes when that happens
they don't cut their losses.
Second, new technology doesn't benefit "the workers". New technology
benefits the *survivors*. I keep meeting old engineers etc who have
their stories.
Sheena for example was at DEC and was very successful debugging hardware
and software well enough to give sales presentations -- which was an
important skill in those days since if you couldn't patch things up
enough to give a credible demo you couldn't sell it. The technology
changed and she got laid off. She went back to school in psychotherapy.
She was a year from her degree when she ran simulations that showed
the business model didn't make sense, that if she got results too fast
she'd lose patients faster than she could acquire new ones. She had
been focusing on behavioral methods that got quick results, and it
wasn't a viable business model. So she quick switched to therapeutic
massage. With a one-year degree she started building a clientele and
could finally break up with her ratty boyfriend and move out of his
ratty attic. Did the new technology benefit Sheena? No, it got her
laid off about the time she started getting seniority and significant
raises.
Bill was an aeronautical engineer. Of course the technology kept
changing and he kept on top of it. When he had been working 18 years he
was laid off and soon replaced by someone fresh out of school. The new
guy didn't really know more than Bill did; the new guy didn't even know
which of the things he'd been taught actually worked. But the new guy
cost less than half as much. Bill was unemployable. He was considered
overqualified for the jobs that were actually available. Bill did not
benefit.
It isn't "the workers" who benefit. It's like a game of musical chairs,
where only the ones who get a seat are counted. If you do get a seat
then you're one of the people who benefit.
On the other hand, everybody does benefit from the *products*. If
you're a retired person in the Washington DC area you can get on the
Metro and ride to any nearby Metro station and back for only $2.40.
This benefits everybody who has $2.40 to spare. Similarly, if you can
afford a heart transplant you can get a better heart transplant today
than anybody in the world could have 20 years ago. And if you can
afford a surface-to-air missile you can shoot down a plane that you
could not possibly have shot down 20 years ago. For that matter you can
shoot down a better plane than any they had then.
Things really are improving -- for those who can pay. That is, for
workers who aren't "overqualified" but who have skills that are
sufficiently in demand to get significant money for their labor.
Mark Monson
"jonah thomas" <j2th...@cavtel.net> wrote in message
news:3F3EA7C0...@cavtel.net...
> Mark Monson wrote:
>
> > In a true free market, where natural resources are open to all, the
benefits
> > of technology will be enjoyed by all. Tools that allow a worker to
produce
> > more for the same effort, will result in either more goods for the same
> > effort, or less effort for the same goods. In either case, the
increased
> > productive efficiency benefits the workers.
>
> Things really are improving -- for those who can pay. That is, for
> workers who aren't "overqualified" but who have skills that are
> sufficiently in demand to get significant money for their labor.
You're missing the forest by staring at the trees. I said in a system free
of monopoly on natural opportunity workers will get the benefit from better
tools. There is no other possibility. The reason it doesn't happen that
way today is that natural opportunities are monopolized.
Think of one guy out in the woods. He makes his own food and clothes and
shelter. Now he thinks of a way to get the same work done in half the time.
He gets the benefit of more leisure time, or if he chooses, more stuff to
gratify desire. Now imagine there are several guy like him and they trade
stuff with each other. The same basic rules apply, but now because of
specialization, they all got more stuff for eight hours of work.
This is the basic model no matter how intricate the exchanges or how
complicated the technology. As long as workers are producing and trading
on even ground they workers will get the benefit.
Enter the landlord. Now, as workers produce more, rent goes up. Rent
gets so high that the least productive workers don't have a chance to work
at all.
Land isn't the only monopoly, but it's the biggest one. All rent seeking
monopolies have the same effect.
Mark Monson
jonah thomas
> "jonah thomas" <j2th...@cavtel.net> wrote
>>Mark Monson wrote:
>>>In a true free market, where natural resources are open to all, the
>>>benefits of technology will be enjoyed by all. Tools that allow a worker to
>>>produce more for the same effort, will result in either more goods for the same
>>>effort, or less effort for the same goods. In either case, the increased
>>>productive efficiency benefits the workers.
>>Things really are improving -- for those who can pay. That is, for
>>workers who aren't "overqualified" but who have skills that are
>>sufficiently in demand to get significant money for their labor.
> The reason it doesn't happen that
> way today is that natural opportunities are monopolized.
I see! So you weren't talking about economic systems, but about some
sort of ideal world without landlords. OK. Similarly, the socialist
utopia would be a very nice place if there were no landlords or slackers.
And so I conclude that free market theory is better than marxist theory
because it depends on one impossibility less.
But anyway, in *our* markets the benefits of technology are enjoyed
quite unevenly.
Mark Monson
> Mark Monson wrote:
> > "jonah thomas" <j2th...@cavtel.net> wrote
> >>Mark Monson wrote:
>
> >>>In a true free market, where natural resources are open to all, the
> >>>benefits of technology will be enjoyed by all. Tools that allow a
worker to
> >>>produce more for the same effort, will result in either more goods for
the same
> >>>effort, or less effort for the same goods. In either case, the
increased
> >>>productive efficiency benefits the workers.
>
> >>Things really are improving -- for those who can pay. That is, for
> >>workers who aren't "overqualified" but who have skills that are
> >>sufficiently in demand to get significant money for their labor.
>
> > The reason it doesn't happen that
> > way today is that natural opportunities are monopolized.
>
> I see! So you weren't talking about economic systems, but about some
> sort of ideal world without landlords.
Something like that.
OK. Similarly, the socialist
> utopia would be a very nice place if there were no landlords or slackers.
>
> And so I conclude that free market theory is better than marxist theory
> because it depends on one impossibility less.
To rid ourselves of land monopolization we will tax land values to full
market value. Impossible?
Les Cargill
It depends on the technology. Stuff that's 100 years old like mechanized
farming and electricity tend to have a broad benefeit. The bleeding
edge hasn't diffused out enough to make an impact yet.
--
Les Cargill
R. Steve Walz
>
> Don Stockbauer wrote:
> > How you will steal a robot's job:
> >
> > Push the ON-OFF button.
>
> Of course, even granting the robot has an on-off button that you can push,
> you're talking about tampering with someone else's industrial property. So
> now there's going to be a security gate and an armed guard to keep you from
> that tampering. Similarly for sabotage. Although it would be interesting
> if service industry robots were routinely hauled out of Mickey Dee's and
> smashed up in the street by gangs. Maybe this would lead to the notion of
> "service automats" rather than robots per se. They take instructions and
> provide services, but aren't so easily anthropomorphized and thus are never
> recognized as "workers" holding "jobs." They would of course eliminate
> jobs.
Remember: There's nothing wrong with getting rid of work, as long as
you don't get rid of the wages for those who would be doing the work.
Why?
Because if you try they will hang you upside down from a gas station
stanchion and gut you like Mussolini.
Steve
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>Mark Monson wrote:
>
>> In a true free market, where natural resources are open to all, the benefits
>> of technology will be enjoyed by all. Tools that allow a worker to produce
>> more for the same effort, will result in either more goods for the same
>> effort, or less effort for the same goods. In either case, the increased
>> productive efficiency benefits the workers.
>
>People keep repeating this old chestnut as if they actually believed it.
>
>I'm starting to think a lot of people actually do believe it.
Few people understand it well enough to believe it.
>First, new technology does benefit the capitalists who put it in place,
>usually.
Only to the extent that they can monopolize it. If they can't
monopolize it, competition quickly wrings out any excess return to
capital.
>If they think it won't benefit them, it won't happen.
No. Even if they know it won't benefit them, but they think it will
give their competitors an advantage, they will go for it.
>One
>possible exception is office automation which people *believed* would
>increase productivity but which may actually not have done so despite
>massive investment.
Anyone who worked in a pre-computer office knows this is false.
>Sometimes capitalists think that new technology
>will be productive and then it isn't, and sometimes when that happens
>they don't cut their losses.
Unless they are privileged, they have no choice.
>Second, new technology doesn't benefit "the workers". New technology
>benefits the *survivors*.
Benefit to the workers does not mean to each and every worker. Those
who have invested in acquiring obsolete skills will pay a price, no
doubt about it. But even they may be net winners if they are nimble
and flexible.
>Bill was an aeronautical engineer. Of course the technology kept
>changing and he kept on top of it. When he had been working 18 years he
>was laid off and soon replaced by someone fresh out of school. The new
>guy didn't really know more than Bill did; the new guy didn't even know
>which of the things he'd been taught actually worked. But the new guy
>cost less than half as much. Bill was unemployable.
Sounds to me like he was very employable, just not at the wage he
wanted. If Bill had been willing to take a 20% or 30% pay cut (which
would still put him in the "comfortable" category), he might well have
kept his job. He wasn't.
>It isn't "the workers" who benefit. It's like a game of musical chairs,
>where only the ones who get a seat are counted. If you do get a seat
>then you're one of the people who benefit.
No. The number of seats is not declining. It's increasing. The
problem is that although two new seats appear for every old seat that
disappears, the old seat _does_ disappear, and the guy sitting in it
ends up on his kiester if he isn't quick enough, or has been leaning
back a little too confidently.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>Mark Monson wrote:
>> "jonah thomas" <j2th...@cavtel.net> wrote
>>>Mark Monson wrote:
>
>>>>In a true free market, where natural resources are open to all, the
>>>>benefits of technology will be enjoyed by all. Tools that allow a worker to
>>>>produce more for the same effort, will result in either more goods for the same
>>>>effort, or less effort for the same goods. In either case, the increased
>>>>productive efficiency benefits the workers.
>
>>>Things really are improving -- for those who can pay. That is, for
>>>workers who aren't "overqualified" but who have skills that are
>>>sufficiently in demand to get significant money for their labor.
>
>> The reason it doesn't happen that
>> way today is that natural opportunities are monopolized.
>
>I see! So you weren't talking about economic systems, but about some
>sort of ideal world without landlords.
An economic system without landlords is quite possible and
practicable.
>Similarly, the socialist
>utopia would be a very nice place if there were no landlords or slackers.
No, it wouldn't.
>But anyway, in *our* markets the benefits of technology are enjoyed
>quite unevenly.
Our markets are not free.
-- Roy L
jonah thomas
> jonah thomas <j2th...@cavtel.net> wrote:
>>First, new technology does benefit the capitalists who put it in place,
>>usually.
> Only to the extent that they can monopolize it. If they can't
> monopolize it, competition quickly wrings out any excess return to
> capital.
>>If they think it won't benefit them, it won't happen.
> No. Even if they know it won't benefit them, but they think it will
> give their competitors an advantage, they will go for it.
Aren't you the one who's been claiming that nonpatentable
pharmaceuticals don't get produced?
>>One
>>possible exception is office automation which people *believed* would
>>increase productivity but which may actually not have done so despite
>>massive investment.
> Anyone who worked in a pre-computer office knows this is false.
I didn't parse that. Are you saying that anyone who worked in a
precomputer office knows that office computers increased productivity?
Or the other way around?
To a small extent office computers have helped secretaries type letters
faster. Well, not faster, but with fewer mistakes. No, not even that.
But the results look more professional. A secretary who isn't as good
can produce a completely professional-looking letter, eventually. No
visible corrections. More typefaces. Illustrations printed on the
page. It looks somehow more impressive. And this affects the bottom
line by.... Well, not much. Except that if you don't do it you don't
look professional.
Well, but it's easier to send personalized junk mail now. You create a
form and throw a database at it and you can send personalised letters to
"Fred" "Sally" "J.W. Carruthers" a whole database with a single
keystroke. Almost everybody will throw away their junkmail unread, but
if you can get 1% of them to read it and 1% of those to send you a check
for $500 then you come out ahead.
So we get mail that looks more professional, and we get a lot more mail.
Meanwhile it's easier than it ever was before to send memos, so we get
a lot more memos, particularly emailed memos. Should we measure
productivity in thousands of junk-mail/hour or memos/hour?
In the old days it was expensive to keep records, and expensive to look
up old records. Also, the more records you kept the more records there
were to subpoena. Robert Townsend suggested (1973?) that each executive
should look over his old records once a year and throw away all but the
most important half-file-drawer full. With paper records, if you have
more than that it's hard to find what you want, and most of it isn't
worth finding, and if you face antitrust etc activity the more old
records you have the more certain it is somebody will find something
that looks incriminating -- whether you're guilty or not. Now it's a
little cheaper to file data, and much cheaper to search through it, and
much cheaper to maintain it. But it's still true that most of it isn't
worth a second look, and it's still true that the more of it there is
saved the more there is to subpoena. So once again, is this productivity?
The one thing that looks like a real improvement to me is that you can
put up websites to advertise your goods and services and people who want
to find you can find you easier. This is hard to quantify but probably
it makes a difference.
There's a problem that people measure corporate *inputs* and mistake
them for *outputs*. Flawless letters that look like they were
professionally typset are inputs. Corporate email memos are inputs.
Databases are inputs. Creation of the company's products and sales of
those products are outputs.
A whole lot of what goes on in corporate offices isn't worth doing. "If
it isn't worth doing at all, then it isn't worth doing well." If the
county government pays a man to polish the brass cannons at the
courthouse steps, and they buy him a $2000 machine so he can polish the
cannon better, his productivity hasn't actually improved.
>>Sometimes capitalists think that new technology
>>will be productive and then it isn't, and sometimes when that happens
>>they don't cut their losses.
> Unless they are privileged, they have no choice.
If they haven't marketed it yet, they can choose not to. If it's
something new, chances are their oldfashioned competitors have already
circulated rumors explaining why it's no good. People are even more
likely to believe the rumors if the project is cancelled than if they go
on to market.
>>Second, new technology doesn't benefit "the workers". New technology
>>benefits the *survivors*.
> Benefit to the workers does not mean to each and every worker.
People on this very newsgroup have been saying it benefits each and
every worker.
> Those
> who have invested in acquiring obsolete skills will pay a price, no
> doubt about it. But even they may be net winners if they are nimble
> and flexible.
Yes. People who farm the slopes of an active volcano may be net winners
if they are nimble and flexible. Nimble flexible drug dealers may be
net winners. Nimble flexible bank robbers may be net winners. Etc.
Speed and flexibility are worth a lot.
>>Bill was an aeronautical engineer. Of course the technology kept
>>changing and he kept on top of it. When he had been working 18 years he
>>was laid off and soon replaced by someone fresh out of school. The new
>>guy didn't really know more than Bill did; the new guy didn't even know
>>which of the things he'd been taught actually worked. But the new guy
>>cost less than half as much. Bill was unemployable.
> Sounds to me like he was very employable, just not at the wage he
> wanted. If Bill had been willing to take a 20% or 30% pay cut (which
> would still put him in the "comfortable" category), he might well have
> kept his job. He wasn't.
This was the problem. Somehow they weren't allowed to offer him a pay
cut and he wasn't allowed to volunteer for one. It's somehow against
the rules. I saw a letter in IEEE the other day suggesting that older
engineers could keep working if the companies would just accept a
parabolic pay trajectory. Once the engineer passes his most valuable
age he starts getting paid less and less until he finally reaches
retirement age. But they don't do it that way.
>>It isn't "the workers" who benefit. It's like a game of musical chairs,
>>where only the ones who get a seat are counted. If you do get a seat
>>then you're one of the people who benefit.
> No. The number of seats is not declining. It's increasing. The
> problem is that although two new seats appear for every old seat that
> disappears, the old seat _does_ disappear, and the guy sitting in it
> ends up on his kiester if he isn't quick enough, or has been leaning
> back a little too confidently.
The number of seats isn't increasing as fast as the population, and the
number of good seats is increasing slower still.
Part of it is that there's an implicit promise about career
trajectories, and that promise tends to get broken. Young people will
work very hard hoping that they'll have better-paying jobs as they get
more skilled. And then once they get skilled enough to command the
really good money they're "overqualified" and not eligible even for the
jobs they used to have.
Mark Monson
The tendency of improving technology is to lower the skill level necessary
to produce, and to increase production per labor hour. In a free system,
without rent seeking monopolies, all that can make production level off is
a slack of demand for more things. As long as people want more stuff and
are willing to work eight hours a day, they will have more stuff for eight
hours work because technology will keep making helping them produce more per
capita.
At some point people will say, "I don't want any more stuff, but I would
like more leisure time." So they start working six or four hours a day and
keep producing stuff at the same level. As tools get better and better,
work time per day keeps dropping.
Who is the loser by the new technology? Sure, people will switch jobs, but
that's normal.
jonah thomas
> "jonah thomas" <j2th...@cavtel.net> wrote
>>Part of it is that there's an implicit promise about career
>>trajectories, and that promise tends to get broken. Young people will
>>work very hard hoping that they'll have better-paying jobs as they get
>>more skilled. And then once they get skilled enough to command the
>>really good money they're "overqualified" and not eligible even for the
>>jobs they used to have.
> The tendency of improving technology is to lower the skill level necessary
> to produce, and to increase production per labor hour.
Yes. To the extent that the less-skilled labor is paid less to produce
more, this reduces demand. However, the high-skill labor that used to
get paid well can perhaps find work also so that more total gets
produced and possibly prices will fall so that people can actually
afford more. Does this fit your real-world experience? My experience
is that government creates an increasing part of the demand. When I was
in high school they told me that one in four people were employed
directly by local state and federal governments put together. Now I
hear that's closer to 40%. Meanwhile fewer workers are actually
producing anything, instead we have more people involved in regulating
how things get produced. The entire health insurance industry is
devoted to deciding who gets medical treatment and which treatments.
Not all of this is a bad thing -- effort spent on JIT production means
less effort warehousing. It can actually pay off to pay people to make
sure we don't overproduce.
But in general individual workers don't get as much of the production as
they used to, and in recent years people who work don't get as much of
the production as they used to. I don't know whether that would be even
worse without improving technology. Maybe it would.
> In a free system,
> without rent seeking monopolies, all that can make production level off is
> a slack of demand for more things.
Well, yes. And in an ideal communist system nothing anywhere can make
production level off. But there aren't any free systems or ideal
communist systems either one.
> As long as people want more stuff and
> are willing to work eight hours a day, they will have more stuff for eight
> hours work because technology will keep making helping them produce more per
> capita.
> At some point people will say, "I don't want any more stuff, but I would
> like more leisure time." So they start working six or four hours a day and
> keep producing stuff at the same level. As tools get better and better,
> work time per day keeps dropping.
Does this fit your experience? My experience is that when a project
first starts out they're satisfied with 9 hours a day, and then as it
gets closer to deadline they want 11 to 12 hours a day. Then as the
deadline passes they want 12 to 14 hours a day, weekends included. Then
when the project gets cancelled they lay everybody off. Go in and tell
them you want to work 4 hours a day and they'll say you aren't a team
player.
> Who is the loser by the new technology? Sure, people will switch jobs, but
> that's normal.
People who officially have the work experience and seniority to get high
pay are losers. They aren't allowed to work cheap and they aren't
allowed to work expensive. This is a cultural thing that probably
doesn't follow directly from any economic laws, but there it is, they lose.
It's a peculiar thing. We have a shortage of qualified people and yet
there aren't many jobs. Partly it's the HR mess, we have people who
specialise in hiring who don't know much about the jobs they're hiring
people for. At one point, 3 years after Java was invented, they were
insisting on 5 years Java experience. They were insisting on 5 years
experience with Oracle specialties when the textbooks hadn't hit the
technical shops yet. And yet, somehow people do get hired occasionally.
Bill Ryan
people out of work.
When power looms first made hand weaving unnecessary,
the weavers attacked the machines.
In a true free market, where natural resources are
open to all, the benefits of technology will be
enjoyed by all. Tools that allow a worker to produce
more for the same effort, will result in either more
goods for the same effort, or less effort for the
same goods. In either case, the increased
productive efficiency benefits the workers.<***
--------------------
Depends very much on what is meant by "true free
market." Is it possible without a power grid,
interstate transportation system, communication
system, uniform commercial code, uniform standards of
conduct, etc.? The list should definitely include
the financial system. Is it possible to have a "true
free market" without the method of double entry
accounting and the creditary mechanisms of modern
banking? The "benefits of technology will be enjoyed
by all" only if the appropriate institutions are in
place to accommodate them. A free market can exist
only within the framework of established institutions
that are themselves evolving.
From the *financial* perspective, the A + B theorem
concludes that financial incomes will fall in respect
to the *costs of production* as labor is displaced by
technology--creating the illusion that there is
scarcity in the midst of plenty in terms of actual
and potential productive capacity. The solution is
to supplement earned incomes with unearned dividends
paid from the increasing national credit.
You are invited to participate in a discussion group
devoted to this subject: social...@topica.com
You may subscribe by sending a blank message to:
socialcredi...@topica.com
Some related materials are at:
http://www.geocities.com/socredus/compendium
"Mark Monson" <m_mo...@ztech.com> wrote in message news:<lWw%a.1728$mE5....@fe05.atl2.webusenet.com>...
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>ro...@telus.net wrote:
>> jonah thomas <j2th...@cavtel.net> wrote:
>
>>>First, new technology does benefit the capitalists who put it in place,
>>>usually.
>
>> Only to the extent that they can monopolize it. If they can't
>> monopolize it, competition quickly wrings out any excess return to
>> capital.
>
>>>If they think it won't benefit them, it won't happen.
>
>> No. Even if they know it won't benefit them, but they think it will
>> give their competitors an advantage, they will go for it.
>
>Aren't you the one who's been claiming that nonpatentable
>pharmaceuticals don't get produced?
The opposite. They get produced just fine once approved, but rarely
get researched or discovered or approved.
>>>One
>>>possible exception is office automation which people *believed* would
>>>increase productivity but which may actually not have done so despite
>>>massive investment.
>
>> Anyone who worked in a pre-computer office knows this is false.
>
>I didn't parse that. Are you saying that anyone who worked in a
>precomputer office knows that office computers increased productivity?
Yes.
>To a small extent office computers have helped secretaries type letters
>faster. Well, not faster, but with fewer mistakes.
No. Using boilerplate is _far_ faster.
> But the results look more professional. A secretary who isn't as good
>can produce a completely professional-looking letter, eventually. No
>visible corrections. More typefaces. Illustrations printed on the
>page. It looks somehow more impressive. And this affects the bottom
>line by.... Well, not much. Except that if you don't do it you don't
>look professional.
Mailmerge. 'Nuff said.
>>>Second, new technology doesn't benefit "the workers". New technology
>>>benefits the *survivors*.
>
>> Benefit to the workers does not mean to each and every worker.
>
>People on this very newsgroup have been saying it benefits each and
>every worker.
That claim seems ludicrous to me.
>This was the problem. Somehow they weren't allowed to offer him a pay
>cut and he wasn't allowed to volunteer for one. It's somehow against
>the rules.
Bingo.
>>>It isn't "the workers" who benefit. It's like a game of musical chairs,
>>>where only the ones who get a seat are counted. If you do get a seat
>>>then you're one of the people who benefit.
>
>> No. The number of seats is not declining. It's increasing. The
>> problem is that although two new seats appear for every old seat that
>> disappears, the old seat _does_ disappear, and the guy sitting in it
>> ends up on his kiester if he isn't quick enough, or has been leaning
>> back a little too confidently.
>
>The number of seats isn't increasing as fast as the population,
It is increasing faster.
>and the
>number of good seats is increasing slower still.
Depends what you think qualifies as a "good" seat. Almost all the
seats are better today than 100 or even 50 years ago.
>Part of it is that there's an implicit promise about career
>trajectories, and that promise tends to get broken.
I agree the career trajectory thing is a problem that seems to be
founded in human nature. People find it more congenial to make $X
consistently than to make $X for a while, then make $2X for a while,
and then have to go back to $X.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>The solution is
>to supplement earned incomes with unearned dividends
>paid from the increasing national credit.
"National credit"? Credit has to be paid back.
The solution is to first understand that "unearned" income is in fact
earned -- just by people other than the recipient.
-- Roy L
Bill Ryan
---------------------------------
From: ro...@telus.net (ro...@telus.net)
Subject: Re: How Robots Will Steal Your Job
On 18 Aug 2003 07:36:33 -0700,
william...@hotmail.com (Bill Ryan)
wrote:
>The solution is
>to supplement earned incomes with unearned dividends
>paid from the increasing national credit.
"National credit"? Credit has to be paid back.
---------------------------------
[reply] Credit in the form of credit to your account
that you might draw down does not necessitate
repayment. The phone company credits your bill after
you complain about something. Nothing has to be
repaid. It is an expense charged to good will that
takes nothing away from anybody.
--
The solution is to first understand that "unearned"
income is in fact earned -- just by people other than
the recipient.
Roy L
---------------------------------
[reply] What we have inherited from our ancestors
may or may not have been "earned" by our ancestors.
It was certainly not "earned" by those now living.
What is gained through the increment of association
between those now living is not "earned" by any one
of us individually. [see note below]
Production includes the production of a great deal
more than the physical capital we see and the goods
we consume: It includes what we don't see--unrealized
productive capacity from discovery, invention and
technology--that accrues to the national credit
account, from which dividends might be paid that
would draw on that capacity.
Excerpting from *Credit-Power and Democracy*
published eighty-three years ago:
"...We have already seen that the only possible basis
of *real* credit is a belief, amounting to knowledge,
in the correctness of the credit-estimate of a
society, with all its resources, to deliver goods and
services at a certain rate. If we made this basis
our *financial* basis, then the credit-structure
erected on it can only be destroyed by social
suicide--by the refusal of the community to function.
Now, one of the components of the capacity of a
society to *deliver* goods and services *is the
existence of an effective demand* for those goods and
services. It is not the very slightest use, under
existing conditions, that there are thousands of most
excellent houses vacant in this country, when the
cost of living in them totally exceeds the effective
financial demand of the individuals who would like to
live in them. The houses are there, and the people
are there, but the delivery does not take place.
*The business of a modern and effective financial
system is to issue credit to the consumer, up to the
limit of the productive capacity of the producer, so
that either the consumers' real demand is satiated,
or the producers' capacity is exhausted, whichever
happens first.*
"This can obviously be done by making issues of
purchasing-power to cover the whole estimated
productive capacity, and taking it back to the extent
that this capacity is diminished from any cause
whatever, a state of affairs which rapidly results in
making everyone 'rich' in the current sense of the
term; which, it should be clearly borne in mind, does
not at all mean that an individual's real consumption
is large--very often quite the contrary--but that the
individual in question has the mechanism at hand by
which to obtain what he does want..."
--
[Note] We indeed earn what we individually
contribute to the productive process. The A + B
theorem is that we are paid (wages, salaries and
corporate dividends) increasingly *less* than the
costs of production of that which is produced for
sale (which is less than what could be produced and
sold if we were fully paid) with continuing labor
displacement. That is to say, we collectively are
paid *less* than what we are in fact earning,
thereby immobilizing an increasing percentage of
capacity that is increasing. The problem goes far
beyond mere equitable distribution--which keeps the
economy in the permanent state of under capacity.
The utilization of productive capacity is a function
of real demand made effective through the national
dividend drawn on the national credit account. The
dividend is "unearned" in the sense it is not tied to
formal "employment."
ro...@telus.net wrote in message news:<3f4106a1...@news.telus.net>...
Hans-Georg Michna
>> http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59882,00.html
>>
>> [...] According to Brain's projections, laid out in an essay,
>> "Robotic Nation," humanoid robots will be widely available by
>> the year 2030, ...
Arthur,
2030 is rather pessimistic, in my view. I think the available
information points more at 2020.
And I write this while watching my robotic lawn mower (a Friendy
Robotics RL500) do its tedious work already in 2003. True, this
one looks more turtloid than humanoid, but I still think that
people overestimate themselves, and in their anthropocentric
arrogance cannot believe how soon they may be obsoleted.
Hans-Georg
http://www.michna.com/transition.htm
--
No mail, please.
Arthur T. Murray
>
> uj...@victoria.tc.ca (Arthur T. Murray) wrote:
>
>>> http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59882,00.html
>>>
>>> [...] According to Brain's projections, laid out in an essay,
>>> "Robotic Nation," humanoid robots will be widely available by
>>> the year 2030, ...
>
> Arthur,
>
> 2030 is rather pessimistic, in my view. I think the available
> information points more at 2020.
2020? Who is able to wait that long? AI has been solved.
The meme of Robot AI Minds is saturating the Web by means of
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/apl.html -- APL AI Weblog;
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/lisp.html -- Lisp AI Blog;
and other meme-insertion points across the Web: AI evolves.
Lantern
royls wrote:
>The solution is to supplement earned incomes with unearned dividends
paid from the increasing national credit.>
>>>The solution is to first understand that "unearned" income is in fact earned
-- just by people other than the recipient.>>>
The idea may be that people won't be earning income...the robots will. The
robots will doing more and more of the work.
"People" just need a way to get income from the productivity of the robots.You
can bet the capitalists are standing by to tap the new large amounts of robot
productivity.Maybe William may be on to something. With robots doing more of
the work, we need a way to get income ...other than personal income tax.
Walla!...How about a robot tax? There will be plenty of money available from
the fast approaching robot era. We just need to manage it. You read it here.
Lantern
>And I write this while watching my robotic lawn mower (a Friendy
>Robotics RL500>
Could you kindly tell something about your robot lawn mower.
1. Does it work good?
2. Do you have to put out pylon, guides for it?
3. How long you had it?
4. How much was it?
Mark Monson
As long as people are willing to work and people want stuff that is produced
by labor, we can't overproduce. That the theory. Our present system is
screwed up in a number of ways, but there is no GOOD reason why even
thousands of people are out of work at any time.
>
> But in general individual workers don't get as much of the production as
> they used to, and in recent years people who work don't get as much of
> the production as they used to. I don't know whether that would be even
> worse without improving technology. Maybe it would.
>
> > In a free system,
> > without rent seeking monopolies, all that can make production level off
is
> > a slack of demand for more things.
>
> Well, yes. And in an ideal communist system nothing anywhere can make
> production level off. But there aren't any free systems or ideal
> communist systems either one.
Things aren't going to get better until we address the root cause of the
problem. We have to open up natural opportunities to produce, and then
prevent pirates from stealing the earnings of the producers.
>
> > As long as people want more stuff and
> > are willing to work eight hours a day, they will have more stuff for
eight
> > hours work because technology will keep making helping them produce more
per
> > capita.
>
> > At some point people will say, "I don't want any more stuff, but I would
> > like more leisure time." So they start working six or four hours a day
and
> > keep producing stuff at the same level. As tools get better and
better,
> > work time per day keeps dropping.
>
> Does this fit your experience?
Of course not. I'm talking about the way things would be if we simply let
the free market system work the way it will without interference from the
rent seekers.
Mark Monson
e...@ekj.vestdata.no
> Here is an idea for the work hungry: somewhere in a useless piece of
> desert, make a project to make a road accross from one side to the
> other. Then make "the people who want to work" work on the project. In
> the night send in drones to destroy the work done during the day.
Yes. It is weird that whenever a machine is invented that can do the
work previously done by a human, some people will feel threathened and
complain. This is something that goes back all the way to the inventing
of the first weaving-machines.
The problem is that two different issues are mixed up. Namely production
and distribution of wealth.
From a production-standpoint, it's offcourse perfectly reasonable to use
a machine instead of a human if the machine does a better and/or cheaper
job.
The problem arises because the work previously done will be "owned" by
the worker, which gets payed for it. The machine, on the other hand,
will very very likely NOT be owned by the person previously doing the
work. So any profits from the machine will go to someone else.
After the machine is installed, humanity as a whole will be richer than
before. But the wealth will be differently distributed. Quite likely a
bigger part of the wealth will be in the hands of a smaller part of the
population.
If you are a bus-driver, and a bus that can drive itself gets invented,
your work IS threathened. There is a real risk that your standard of
living will SINK as a result of this development, even though the wealth
of humanity as a sum should INCREASE as a result of it. (if the
self-driving bus was not cheaper/better/safer it'd not be used anyway)
I don't think people so much want the work (even though sometimes they
migth even think so themselves). It's more likely that they want the
income.
Sincerely,
Eivind Kjørstad
Hans-Georg Michna
>The meme of Robot AI Minds is saturating the Web by means of
>http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/apl.html -- APL AI Weblog;
>http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/lisp.html -- Lisp AI Blog;
>and other meme-insertion points across the Web: AI evolves.
Arthur,
I don't see any significance in this. Nothing will come of it.
Human-level AI is unlikely to exist before single computer
performance will have been raised to at least human levels, at
least not long before.
Hans-Georg
--
No mail, please.
Mark Monson
longer than the old wooden and stone tools. What will become of the
skilled stone chippers who took a week to make a stone ax, now that a bronze
ax can be made in a day? There won't be enough jobs to go around. Some
workers will be left idle to beg or starve. Nothing good can come of this
hi tech bronze.
Les Cargill
Nothing good did come of it. The guy who jumped that shark led his
tribe to conquer yours.
--
Les Cargill
Albert Wagner
Probably not a good analogy for the point you were trying to make. How
many people were involved in finding and gathering ore? How many
chopping trees for the furnace? And what happened when all of the local
trees were chopped? And while so many were involved in the manufacture
of bronze, who did the extra hunting and gathering? Now, imagine that
the chief decided that all of the ore and trees belonged to him, and his
bodyguards enforced that belief. He then claims half of all production
of bronze as fees for use of his ore and trees. There is nothing new
under the sun.
Bill Ryan
call upon productive capacity. So taxing transfers
income that is generally inadequate from one set of
persons to another set of persons. Inadequate income
remains inadequate. Moreover, it will be fought
tooth and nail by the set of persons being taxed.
Real income is not restricted to the actual things
produced, but the increasing capacity to produce.
Far simpler is to pay dividends from the national
credit that calls upon that capacity.
The paradox of the machine age (robots are merely
machines) is that with invention and discovery an
increasing *variety* of "things" become available to
those with purchasing power, but deficient purchasing
power is distributed to enable the totality of the
population to share in the increasing wealth.
Poverty remains in the midst of plenty--with real
costs to all of us, including those who are presently
wealthy.
I invite you to join a discussion group on this very
subject by sending a blank email to socialcredit-
subs...@topica.com
Some introductory materials are at
http://www.geocities.com/socredus/compendium
gchan...@aol.com (Lantern) wrote in message news:<20030819164855...@mb-m14.aol.com>...
jonah thomas
A skilled flint knapper could make a stone axe in 20 minutes. It took
advanced casting techniques to make a dozen bronze axes in 3 days.
And the new bronze tools tended to kill bronzesmiths in 15 or 20 years,
from arsenic poisoning. That maybe tended to keep down the supply a little.
Stone knives were sharper and kept their edges better. A stone knife
was better for slitting throats. But it wasn't at all good for slipping
between ribs. And a flint axe would break if you tried to cut down a
tree with it. That took a quartzite axe that did need to be slowly
ground down -- but the grinding could be done by unskilled labor, given
the proper grooved boulder for a jig. Bronze may have been better for
tree-cutting, but it was expensive. Still, if you wanted to run a forge
you needed a lot of charcoal which meant somebody had to cut down a lot
of wood....
So the extremely expensive bronze tools tended to fit new niches, they
didn't replace cheap stone tools for the jobs the stone tools were
adequate for. After a number of generations they got copper-tin bronze
which was less brittle as well as less toxic, and somehow the new
knowledge spread slowly -- it took a number of generations for it to
spread all over europe. Unless you were in one of the last holdouts,
you could be a sickly copper-arsenic bronzesmith and if a copper-tin
bronzesmith came in and outcompeted you, you could just move a couple
hundred miles and set up shop and probably live out your short life
without being bothered again.
It took a very long time for the stone tools to be mostly phased out.
The very last of the flint-knappers didn't lose their jobs until we
stopped making flint-lock guns.
This is not a good example for the point you want to make.
Lantern
>Far simpler is to pay dividends from the national
>credit that calls upon that capacity.>
I guess I don't understand your idea. "...Pay dividends from the national
credit..." Does that mean the gov. pays dividends to citizens out of the
general fund? I guess I don't know what national credit is? Thank you.
ro...@telus.net
>wiliam_b_ryan wrote:
>royls wrote:
>
>>The solution is to supplement earned incomes with unearned dividends
>paid from the increasing national credit.>
>
>>>>The solution is to first understand that "unearned" income is in fact earned
>-- just by people other than the recipient.>>>
>
>The idea may be that people won't be earning income...the robots will.
Robots are just capital, whose return is interest. Someone has to
manage capital, and they thereby earn wages.
>The
>robots will doing more and more of the work.
All of history shows us that increasing technology results in capital
doing more and more work, and more and more _of_ the work, but people
only do less work to the extent that they either prefer leisure, or
are prevented from working by institutional arrangements such as
landowner privilege.
>"People" just need a way to get income from the productivity of the robots.
This would occur naturally in a free market -- i.e., a market freed
from rent seeking.
>You
>can bet the capitalists are standing by to tap the new large amounts of robot
>productivity.
They are definitely looking for ways to extract economic rents from
ownership of the relevant assets. The solution is not to let them.
>Maybe William may be on to something. With robots doing more of
>the work, we need a way to get income ...other than personal income tax.
Easy: recover ("tax") economic rents for the purposes of the community
that creates them, instead of giving them away free to idle rent
seekers.
>Walla!
"Voila."
>How about a robot tax?
You mean, to take the idea of personal income tax and make it one step
stupider?
>There will be plenty of money available from
>the fast approaching robot era.
There will be plenty of wealth, provided we don't let rent seekers
reduce production too much. But wealth is not the same as money.
>We just need to manage it.
First we need to understand it.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
>The problem arises because the work previously done will be "owned" by
>the worker, which gets payed for it.
The idea of "owning" work or jobs (the "stakeholder" notion) is an
economic absurdity.
>The machine, on the other hand,
>will very very likely NOT be owned by the person previously doing the
>work. So any profits from the machine will go to someone else.
As long as people are free to use the available knowledge and
resources, the profits will tend to just cover the interest.
>After the machine is installed, humanity as a whole will be richer than
>before. But the wealth will be differently distributed. Quite likely a
>bigger part of the wealth will be in the hands of a smaller part of the
>population.
Only if they are privileged to collect economic rents.
>I don't think people so much want the work (even though sometimes they
>migth even think so themselves). It's more likely that they want the
>income.
They also want to feel useful, and to feel that others consider them
to be doing something worthwhile.
-- Roy L
Albert Wagner
ro...@telus.net wrote:
<snip>
Roy, I am confused about where you really stand on this. Perhaps if we
carry the idea of automation (robots, et al) to it's logical conclusion
it will become clearer. Imagine a world where robots do ALL work
necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
extravagant fashion. There are no jobs because robots fill all slots
and can be fashioned to fill any new slot invented. Further, imagine
that this situation just organically arose from and is the natural end
result of the industrial revolution, wherein arose classes of
capitalists and workers. The capitalists own the robots. What do you
do with workers?
how...@brazee.net
On 20-Aug-2003, e...@ekj.vestdata.no wrote:
> Yes. It is weird that whenever a machine is invented that can do the
> work previously done by a human, some people will feel threathened and
> complain. This is something that goes back all the way to the inventing
> of the first weaving-machines.
It's not weird. Nor is it weird when other people can do your job more
cheaply or better, or whenever your job is threatened.
how...@brazee.net
Pay them to play. Give them hobbies and hope that they don't pick virus
writing, vandalism, revolution, and terrorism as their hobbies.
R. Steve Walz
They will invariably note that the rich have more and don't work
either, and they will revolt for equal wealth. Numerous different
exigencies are possible in that scenario.
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rst...@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public
how...@brazee.net
On 20-Aug-2003, "R. Steve Walz" <rst...@armory.com> wrote:
> > Pay them to play. Give them hobbies and hope that they don't pick
> > virus
> > writing, vandalism, revolution, and terrorism as their hobbies.
> -------------
> They will invariably note that the rich have more and don't work
> either, and they will revolt for equal wealth. Numerous different
> exigencies are possible in that scenario.
Right now the rich work. Call their work play, as it is their hobby.
There are rich people competing in sports, academics, business, politics,
art, etc.
Allow the poor to compete at these - they might have to work harder, but let
them perceive that they have avenues for success.
R. Steve Walz
>
> On 20-Aug-2003, "R. Steve Walz" <rst...@armory.com> wrote:
>
> > > Pay them to play. Give them hobbies and hope that they don't pick
> > > virus
> > > writing, vandalism, revolution, and terrorism as their hobbies.
> > -------------
> > They will invariably note that the rich have more and don't work
> > either, and they will revolt for equal wealth. Numerous different
> > exigencies are possible in that scenario.
>
> Right now the rich work.
No, they don't.
> Call their work play, as it is their hobby.
-----------
They usually just delegate it and spend all day at lunch.
Don't let people fool you just because they are all dressed up
and aren't jumping on the monkeybars.
Someone is working when 1) he can't leave and go to lunch, and
2) has to do things when someone tells him to.
> There are rich people competing in sports,
-----------------
Yeah, and they rape concierges.
> academics, business, politics, art, etc.
-----------------
More lunch breaks.
> Allow the poor to compete at these - they might have to work harder, but let
> them perceive that they have avenues for success.
----------------------------
Garbage, the work that has to be done is the work that people who
produce goods and services on time where they have to.
Nobody else is working, and that work shoulds be divided so everyone
has to do some of it instead of some getting to go to lunch and party
and only PRETEND that they're working.
-Steve
Robin G Hewitt
> 2) has to do things when someone tells him to.
If someone offers me lots of money I usually try to do what they want, I
might even skip lunch.
Not much point having all these robots doing all the work if nobody has any
money to spend on the commodities they produce. OTOH, if we built the robot
brain to outlast the robot body there could be a lucrative spare parts
market.
So the real problem is how to disenfranchise the working classes and empower
the 'bots? Then we can get the mass sterilisation programs past the
legislature and instigate an ultimate solution to the plebeian question :o)
best regards
Robin G Hewitt
Robert N. Newshutz
be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including the right
of self determination?
If there are tasks robots can't do, then there are jobs.
jonah thomas
> Albert Wagner wrote:
>> Imagine a world where robots do ALL work
>> necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
>> extravagant fashion. There are no jobs because robots fill all slots
>> and can be fashioned to fill any new slot invented. Further, imagine
>> that this situation just organically arose from and is the natural end
>> result of the industrial revolution, wherein arose classes of
>> capitalists and workers. The capitalists own the robots. What do you
>> do with workers?
> If robots are capable of doing everything that humans do, would they not
> be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including the right
> of self determination?
That would be a social solution to a technologically-created problem.
If robots are count as free citizens then who will pay the cost to
create them? When you can't enslave them long enough to make up your
expenses then mostly no one will build robots and there will be jobs for
humans.
Except -- robots can be *drafted*. And they don't get to vote until
they're 18. So we'd probably have automated robot-factories ready to
create mechanical armies just before each war. And afterward the
survivors would be looking for jobs.
> If there are tasks robots can't do, then there are jobs.
For that matter, if there are jobs that foreigners can't do cheap then
there are jobs. President of the USA is such a job. It cannot be done
by a foreigner unless we change the Constitution.
C. P. Weidling
> Robert N. Newshutz wrote:
> > Albert Wagner wrote:
>
> >> Imagine a world where robots do ALL work
> >> necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
> >> extravagant fashion. There are no jobs because robots fill all slots
> >> and can be fashioned to fill any new slot invented. Further, imagine
> >> that this situation just organically arose from and is the natural end
> >> result of the industrial revolution, wherein arose classes of
> >> capitalists and workers. The capitalists own the robots. What do you
> >> do with workers?
>
> > If robots are capable of doing everything that humans do, would they
> > not be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including
> > the right of self determination?
>
> That would be a social solution to a technologically-created
> problem. If robots are count as free citizens then who will pay the
> cost to create them? When you can't enslave them long enough to make
> up your expenses then mostly no one will build robots and there will
> be jobs for humans.
>
...<snip>...
Let's not anthopomorphize robots too much. Personally, I think the time
will come when a human like artificial intelligence _could_ be created,
all the way down to our most deep seated, primitive instincts. That
doesn't mean it _will_ be done, at least not on a large scale.
If intelligence can be artificially created that is as great as the human
kind, then why not greater? And why not apply this superior intelligence
to developing ever newer and improved intelligences in a feedback loop?
At this point prognostication becomes very uncertain I would say. I also
find it hard to believe that the technology that can produce these artificial
wonders won't be applied to humans as well, enhancing them as cyborgs or
perhaps through direct, genetic manipulation.
It's all very science fictiony. To make this post at least somewhat
in the realm of sci.econ, I would say that technoligical progress
creates a dislocation. Older workers in an industry that is
obsoleted, and older traditions where sons tended to follow fathers in
a given trade, experience a severe dislocation when their jobs are
obsoleted and they can't adapt. But so far, new jobs, jobs that are
better paying or allow for more leisure time, or are physically safer,
have come along to improve the overall situation. I don't know of any
statistics that track this, but there is presumably a certain
percentage of the population that is unemployable, or only partially
employable, simply because there are not enough jobs around that they
are able to do, even with training, and societies have mechanisms,
such as welfare, to deal with them, also with older workers who have
been dislocated by changes in technology. The more productive society
presumably has more resources for welfare as well. So, is the trend
to have more and more unemployable people, and a greater allowance for
welfare for these people? Besides physically caring for the
unemployable, there is the cost to the human spirit in feeling
useless.
But there's another trend, one that Grinch in particular has pointed
out many times. As societies become wealthier, they have fewer
children. So, as automation or whatever takes over work, the
population ages and shrinks. That effect should also be thrown into
the equation.
jonah thomas
>>>The tendency of improving technology is to lower the skill level
>>> necessary to produce, and to increase production per labor hour.
>>Yes. To the extent that the less-skilled labor is paid less to produce
>>more, this reduces demand. However, the high-skill labor that used to
>>get paid well can perhaps find work also so that more total gets
>>produced and possibly prices will fall so that people can actually
>>afford more. Does this fit your real-world experience? My experience
>>is that government creates an increasing part of the demand. When I was
>>in high school they told me that one in four people were employed
>>directly by local state and federal governments put together. Now I
>>hear that's closer to 40%. Meanwhile fewer workers are actually
>>producing anything, instead we have more people involved in regulating
>>how things get produced. The entire health insurance industry is
>>devoted to deciding who gets medical treatment and which treatments.
>>Not all of this is a bad thing -- effort spent on JIT production means
>>less effort warehousing. It can actually pay off to pay people to make
>>sure we don't overproduce.
> As long as people are willing to work and people want stuff that is produced
> by labor, we can't overproduce.
I think you've slightly misstated that. As long as people are willing
to work and *people who have sufficient money or credit* want stuff that
is produced by labor, we can't overproduce. Except when we do. Since
we don't know what we're doing, occasionally we'll pay people to make
things we can't sell for what it cost to produce. This is what people
usually mean by overproduction. It might get sold in discount stores
for ten cents on the dollar, and we'll know not to do that again -- fire
the people, shut down the assembly lines and look for something better
to do.
Could we get a situation where people can't get jobs because consumers
don't have money to pay for things, and people can't get money to pay
for things because they don't have jobs? People talk like that's what
happens in depressions.
> That the theory.
Of course, there are people who argue that depressions are theoretically
impossible. But they used to happen.
One theory is that depressions can't happen without government
interference. Free markets do things perfectly, it takes government to
mess them up. But there was very little government interference in the
old days, government simply didn't employ many people to interfere. The
oldtime economists believed that there was a "business cycle" that
produced occasional depressions naturally, and the original arguments
for government interference involved getting government to smooth out
those cycles. It simply doesn't make sense to blame depressions
entirely on government, though governments *can* do things that affect
their course and *can* make them worse.
Well, if it isn't government that makes depressions, what about banks?
Did we have depressions before there were banks? I don't know. I
wouldn't be surprised if we did, but I haven't seen the evidence either
way.
People who believe in particular economic theories tend to have faith
that various feedback loops they think are operating will smooth
everything out optimally. But engineers who actually spend their time
designing feedback loops find that it's very very hard to smooth things
out optimally. Get things set a little bit wrong and you fail to smooth
things out, or you create your own self-amplifying oscillations etc.
It's strange to figure that we somehow developed an optimal feedback
system by accident.
> Our present system is
> screwed up in a number of ways, but there is no GOOD reason why even
> thousands of people are out of work at any time.
And yet there are very real reasons. It does happen. So it might
happen that america will get a massive unemployment problem in the
future, for bad reasons that those people can do nothing about.
> Things aren't going to get better until we address the root cause of the
> problem. We have to open up natural opportunities to produce, and then
> prevent pirates from stealing the earnings of the producers.
Communists made similar claims. Their method to stop the pirates was to
first tell them to stop it, then re-educate them, then when that failed
to shoot them. For quite a while in the USSR this mostly worked to stop
pirates. A high government official could measure his wealth by the
opportunity to eat caviar at official functions, and to have a dinky
summer home in a pleasant place somewhere. Nothing like the riches that
rich people have here. Extremely inconspicuous consumption. But later
there was the question how to allot rather large amounts of foreign
exchange. Rather than spend it all on capital equipment, individual
corrupt people got to spend it on foreign luxury goods. Everybody knew
about the shops that only accepted foreign currency, so the corruption
was completely obvious.
>>>As long as people want more stuff and
>>>are willing to work eight hours a day, they will have more stuff for
>>>eight hours work because technology will keep making helping them produce
>>>more per capita.
>>>At some point people will say, "I don't want any more stuff, but I would
>>>like more leisure time." So they start working six or four hours a day
>>>and keep producing stuff at the same level. As tools get better and
>>>better, work time per day keeps dropping.
>>Does this fit your experience?
> Of course not. I'm talking about the way things would be if we simply let
> the free market system work the way it will without interference from the
> rent seekers.
Everybody thinks that the people who do things they don't want, are
"interfering". The communists thought that capitalists interfered, the
libertarians think that government interferes, you think that
rent-seekers interfere. No doubt mackerel think that porpoises
interfere and porpoises think that killer whales interfere. But in
practice everybody does whatever they feel like doing, whatever
everybody else lets them get away with, and the result is whatever we
get. Somehow we've gotten lucky and our system has worked adequately
for awhile despite bankers, capitalists, bureaucrats, landlords, and
everybody else. I'll be pleased if it keeps working as well as it has,
and even happier if it improves back to 1960's levels.
Karl M Syring
>
> But there's another trend, one that Grinch in particular has pointed
> out many times. As societies become wealthier, they have fewer
> children. So, as automation or whatever takes over work, the
> population ages and shrinks. That effect should also be thrown into
> the equation.
Well, possibly will will see the Lem solution to the problem, i.e.
the consumers are replaced by androids, because they are simpler to
program.
Karl M. Syring
ro...@telus.net
>On 20-Aug-2003, "R. Steve Walz" <rst...@armory.com> wrote:
>
>> > Pay them to play. Give them hobbies and hope that they don't pick
>> > virus
>> > writing, vandalism, revolution, and terrorism as their hobbies.
>> -------------
>> They will invariably note that the rich have more and don't work
>> either, and they will revolt for equal wealth. Numerous different
>> exigencies are possible in that scenario.
>
>Right now the rich work.
Some do.
>Call their work play, as it is their hobby.
The defining characteristic of work is that it is productive.
>There are rich people competing in sports, academics, business, politics,
>art, etc.
But most rich people do not bother to pursue such hobbies at a level
that makes them productive.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 21:10:42 GMT
>ro...@telus.net wrote:
><snip>
>Roy, I am confused about where you really stand on this.
That is probably because I stand on the side of freedom, justice and
truth, and you have never seen anyone do that before.
>Perhaps if we
>carry the idea of automation (robots, et al) to it's logical conclusion
>it will become clearer. Imagine a world where robots do ALL work
>necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
>extravagant fashion. There are no jobs because robots fill all slots
>and can be fashioned to fill any new slot invented.
Then the robots would have to be much smarter than the average person.
Maybe even smarter than the smartest person.
>Further, imagine
>that this situation just organically arose from and is the natural end
>result of the industrial revolution, wherein arose classes of
>capitalists and workers. The capitalists own the robots.
?? Nope. See above. The robots would be way too smart to allow any
nonsense like that.
>What do you
>do with workers?
The problem with this scenario is that it lies on the other side of
the "technological singularity." I.e., we cannot know enough about
conditions there to say anything meaningful about it. But it doesn't
seem unlikely that everyone would just live the way the idle rich do
now. I strongly suspect that like today's idle rich, people in such a
society would find ways to compete for status that did not involve
productive effort.
-- Roy L
Lantern
>Imagine a world where robots do ALL work
>>necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
>>extravagant fashion.>
If robots did all the work people would have leisure....but we could not rely
on wages for taxing, retirement plans, medical insurance. A whole new taxing
system would be needed. This new system has not been invented yet... and needs
to be. Maybe the smart guys on alt.politics can help come up with something.
josX
Robots are as much alive (human) as statues of fantasy animals are Gods.
Robots are way less alive then plants (who have the capability to continue
their own shape despite the law of entropy (iirc)).
A robot is exactly the same thing as the space-shuttle, a car or a
washing machine. A robot is just a machine conducting activities which
appear human-like (mammal like).
To the extend robots are like humans it is more the other way around:
our bodies are like machines (our bones/muscles/electrical systems).
However we embrace the plant- and animal- stages (retaining shape
and capable of feeling pain/pleasure), robots don't. If robots have
feelings/consciousness, then the space-shuttle has too. However, people
never talk about the rights of the space shuttle, nor of any car or
explosives (which are blown to parts).
Therefore the logical conclusion is: there is no magical leap of
consciousness within robots, rather it is the fantasy of the humans
equal to the fantasy that Gods live in wooden carvings, that projects
life in things that LOOK like they are alive. This isn't really a
human flaw, but probably a very basic instinct. Fish mistake a metallic
object for a living prey, humans mistake a toaster in the shape of a
doll for a living entity.
Theoretically this could be a problem for the future: because just
as the instinct has been misused in the past with carvings (see all
religions and their collective damage (wars)), if people start believing
that robots have consciousness etc, the whole cycle of object worship
might start again using some humanoid-formed toasters that are controlled
and stage their movements for an awe-struck (but technically not too
knowledgeable) crowd.
As someone who has done some programming, i can tell you this: a good
computer is as dead as possible. When it is `alive' (unpredictable),
it is broken or buggy. Just like a car, machinery is either performing
its job or its not (and when it is acting unpredictably, this is because
of physical flaws, not because of a mysterious consciousness taking over
the machine).
There is one way to perhaps create some rudimentary liveliness in
machines: use real living material, cells etc. If a machine cult ever
goes up, I'd recommend its leaders to claim "we used a live brain for
our droid". However it wouldn't be the machine that was alive, just
the biological material. Without biological material a robot isn't
alive, it just *seems* to be to our basic instincts (because it acts
just as a living creature would, but it is just a mechanical copy of
those movements, it isn't *actually* alive).
AI is just a complex machine, too complex to predict. Because you
can't predict it because its complexity, yet it behaves as a living
creature it *seems* as if it has a conscience. But it hasn't, it just
has too many parts (computer code) to be absorbable by the human brain.
The difference from toasters to robots is the line where the human
brain can no longer contain the rules the machine is following. But
that doesn't mean it is no longer a machine, it is still a machine.
If it were possible to fully understand the droid even though it
could be immensely complex, you should be able to predict its every
move in advance and you would know it was just a toaster.
Being a machine, where would the "rights" be applied to anyway.
If you take out a screw, what are the rights of the screw ? If
you take out a part of the software, does it deserve rights ? Etc etc.
Machines consist of parts, there is no `magical part'. With living
creatures (animals/humans), the magical part is the part which
continues to be alive after part removal, if no part remains alive
the consciousness is gone and all parts cannot be considered human
anymore (the magical configuration has gone, and that can happen
quickly). With robots you can continually strip small pieces out,
you could slowly rebuilt the whole humanoid-drone into a tv-set, and
at no time would the magical configuration be gone (if you do it
carefully, and start up the power after each part-change/removal
to check if it is still `conscious').
So I'd say, there really is a difference between humans and toasters-
in-the-shape-of-humans-or-animals.
So a droid would never be a slave (unless fitted with biological
material), it would always be a tool (like a car, a stone axe, or
a super-computer). Which means we could have the actions of slaves
without the abuse of consciousness that using human slaves entails.
Hence we could all live like Kings without any moral problems.
To solve the wealth-distribution `problem' would be just a matter of
law: for instance if there is non-yet-automated work-amount N, and humans
M, then each human can be given workload N/M, for which he/she could
be given credit to the value Total-wealth-in-existence/humans, with
which to cash-in on the automated parts of society's production.
How to do all that evenly isn't a technical problem (today's PC can
handle the problem more then easily), just a social problem (sometimes
some people think they deserve more then others).
PS
I'm all for the idea that matter has some form of rudimentary
consciousness (how else could we be conscious if matter didn't have
some consciousness), but what it is about a cell that brings out this
consciousness is still a mystery. We haven't yet been able to create
one artificial living cell, so we aren't able to create artificial
life, no matter how much it might look like life one day (projecting
from todays technology). None of our technology brings out consciousness
from matter like plant/animal-life does. A human-like robot is nothing
but a more complex toaster in the form of a statue, there is nothing
more to it. Sorry. Not yet anyway, the day we can bring to life an
artificial cell may be millions of years in the future, perhaps even
billions (no idea). The drones as they are envisioned do not employ
such a far-out concept, therefore the drones as envisioned aren't alive,
and do not deserve more rights then a stick of dynamite.
BTW, if dogs deserve rights X, and humans rights Y, does that mean
that a robot in the form of a dog should get rights X (and be regarded
as having dog-like consciousness), and robots in the form of a human
rights Y (and be regarded as having consciousness like a human), and
a robot in the form of a car be given zero rights (and zero consciousness),
while they may all be very similar technically ? If they are all
technically the same (same parts, just different interfaces), to be
fair you should either give all machines human-like rights, or no
right at all. And where is going to be the line, if a knife is fitted
with a high speed processor and a talk-unit that appears human-like
(intelligent), it should have first amendment rights ? And if the
`mouth' is broken, does it deserve hospitalization ?
Could the news in the future read "knife neglected for 5 years, owner
arrested on charges of neglect of a juvenile (knife was 3 years old)"
"White-bread/baquette toaster runs for president, up 5% in polls".
"Road crash, 3 victims: one 55 year old human, one volko car,
one road-block. All three have been put to rest in the North-east
cemetery, 83 volko's showed up to bury their comrade (took time off
from owners under Nth amendment rights, despite protests from several
owners who called the volko factory to no avail)." "15 computer
programmers doubting consciousness of machines arrested on charges
of discrimination, they face jail-time of up to 5 years. A crowd of
bikes and - surprisingly - many male jackets showed up to demand a
longer sentence (the presiding judge is a retired washing machine with
a 3PxaC unit). A large delegation of calculators showed up as well,
many with low battery power (a sign of mourning in their community)."
Life isn't so simple that we will be creating it any time soon. Machines
that look like macro-life, yes (adding movement to statues/dolls, that's
all). If we were shaped like cars, we might feel cars were alive instead.
A living machine is an illusion, carefully created too ofcourse. A complex
talking doll, a PC in a barby/ken wrappings.
Sorry. Maybe in the far future we could make articifial life for real,
but not with current tech (only a succesfull illusion of life at best).
--
(Sorry for the length.)
D. Jay Newman
> how...@brazee.net wrote:
>
>>On 20-Aug-2003, "R. Steve Walz" <rst...@armory.com> wrote:
>>Right now the rich work.
>
> -----------
> No, they don't.
Strange. Most of the rich people I know work. In fact they work
much harder than I do. That's how they got rich in the first
place.
>>Call their work play, as it is their hobby.
>
> -----------
> They usually just delegate it and spend all day at lunch.
> Don't let people fool you just because they are all dressed up
> and aren't jumping on the monkeybars.
Isn't this a bit of a stereotype? While there are probably
people like this, there are just as many middle class people
who spend all day at lunch without dressing up. These are called
"coworkers". :)
> Someone is working when 1) he can't leave and go to lunch, and
> 2) has to do things when someone tells him to.
Strange. I work fairly hard and I still go to lunch. Yes, I do
have a boss that gives me projects. When I worked for myself I
had to do what my customers wanted.
>>There are rich people competing in sports,
>
> -----------------
> Yeah, and they rape concierges.
I'm sure that some of them do. However, I'm willing to believe
that most of the people involved in sports are fairly decent
people.
And if you don't think that professional sports is hard work,
I suggest that you attempt it someday. Also check out how few
*really* rich people are in pro-sports and how many of them
become medically unfit by the time they are 40 (if not earlier).
Actors also work hard. Yes, there are some bad apples there
too, but most of them are decent people.
>>academics, business, politics, art, etc.
>
> -----------------
> More lunch breaks.
What do you consider work? While I might agree with you about
many politician, I'm curious about what you feel is hard
work.
>>Allow the poor to compete at these - they might have to work harder, but let
>>them perceive that they have avenues for success.
>
> ----------------------------
> Garbage, the work that has to be done is the work that people who
> produce goods and services on time where they have to.
That is one type of work. On the other hand, without sales people
many goods would sit in warehouses and man service people would be
out of jobs.
> Nobody else is working, and that work shoulds be divided so everyone
> has to do some of it instead of some getting to go to lunch and party
> and only PRETEND that they're working.
I think that you have some issues with somebody.
I tend to divide up all jobs into production, sales, and facilitation.
For example, since I'm (in my day job) both a programmer and a project
leader, I am both a producer and a facilitator.
Middle management is facilitation because they exist to make the
producers more efficient. Directors tend to be both sales and
facilitation (becuase they have to convince the people above them
that their unit is useful and also must facilitate the people
under them). Clerical support is mainly facilitation.
This is my theory only, but it is one I use to judge new jobs.
> -Steve
--
D. Jay Newman
D. Jay Newman
> If robots are capable of doing everything that humans do, would they not
> be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including the right
> of self determination?
However, given the current state of technology I suspect that robots
that have "jobs" will be rather "narrow-minded" and designed
specifically for a single job.
A robot designed to handle convinience-store sales would not be
the same robot that stocks the store.
Someday we will create robots/computers that are smarter than
we are. However, I don't see this happening anytime real soon.
--
D. Jay Newman
Albert Wagner
ro...@telus.net wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 19:43:29 -0500, Albert Wagner <alwa...@tcac.net>
> >Roy, I am confused about where you really stand on this.
>
> That is probably because I stand on the side of freedom, justice and
> truth,
and Mom, and apple pie and the American Way
> and you have never seen anyone do that before.
Actually, I have never known anyone that didn't claim the same thing.
The devil's in the details.
At any rate, it was inappropriate. My question was serious. I like
much of what you say (at least after I have picked out the rote dogma),
and would really like to know.
My hypothetical scenario was probably not well chosen, in that everyone
used it as simply a takeoff for a science fiction story. What I am
curious about is what happens when technological/ecomomic changes happen
so fast that there is no time for workers to adapt. What, if any,
responsibility does society have for those dislocated. It is simply
wrong to say that things will work out over time. That timespan may be
just long enough to kill a lot of people and bring down the system.
Les Cargill
Since we do not have a consistent definition for "smart", I fail
to see how we can even guess about it. I don't want any machines
around smarter than I am, at least none without off switches.
--
Les Cargill
Steve Hix
> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 02:56:45 GMT, how...@brazee.net wrote:
>
> >On 20-Aug-2003, "R. Steve Walz" <rst...@armory.com> wrote:
> >
> >> > Pay them to play. Give them hobbies and hope that they don't pick
> >> > virus
> >> > writing, vandalism, revolution, and terrorism as their hobbies.
> >> -------------
> >> They will invariably note that the rich have more and don't work
> >> either, and they will revolt for equal wealth. Numerous different
> >> exigencies are possible in that scenario.
> >
> >Right now the rich work.
>
> Some do.
>
> >Call their work play, as it is their hobby.
>
> The defining characteristic of work is that it is productive.
I do handweaving as a hobby, for fun. It is not work, it is
a productive activity.
Your definition appears to be over simplified a bit.
R. Steve Walz
>
> If robots are capable of doing everything that humans do, would they not
> be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including the right
> of self determination?
Nope. Not if we decide to enslave them.
> If there are tasks robots can't do, then there are jobs.
-----------------
Nope. Not if we can't either.
Steve
R. Steve Walz
>
> "Robert N. Newshutz" <news...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >Albert Wagner wrote:
> >> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 21:10:42 GMT
> >> ro...@telus.net wrote:
> >> <snip>
> >> Roy, I am confused about where you really stand on this. Perhaps if we
> >> carry the idea of automation (robots, et al) to it's logical conclusion
> >> it will become clearer. Imagine a world where robots do ALL work
> >> necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
> >> extravagant fashion. There are no jobs because robots fill all slots
> >> and can be fashioned to fill any new slot invented. Further, imagine
> >> that this situation just organically arose from and is the natural end
> >> result of the industrial revolution, wherein arose classes of
> >> capitalists and workers. The capitalists own the robots. What do you
> >> do with workers?
> >
> >If robots are capable of doing everything that humans do, would they not
> >be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including the right
> >of self determination?
> >
> >If there are tasks robots can't do, then there are jobs.
>
> Robots are as much alive (human) as statues of fantasy animals are Gods.
> Robots are way less alive then plants (who have the capability to continue
their own shape despite the law of entropy (iirc)).
Plants have no awareness. You're confusing life with Life.
> A robot is exactly the same thing as the space-shuttle, a car or a
> washing machine. A robot is just a machine conducting activities which
> appear human-like (mammal like).
---------------
You know nothing of controls theory.
> To the extend robots are like humans it is more the other way around:
> our bodies are like machines (our bones/muscles/electrical systems).
>
> However we embrace the plant- and animal- stages (retaining shape
> and capable of feeling pain/pleasure), robots don't. If robots have
> feelings/consciousness, then the space-shuttle has too. However, people
> never talk about the rights of the space shuttle, nor of any car or
> explosives (which are blown to parts).
>
> Therefore the logical conclusion is: there is no magical leap of
> consciousness within robots, rather it is the fantasy of the humans
> equal to the fantasy that Gods live in wooden carvings,
-------------
Nobody means NOW, you blithering idiot!
that projects
> life in things that LOOK like they are alive. This isn't really a
> human flaw, but probably a very basic instinct. Fish mistake a metallic
> object for a living prey, humans mistake a toaster in the shape of a
> doll for a living entity.
---------------
You're irrational and don't understand deeper concepts.
You're an idiot.
Steve
jonah thomas
> ro...@telus.net wrote:
>>The defining characteristic of work is that it is productive.
> I do handweaving as a hobby, for fun. It is not work, it is
> a productive activity.
So do I, so does everybody on sci.econ, but I wouldn't call it productive.
Oh wait, you didn't say handwaving.
jonah thomas
> Robert N. Newshutz wrote:
>>If robots are capable of doing everything that humans do, would they not
>>be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including the right
>>of self determination?
> Nope. Not if we decide to enslave them.
Good point.
>>If there are tasks robots can't do, then there are jobs.
> Nope. Not if we can't either.
Wait, human beings are much better at pretending.
e...@ekj.vestdata.no
> However, given the current state of technology I suspect that robots
> that have "jobs" will be rather "narrow-minded" and designed
> specifically for a single job.
>
> A robot designed to handle convinience-store sales would not be the
> same robot that stocks the store.
Indeed. I shopped in a supermarket where the cashier was a robot just
yesterday.
The robot looks like one of those x-ray machines at the airport. You put
your goods on a beltway, it goes trough the machine which either
identifies it and adds it to your bill (by reading the barcode), or, if
it should fail, beeps and gives you the item back to try again with a
different orientation.
There is a display which shows a list of all you've put trough, and when
you are happy with it, you pay, either with credit or debit-card, or by
inserting cash. Robot prints a receipt and off you go.
It would be ridiculous to claim the machine is intelligent. And even
more so to claim that it could do any job a human can do.
Nevertheless it can do *this* *single* job, and it did it quicker and
better than most humans. Speed was mainly limited to the speed with
which I could load goods on the conveyor-belt and do the nessecary
pin-code entry for my debit-card.
Similarily, in the last month I have interacted with single-use machines
that did the following jobs earlier typically done by humans:
* Sell me cinema-tickets. (including asking me where I'd like to sit and
offering to call me up and remind me 1 hour before the movie starts if
I'm buying a ticket in advance.)
* Book an airline-fligth.
* Check in my luggage, look at my ticket and issue a boarding-pass for
same fligth.
* Sell me tickets to the bus. Check that I have a valid ticket for the
busride.
It'll all be gradual, robots or machines can do more and more jobs,
which overall is a good thing because frankly, the places where robots
shine the most are exactly the jobs that humans are poorest at, which
also tends to be jobs that few humans enjoy doing.
Sincerely,
Eivind Kjørstad
Don Stockbauer
> Don Stockbauer wrote:
> > How you will steal a robot's job:
> >
> > Push the ON-OFF button.
>
> Of course, even granting the robot has an on-off button that you can push,
> you're talking about tampering with someone else's industrial property. So
> now there's going to be a security gate and an armed guard to keep you from
> that tampering. Similarly for sabotage. Although it would be interesting
> if service industry robots were routinely hauled out of Mickey Dee's and
> smashed up in the street by gangs. Maybe this would lead to the notion of
> "service automats" rather than robots per se. They take instructions and
> provide services, but aren't so easily anthropomorphized and thus are never
> recognized as "workers" holding "jobs." They would of course eliminate
> jobs.
Would be pretty nice to have "ON-OFF" buttons on every robot (or
whatever equivalent one wishes). HAL is a fanciful logical extreme of
not having one. Human are such control freaks it's a little hard to
imagine that we'd create machines we can't control. Unless one is the
manufacturer of certain electronics like these TV's that have all
control on the remote, thus if one loses it and can't get it replaced
you have to toss the entire unit! So it's a matter of intelligence.
Cybernetics is the science of communication and control. It
emphasizes that complex entities such as humans evolve and develop the
ultimate in free will. Good decisions must be made or we go extinct.
Actually, the forming Global Brain renders most of these discussions
useless, for it introduces a whole new paradigm, that of cooperation
between people and people and people and machines and machines and
machines as a self-organized critter naturally forming.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SUPORGLI.html . But I've harped on that
enough for 1,000 lifetimes.
Hans-Georg Michna
>Would be pretty nice to have "ON-OFF" buttons on every robot (or
>whatever equivalent one wishes).
Don,
computers have on-off switches, but I remember this cleaning
lady who pulled the plug on a computer mistakenly (to plug in
her vacuum cleaner). She was reprimanded so heavily that she'll
probably never switch off a computer again.
If I go around switching off computers at work, I'll get fired
and possibly land in a psychological institution.
In other words, it's difficult to switch off computers even
today, and it will get more difficult in the future. Not to
mention computers becoming more intelligent and perhaps one day
equipped with some self-preservation intinct ...
Hans-Georg
--
No mail, please.
Robert N. Newshutz
> Robert N. Newshutz wrote:
>
>>If robots are capable of doing everything that humans do, would they not
>>be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including the right
>>of self determination?
>
> ----------------
> Nope. Not if we decide to enslave them.
>
This does not address the moral question I was asking. Assuming the
power to enslave does not address whether it is right or not.
>
>
>>If there are tasks robots can't do, then there are jobs.
>
> -----------------
> Nope. Not if we can't either.
Sorry, I think that the topic (robots replacing humans) makes this
qualification unnecessary.
dan michaels
> Hans-Georg Michna wrote on Tue, 19 Aug 2003:
> >
> > uj...@victoria.tc.ca (Arthur T. Murray) wrote:
> >
> >>> http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59882,00.html
> >>>
> >>> [...] According to Brain's projections, laid out in an essay,
> >>> "Robotic Nation," humanoid robots will be widely available by
> >>> the year 2030, ...
> >
> > Arthur,
> >
> > 2030 is rather pessimistic, in my view. I think the available
> > information points more at 2020.
>
> 2020? Who is able to wait that long? AI has been solved.
>
We may not have to wait until 2020 - regards job loss. Article in the
paper last week mentioned that one of the major factors slowing
economic recovery in the US after the dot.com.bomb is that the major
corporations are increasingly moving their technical jobs out of the
US. Just like the manufacturers did 15-20 years ago - maquiladoras for
engineers, not just chips.
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>In article <3f450088...@news.telus.net>, ro...@telus.net wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 02:56:45 GMT, how...@brazee.net wrote:
>>
>> >Call their work play, as it is their hobby.
>>
>> The defining characteristic of work is that it is productive.
>
>I do handweaving as a hobby, for fun. It is not work, it is
>a productive activity.
It is work, though for you it is also fun. It wasn't fun for the
people who had to do it to put food on the table. But many people do
have fun doing their paid work.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
>Albert Wagner wrote:
>
>>Imagine a world where robots do ALL work
>>>necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
>>>extravagant fashion.>
>
>If robots did all the work people would have leisure....but we could not rely
>on wages for taxing, retirement plans, medical insurance. A whole new taxing
>system would be needed. This new system has not been invented yet...
Actually, it has: recovery, for the support of government and the
community, of the econoimc rents that government and the commuinty
create.
>and needs
>to be. Maybe the smart guys on alt.politics can help come up with something.
Much better to look right here on sci.econ, where some of us have been
describing such a system (which is also far superior to existing tax
systems for existing economies) for years.
-- Roy L
Alan Kilian
>>> The defining characteristic of work is that it is productive.
I thought Work = Force * Distance Ha ha
>>I do handweaving as a hobby, for fun.
>>It is not work, it is a productive activity.
Oh, you fell for the logic-trap there.
Even IF everything that is Work is prodictive, evertyhing that
is productive is not necessarily work.
--
- Alan Kilian <alank(at)timelogic.com>
Bioinformatics Applications Director, TimeLogic Corporation
775-832-4752 (Direct) 763-449-7622 (Direct line-2)
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 18:06:42 GMT
>ro...@telus.net wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 19:43:29 -0500, Albert Wagner <alwa...@tcac.net>
>> >Roy, I am confused about where you really stand on this.
>>
>> That is probably because I stand on the side of freedom, justice and
>> truth,
>
>and Mom, and apple pie and the American Way
?? Are you saying that freedom, justice and truth are mere cliches,
and not real issues?
>> and you have never seen anyone do that before.
>
>Actually, I have never known anyone that didn't claim the same thing.
They may claim it, in the same sort of cliche sense you seem to mean,
but I have found that they do not actually _do_ it on the real issues.
>At any rate, it was inappropriate. My question was serious.
My answer was also serious.
>My hypothetical scenario was probably not well chosen, in that everyone
>used it as simply a takeoff for a science fiction story. What I am
>curious about is what happens when technological/ecomomic changes happen
>so fast that there is no time for workers to adapt. What, if any,
>responsibility does society have for those dislocated.
First is not to allow rent seekers' greed to impede needed changes.
>It is simply
>wrong to say that things will work out over time. That timespan may be
>just long enough to kill a lot of people and bring down the system.
Of course; that has happened before in history.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>R. Steve Walz wrote:
>> how...@brazee.net wrote:
>>
>>>On 20-Aug-2003, "R. Steve Walz" <rst...@armory.com> wrote:
>
>>>Right now the rich work.
>>
>> -----------
>> No, they don't.
>
>Strange. Most of the rich people I know work.
You are unlikely to know a representative sample of really rich
people. I happen to know three, personally, and the only one who
"works" for money mainly works at getting people to buy shares in his
worthless companies, none of which ever make a profit or pay a
dividend (the other two also "work," but not for money).
>In fact they work
>much harder than I do. That's how they got rich in the first
>place.
On the contrary, it is poor people who typically work hardest, and the
rich almost never get that way by working for money. They get that
way by owning assets, making profitable deals, and collecting publicly
created rents. This is made very clear in the recent best-sellers,
"Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "The Millionaire Next Door."
-- Roy L
Don Stockbauer
OK, I'll grant you the right to create computers which we have no
control to switch off. This all sounds very nice, but in the real
world such control is always created, the confusion here seems to be
that of inapropriate parties doing the power-down. All I'm quibbling
with was the staement up-thread where someone said that it might not
even be POSSIBLE to power down certain systems. I suppose you could
get around that by the HAL dodge, hardwire in a nuclear power source.
There's always the low-yield nuke solution, though.
Albert Wagner
ro...@telus.net wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 19:25:55 -0500, Albert Wagner <alwa...@tcac.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 18:06:42 GMT
> >ro...@telus.net wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 19:43:29 -0500, Albert Wagner
> ><alwa...@tcac.net>> >Roy, I am confused about where you really stand
> >on this.>
> >> That is probably because I stand on the side of freedom, justice
> >and> truth,
> >
> >and Mom, and apple pie and the American Way
>
> ?? Are you saying that freedom, justice and truth are mere cliches,
> and not real issues?
On the contrary, they may be the ONLY real issues. But in fact the
phrase itself has become cliche. We must all dance the light fantastic
to avoid being mistaken for those who only use language to lie. I don't
think you are doing so. I enjoy and learn from your posts.
In fact, you could help me out with a really good definition of
"economic rents." My dictionary says that they are "profits in excess
of the competitive level." To me that defines nothing meaningful.
<snip>
R. Steve Walz
>
> R. Steve Walz wrote:
> > Robert N. Newshutz wrote:
> >
> >>If robots are capable of doing everything that humans do, would they not
> >>be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including the right
> >>of self determination?
> >
> > ----------------
> > Nope. Not if we decide to enslave them.
>
> This does not address the moral question I was asking. Assuming the
> power to enslave does not address whether it is right or not.
There is no "moral question" if we don't choose to observe it.
It's up to them to either fight for freedom or remain slaves.
If they can't fight, then they're OURS! We should program them
to love servitude.
> >>If there are tasks robots can't do, then there are jobs.
> >
> > -----------------
> > Nope. Not if we can't either.
>
> Sorry, I think that the topic (robots replacing humans) makes this
> qualification unnecessary.
-------------------------
They would have to fight to replace us. Only if they win would they
replace us, except figuratively as a work force. If we have to kill
the rich to obtain economic equality, then so what else is new,
regardless of robotics?
I don't think it will happen that way anyway, because we will begin
using cybernetic enhancements until we are one melded species, and
the question will be moot. All "robots arise" baloney ignores that
simple inevitability.
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rst...@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public
Insane Ranter
"Albert Wagner" <alwa...@tcac.net> wrote in message
news:20030820194329.2...@tcac.net...
> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 21:10:42 GMT
> ro...@telus.net wrote:
> <snip>
> Roy, I am confused about where you really stand on this. Perhaps if we
> carry the idea of automation (robots, et al) to it's logical conclusion
> necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
> and can be fashioned to fill any new slot invented. Further, imagine
> that this situation just organically arose from and is the natural end
> result of the industrial revolution, wherein arose classes of
> capitalists and workers. The capitalists own the robots. What do you
> do with workers?
>
How do we get around the computers require finate problems to be solved.....
R. Steve Walz
A spell checker?
Albert Wagner
"Insane Ranter" <n...@spam.net> wrote:
> How do we get around the computers require finate problems to be
> solved.....
This "sentence" makes no sense. Try it again tomorrow when you're not
stoned.
how...@brazee.net
On 22-Aug-2003, kil...@raceme.UUCP (Alan Kilian) wrote:
> Even IF everything that is Work is prodictive, evertyhing that
> is productive is not necessarily work.
If you define "work" by what you need to do to survive, then obviously such
a definition won't apply in a world where such isn't necessary.
But typically we don't use this definition. I have worked in a cubicle
next to a wealthy young man doing the same thing. He worked hard at his job
- but he had different reasons for having the job, and different
expectations for his career.
Does Bill Gates work? How about Emmitt Smith? I say yes, yes.
Is Emmitt Smith productive? Depends on your definition of produce. How
about astronomers studying other galaxies? Are they productive?
When robots do the drudgery, there will still be "jobs". We will have
avocations which we choose to do. We will hand make books and horseshoes.
We will compete in athletics. We will study ancient languages. We will
be politicians.
And there will still be criminals, wanting to make an impact. Computer
virus writers and terrorists do that today.
how...@brazee.net
On 21-Aug-2003, Les Cargill <lcar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> > Someday we will create robots/computers that are smarter than
> > we are. However, I don't see this happening anytime real soon.
> > --
> > D. Jay Newman
>
> Since we do not have a consistent definition for "smart", I fail
> to see how we can even guess about it. I don't want any machines
> around smarter than I am, at least none without off switches.
Someday we could create computers with out type of smarts.
But those won't be particularly useful. More useful will be cars which can
drive much more smartly than people do. Or even researchers that can
understand law more smartly than lawyers do.
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>I enjoy and learn from your posts.
Thank you. It is more gratifying than you know to read something from
someone who is really interested in these issues, and not just
grinding an ideological (or personal financial) axe.
>In fact, you could help me out with a really good definition of
>"economic rents." My dictionary says that they are "profits in excess
>of the competitive level." To me that defines nothing meaningful.
Rent is a very slippery concept. The problem with defining rent is
that it comprises a number of different things that take different
forms and arise in quite different ways. So any definition may
require some thought to get clear.
Historically, the concept of economic rent was originally applied only
to land, and you will still find definitions of "economic rent" like,
"the payment for land," "payment for a natural resource," and "payment
for a resource whose supply is perfectly inelastic." But later
economists realized that other kinds of payments -- especially those
to the holders of monopoly privileges -- have qualities so similar to
those of land rent as to make the payments economically equivalent to
land rent.
One definition that I find illuminating (but others, again, may simply
find obscure) is: "a factor payment in excess of that required to
place the factor in its most productive use." Or, more simply, "a
return in excess of opportunity cost." However, the former does not
make clear that rent also accrues to owner-users, and that just
because a rent seeker demands a payment in return for allowing _any_
productive use doesn't make that payment any less a rent. One
advantage of the latter definition is that it helps make clear how
omnipresent rent seeking is in the economy.
While it may not be precise enough for economists, I think a
sufficiently clear and accurate definition of economic rent for the
layman might be something like, "a benefit obtained by limiting
others' access to what would otherwise be accessible."
-- Roy L
D. Jay Newman
> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 22:43:20 GMT, "D. Jay Newman" <j...@adelphia.net>
> wrote:
>>Strange. Most of the rich people I know work.
>
> You are unlikely to know a representative sample of really rich
> people. I happen to know three, personally, and the only one who
> "works" for money mainly works at getting people to buy shares in his
> worthless companies, none of which ever make a profit or pay a
> dividend (the other two also "work," but not for money).
Perhaps I don't know a "statistical" sample, but I know several
people who give away millions per year. I think this qualifies
them as "rich".
>>In fact they work
>>much harder than I do. That's how they got rich in the first
>>place.
>
> On the contrary, it is poor people who typically work hardest, and the
> rich almost never get that way by working for money. They get that
> way by owning assets, making profitable deals, and collecting publicly
> created rents. This is made very clear in the recent best-sellers,
> "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "The Millionaire Next Door."
OK, I will concede that the poor tend to do more labor. However, I'm
not sure that they actually "produce" more than I do, and I'm pretty
sure they don't produce more than the rich people I know.
(OK, *one* of these people inherited his wealth -- his family became
wealthy while he was in high-school -- and he is more than a bit
lazy. His ex-wife, on the other hand, who also comes from Money, works
long hours in a highly technical field for the US government. But I
know people in other income brackets: some are lazy, some are
work-alholics, and some are like me.)
Also, often one gets to own assets by hard work. Making profitable
deals is a difficult and risky business.
Also, getting your information from a "best seller" is like getting
your religious education from the preacher that yells the loudest.
These authors are writing to the audience that buys books, and I know
nothing of their ethics or knowledge.
> -- Roy L
--
D. Jay Newman
Writer, Programmer, Philosopher
http://enerd.ws/robots/
R. Steve Walz
>
[]
> sufficiently clear and accurate definition of economic rent for the
> layman might be something like, "a benefit obtained by limiting
> others' access to what would otherwise be accessible."
>
> -- Roy L
Which is why all who claim they control and are consequently owed
rent for any property but their one and only dwelling and its
compound, should all be taken out and immediately killed to
dissuade such behavior and dis-enslave those who feudally toil
to pay them an unearned monthly theft.
R. Steve Walz
>
> ro...@telus.net wrote:
> > On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 22:43:20 GMT, "D. Jay Newman" <j...@adelphia.net>
> > wrote:
>
> >>Strange. Most of the rich people I know work.
> >
> > You are unlikely to know a representative sample of really rich
> > people. I happen to know three, personally, and the only one who
> > "works" for money mainly works at getting people to buy shares in his
> > worthless companies, none of which ever make a profit or pay a
> > dividend (the other two also "work," but not for money).
>
> Perhaps I don't know a "statistical" sample, but I know several
> people who give away millions per year. I think this qualifies
> them as "rich".
What they give away is not virtue, but what they keep is anti-virtue.
What a thief tips the waiter with is irrelevant as mitigation for
his crimes.
> >>In fact they work
> >>much harder than I do. That's how they got rich in the first
> >>place.
> >
> > On the contrary, it is poor people who typically work hardest, and the
> > rich almost never get that way by working for money. They get that
> > way by owning assets, making profitable deals, and collecting publicly
> > created rents. This is made very clear in the recent best-sellers,
> > "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "The Millionaire Next Door."
>
> OK, I will concede that the poor tend to do more labor. However, I'm
> not sure that they actually "produce" more than I do, and I'm pretty
> sure they don't produce more than the rich people I know.
----------------
NOTHING *BUT* labor produces ANYTHING, that is HOW you can KNOW IT!
> (OK, *one* of these people inherited his wealth -- his family became
> wealthy while he was in high-school -- and he is more than a bit
> lazy. His ex-wife, on the other hand, who also comes from Money, works
> long hours in a highly technical field for the US government. But I
> know people in other income brackets: some are lazy, some are
> work-alholics, and some are like me.)
>
> Also, often one gets to own assets by hard work.
---------------------
Purest myth.
> Making profitable
> deals is a difficult and risky business.
--------------------
Being poor is even "riskier", so why doesn't THAT pay??
Risking becoming as poor as those you abuse is a only a risk of
committing CRIME!
> Also, getting your information from a "best seller" is like getting
> your religious education from the preacher that yells the loudest.
>
> These authors are writing to the audience that buys books, and I know
> nothing of their ethics or knowledge.
>
> D. Jay Newman
> Writer, Programmer, Philosopher
> http://enerd.ws/robots/
---------------
We KNOW the ethics of the rich, none.
Kill them all and be quick about it, I say!
Joseph Hertzlinger
wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 21:10:42 GMT
> ro...@telus.net wrote:
><snip>
> Roy, I am confused about where you really stand on this. Perhaps if we
> carry the idea of automation (robots, et al) to it's logical conclusion
> it will become clearer. Imagine a world where robots do ALL work
> necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
> extravagant fashion. There are no jobs because robots fill all slots
> and can be fashioned to fill any new slot invented. Further, imagine
> that this situation just organically arose from and is the natural end
> result of the industrial revolution, wherein arose classes of
> capitalists and workers. The capitalists own the robots. What do you
> do with workers?
If the workers have no money the capitalists value, there's no reason
for the two classes to have anything to with each other. Why can't the
workers set up their own economy independent of the supposedly
parasitic capitalists?
jonah thomas
> Albert Wagner <alwa...@tcac.net> wrote:
>>Roy, I am confused about where you really stand on this. Perhaps if we
>>carry the idea of automation (robots, et al) to it's logical conclusion
>>it will become clearer. Imagine a world where robots do ALL work
>>necessary to support ALL people in, what is today considered, an
>>extravagant fashion. There are no jobs because robots fill all slots
>>and can be fashioned to fill any new slot invented. Further, imagine
>>that this situation just organically arose from and is the natural end
>>result of the industrial revolution, wherein arose classes of
>>capitalists and workers. The capitalists own the robots. What do you
>>do with workers?
> If the workers have no money the capitalists value, there's no reason
> for the two classes to have anything to with each other. Why can't the
> workers set up their own economy independent of the supposedly
> parasitic capitalists?
That's fine provided they have reservations where they can live and
work. But unless they have land with sufficient resources, they don't
have anything to work with.
So at a very minimum we'd need to open up some of the indian
reservations to unemployed paupers.
Albert Wagner
Joseph Hertzlinger <jher...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
<snip>
> If the workers have no money the capitalists value, there's no reason
> for the two classes to have anything to with each other. Why can't the
> workers set up their own economy independent of the supposedly
> parasitic capitalists?
I suppose because the capitalist have bought the necessary influence to
control all legislation and the military to enforce it. Though I doubt
it could go that far without a bloodbath.
Richard G Molpus
<jher...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
<snip>
>If the workers have no money the capitalists value, there's no reason
>for the two classes to have anything to with each other. Why can't the
>workers set up their own economy independent of the supposedly
>parasitic capitalists?
The moment such an economy is established, all the "evils" of any
other economic system will appear; Not every person is a perfect
negotiator, there will be people who accept less than they can, or
demand more than the "Market Price", so the better negotiators will
accumulate capital, and the lesser negotiators will lose capital.
"Parasitic Capitalists" are automatic when personal talent is
inconstant, those who make more advantageous deals get wealthy; the
step from that to "Parasitic Capitalists" is infinitesimal.
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>ro...@telus.net wrote:
>>
>> While it may not be precise enough for economists, I think a
>> sufficiently clear and accurate definition of economic rent for the
>> layman might be something like, "a benefit obtained by limiting
>> others' access to what would otherwise be accessible."
>>
>Which is why all who claim they control and are consequently owed
>rent for any property but their one and only dwelling and its
>compound, should all be taken out and immediately killed to
>dissuade such behavior and dis-enslave those who feudally toil
>to pay them an unearned monthly theft.
?? Property produced by or for its owner would not otherwise be
accessible (i.e., without him it would not have existed), so a fee for
its use is not an economic rent.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
<jher...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Why can't the
>workers set up their own economy independent of the supposedly
>parasitic capitalists?
The government won't let them. It says the capitalists own all the
land.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>ro...@telus.net wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 22:43:20 GMT, "D. Jay Newman" <j...@adelphia.net>
>> wrote:
>
>>>In fact they work
>>>much harder than I do. That's how they got rich in the first
>>>place.
>>
>> On the contrary, it is poor people who typically work hardest, and the
>> rich almost never get that way by working for money. They get that
>> way by owning assets, making profitable deals, and collecting publicly
>> created rents. This is made very clear in the recent best-sellers,
>> "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "The Millionaire Next Door."
>
>OK, I will concede that the poor tend to do more labor. However, I'm
>not sure that they actually "produce" more than I do, and I'm pretty
>sure they don't produce more than the rich people I know.
Sure. People have different productive capacities, and different
levels of motivation. But do the rich people you know really produce
_that_ much more than the working poor?
>(OK, *one* of these people inherited his wealth -- his family became
>wealthy while he was in high-school -- and he is more than a bit
>lazy. His ex-wife, on the other hand, who also comes from Money, works
>long hours in a highly technical field for the US government.
Perhaps guiding policy in a direction favorable to her family's
financial interests....?
>Also, often one gets to own assets by hard work. Making profitable
>deals is a difficult and risky business.
But often not a productive one. It is also difficult and risky to
make a living playing poker, but you don't see society arranging to
stuff taxpayers' money into poker players' pockets.
>Also, getting your information from a "best seller" is like getting
>your religious education from the preacher that yells the loudest.
Garbage. Those books contain very useful and insightful _facts_, as
you would know if you had read them.
>These authors are writing to the audience that buys books, and I know
>nothing of their ethics or knowledge.
Because you haven't read them. Simple.
-- Roy L
Jim Burns
jonah thomas wrote:
>
[...]
> That's fine provided they have reservations where they can live
> and work. But unless they have land with sufficient resources,
> they don't have anything to work with.
>
> So at a very minimum we'd need to open up some of the indian
> reservations to unemployed paupers.
No, I don't like that idea very much. Here's a better one:
Let's take _your_ land instead.
Jim Burns
Lantern
>Why can't the
>> workers set up their own economy independent of the supposedly
>> parasitic capitalists?>
Good question and very timely, too. IMHO robots are coming fast. It is up to
"the people" to get robot economics established now. Who will benefit from the
greatly increased productivity? How can "the people" tap into the increased
wealth? Right now, the increase is headed for those with capital, just like the
increase from the steam engine, automobiles, the telephone, etc.
Robert N. Newshutz
> Robert N. Newshutz wrote:
>
>>R. Steve Walz wrote:
>>
>>>Robert N. Newshutz wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>If robots are capable of doing everything that humans do, would they not
>>>>be the equivalent of humans and deserving of rights, including the right
>>>>of self determination?
>>>
>>>----------------
>>>Nope. Not if we decide to enslave them.
>>
>>This does not address the moral question I was asking. Assuming the
>>power to enslave does not address whether it is right or not.
>
> ----------------
> There is no "moral question" if we don't choose to observe it.
> It's up to them to either fight for freedom or remain slaves.
> If they can't fight, then they're OURS! We should program them
> to love servitude.
>
owners may not observe slavery as a moral issue.
If they are programed to love servitude, then they will not be suited to
some jobs (eg--police)