On 01/08/2013 06:06 PM, Matt Mahoney wrote:
On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 7:39 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
1. I recently looked up how many trucks where registered in Germany –
it’s about 1 million. If autonomous vehicles proof to be reliable it will be
highly lucrative to switch from human to autonomous driving so market
penetration can be expected to be pretty quick.
If this happens (and it will), it means lower prices for most of the
stuff you buy because the sellers pay lower shipping costs. When you
spend the money you saved on other stuff, it will create new jobs to
replace those lost. Overall there is a net benefit.
there is not ... many jobs get los and will NOT be replaced. we need
less and less overall people working ... that is just obvious.
It is true that the out-of-work truck drivers might not be qualified
for these jobs, but that isn't a new problem. in 1800, most people
were illiterate farmers, and yet today we have neither massive
unemployment nor a massive shortage of qualified people to fill
technically advanded jobs. Automation happens slowly because the easy
parts have already been implemented.
because we have invented hundreds of millions of IRRELEVANT jobs.
insurance brokers, marketing, advertisement, millions of politicians
nobody really needs, bankers, patent clerks, the infamous "inspectors of
inspectors" as buckminster fuller called it ... and we also need to hold
on to stupid jobs because of our socioeconomic paradigm needs them like
salespeople.
"We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to
be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian
Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have
inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to
inspect inspectors." -- Buckminster Fuller
It is true that in a purely competitive economy that the rich get
richer and the poor are left to starve. This happens with or without
advanced technology. It is not a new problem. The political solution
is to tax the rich and give to the poor. Why would this not work with
AGI? With more economic growth, you need fewer taxes to support the
basic needs of everyone.
And it also crashes every 50 to 100 years becase of exponential growth
of debt. The necessary redistribution of wealth is a sign that the whole
idea is flawed by design and it is also not even working at all. Big
companies can pick countries in which they don't pay taxes or only a
small amount ... people try everything not to give away their earnings
because it is a competitive system with the main incentive of personal
profit and not common weal. The US got millions of homeless people and
ten times as much vacant properties ... tell me all about how well
wealth redistribution is working.
At some point, most people will not have any skills that a machine
couldn't do. We say we need a job to define ourselves, to give
ourselves a purpose in life. Yet if you give people a choice between
working their current job and not working but earning the same income,
most people would not work. A lot of people don't need to work
(children and retired) and it doesn't seem to bother them.
People do not enjoy working within this system and that is no surprise.
"Not only is the experience of scarcity an artifact of our money system,
but the laziness we view as human nature is a valid response to the kind
of work that system engenders. If you find yourself being lazy,
procrastinating, doing slipshod work, showing up late, not
concentrating, and so on, then perhaps the problem isn’t your character
after all: perhaps it is a soul’s rebellion against work that you don’t
really want to do. It is a message that says, “It is time to find your
true work: that through which you can apply your gifts toward something
meaningful.” Ignore that message, and your unconscious will enforce it
through depression, self-sabotage, illness, or accident, disabling you
from living any more a life not aligned with your generosity." -- Sacred
Economics by Charles Eisenstein / http://sacred-economics.com/
We require exponential economic growth because population growth is
also exponential. Since 1800, the economic growth rate has been
faster. Before this time, population growth was limited by available
food, which meant that most people lived on the edge of starvation.
Since then, agriculture has gone from almost the entire economy to 6%
of world GDP today (1.5% in the U.S). Poor people in developed
countries now have a higher rate of obesity than the rich.
We don't need exponential growth because of population growth (which is
actually slowing down and not exponential) but because our stupid
agreement demands it. We are already overproducing crappy products due
to planned and intrinsic obsolescence. We got billions of ships from
china incoming with screwdriver kits for 50cent and consumer goods that
will break down after 1 year because they knowingly used cheap ass
capacitors (google "Samsung bad capacitors"). If our economy would
actually focus on producing meaningful and high quality stuff we could
as well have a declining economy. Access over ownership models such as
carsharing will also make us require less and less goods and production
facilities. Again: we believe that we need economic growth because we
are indoctrinated and don't think about what a real efficient and
meaningful economy would look like.
"Our lives have been corralled and shaped in order to encourage it.
World trade rules force countries to participate in the festival of
junk. Governments cut taxes, deregulate business, manipulate interest
rates to stimulate spending. But seldom do the engineers of these
policies stop and ask “spending on what?”. When every conceivable want
and need has been met (among those who have disposable money), growth
depends on selling the utterly useless. The solemnity of the state, its
might and majesty, are harnessed to the task of delivering Terry the
Swearing Turtle to our doors." -- George Monbiot
Also all of our interpersonal relationships are poisoned by this
competitive mindset ... our entire society is sick and needs a reboot
with a new economic model and many, many people and groups are working
on achieving exactly this.
--
-- Matt Mahoney, [email protected]
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