5 ms·
Cheaper labor is sought, but also workers are capable of doing more and more productive work due to technology. The net is economic growth. Maybe I am an optimi
by datadata 4y ago
Cheaper labor is sought, but also workers are capable of doing more and more productive work due to technology. The net is economic growth. Maybe I am an optimist, but generally things have gotten better. For example poverty globally has been plummeting.
Given also this announcement is a new capability for how to get paid, not an impairment or obligation, I would hope it wouldn't have detrimental results.
- hkt 4y agoI'm not sure about the rest of the world, but in the UK we have a woeful record of investing in anything new, at least in recent memory. Offshoring and outsourcing are both cheaper than doing anything new with technology, so companies do it whenever they can. Which is to say that, certainly for now, there's a conflict between technological progress and profit, because cheap labour is so reliable and de-risked compared to eg, creating new machines to automate a process that is currently outsourced. Risks include being undercut by cheap labour, too. All of which is to say, I don't share your optimism. Maybe there's a case to be made for global full employment being preferable to a highly automated economy, but that begs the question of how to make work itself less hostile to life.