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This was happening long before corporations were even a thing. At one point, roughly 90% of the human race worked in manual agriculture, generally as some form

This was happening long before corporations were even a thing. At one point, roughly 90% of the human race worked in manual agriculture, generally as some form of unfree labor (serfs or slaves), with most of the other 10% as foot soldiers, then a thin veneer of nobles and priests at the top. Replacing human labor with machinery is pretty much the only thing that has ever improved the general standard of living, whether they are shareholders or not.

forgetfreeman 2y ago
1. An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. 2. Comparing modern economics to serfdom is ridiculous on it's face. 3. What, exactly, are you thinking automated career tracks are going to get replaced with this time around? Keeping in mind you've got Industrial, AG, manufacturing, service, and white collar sectors, the first three are already heavily automated. Automating the last two results in massive unemployment. I'm not hearing any push for realocation of wealth so yeah, how exactly does this not completely brick the economy? While we're on the topic of "improving quality of life" how do you frame the near total economic collapse of rural communities in the US and the transition from a single breadwinner middle class to basically mandatory dual income households as "improving quality of living"?
- Turing_Machine 2y ago
  > 1. An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. It wasn't an "error". It was the way things had to be, as shown by pretty much every society that advanced past the hunter-gatherer or roaming barbarian stage. Europe. India. Japan. China. The Americas. All had "nobles" and serfs/slaves/peasants doing hand agricultural labor. Even as far back as Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt! > 2. Comparing modern economics to serfdom is ridiculous on it's face. Blind assertion is not proof. > 3. What, exactly, are you thinking automated career tracks are going to get replaced with this time around? Dunno, but it's happened every time so far. No one hand-weaves cloth any more (except as a hobby). Essentially no one is a blacksmith any more. Hundreds of professions from broom makers to fullers have been replaced by automation. Imagine someone asking this question at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It's not possible that they would have said "programmer" or "airline pilot" or "open heart surgeon", or even "convenience store clerk" or "Uber driver". That's been the history of technology for millennia now. Probably way back in the Paleolithic there was a person like you grumbling that this newfangled flint-knapping was going to put all the pointed stick makers out of work.
  - forgetfreeman 2y ago
    Yeah no you don't. Your model of productivity and QoL improvement went off a cliff in the 60s. Since then we have consistently seen stagnant wages, narrowing of social mobility, increases in household debt, increases in required workload to maintain "middle-class" lifestyles, and economic catastrophe in rural communities. Automation in the 70s and 80s gutted manufacturing jobs with no obvious replacement, and that was before entire supply chains were offshored. Advances in ag tech combined with massive consolidation in the industry gutted rural ag communities with no obvious replacement. There are no combination of industries in the US that are reporting a shortfall of ~27M employees, which is the estimated headcount in the combined services industry currently. I see your coy ad hominem bs trying to frame me as a neo-luddite and I'm not impressed.
    - Turing_Machine 2y ago
      > Yeah no you don't. Your model of productivity and QoL improvement went off a cliff in the 60s. I'm not talking about the "60s". I'm talking about the entire history of the human race from the Paleolithic until now. It's nothing but a long, long list of technological disruptions, and somehow we're all still here and mostly still employed. > increases in required workload to maintain "middle-class" lifestyles, I'm sorry, that is simply patent nonsense. You could easily lead a '60s middle-class lifestyle (one family car, eating out just a few tiems a year, maybe one short vacation, house < 1,000 square feet...not to mention all the things we have today that weren't available at all then. For example, the Internet) for a lot less than what the typical "middle-class" lifestyle of today costs. The average house size in the United States has doubled since 1960. When I was in graduate school, I bought a small house (about 900 square feet, I think) because I was living on a TA salary (plus, I hate landlords). The thing is, when that tiny house was built in the 1940s, it housed a married couple and four children. I know because I bought it from the children (their father had passed on, and their mother moved to a nursing home). > Advances in ag tech combined with massive consolidation in the industry gutted rural ag communities with no obvious replacement. Imagine what it must've been like when all the serfs were emancipated. > I see your coy ad hominem bs trying to frame me as a neo-luddite and I'm not impressed. Oh, it was neither "coy" nor was it an ad hominem. It was explicit. I don't really care whether or not you're "impressed". Why would you imagine that I would be?

forgetfreeman 2y ago

1. An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. 2. Comparing modern economics to serfdom is ridiculous on it's face. 3. What, exactly, are you thinking automated career tracks are going to get replaced with this time around? Keeping in mind you've got Industrial, AG, manufacturing, service, and white collar sectors, the first three are already heavily automated. Automating the last two results in massive unemployment. I'm not hearing any push for realocation of wealth so yeah, how exactly does this not completely brick the economy? While we're on the topic of "improving quality of life" how do you frame the near total economic collapse of rural communities in the US and the transition from a single breadwinner middle class to basically mandatory dual income households as "improving quality of living"?

Turing_Machine 2y ago
> 1. An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. It wasn't an "error". It was the way things had to be, as shown by pretty much every society that advanced past the hunter-gatherer or roaming barbarian stage. Europe. India. Japan. China. The Americas. All had "nobles" and serfs/slaves/peasants doing hand agricultural labor. Even as far back as Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt! > 2. Comparing modern economics to serfdom is ridiculous on it's face. Blind assertion is not proof. > 3. What, exactly, are you thinking automated career tracks are going to get replaced with this time around? Dunno, but it's happened every time so far. No one hand-weaves cloth any more (except as a hobby). Essentially no one is a blacksmith any more. Hundreds of professions from broom makers to fullers have been replaced by automation. Imagine someone asking this question at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It's not possible that they would have said "programmer" or "airline pilot" or "open heart surgeon", or even "convenience store clerk" or "Uber driver". That's been the history of technology for millennia now. Probably way back in the Paleolithic there was a person like you grumbling that this newfangled flint-knapping was going to put all the pointed stick makers out of work.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  Yeah no you don't. Your model of productivity and QoL improvement went off a cliff in the 60s. Since then we have consistently seen stagnant wages, narrowing of social mobility, increases in household debt, increases in required workload to maintain "middle-class" lifestyles, and economic catastrophe in rural communities. Automation in the 70s and 80s gutted manufacturing jobs with no obvious replacement, and that was before entire supply chains were offshored. Advances in ag tech combined with massive consolidation in the industry gutted rural ag communities with no obvious replacement. There are no combination of industries in the US that are reporting a shortfall of ~27M employees, which is the estimated headcount in the combined services industry currently. I see your coy ad hominem bs trying to frame me as a neo-luddite and I'm not impressed.
  - Turing_Machine 2y ago
    > Yeah no you don't. Your model of productivity and QoL improvement went off a cliff in the 60s. I'm not talking about the "60s". I'm talking about the entire history of the human race from the Paleolithic until now. It's nothing but a long, long list of technological disruptions, and somehow we're all still here and mostly still employed. > increases in required workload to maintain "middle-class" lifestyles, I'm sorry, that is simply patent nonsense. You could easily lead a '60s middle-class lifestyle (one family car, eating out just a few tiems a year, maybe one short vacation, house < 1,000 square feet...not to mention all the things we have today that weren't available at all then. For example, the Internet) for a lot less than what the typical "middle-class" lifestyle of today costs. The average house size in the United States has doubled since 1960. When I was in graduate school, I bought a small house (about 900 square feet, I think) because I was living on a TA salary (plus, I hate landlords). The thing is, when that tiny house was built in the 1940s, it housed a married couple and four children. I know because I bought it from the children (their father had passed on, and their mother moved to a nursing home). > Advances in ag tech combined with massive consolidation in the industry gutted rural ag communities with no obvious replacement. Imagine what it must've been like when all the serfs were emancipated. > I see your coy ad hominem bs trying to frame me as a neo-luddite and I'm not impressed. Oh, it was neither "coy" nor was it an ad hominem. It was explicit. I don't really care whether or not you're "impressed". Why would you imagine that I would be?