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Whenever a new way is found to improve efficiency, choices have to be made about how to distribute the new surplus. Choices are made by people who have power a

• d4mi3n 4mo ago
  Unless one choses to bargain. Perhaps collectively.
  • deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  • Avicebron 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    • quadrifoliate 4mo ago
      I don't understand why people make these hyperbolic jokes about guillotines. Violence is counterproductive; and not practical anyway. Joking about it just makes you feel great without actually doing anything. There is a simple alternative. Vote; and educate your family and friends. If you don't know what is on the ballot in the midterms, you are part of the problem. If you aren't starting a family conversation about how corporations are squeezing us, you are part of the problem.
      • iteria 4mo ago
        Everyone talks about MLK, but no one points out that people were willing to listen because Malcom X was a looming threat if MLK failed. Yes vote, but the threat of violence is what makes voting a delighted option. That's why protests exist. They are reminders that peace is a choice. Violent revolution has merit when peaceful means break down. The rise of the guillotine jokes are the first time that people are losing faith in the peaceful option. We should hope that our leaders don't make most of use disillusioned with the idea of a peaceful transfer of power.
        • cwillu 4mo ago
          [flagged]
        • rapidaneurism 4mo ago
          France had revolution and guillotines, but the UK had a strong police force and good suppression.
          • achierius 4mo ago
            The UK didn't just repress its citizens, it ultimately caved to them. The voting reforms of the 19th century gave people essentially everything they wanted, at the time, and as a consequence when the rest of europe was going thru 1848 Britain was chilling. But just a few years beforehand there was legitimate fear that the government would be toppled by rioters! You can't judge centuries of history just by looking at the end result.
        • ericd 4mo ago
          For anyone thinking about going that way, I highly recommend listening to the Revolutions podcast series starting here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1wVvwnrBP2cVQrFf06RoO9 https://open.spotify.com/episode/1wVvwnrBP2cVQrFf06RoO9 It'll probably disabuse you of the idea that its a good way to get things done.
          • kombookcha 4mo ago
            It's never been a good way to get things done, but when you block off every other venue for change people will be much more willing to take a chance on a high risk option. Violent revolutions aren't usually the first thing people try. Democracies that arise by nonviolent revolution, do so in part due to the threat of what comes next if the nonviolent revolution is crushed. Because if you make sure placards and petitions don't work, it eventually won't be placards and petitions anymore. 'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable', and all that.
            • 4mo ago
      • anigbrowl 4mo ago
        Violence has been very productive for the ruling class. Voting sounds nice but evidence abounds about the mendacity of politicians and their willingness to subvert or overrule voters' preferences if sufficient money or status is to be had. You can say 'well vote those people out if they ignore the voters' but once a new reality has set in the politicians often gainan incumbency advantageor have lined up a cushy post-retirement gig.
      • vkou 4mo ago
        [dead]
      • bandofthehawk 4mo ago
        Violence is not always counterproductive
      • jchw 4mo ago
        I don't believe that activism actually generally works, and I am skeptical that voting works either. Don't get me wrong. I do vote, and I believe that voting and activism can work, and even still does for a variety of things. But as for fighting against forces of corruption and tyranny, I believe activism is about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle. Any grassroots efforts are in a horribly asymmetric battle against well-funded adversaries that will come back every year everywhere without fail to get their opening. And any hope we had of limiting corporate interests in politics has been decimated in the U.S. basically since Citizen's United — not that I really believe there wouldn't have been some other workaround had that not happened. So yes, I believe grassroots activism largely doesn't work. The fact that the battle is so asymmetrical makes it even more asymmetrical by making people apathetic about and fatigued over activism, making it even less effective. But people often turn their heads when there's violence. Nobody wants violence, just like nobody wants to hit rock bottom. I believe truly that political violence is a very dark place that will be no fun for anyone involved that I personally do not want to be a part of in any way. But, it just is the case that things will get worse before they get ~~much worse~~ better. I see it as a question of if and not when until structural changes occur that durably improve upon the asymmetry of political activism. And in that case, it's not a matter of whether or not, it's a matter of getting it the hell over with. I don't know how the fuck these stupid Flock "safety" cameras got here, but I have a pretty good guess how they'll disappear.
        • nekusar 4mo ago
          > I don't know how the fuck these stupid Flock "safety" cameras got here, but I have a pretty good guess how they'll disappear. Gee golly, I have no clue how the pole ended up being cut and the solar and cameras ended up smashed. Must'a been an "accident".
        • llbeansandrice 4mo ago
          Those flock cameras arrived in many places in the US bc people did not show up to public city council meetings to oppose them, aka “activism”.
          • achierius 4mo ago
      • rickydroll 4mo ago
        So you are saying that I shouldn't start my artisanal guillotine business? Believe me, I know what's on the ballot for the midterm in the state but it's not going to stop me from making dark snarky jokes.
        • wombatpm 4mo ago
          Mass produced and pre-staged. Think zipcar for guillotines pre positioned in finance districts and rich neighborhoods.
          • rickydroll 4mo ago
            That would make one hell of an art project.
      • nekusar 4mo ago
        [flagged]
      • dlev_pika 4mo ago
        I mean, it’s not something anonymous edgy twitter accounts have come up with. There is ample historic precedence on the trend. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." - Jefferson
      • mcmcmc 4mo ago
        How is it hyperbolic when it’s human history?
    • doublepg23 4mo ago
      Quoting a tweet: “People on twitter will really be like ‘you believe in voting? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy, firebombing a Walmart’ and then not firebomb a Walmart”
      • slg 4mo ago
        Revolutions don't start with violence. People talk about it first.
• TheWrongGuy 4mo ago
  "Hence too the economic paradox, that the most powerful instrument for shortening labour-time, becomes the most unfailing means for placing every moment of the labourer's time and that of his family, at the disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the value of his capital." - some crazy radical economist, nearly 200 years ago
• jlebar 4mo ago
  > Choices are made by people who have power and imposed upon people who don't. In a capitalist society, choices are made according to supply and demand. In a world where there's a positive supply shock (in this case, there's a lot more programming available for purchase today than there was a year ago), supply goes up. We therefore expect the price for the good to decrease. This has nothing to do with power or whether people care about xyz. It's a consequence of the economic system we live under. You can desire to live under a different economic system! That's logically coherent. But if you want the laws of supply and demand not to apply to you, that's what you're asking for. Honestly I'm getting tired of this narrative. People take the benefits of capitalism for granted (indeed most of us on this forum do very well for ourselves relative to the average person in our country and around the world), but we blame all of its downsides on "bad people".
  • ncallaway 4mo ago
    Right, but a day off would reduce supply. And 2 days off was not a system dictated by God, which we are obligated to keep in perpetuity (in fact, most religions dictate 1 day off, not 2). So, we could, as a society, just choose to make a 32 hour workweek “full time”, and mandate overtime pay after that. There’s no reason, even under capitalism that we must allow all of the productivity gains to accrue to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth. In fact, I think if we choose to do that as a society, it will end horrifically.
    • jlebar 4mo ago
      > There’s no reason, even under capitalism that we must allow all of the productivity gains to accrue to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth. I would question the premise that all or even most of the productivity gains of any past technological improvement have accrued to the benefit of solely those at the top of an enormous pile of wealth. 200 years ago 90% of Americans lived on farms. In the early 1900s, it was 40%. Today that number is 2%. The economic surplus from that increase in productivity accrued to everyone in society, not just the wealthy. (The evidence for this is that we are all living at a higher standard of living today than we were in the early 1800s or 1900s.) But certainly the positive supply shock was not great news for farmers, many of whom lost their jobs. In the case of AI, I'm asking us -- programmers -- not to make the mistake of saying "this is not a benefit for me, therefore it's not a benefit for society".
• porknubbins 4mo ago
  My employers who are introducing AI are not laughing evil supervillains hoovering up all the excess profits, they are normal people who wanted long careers and are as nervous as anyone about competition amd what AI will do to organizations if people become truly redundant.
  • musicale 4mo ago
    > My employers who are introducing AI are not laughing evil supervillains hoovering up all the excess profits I care less about the motivation rather than the action.
  • hilariously 4mo ago
    Cool well my employers fired me for an AI psychosis trip so I am glad you are working for those ones who "wanted long careers" and "are nervous as anyone" because hoboy is that not what we are seeing in the ownership class right now.
  • macintux 4mo ago
    How many of those employers are living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to feed their kids? I have less sympathy for decision-makers who are stressed than the people who’ll be fired first, and have less mobility. Or safety net.
  • komali2 4mo ago
    Right, exactly, there's no good guys under capitalism, that's why you need industry wide labor unions moreso than within a single company. You could have a straight up communist for a boss that completely shares all profits, but if the business doesn't extract labor value and expand as aggressively as other businesses do, it'll eventually get eaten or lawfared to death, or priced out, or closed out of deals (e.g. small player in chips related business). So the only way to prevent industry wide redundancy at everywhere except the 1% largest companies that survive (which will also be laying off people but not completely closing down), is through organized labor. Or, I suppose, completely restructuring the economic system, which I'm very down to chat about as well, but the labor organizing feels more achievable for now.
  • 4mo ago
• jvanderbot 4mo ago
  This narrative is clean, matches expectations and history. But let's be clear - we all probably own a decent part of our companies (collectively). Productivity gains mean winning the race to market, profits, glory. And that means ownership is valuable. At the _very least_, you can push your company stock higher and buy it with your 10% IRA contributions or through a similar investment program and make 16x your investment over your 40 year career. It's easy to look tactically at productivity gains being "captured" by high CEO bonuses, and that's legitimate, but we have so sufficiently seized the means of wealth production if we have stock options and market access that I'm not sure it's really valid to say we get, paraphrasing, "nothing if not a day off work".
• jonstewart 4mo ago
  "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must." — Thucydides
  • tsunamifury 4mo ago
    It’s a stupid statement by a stupid philosopher. Years later we learned collective development and incentive produced a society he could have never imagined. It’s simply being looted now by the idiots this moron worshiped.
    • AlterEgo7 4mo ago
      You sound very sure of your opinion... While missing the basic fact that he was a historian, not a philosopher.
      • tsunamifury 4mo ago
        The commentary was that of a general/philosopher/historian fused together... and really just a statement of "the weak are meat". Yes power has an advantage but its not the end all be all configuration. Maybe he meant this somewhat disparagingly, but ultimately not enough. For a greek.
    • jonstewart 4mo ago
      It’s from the Melian Dialogue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos) and it’s perhaps the most succinct embodiment of the realist school of international relations/politics. I quote it here because the best way to get a day off is not to continue being weak, but to find strength, just as miners and railroad workers found strength in the 1870s.
• lubujackson 4mo ago
  It is almost reassuring to think that rich and powerful people all know what they are doing every step of the way. A handful may, but most certainly do not. Most are also terrified of AI. Stable profits are always better than transformative change, if you already have power and riches. Look at how insane companies are acting right now with token quotas for employees and mandates AI usage - the goal is not to milk profits but to not fall behind every other company in case this becomes table stakes. They are trying not to be devoured by a beast they don't understand. When the AI bubble pops, large companies will be extremely relieved to stop throwing money into the wind playing this game. For most companies, the AI arms race is a huge hassle. They are fine with losing money in the short term and even in the long term as long as they can find a stable path forward. This is the exact same trajectory as when the internet came out and every insurance company and toothpick manufacturer spent gobs of money to have a brochure website built because everyone else had one. This will play out differently, but recognize most companies are acting entirely from a place of fear right now.
• whiplash451 4mo ago
  Companies don’t care about it but governments certainly do. Over the past 150 years, the work week dropped from 70+ to 35h in France. Granted that’s a long time horizon but still.