patrick.net

This is way better than the evil unions that force companies to pay livable wages.

What a whiner article, can't stomach any more than the first few sentences. Living within your means is not that difficult, and being a nomad is actually cool, and a lifestyle choice for many.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Nomads-Conquistadors-Mountain-Bullriders/dp/0802141803
The garbage passed off as normal in this consumerist/debt driven society is sickening.

HappyGilmore says

This is way better than the evil unions that force companies to pay livable wages.

Yeah, cuz that model works so well in socialist paradise's like Venezuela and Zimbabwe...

NuttBoxer says

Yeah, cuz that model works so well in socialist paradise's like Venezuela and Zimbabwe...

Or California, which boasts the highest median wage in the nation, and an economy that is positively ripping along! Somehow we are managing despite all the union presence that’s encoiraged by our legislature.

Disclaimer, both me and my wife are union members who believe in collective bargaining.

NuttBoxer says

Yeah, cuz that model works so well in socialist paradise's like Venezuela and Zimbabwe...

How about we stop in 1950s America and not go all the way to Venezuela?

HappyGilmore says

NuttBoxer says

Yeah, cuz that model works so well in socialist paradise's like Venezuela and Zimbabwe...

How about we stop in 1950s America and not go all the way to Venezuela?

Sounds like a plan. Let's start our journey back to 50s with "Operation Wetback".

My fave. A bunch of non-sequiturs stitched together into a faux libbie sob story.

How to beat it?

A 5 year moratorium on Immigration, with only a few thousand visas available, all requiring Masters or PhDs at a minimum, and $20k application process.

Mandatory SSN checks.

In 5 years, pressure for employees will result in higher wages and better working conditions.

As a for instance, "Don" in the article 'retired' when he was 54 and maintained at least one money burning hobby. He also somewhere along the line, divorce or no divorce, pissed away 50 percent of the equity in an at least million dollar home. Don burned up money, didn't work after 54, and apparently doesn't have the common sense to put his shoes on the right feet in the morning. That's simply the stuff you can deduce from the article. Sob, sob, sob!

I would suspect that "Don" still has some assets and CHOOSES to live a mobile life style.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

In 5 years, pressure for employees will result in higher wages and better working conditions.

Or more automation.

HappyGilmore says

Or more automation.

Automation is a boogeyman, and if it's cost effective it would happen even if the minimum wage was a $1 and had no border controls at all.

Robots made by bleeding edge companies and departments can't serve coffee without spilling it all over themselves, the floor and the customer. Or patrol the outside of a building without flopping into a water fountain.

Even at $60/brl oil, automation isn't practical for the vast majority of jobs.

Automation is to wages what child idleness leading to crime was for child labor.

I'd rather have Robots than young Guatemalan Males, anyway. Robots don't join MS/18.

Robots also:

* Don't fall off Roofs and become the responsibility of the local government paying the Hospital Bill when the illegal employer dumps them off at the ER.
* Don't have children who demand Citizenship because they were brought in from another country but grew up here.
* Don't, for that matter, insist on Chain Migration
* Don't require 15 years of instruction, with extra costs because they speak a foreign language at home and don't know English.
* Don't compete for affordable housing
* Don't vote and it would be hard to rig an election with 2XL or C3PO.
* Don't poo in the street
* Don't spread disease because they were never properly vaccinated and/or aren't as big into handwashing when handling food.
* Don't whinge about oppression
* Don't kill people or blow up buildings in the name of the Most High One
* DO create skilled jobs that Central American and African peasants can't do since you can't learn them in a tin roof shack in the desert or in a Favela. But Americans can.

So bring on the immigration Restrictions! Robots are better than immigrants.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Automation is a boogeyman, and if it's cost effective it would happen even if the minimum wage was a $1 and had no border controls at all.

Yes, but a LOT more automation is cost effective at $30/hour labor rate than $1/hour labor rate.

I'm not advocating a race to the bottom to avoid automation, it's coming regardless. But I'm also not pretending that immigration is the cause of the unemployment problem.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

I'd rather have Robots than young Guatemalan Males, anyway. Robots don't join MS/18.

Non-sequitur.

I think automation has to be coupled with AI to really begin wholesale replacement of the real work force. There are just too many variables to program a reliable apple picking robot or a reliable maid for your housekeeping needs.

These are jobs requiring simple easy skills for human beings to learn, but that’s because the skills are being overlaid on an already developed intelligence!

Putting the skills into an unintelligent robot only works until a situation arises the programmers didn’t foresee. Or until a human comes along and fucks with it. Also, the programming of such a robot is both difficult and time intensive, requiring too much in terms of time and capital to produce.

But...

Couple an Artificial Intelligence to your robot, and it will program itself, adapting to changes in the situation on the fly, just like a human would do.
This is why the AI Revolution is really the thing to watch. If done right, and accompanied by the appropriate political and economic changes, it will usher in a utopia that has never before been remotely possible. If done wrong, we may all be nuked by Skynet.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Robots also:

* Don't fall off Roofs and become the responsibility of the local government paying the Hospital Bill
* Don't have children who demand Citizenship because they were brought in from another country but grew up here.
* Don't require 15 years of instruction, with extra costs because they speak a foreign language at home and don't know English.
* Don't compete for affordable housing
* Don't vote and it would be hard to rig an election with 2XL or C3PO.

Is someone arguing that immigrants are better than robots?

HappyGilmore says

Non-sequitur.

It absolutely Follows.

Robots have a great deal of advantages over immigrants. I went on to list them.

The nation is FAR better off with robot dishwashers than immigrants, as far as I can tell.

Thought of another one:
Unskilled Wage Crushing immigrants don't create or push forward entire new high tech fields. Expanded deployment of robots will.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

It absolutely Follows.

Robots have a great deal of advantages over immigrants. I went on to list them.

lol--but it doesn't follow the discussion. We were talking about how higher wages will lead to more automation.

HappyGilmore says

lol--but it doesn't follow the discussion. We were talking about how higher wages will lead to more automation.

And I'm explaining how if automation is a tradeoff for restricting immigration, it's a better deal than immigration itself.

HappyGilmore says

Is someone arguing that immigrants are better than robots?

You proposed that if we restrict immigration, we'll get more automation.

I'm saying if that is going to happen, let's still restrict immigration, since automation is better than immigration.

Quigley says

I think automation has to be coupled with AI to really begin wholesale replacement of the real work force. There are just too many variables to program a reliable apple picking robot or a reliable maid for your housekeeping needs.

www.youtube.com/embed/mS0coCmXiYU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaL3UxUclKY
This is just the beginning. Computers now beat humans at perception tasks in a limited domain.
Anything that is repetitive within a fixed framework of what can happen is fair game for automation.

NuttBoxer says

The garbage passed off as normal in this consumerist/debt driven society is sickening.

NuttBoxer says


Like actually having a place to live and a job. Sickening!
There should be some space between glorified bum and debt driven consumerism.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

I'm saying if that is going to happen, let's still restrict immigration, since automation is better than immigration.

The real question is: if we get AI and robots, and productivity goes through the roof, will our elites still be keen to take in all the refugees of the earth.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

You proposed that if we restrict immigration, we'll get more automation.

I'm saying if that is going to happen, let's still restrict immigration, since automation is better than immigration.

I didn't say that at all actually. I don't think immigration is the main cause for wage decline--it's been automation all along.

Immigration is simply a tool Trump uses to fire up the base--and it works.

Quigley says

If done wrong, we may all be nuked by Skynet.

Or end up in a police state dictatorship run by a NSA director.

HappyGilmore says

I didn't say that at all actually. I don't think immigration is the main cause for wage decline--it's been automation all along.

This is a fake rational that our elite spread widely at every opportunity, because Americans find it hard to be mad at modernity.
- But this is disproved by the productivity numbers. If automation was rampant, productivity would accelerate, instead it is low and slowing. How do you explain that?
- You also apparently believe that adding a huge supply on a market (the labor market) doesn't depress prices. Tens of millions of workers desperate to do any job for a low wage is of course going to lower prices for the jobs they are doing, and other jobs as people change occupation.

Automation so far was only a factor in manufacturing, now a small share of the US economy.
But this is about to change.

Heraclitusstudent says

The real question is: if we get AI and robots, and productivity goes through the roof, will our elites still be keen to take in all the refugees of the earth.

I assume so, since rental income will still be a thing.

Heraclitusstudent says

But this is about to change.

Unless oil goes to $100+/barrel. Those who push automation think we are on the verge of AI revolution but seem to forget we're not on the verge of Cold Fusion.

The problem with Robots is getting them to interpret their environment. Unlike seeing eye dogs or human toddlers who seem to be wired to grasp it genetically, programmers are having a very hard time getting robots to recognize not just what but where.

Top notch, bleeding edge universities and corporate R&D still struggle to build a robot that can identify a door and figure out how to manipulate the simplest of latches (ie the push down kind, not even the knob kind ye

Imagine the complexity of having a burger flipping robot realize when it needs to get frozen patties from the back freezer, and then obtaining some that weren't perfectly pre-positioned by the robot building team. IE the delivery guy just threw it in the backroom. A human could be like "Asshole threw the box in the corner. Let me pick it up." A robot would be "Missing Patties. Not on appropriate tray holding area. Reorder." Next day asshole driver comes back and throws another box of 100 patties into the walk-in without carefully positioning it on the clearly marked "Pattie receiption tray holding area". Robot orders ANOTHER 100 patties while auto-cashier says "No hamburgers" to all customers for the second day in a row when there are 200 patties in the freezer.


Not trying to be obstructionist, I just don't think the thinking about AI - much less the processing power - is there yet. I remember getting a brain teaser lesson in school "How to explain making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to an alien" that forever colored my thinking on this.

We'll make an enhancement or even a minor breakthrough, but I think Automation powered by AI is still decades away. I'm skeptical about these things, remembering in the 50s they thought driverless cars and totally automated "Jetson-style" kitchens were literally just a few years away.

Living here in Florida, here is another skeptical thought.

How many people's sole contact with humanity is cashiers and waitresses and the UPS guy?

What happens when those are removed?

Something to consider.

Heraclitusstudent says

Automation so far was only a factor in manufacturing, now a small share of the US economy.
But this is about to change.

Hogwash. How many secretary's and operators were replaced by automated call attendants? How many managers have secretaries now after the computer age?

How many bank tellers have been replaced by ATMs?

How many checkers have been replace by auto-checkout terminals at big box stores?

I could go on and on. Manufacturing, service, you name it. Automation is everywhere.

Heraclitusstudent says

This is a fake rational that our elite spread widely at every opportunity, because Americans find it hard to be mad at modernity.
- But this is disproved by the productivity numbers. If automation was rampant, productivity would accelerate, instead it is low and slowing. How do you explain that?
- You also apparently believe that adding a huge supply on a market (the labor market) doesn't depress prices. Tens of millions of workers desperate to do any job for a low wage is of course going to lower prices for the jobs they are doing, and other jobs as people change occupation.

Easily explained. Just like anything, automation goes first into the areas where it will have the biggest bang or the buck so the productivity increases will be greatest at the beginning of the automation wave. As additional areas are automated, the productivity gains will be smaller and smaller.

Adding a huge supply of labor will obviously depress prices. I'm just saying that automation has done more to reduce wages and increase unemployment than immigration has.

No, productivity has been low for a long time , and wages have been flat also during that time.
Productivity: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MPU4910063
The only sector in which automation makes a big difference today is manufacturing, which is less than 10% of the workers.

So why are wages low outside manufacturing?

Heraclitusstudent says

Or end up in a police state dictatorship run by a NSA director.

Can’t happen anymore, not since technology has made everyone so powerful in relationship to our environment and social structure. What’s MORE likely is that an overreaching government would be ignored by the populace and starved of taxes and legitimacy until it largely disappeared. And is replaced by thousands of techno-fiefdoms enforcing their borders and protecting their citizens like city-states. You’d have to buy into membership of these exclusive communities, with the poorer members of society relegated to lawless unclaimed lands ruled by gangs and fast food corporations.

Heraclitusstudent says

No, productivity has been low for a long time , and wages have been flat also during that time.

Not sure what you are arguing. Did immigration only begin in 2013? That's when productivity dropped.

Wage growth hasn't been great, but it's not flat either.

Heraclitusstudent says

he only sector in which automation makes a big difference today is manufacturing, which is less than 10% of the workers.

Again--I can rattle off a lot of service folks who would beg to differ after their jobs were automated away.

Quigley says

and an economy that is positively ripping along!

Except for the bankruptcy...

HappyGilmore says

How about we stop in 1950s America and not go all the way to Venezuela?

People tend to romanticize the past, so present examples are best. But you could go back to 1930's America. I think we had the last of the Communist planks implemented by good old FDR.

anon_d418a says

There should be some space between glorified bum and debt driven consumerism.

Didn't understand the first part, but sounds like you're listing synonyms here.

anon_3b28c says

Again--I can rattle off a lot of service folks who would beg to differ after their jobs were automated away.

What service jobs were automated?

Quigley says

Can’t happen anymore, not since technology has made everyone so powerful in relationship to our environment and social structure. What’s MORE likely is that an overreaching government would be ignored by the populace and starved of taxes and legitimacy until it largely disappeared.

Really?
So the NSA can listen to conversations in your living room and the militarized police can show up at your door, but you feel technology has made everyone powerful?

NuttBoxer says

People tend to romanticize the past, so present examples are best. But you could go back to 1930's America. I think we had the last of the Communist planks implemented by good old FDR.

I'm not romanticizing anything. I can post a bunch of data showing that the US economy was much, much healthier in the 1950s when unions were strong.

Unions lead to higher productivity:
http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_snapshots_20070620/
Most highly unionized countries = happiest countries:
http://lawofwork.ca/?p=6881
So, the current examples would be Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland.

Heraclitusstudent says

What service jobs were automated?

anon_3b28c says

Hogwash. How many secretary's and operators were replaced by automated call attendants? How many managers have secretaries now after the computer age?

How many bank tellers have been replaced by ATMs?

How many checkers have been replace by auto-checkout terminals at big box stores?

I could go on and on. Manufacturing, service, you name it. Automation is everywhere.