Yeah, now you just get a wage ceiling where you’re only employable if you’re cheaper than the robot.
Yup. Whether related to robots or not, Walmart is DECREASING wages and others may yet follow their ghastly example even as consumer prices and corporate profits soar 🤬
Yup, it’ll probably take a few generations after work robots become commonplace for capitalism to finally shuffle off. Life will just suck a whole lot more in the intervening time as you fight for the few unskilled jobs and spend 25+ years in education to get the few skilled jobs available
And thats totally deserved. A population that is unable or unwilling to unionize against their oppressors is doomed.
The problem with automation is that the unions lose power. Collectivise? We’ll just replace you with scab bots.
We’re not set up to use automaton as we should - the basis for a transition to a decommodified society where people’s needs are met and they have more leisure time. Instead, we’ll just further centralise economic resources until capitalism breaks down because noone can afford food or shelter. At that point, if we don’t eat the rich, we’ll consolidate back into autocracy thanks to their disproportionate economic power.
No, it means you won’t be able to work and will now have to fight over garbage to eat if you want to survive.
I really don’t understand your logic, guys. Why would that (supposedly evil) guy give you anything for free? Why are you his responsibility? Why don’t you go and build your own robot? Or maybe you don’t need a robot. Find a land, and start farming your own food.
I really don’t understand this logic… who taught you that you’re entitled to other people’s achievements and successes?!
The rich guy didn’t built the robot by himself. Most likely he only financed by paying the people who actually built it. He didn’t built his business by himself but paid people to built it for him even if he had the idea.
He had an idea because he’s smart and had the education to support his intelligence. He had that education because someone paid for it, either family or the state. Even if he paid for it he had the upbringing that taught him the value of education and had the luck to be born in a country where that education is valued and pays off.
Nothing he has was built by himself only. The only thing we do by ourselves is taking a shit.
Yeah it helps if daddy is rich, like Donald Trump who claims he did it all by himself, on a “small” ($ 60 mill.) loan from his dad, and then he inherited a huge fortune.
Or Elron Musk who grew up on the benefits of daddy owning an emerald mine.
Both are absolutely the worst kind of narcissist sociopaths that come from privilege, so the old claim of the rich having heavy responsibilities they learn to manage, is complete bullshit too.
“most likely”? So basically there’s zero success stories from people who started in their garage and made a multi-billion empire? Go check how Google and Apple started. No one is stopping you from doing something great and becoming a billionaire other than your delusion of entitlement to free money and work from others.
Maybe this would work in middle ages when there was some untaken land to settle on.
What kind of logic is that? What’s stopping you from being rich? Did someone assign who gets rich and who isn’t?
Go make a company, build something the people need, and make money!
Did you see how Jeff Bezos looked like in the 90s? He was begging for investment money to create Amazon, while investors asked “what is internet?”. No one is entitled to anything. You work hard and you might succeed if you do it right.
It starts with a basic idea like all people should have access to food, clean drinking water, shelter, healthcare, and a basic minimum quality of life. For most people, access to these things are currently granted by working and earning a wage.
Wealth and resources are finite. As a company generates profits and it gets hoarded by a minority of people, that means there are less and less resources every single day for the rest of the population.
As companies implement more automation, there are fewer jobs. With fewer jobs, that means there are fewer people who can afford the basic necessities of life. As companies introduce technology which can work faster than humans, it devalues a humans value to companies meaning less pay for employees, many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck as it is.
Furthermore, with these reductions in cost to produce a product through automation and robotics we do not see a related decrease in consumer prices.
In short, a person earns less while prices of goods continue to rise. The quality of life of the vast majority of the populace is continually going down.
Not everyone can be a CEO, executive, or high earner. It’s just a physical impossibility. In addition, these same people weild disproportionate power in the legislature. They are able to manipulate the rules that increase the barrier of entry into a business as well as manipulate markets to prevent my goods from generating a significant profit, if they so desires.
So while I do not feel entitled to what they produce, finding land and starting a farm would not secure those basic necessities of life and the opportunities to do so decrease daily.
It starts with a basic idea like all people should have access to food, clean drinking water, shelter, healthcare, and a basic minimum quality of life. For most people, access to these things are currently granted by working and earning a wage.
No one is entitled to anything. You’re confusing what “would be great” with what reality is.
Again, no matter how much automation there is, you can always build your own thing. You don’t need a job under anyone. You can go start on your own, fail 100 times, and succeed at time 101. I’ve seen tons of people do that, including millionaires.
So while I do not feel entitled to what they produce, finding land and starting a farm would not secure those basic necessities of life and the opportunities to do so decrease daily.
What you call “basic necessities” aren’t really basic. You want to enjoy modern civilization without contributing to it. Find a way to be part of it, or go back to farming and no one will have beef with you. Your health care today is better than the richest elite 100 years ago. Never forget that, and never forget you’re not entitled to any of it.
In short, a person earns less while prices of goods continue to rise. The quality of life of the vast majority of the populace is continually going down.
Because you keep voting for governments that keeps increasing government spending and printing money. You refuse personal responsibility and you think the government should solve all your problems. You can’t have it both ways. Either solve your problems by yourself to have a deflationary economy with less government spending, or make the government spend more and enjoy more inflation. It’s simple math.
All these are problems you’re creating. You’re still free to leave to another country to farm your own land.
Governments are not a bunch of benevolent gods. It’s a bunch of people seeking their own interest (like everyone else), and they will do everything they can to keep the racket going. This idea that the government is there to solve your problems is ridiculous. Especially that the primary cause of the whole economy being in the gutter comes from money-printing by the government. When people predicted inflation because of all the “stimulus checks” in 2020 and printing over 60% of the money supply in a fe months, they were called conspiracy theorists. Look at where we are now. The economy is going to shit and no one cares, including your “non-authoritarian government”.
No one is there to save you or help you. Get this out of your head. There’s no “social contract” except for what you believe to keep you tamed.
I used to think this way. But when tens of millions of people are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, and buy medicine, it becomes that rich guy’s problem. In general you really don’t want huge chunks of your population to be desperate with nothing to lose. That’s bad news.
If you want to talk economics, this isn’t the rich guy’s problem. This is the problem that the government is so huge and that it’s printing money so much that it’s causing inflation to fill the pockets of big corporations. The ethos in lemmy, apparently, is communism due to ignorance, more than understanding economics and trying to implement self-responsibility to fix these problems.
Like I told another guy here: You either shrink the government to get a deflationary economy and make your money better, or you expect your government to solve all your problems and face inflation. You can’t have it both ways.
Real talk we’re probably all gonna get final-solution’d as soon as the rich perfect robotic automation and AI if we allow them to get that far. Because at that point we’re no longer useful to them and will be gotten rid of like an investment that’s no longer making profit.
AI and automation are not the enemy, they’re just tools. The rich are the enemy and are using those tools to oppress us.
I think we’re just gonna get herded into sanctuary districts until the problem solves itself.
The rich guy already lives in that society. How will he feel superior if everyone else does too?
The thing is we already live in that world. Labour saving automation is all around us but we work as hard as ever. My generation witnessed the arrival of the two parent income, women entered the workplace in order to afford better housing and foreign holidays. The result? More expensive housing and latchkey kids.
Are you surprised? The more efficient machines become, the harder humans will need to work to compete.
Edit: People are downvoting this as if it was something I wanted. It just seems like reality to me.
That’s the problem with capitalism and competition in capitalism. Everyone competes to maximize cost savings and profit.
I don’t know of a solution but this ain’t it.
That’s the worst part isn’t it. You see all these problems but I have no idea what to do about it. Even theoretical solutions don’t hold up, let alone practical limitations.