Humanoid Or Specifically Built Robots VS Human Workers

[kerbiloid]

9 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

But the picture of the slums of industrial England as caused solely, or even mostly, by mechanization

Such events are caused by overpopulation. The population grows, the area doesn't.
Just traditionally the excessive humans were utilized by epidemies, wars, crusades, monasteries, other social surgery.

In XVIII the total population reached the level when their needs in metallurgy made to build larger blast furnaces ever, and fuel them with coke (previously a useless waste of the coal-tar manufacturing) instead of charcoal.
The conditions in the furnaces reached the point of stable ore melting, and this allowed to produce steel in unlimited amounts.

Once the cheap steel allowed to experiment with machines, and on the other hand required the machines to replace the water wheels, the steam engines have appeared and spreaded everywhere.
This allowed to discard the archaic rural metallurgy, discard the great secrets of old masters, discard the professional guilds, and equip everyone with required steel tools of better quality than ever.

***

On the other hand, both villages plowlands and mansions were overpopulated.

To properly use the plowland and get higher harvest you need at least a proper crop rotation, when you grow another plant every year, differing as much as possible from its predecessor, consuming from the soil the predecessor's wastes, and filling the soil with its own wastes, consumable for the ancestor.
In some years of the cycle you must just grow nothing on this field and kill everything what has grown.
This allows to make parasite species starve to death every year, and to fertilize every next species with remains from the previous one.

The total cycle takes 3..8 years. And you can't grow highly productive species every year. Sometimes you have to grow flowers instead of crops.

Obviously this is possible only for large farmers and absolutely impossible for tiny ones, because they can't feed this year from that field, that year from this field.

So the more peasants are living on the same plowland, the more non-productive gets the plowland, let alone the fact that it's just too small to feed them all.

***

The only way to solve this problems is to leave as few peasants per plowland area as possible, make them use the plowland properly, and drive others away from the village for other works.

As this solution becomes inevitable when the plowland is already overpopulated by several times, this exactly means that almost all peasants should be driven away from the village to some other works, i.e. the mines and factories, and just few of them should own the whole plowland as large farmers and their hired personnel.

***

In turn, this means that the farmers should be provided with tools and fertilizers which should be mass manufactured by those mines and factories.
Because they should feed the others, who doesn't grow the food anymore.

So,
on one hand you want moar factories to produce and sell steel, tools, and chemistry;
on the other hand you need to produce as much tools, and chemistry as you can to supply the mentioned farmers;
on the other other hand you need to use the former peasants driven out of village in those mines and factories;
on the other³ hand the mine and factory workers' work is to use a pickaxe and a shovel, and no additional talents, i.e. exactly what they do with the plowland, but harder.

So, the former male peasants were mass hired in mines and metallurgy factories for hard, dirty, and stupid work in worse conditions than previously.
No mechanization is actually involved if not count the steam engines which replaced the water mills.

***

Now they should somehow utilize the former female and child peasants.
They are too weak to work in mines (except on auxilliary lighter jobs), illiterate, unskilled, and never operated with anything more complicated than a loom.
On the other hand, the loom is a device which can be easily automated, and its usage is almost as intellectual as beating with pickaxe, but physically much easier.

So, the looms are the best and only candidate.

***

The farmers should grow either food, or goods to sell and buy the food.
As the happening was happening in rich countries having a lot of colonies, the choice was made for the goods to manufacture and sell abroad.

So, the obvious choice were the steel and the textile.

***

So, the textile became the choice of dream for reasons:
a lot of cheap and weak working force to use (the former female and child peasants);
the plowlands turned into pastures could produce a lot of raw material for the looms;
the looms are simple, cheap, easily supported, high-productive.

So, while the former male peasants were driven into the mines and metallurgy plants, the female and child ones were driven into the textile factories.

Of course, the hand weavers were not happy with this and tried ludding, but were inevitably defeated by the forces of civilization and progress.
But this doesn't mean that the whole process was caused by mechanization or automation. Almost all of its participants just changed one hand work to another one.

The romantic steampunk epoch began.

***

This repeated several times in different countries, somewhere earlier, somewhere later.
Say, Russia just faced same problem a century later, and solved it in similar way, but with greater casualties, first of all because its population was already greater, and there were no rich colonies.

***

The final point was the double world war which eliminated the last abilities of the agricultural society in the developed countries to survive without the urbanization, and turned the Northern Hemisphere in a totally urbanized society, fastly eliminating the remains of the rural one.

5 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

The term is broad, and can easily include jobs which cannot be automated fully.

Probably the only job which cannot be automated fully is a tactile contact with another human.
Though, not many humans are required for that, and usually they don't call it "job".

Edited September 10, 2020 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

10 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Many people will, with the aid of computers, provide some form of services.

In what kind of services is a human superior enough to justify the added costs? You see, you're very likely to claim some sort of a "genuine human premium". The problem is that the market players will, as they have always done with various other goods and services, either

• find a way to fake the human with an automated substitute, and/or
• recondition the consumer to have preferences more convenient to the supplier: humans can lie, they can cheat, they are filthy and disgusting and spread infectious diseases, it's better to talk to computers instead!

Of course, there will be an attempt to charge that premium, but the market for human employees would still shrink enormously... driving costs up and thus encouraging their complete obsolescence in favour of fakes and cheapskates... and even greater fakes and cheapskates.

Edited September 10, 2020 by DDE

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, wumpus said:

The US had plenty of unemployment during and before the Great Depression, and almost no regulation.  I'm curious what other unregulated (and especially unsubsidized) economies went without unemployment for long.  Recessions were nasty before the New Deal.  Rest of this post pre-scrubbed.

Recessions was pretty cyclic during the 19th century. They was worse than later one except the great one as society was much poorer and you did not have the tools to counter it yet. One benefit of our globalized world is that you tend to get depression in one marked but not others and this helps. 

 

[Guest]

12 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

And outsourcing and removal of jobs to places outside American borders is good. It results in a net economic gain for all concerned. It is simply temporary. When automation becomes cheap enough, these manufacturers will move their factories back inside the borders, to reduce transportation costs, which begin to represent a greater portion of the whole cost to the consumer as the object itself becomes cheaper.

This is a theory. Show me one case of this happening in practice. There are plenty of things which are cheap to manufacture right now, yet US manufacturing sector continues to nosedive. Deregulation helped, but not as much as certain people have hoped.

The US isn't the only country that can do automation. It's also not the largest market in the world. China is. Economics of scale are very important to highly automated factories, if you're going to go in that direction, you won't build them all over the world. Hence, we can expect manufacturing to move to China, because, as you said yourself, it'll save on transportation, and that's where most of the buyers will be. The US? It'll be stuck with stuff that the Chinese don't want, with domestic products being a privilege of the rich.

Outsourcing is destroying jobs that, if not retained, will be hard to bring back in. If the manufacturing sector continues to tank, in the end, nobody will build factories there, because there will be no American engineers. People see the sector decline, and don't want to study to work in a dying profession. Like many things in economics, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Guest

[DDE]

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

If the manufacturing sector continues to tank, in the end, nobody will build factories there, because there will be no American engineers.

And don't you forget that the retiring generation of American engineers was unusually large because of... unconventional motivation.

Never call NASA a waste.

Even the SLS is barely chipping at its legacy of indirect economic success.

[kerbiloid]

32 minutes ago, DDE said:

Never call NASA a waste.

Even the SLS is barely chipping at its legacy of indirect economic success.

The most important thing is always to "stir up an action" _{"замутить движуху"}

[SOXBLOX]

19 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

I have shown that so far, technology has always created more jobs than it removes. Automation is just a technological advance. Therefore, we can reasonably expect that it will create more jobs than it eliminates.

 

13 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

The problem isn't "what has happened so far".  The problem is that the past is apples and the future is oranges, and thus it's less than clear that the past is a useful guide to the future.  You can't get apple cider out of oranges no matter how much smoke you blow.

Yeah, I already said that the real issue here is whether automation represents a fundamental (<-read that word again, please) change in technology and the economy. I say it doesn't. Here's my reasoning; automation is technology, technology always adds jobs, therefore automation adds jobs. I am thinking that your (pl.) reasoning is along the lines of "automation is not fundamentally the same as past technology, automation will remove jobs, and not enough new ones will be created". Am I close?

Our differences are on whether automation is fundamentally the same as past technology. Allow me to put your minds to rest on this matter. 

We humans define a thing by what it does. A washing machine washes, a mechanical engineer engineers, etc. Let's define automation in these terms, and take all the mystery out of it. What does it do? It performs a task on behalf of a human, right? (If you have a better definition, by all means, tell me!) Now, we can apply this definition to the world around us. What does your washing machine do? It washes clothes on your behalf. Even simpler, what does a plough do? (Yes, a plough.) It moves dirt, on behalf of a human! 

Now, what is the definition of technology? Technology is some labor-saving device which does work on behalf of a human. Here, we see that automation is just another name for technology; they are really the same thing. My reasoning that automation is technology, technology adds jobs, therefore automation adds jobs, holds.

Of course, the notion that automation (technology) is not technology is ridiculous. A cannot be non-A. But automation of the sort we mean, like computerized factories, are just technology. To claim they are somehow not is to defy logic. Do that, and you declare yourself a madman.

Now, by reductio ad absurdum, I will show that the idea that technology (or automation) destroys jobs, if held with any kind of logical consistency, leads to some silly conclusions.

Freight is carried between Chicago and Dodge City (or St. P and Vladivostok) on trains. Trains are technology. When they were invented, they surely took away someone's job. Now, let us remedy this dark, disheartening situation, where evil technology removes the jobs of good people! We can employ many more people carrying the cargo on their backs, through Siberia or the high prairie, than are, we presume, employed by the railroad. Hooray! The problem is solved! No more unemployment!

According to this viewpoint, mankind must have gone wrong as soon as he first used a rock to drive a peg. Let us all, therefore, go back to simpler times! No more of this technology! Go ahead, if you still can hold this view! Go ahead and shatter whatever device you are using to read this post! We shall go back to picking berries and nuts in the forest!

Ridiculous, right? But this idea has been around for a very long time. There were the Luddites, the Technocrats, in America. All of them had their theories meticulously dissected and destroyed, but each time, the same idea rose like the mythical Phoenix.

Since the middle of the XIX century, the population of the world has grown. Today, it is more than four times what it was back then. Technology (automation, for they are the same) has permitted this growth. One out of every four of us owes his life, in some way, to the automation of labor.

***

So, I have, by multiple lines of reasoning, demonstrated that the idea that technology destroys jobs and has a net negative impact on any economy to be false. Do I expect to convince anyone? No. Humans are good at many things, but they are often best at ignoring truth. Why? I don't know. Maybe I will sometime later in life.

***

Edit: I would greatly appreciate it if you all would read the whole post before attacking it. Chances are I already addressed your objections.

Edited September 10, 2020 by SOXBLOX

[magnemoe]

8 hours ago, DDE said:

In what kind of services is a human superior enough to justify the added costs? You see, you're very likely to claim some sort of a "genuine human premium". The problem is that the market players will, as they have always done with various other goods and services, either

• find a way to fake the human with an automated substitute, and/or
• recondition the consumer to have preferences more convenient to the supplier: humans can lie, they can cheat, they are filthy and disgusting and spread infectious diseases, it's better to talk to computers instead!

Of course, there will be an attempt to charge that premium, but the market for human employees would still shrink enormously... driving costs up and thus encouraging their complete obsolescence in favour of fakes and cheapskates... and even greater fakes and cheapskates.

This require an strong AI and that is another issue like an strong AI is an person and we don't know how to build one. 

Current AI are an high order of magnitudes better than 20 years ago, its still far stupider than an chicken but nice for tasks its hard to use traditional software to handle directly like pattern matching its very nice. Its also slow to learn and its hard to prove that it know as system is pretty analogue. 
Like how an AI to spot wolfs counted all dogs on snow as wolves. 
Trying to use AI for stuff like fighting crime or warfare would work a couple of days, then the other sides do stuff like wearing white hats and walk up and disable it. 

Now last line of defense human jobs would be anything customer relations. Anything where fails is dangerous like elevator or plain mechanic. 
military and law enforcement are also obvious. 
And you will have to handle lots of AI all the time so you would also be an manager, 
 

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, SOXBLOX said:

Here's my reasoning; automation is technology, technology always adds jobs, therefore automation adds jobs.

That's not reasoning, that's simply repeating yourself.  (AKA "proof by assertion".)  No matter how many times you repeat yourself, it doesn't change the fact that you've refused to address the facts that have been introduced by others or answer the questions you've been asked.
 

1 hour ago, SOXBLOX said:

Chances are I already addressed your objections.

Nope, you didn't.

[SOXBLOX]

51 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

That's not reasoning, that's simply repeating yourself.  (AKA "proof by assertion".)  No matter how many times you repeat yourself, it doesn't change the fact that you've refused to address the facts that have been introduced by others or answer the questions you've been asked.
 

Nope, you didn't.

Yes, I did.

Here is the structure of the argument, just to make it clear. A is B, B does X, therefore, A does X also. If you don't see that, there are courses for you online or at a college. Heck, they even teach logic in grade school.

Edited September 10, 2020 by SOXBLOX

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

Here is the structure of the argument. A is B, B does X, therefore, A does X also. If you don't see that, there are courses for you online or at a college. Heck, they even teach logic in grade school.

Yeah, except we are disputing "A is B" and "B does X", and you have not provided any evidence for that. You see, logic is only part of the equation. Even if your logic is sound, you are arguing from false premises, therefore your conclusions are invalid.

Don't try to distract us with longwinded, logically consistent arguments when all the problems are in premises. It's pretty easy to see through. World would work like you say if your initial assumptions were true. They're not and it doesn't.

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Edit: I would greatly appreciate it if you all would read the whole post before attacking it. Chances are I already addressed your objections.

You had, so far, failed to address most of objections raised, instead restating your assertions without a shred of evidence. You have not provided additional data, only relying on repetition, sprinkled liberally with appeal to authority. In fact, you talk in a manner suggesting that you think you have all the answers, which is a pretty sure tell that you are not a subject matter expert, so you may quit trying to sound like one, it's just annoying. With regards to Luddites in particular, you are dead wrong, which is quickly proven by a look at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Quote

The lower classes of the 18th century were not openly disloyal to the king or government, generally speaking, and violent action was rare because punishments were harsh. The majority of individuals were primarily concerned with meeting their own daily needs. Working conditions were harsh in the English textile mills at the time but efficient enough to threaten the livelihoods of skilled artisans. The new inventions produced textiles faster and cheaper because they were operated by less-skilled, low-wage labourers, and the Luddite goal was to gain a better bargaining position with their employers.

Emphasis mine. Luddites were not some kind of ideological anti-technology movement (like modern groups calling themselves that are). They were a bunch of skilled weavers screwed out of their jobs by textile mill owners and rightly furious about that, because they lost their means of sustenance. Their replacements? Low wage, low skill laborers, who were paid starvation wages. These days you're not seeing riots like this before in most civilized countries, the employers can't lay off workers without either a very good reason or a generous severance payment. This makes the "we got those spiffy Jacquard looms, you guys can all take a hike" approach to innovating less feasible.

Another bit, from here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment

Quote

At the industry level, however, researchers have found mixed results with regard to the employment effect of technological changes. A 2017 study on manufacturing and service sectors in 11 European countries suggests that positive employment effects of technological innovations only exist in the medium- and high-tech sectors. There also seems to be a negative correlation between employment and capital formation, which suggests that technological progress could potentially be labor-saving given that process innovation is often incorporated in investment.

In short, reality is not clear-cut, particularly in low-tech sectors. High-tech, yes, presumably because innovation is typically less revolutionary and more evolutionary in those areas, and there are more "brain" jobs in those sectors that are only augmented, not replaced.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Guest

[SOXBLOX]

5 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Yeah, except we are disputing "A is B" and "B does X", and you have not provided any evidence for that.

Ah. You dispute that automation is technology? That is...sad. If you meant that you dispute only "technology adds jobs", then here is a demonstration of why it does. Hint: you have to look beyond the obvious.

It is the merit of the classical economists that they looked for secondary consequences, and took the long view. However, they did sometimes fail to take the short view and the narrow view. The skilled laborers who were put out of work suffered real tragedies, I agree. But many of the modern writers have the opposite flaw; they neglect the long view, or the wide view, concerning the whole economy, all groups involved, etc. Say Joe Smith loses a job due to a new machine. The popular writers will tell you of the sadness of how he lost his job, but they don't mention how Tom Jones got a job making the machine, or how Ted Brown got a job operating one, or how Theo Gray can buy a new product for half the price.

Certainly we should pay attention to Joe and his plight. Perhaps he can get a new job, and maybe a better one. But, perhaps also, he spent a long while training and honing a skill the market no longer needs. He has lost this investment in himself, just as his employer has lost his investment in old processes or machinery rendered obsolete. We certainly cannot forget him, but he is one of the tragedies incident to nearly all economic progress.

Now, for how the market offsets the labor deficit created by the machine. A factory owner buys a new, labor-saving machine which automates a process. People are fired, but other jobs are created revolving around the machine. Assume these new jobs do not offset the job deficit. After the machine has produced enough extra profit that it has offset the cost of its purchase, the employer earns more profit than he did before. At first glance, it looks like only he has gained from the machine, as there are less jobs than when we started. But, it is out of these extra profits that more jobs come.

He will use these profits in one of three ways: 1) he will expand his operations by buying more machines and factories, 2) he will invest his profits in another industry, or 3) he will increase his own consumption. He will probably do all three. So the wages he saved by laying off workers, he now has to pay out as wages to the machine-builders, to the workers of other industries, and to the people who make cars and new houses for him and his wife. Regardless, he now gives as many jobs indirectly as he ceased to give directly.

But the sequence does not end here; if this manufacturer has become more economical compared to his competitors, he will either expand at their expense, or they will buy the machines, too. This increase in production and competition forces the price of the product down. Consumers benefit, and the living standard is raised.

(If the demand for the product is "elastic", we may see more people employed making the same product than before the machine, but the argument does not require elasticity.)

Say that, though no more products were sold than before the machine, the price fell from $150 to $100. The consumers, though the rate of their consumption has not increased, now have $50 left over which they would not have had before. This increases their consumption in other areas.

Spoiler

This is paraphrased from Chapter 7 of Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt.

In a spoiler so you can't complain about appeal to authority.

More jobs are added. Typically in non-industrial sectors.

5 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

In fact, you talk in a manner suggesting that you think you have all the answers...

I apologise. And if I thought I did, I would be a fool.

5 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Luddites were not some kind of ideological anti-technology movement...

Certainly not. They did not hold their beliefs consistently. If they did, they would be advocating the situation I described regarding the complete abolition of technology.

The premises are correct. I showed why, and I showed what conclusions we would draw about the world if they were not. That would be the reductio ad absurdum argument and the Khmer Rouge, who actually tried your theories.

And if I repeat myself, the repetition does not affect the validity of my statement.

Edited September 11, 2020 by SOXBLOX

[Guest]

9 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

We certainly cannot forget him, but he is one of the tragedies incident to nearly all economic progress.

Yet you are insisting we do, and look at a nebulous "bigger picture", in which employment will, eventually, bounce back up. Remember, technologies come with a time lag. You're balancing benefits to hypothetical future workers with loses to the real workers of today. Any system in which a certain group of people will inevitably lose their means of sustenance for the sake of progress is unethical. It is government's duty to do something, be it welfare, sponsored retraining or whatever else, that those people do not end up impoverished. My point is that "tragedies incident to economic progress" are unacceptable, and a means needs to be devised to have economic progress without them.

FIY, "appeal to authority" means, in essence taking someone else's conclusions as your premises, as opposed to backing them up with your own argumentation. Citing the source, in spoiler or not, is irrelevant. However, it does reveal where all this bogosity comes from. Hazlitt, acclaimed as he may be, essentially threw the entire Keynesian theory down the drain. He was a die-hard classicist, in other words, up there with Malthus, Adam Smith and Ricardo. Their economic theories are incomplete and had failed multiple times, most notably the Great Depression. In particular, that's where all this "free market will sort itself out" crap comes from. This book, and the economic theory contained therein, had been superseded. Go find a source that's been written in this century, like one of those:
https://www.economist.com/special-report/2014/10/02/the-third-great-wave
http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2485706/as-the-digital-revolution-kills-jobs--social-unrest-will-rise.html

9 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

The premises are correct. I showed why, and I showed what conclusions we would draw about the world if they were not. That would be the reductio ad absurdum argument and the Khmer Rouge, who actually tried your theories.

You did not. It was a strawman, with a heaping of Godwin's Law on the side. Absurd, but not reductio ad absurdum. I do not hold beliefs you ascribe to me. Neither did the Khmer Rouge, for that matter. They were about making Cambodia self-reliant, and purging foreign influences (which happened to include a lot of the technology). That caused the famines, when they weren't deliberately murdering people out of paranoia and bigotry. In fact, they tried to emulate (similarly disastrous, so one could argue they were successful) China's Great Leap Forward, a rapid industrialization effort. You tried to refute an argument that I did not make, which is the definition of a strawman, and on top of that, the argument doesn't even support your premises, because Khmer Rouge weren't Luddites, and it's incorrect, because in fact, they weren't even the ones who destroyed the industry. Invalid, untrue and unsound.

Have another Wiki quote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia

Quote

Although the Khmer Rouge implemented an "agriculture first" policy in order to achieve self-sufficiency, they were not, as some observers have argued, "back-to-nature" primitivists. Although the 1970–75 war and the evacuation of the cities had destroyed or idled most industry, small contingents of workers were allowed to return to the urban areas to reopen some plants.

Emphasis mine. They didn't shutter the factories, they had them bombed out from under them. By the US Air Force, no less (70-75, a side show to the Vietnam War). They couldn't industrialize, because what they had was in shambles, and they couldn't bring it from abroad for ideological reasons. They would presumably have liked to, not that it mattered, because they weren't competent enough to industrialize Cambodia (especially since that would require recognizing the isolationism as the idiocy that it was).

9 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Certainly not. They did not hold their beliefs consistently. If they did, they would be advocating the situation I described regarding the complete abolition of technology.

They didn't hold beliefs you ascribe to them at all. "Luddite philosophy" is a later invention. The original Luddites just wanted their jobs back. Ned Ludd wasn't a philosopher, he was a young weaver who smashed up two knitting frames after being annoyed by some other youths. People named themselves after him because they were imitating his act of vandalism. 

As a matter of fact, automation at the time didn't really improve things except for factory owners. Prices didn't really change much (because people were still willing to pay as much as they did), skilled weavers were out of work, and factories were full of starvation wage workers and children, who all worked in incredibly dangerous conditions and were often maimed. Positive economic effects of that one took a long time to appear. In that case, government failed to step in, and instead of providing the weavers with some kind of alternative (and making factories less miserable by implementing safety standards), they shot at them. That's what happens when you try to do capitalism without enforcing some basic moral standards.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Guest

[Terwin]

16 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

So, I have, by multiple lines of reasoning, demonstrated that the idea that technology destroys jobs and has a net negative impact on any economy to be false. Do I expect to convince anyone? No. Humans are good at many things, but they are often best at ignoring truth. Why? I don't know. Maybe I will sometime later in life.

One problem:

Logic does not work against emotionally held beliefs.

The fear of automation taking away jobs is just that, a fear.

It may be based in part on seeing that there are machines now doing things that humans were once required for, but at it's root, it is an emotionally held belief and thus immune to logic.

You cannot convince someone that their Axiom is false, because they have already accepted it as true and any logic that counters it must be false by definition.

As I stated before, I have no intention to continue arguing that automation will not replace all human jobs because it has become clear to me that there are multiple parties on the other side of the argument that have accepted the axiom that eventually automation *will* replace all human jobs.

Arguing against an unfalsifiable belief is just another version of trying to convince a priest that god does not exist, and will bring nothing but frustration.

Good effort though.

[SOXBLOX]

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

He was a die-hard classicist

Dangerous!

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Their economic theories are incomplete and had failed multiple times

Or maybe, they were never fully applied. The men were probably called geniuses for a reason, y'know. And what would you rather have? Socialism?

Alright. One last time, I shall attempt to make this clear.

If the idea that technology always, or even usually, throws more folks out of work than it puts in is correct, then we would expect a decrease in technology to lead to an increase in jobs. In Cambodia, when technology was removed, we did not see an increase in jobs, and certainly not an increase in prosperity.

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

I do not hold beliefs you ascribe to me. 

Because you are logically inconsistent about applying the ones you do hold. If you are against automation on the principle that it destroys jobs, and automation is technology, then you are against technology on the principle that it destroys jobs.

Would anyone ever say that with a straight face while typing on a piece of technology? Obviously not. Which is why you apply your beliefs selectively. Do I expect you to see that? No.

***

Exactly that, @Terwin! Fear is the (logic)-killer.

Edited September 11, 2020 by SOXBLOX

[Guest]

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Because you are logically inconsistent about applying the ones you do hold. If you are against automation on the principle that it destroys jobs, and automation is technology, then you are against technology on the principle that it destroys jobs.

Stop telling me what I believe. All it does is make you sound like a know-nothing-know-it-all. Besides, . First of all automation is technology, but all technology is not automation. Fallacy of composition, your argument is invalid. Re-read your book on logic again, because you're committing a rather elementary fallacy here. Automation is a subset of technology. Seeing as we are not talking about technology, your argument is also irrelevant to the entire discussion.

Second, I'm not against automation, which you would know if actually you read what I've said. I'm against people losing their livelihoods to automation. Again, these are two different things. I don't feel like repeating myself, so do look through the thread and explain just why it's better to throw people under the bus than implement things I proposed to address this. Hint: none of that involves abolishing technology. Second hint: it involves certain ideas Americans find hard to swallow.

You can stop pretending you know anything about logic now, because your reasoning is, again, invalid, untrue and unsound. Oh, and FIY, I'm a scientist, I have nothing to fear. Nothing I do, or my family does, runs the risk of being automated in the near future. All those are "brain" jobs, which are not at risk. 

[SOXBLOX]

On 9/11/2020 at 9:24 AM, Dragon01 said:

First of all automation is technology, but all technology is not automation. Fallacy of composition, your argument is invalid. Re-read your book on logic again, because you're committing a rather elementary fallacy here.

Oh, I see logic! This post is relevant!

The argument is not invalid. Certainly other technology exists which does not automate a job humans can perform. Airplanes fly. Humans don't. That also adds more jobs.

And you really can't get non-automating technology without automation, so effectively, my equivalency holds.

[snip]

Edited September 16, 2020 by Vanamonde

[Guest]

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

And you really can't get non-automating technology without automation, so effectively, my equivalency holds.

If you can't get a certain technology without automation, then it isn't automation. Because it doesn't automate something humans do, but enables humans to do something which was beyond their reach. Airplanes. Composites. Vaccines. Cars. All those technologies opened up new avenues, not automate old ones. Cars put horses out of work, but they still needed a driver, could be maintained and built by people who built horse carts (if you look at early cars, they were carts with an engine and a steering wheel), and caused growth, because they quickly gained the ability to do many things horses could not. The demand for those things was there, but it was impossible to fulfill without them. 

In fact, what you fail to realize is that the majority of technologies in current use are of this kind. Any and all medical technology, for example, doesn't put anyone out of work, quite the contrary, saves people from disability and creates a vast amount of jobs in hospitals, pharma and R&D. New construction materials let us build faster, bigger and better, while power tools and machinery to work them still need operators (that's not to say there weren't job loses in the sector, to improved machinery). Trains, airplanes and IT created whole new sectors of the economy out of wholecloth. This is what's different between first and second Industrial Revolutions and today. Back then, automation was paired with a massive growth in completely new sectors, meaning that after a generation or two, the tragedy of the workers who lost their jobs was more or less forgotten, and their grandchildren found jobs elsewhere, even if they were crappier than what their grandfathers did. Today, the revolution so far looks like it's almost entirely based on increasing automation. This is new, and that's why there are concerns arising. 

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

If you wanna try "methods Americans find hard to swallow", move to China. Or Cuba. Or Venezuela. Or North Korea. Or Belarus. Or even California. But you may not try them here. Says the Constitution. But that's close to politics, so I am ending my participation in this discussion.

You missed the fact that this forum is very much international. In fact, I'm from Europe, and I don't need to move anywhere to see how a functional welfare system looks like, than you very much. In fact, Europe is much more socialist in practice than either of places you listed except for Belarus, the problems with which were already highlighted. Discussion of economics is permitted, if American political dogma is preventing you from considering a valid, ethical option of solving a problem, then that's purely a problem with you.

BTW, China is far from socialist, and has been from a long time. It's now very capitalist, and actually beating the US at their own game, as far as international trade goes. So watch what you say about them, they likely made most of the stuff you use, and soon you might find stuff you make go to them, too.  

Edited September 11, 2020 by Guest

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Oh, I see logic! This post is relevant!

The argument is not invalid. Certainly other technology exists which does not automate a job humans can perform. Airplanes fly. Humans don't. That also adds more jobs.

And you really can't get non-automating technology without automation, so effectively, my equivalency holds.

If you wanna try "methods Americans find hard to swallow", move to China. Or Cuba. Or Venezuela. Or North Korea. Or Belarus. Or even California. But you may not try them here. Says the Constitution. But that's close to politics, so I am ending my participation in this discussion.

Yes however its no fundamental difference, automation is just another layer on an 200 year old process. 
First layer was farming as you get horse drawn farming tools.  Next was lots of crafts all from metalworking to making fabric or even thread.
Then you started getting high output machines who could create stuff at an rapid pace replacing the old one item a time machines. 

On the other hand you could make so much more now so demand for factory workers grew. At this time you started getting an middle class and prices starting to drop. 
If you look at the Victorian age its easy to see that this was an time of mass production and keeping ahead of the Joneses.

An process who accelerated up past WW2, better industrial processes increased output and reduced workforce needed but the number of new product demanded more factory workers, stuff like chemistry, electricity and radio. Around 1900 an 10 year old battleship was an second line unit, in 1920 an 10 year old tank or plane was an second line unit. Dreadnought did not fight in Battle of Jutland as she was 10 year old. On the other hand Texas who was an WW1 battleship fought in WW2, granted as an secondary unit but still useful, yes an old battleship was still nice for shore bombardment and protecting convoys against cruisers.
An 10 year old tank or plane was an death trap, today they are front line units   

Now after WW2, stuff got more scientific. Japan raised and an manufacturing hub. 
It was also an strategic interest to turn the arms race more scientific as an way to beat the Soviets. 
And getting an Sputnik moment  so you double down. 
On the other hand wealth had grown an order of magnitude, one generation ago, poor people was thin now they was getting fat. 
It was the modern age, the time there the retired of us grew up. 
Computers was hot, first for science and high level stuff then you saw real automation and work getting replaced by computers. 
More foreign competition as 3rd world countries industrialized. 

Secretaries was replaced by word processors and mail. Fewer and fewer work in factories in the west. 
Fall of the Soviet Union. Personal computers become common down to students. Rapid development here. 

Rise of China, rise of the internet, PC evolution stagnates at end of this and mobiles accelerates and stagnates. 
Machine learning systems, at this time the world changes from most people are farmers to most people work in service. Industry never became the main employee. 
Last shift was then most went from hunter gatherer to farmers. and the later was much more positive. Next shift is probably then most people are not humans but AI and uplifts as in a great filter. or more babes  and end this history lesson. 
Yes we made first contact 

She looks just like the stupid catgirl ahead fly her air car on manual and create an major queue. 
And she ate the lander 

 

 

[DerekL1963]

34 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Dreadnought did not fight in Battle of Jutland as she was 10 year old.

Dreadnought did not fight at the Battle of Jutland because she was undergoing a lengthy refit at Portsmouth.  Otherwise, she was the flagship of 4BS and at the Battle Of Jutland she'd have been with the Grand Fleet - right near the center of the battleline.

(You're not far wrong about the other stuff, but it's common misconception that she was deliberately left behind.)

 

[SOXBLOX]

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Because it doesn't automate something humans do, but enables humans to do something which was beyond their reach. 

 

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

In fact, what you fail to realize is that the majority of technologies in current use are of this kind

 

5 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Certainly other technology exists which does not automate a job humans can perform. 

On second thought, all technology really is automation. This ^ previous statement was incorrect. I stand corrected! "Wait, what?!" you ask. "That isn't what I meant!" I will explain, and return myself to logical consistency. Remember the three steps of technology I described? 

Human power, human control; -> mechanical power, human control; -> mechanical power, autonomy.

Airplanes, trains, etc. merely skip the first step, or else, the first step looked nothing like what followed. (i.e., walking) Now we return to my previous arguments, and you are back in the same hole as before. Medicine is a different story; it does no work on its own.

Freud was wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about what technology really is. We are, in his mind, "prosthetic gods". The train or automobile is just an extension of our legs. Telescopes, of our eyes. Rockets are an extension of our arms; they let us throw rocks really, really fast.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

Medicine is a different story; it does no work on its own.

This alone proves you wrong. Medicine is technology, I think we can agree on that. There are particle accelerators in use for medical purposes. You could say, I suppose, that medicine does not create value on its own, but stops it from "decaying", due to various diseases or accidents that can affect a worker's ability to produce. That said, it can also be thought of like any other sector, producing value in form of both therapies (services) and goods (medicines). Either way, it's important, and a factory making pills is still a factory as much as one making sprockets. When talking about technology, you cannot ignore medicine, you cannot ignore bioengineering, you cannot ignore materials science.

8 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

Airplanes, trains, etc. merely skip the first step, or else, the first step looked nothing like what followed. (i.e., walking) Now we return to my previous arguments, and you are back in the same hole as before. Medicine is a different story; it does no work on its own.

You are still where you were before. That is, wrong. What are the Wright Flyer, or Stephenson's Rocket, if not technology? Your statement was that "all technology is automation", yet you actually argue that "all technology leads to automation". Those are fundamentally different statements. This is a textbook example of a non sequitur fallacy. You are not arguing for the point you want to argue. Both statements are false, BTW, as the medicine example shows. 

Your reflection about Freud is also non-sequitur, and outright refutes your own position. Prosthetics, by definition, are not autonomous. In fact, actual prosthetics are another example of technology that is not automation, but restoration of human capabilities. Give it up, and think hard on what it means for your worldview.

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

An process who accelerated up past WW2, better industrial processes increased output and reduced workforce needed but the number of new product demanded more factory workers, stuff like chemistry, electricity and radio. Around 1900 an 10 year old battleship was an second line unit, in 1920 an 10 year old tank or plane was an second line unit. Dreadnought did not fight in Battle of Jutland as she was 10 year old. On the other hand Texas who was an WW1 battleship fought in WW2, granted as an secondary unit but still useful, yes an old battleship was still nice for shore bombardment and protecting convoys against cruisers.
An 10 year old tank or plane was an death trap, today they are front line units   

Military equipment in general, and especially ships, tends to have long lifetimes when there isn't an active war pitting them against an enemy at a similar level, and sometimes even then. Dreadnought, as mentioned, was still good, just stuck in drydock at the time. Many WWI battleships fought in WWII with great success. 

That said, even today, front line units are usually not 10 years old. They might be based on a design that originated during the Cold War, but they're constantly upgraded to keep up with potential opponents. The Abrams is now at SEP3 upgrade package, and T-90 also got an upgrade to the MS variant. Those are latest technology, T-90SM is not Armata, but it's still a formidable, modern fighting machine. In WWII, something like this was also done. Good designs were kept and upgraded, Soviets used the T-28 Tank well into the 1945. Likewise, the UK Light Tank series was quite enduring. It wasn't the case with the US designs interwar designs because, quite frankly, they were crap. However, WWII also had a great number of completely new forms of warfare arise, especially armored. In the 1930, they neither needed nor could build something that would be described as a medium or heavy tank during WWII, so all the "upgraded 10 years old designs" are from light tank category.

[SOXBLOX]

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

This alone proves you wrong. Medicine is technology, I think we can agree on that. There are particle accelerators in use for medical purposes. You could say, I suppose, that medicine does not create value on its own, but stops it from "decaying", due to various diseases or accidents that can affect a worker's ability to produce. That said, it can also be thought of like any other sector, producing value in form of both therapies (services) and goods (medicines). Either way, it's important, and a factory making pills is still a factory as much as one making sprockets. When talking about technology, you cannot ignore medicine, you cannot ignore bioengineering, you cannot ignore materials science.

And when did I say it isn't? And be careful about flinging the word "proves" around; you need a deductive chain of reasoning to back it up.

You are correct, medicine does not create capital; it is most equivalent to a luxury commodity (i.e. one which cannot be used to produce capital). That is why I said that it is a different story.

And when bioengineering (your field, I assume?) and MatSci are applied in the economy, as economically useful technology, then they are examples of me being correct. When they are not applied, that is, people don't do labor using them, then they are not part of the economy and are outside the realm of this discussion.

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

You are still where you were before. That is, wrong. What are the Wright Flyer, or Stephenson's Rocket, if not technology? Your statement was that "all technology is automation", yet you actually argue that "all technology leads to automation". Those are fundamentally different statements. This is a textbook example of a non sequitur fallacy. You are not arguing for the point you want to argue. Both statements are false, BTW, as the medicine example shows. 

Permit my past self to refute you thus:     (And both are true, as my reasoning and examples show.)

On 9/10/2020 at 3:30 PM, SOXBLOX said:

We humans define a thing by what it does. A washing machine washes, a mechanical engineer engineers, etc. Let's define automation in these terms, and take all the mystery out of it. What does it do? It performs a task on behalf of a human, right? (If you have a better definition, by all means, tell me!) Now, we can apply this definition to the world around us. What does your washing machine do? It washes clothes on your behalf. Even simpler, what does a plough do? (Yes, a plough.) It moves dirt, on behalf of a human! 

Now, what is the definition of technology? Technology is some labor-saving device which does work on behalf of a human. Here, we see that automation is just another name for technology; they are really the same thing. My reasoning that automation is technology, technology adds jobs, therefore automation adds jobs, holds

So all technology is automation (when applied in the economy). No matter what stage of the progression (from human power, human control to mech. power, mech. control), technology automates. So I both state and argue that technology is automation.

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Your reflection about Freud is also non-sequitur, and outright refutes your own position. Prosthetics, by definition, are not autonomous. In fact, actual prosthetics are another example of technology that is not automation, but restoration of human capabilities. Give it up, and think hard on what it means for your worldview.

As usual, you have missed the point. That point had no bearing on automation, but on and only on our relation to technology as a societal force, and to the fact that the progression I described still holds in general. It does so because even airplanes are just automation of our natural means of locomotion, walking. They are prosthetic enhancements, if you will.

Now, in your own words, give it up, and think hard on what it means for your worldview.

BTW, my socio-economic views aren't American. See John Locke, Frédéric Bastiat, and Adam Smith for more. America just applied them (and got ahead because of it).

My axioms are correct, neither I nor you have found a fallacy in my reasoning, and my entire idea is consistent with what we see in the world around us. It is also not mine. It has been presented in many books, in many languages, since the printing press at least. Nor is your idea new. It is at least as old as the view I hold, and has been destroyed many times over. Due to the complexity involved in refuting it, it is easy to hold on to even in the face of logic, especially when those who hold it define their own arguments as correct. We humans are good at that.

But really, I never expected to convince you anyways.

This has been an entertaining debate; I hope someone somewhere will profit by it.

Edited September 12, 2020 by SOXBLOX

[wumpus]

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

That said, even today, front line units are usually not 10 years old. They might be based on a design that originated during the Cold War, but they're constantly upgraded to keep up with potential opponents. The Abrams is now at SEP3 upgrade package, and T-90 also got an upgrade to the MS variant. Those are latest technology, T-90SM is not Armata, but it's still a formidable, modern fighting machine. In WWII, something like this was also done. Good designs were kept and upgraded, Soviets used the T-28 Tank well into the 1945. Likewise, the UK Light Tank series was quite enduring. It wasn't the case with the US designs interwar designs because, quite frankly, they were crap. However, WWII also had a great number of completely new forms of warfare arise, especially armored. In the 1930, they neither needed nor could build something that would be described as a medium or heavy tank during WWII, so all the "upgraded 10 years old designs" are from light tank category.

I remember hearing one story that the Soviets (presumably Stalin personally) made a conscious decision to *not* upgrade tanks during the Great Patriotic War.  Maybe it was just the T-34.  But the overall point was that while it certainly made the tanks more vulnerable, it also made the logistics issues in churning out tanks and spare parts far easier.  Did they bother with spare parts?  Or did they just send mechanics to strip as many parts of destroyed tanks and send them back to the factories?  My impression of the thing was that it was the perfect tank for the Eastern Front.  MTBF rated in days, but considering the life expectancy of any tank in a WWII battle (much less the Eastern Front) was measured in hours once they got to the front (let alone the enemy).

Tank fans love to ooh and ahh over German designs.  The thing is that Germans could spend their time making the "perfect tank" because they only had enough diesel fuel for a relatively small amount of tanks.  The USSR (and USA) could pretty much fuel every tank they could make (as long as they held Stalingrad and the oil fields), so slapping out as many (if not to German quality levels) tanks as possible made sense.  "No improvements" may have played an important role in Soviet tank production.  Maybe you could have a fancy new IS-3, or perhaps 10 or so T-34s (with spares).  The choice (in the unlikely event that they gave field commanders choices) would presumably depend on the German anti-tank availability (and of course if they still had diesel for their tanks).

This whole meandering post is that logistics win wars, and that ECOing something fielded is an unholy nightmare.  But I will also agree that once weapons and moreso defenses get obsoleted in warfare, it is fast and permanent.  At that point you will need some better, and you will need it now.  But if you already have three marks of "like to have it" ECOs in the field of varying levels of upgrades, that very well could get in the way of bringing the right equipment to the warfighter.

[Guest]

Yes, but remember that this didn't mean nothing changed whatsoever. Wikipedia lists T-34 models from A to F, and that's only the 76mm gun version (most of the 85mm variants are post-war). Soviets in particular weren't big on massive upgrades that required significant redesigns, but that does not mean they didn't adopt the experience from deploying their vehicles. KV/IS series is another good example, but mind they were heavy tanks, complementing the T-34, not competing with it.

Germans had the problem of treating tank design like an engineering contest, resulting in wonderfully crafted machines that were neither reliable nor easy to build. They fell into the trap of overengineering.

5 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

And when did I say it isn't? And be careful about flinging the word "proves" around; you need a deductive chain of reasoning to back it up.

If you want a chain of reasoning, OK. Automation is technology. A particle accelerator does not do any work that humans could perform. Therefore, a particle accelerator is not a technology. See, that's what a real reductio ad absurdum looks like. You're either willing to accept technology is not automation, or a particle accelerator doesn't count as technology. 

Quote

Now, what is the definition of technology? Technology is some labor-saving device which does work on behalf of a human. 

Ah, I probably should have addressed that one right away, we might have avoided this pointless digression. This is the definition of automation. Is English your first language? Because that's not what technology means in English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology

Quote

Technology ("science of craft", from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia^[2]) is the sum of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation. 

In short, this whole debacle is a waste of time brought on by you being too lazy to look into a dictionary. You're refusing to admit the basic issue of you having your terms wrong, and you don't understand arguments against you, which leads you to grossly misrepresent other peoples' positions. You don't get to define terms to suit your argument, this is another logical fallacy. To have any sort of meaningful debate, all parties involved need to speak the same language, and you not only clearly don't, but refuse to acknowledge this. 

5 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

BTW, my socio-economic views aren't American. See John Locke, Frédéric Bastiat, and Adam Smith for more. America just applied them (and got ahead because of it).

No, it didn't, at least not for very long (your views are very American, BTW, they're the ones who practically worshipped the guys you mentioned). Great Depression, anyone? It was pretty much the moment America started looking for an alternative, and certain gentleman by the name of Keynes was eager to oblige. Of course, I know your socio-economic views are based on work of those bunglers, that's why they're so off-base. I already mentioned their views have been superseded, by Keynesian economics, neo-classicals, and just about every school of economic thought that incorporated the experiences from the Great Depression and other more recent developments. 

My beliefs have withstood far more serious challenges than a kid with his head full of hundred year old socioeconomics tracts. They are founded on independent reasoning from history, economics and modern politics, my knowledge of science and engineering, and a variety of other sources. I prefer to avoid associating with any single big-name theorist, because while they might align, I seldom find someone who gets everything right in my view. This helps me, among other things, avoid the pitfall of quoting a book that happened to become discredited while I wasn't looking.