How the Carl Icahns of the World Benefit Firms but Not Workers

[feynmanresearch]

Two words: creative destruction baby!

[Jurgis]

In other words, there are employees who NEED something and as business owners who HAVE something, it is shareholder's moral obligation to sacrifice for the needy.

 

You and a bunch of others keep talking about sacrifice. Of course, you only think about the business owners / management.

 

"Oh my god, instead of firing people, I have to think how to structure my business so that I might not need to fire them. Such a huge sacrifice. It might blow my brain. Oh my god, I might not get my bonus, I might not be in the three comma club."

 

Perhaps you should think about the fact that by firing people you are telling them to sacrifice their livelihood for your profits and bonuses. Nah, they are not sacrificing anything, they should just expect it. Only the business owners can talk about self sacrifice.

 

News flash: "sacrifice" is a red herring word. It is not about sacrifice. It is about spending some time to think about all parties involved. It is actually something that's not about communism or statism. It's actually something that is taught in the best management practices. Ah, but who listens to those. They are for schmucks, not the enlightened economists with flashy MBAs.

[Jurgis]

This thread is a great example how we as civilization are totally unprepared for coming machine age where 80%+ of people will be unemployed.

 

Something to think about.

 

Or not.

[rkbabang]

This thread is a great example how we as civilization are totally unprepared for coming machine age where 80%+ of people will be unemployed.

 

Something to think about.

 

Or not.

 

Yes 100-200 years from now 80-90% of people will be unemployed and will enjoy longer healthier lives than we do, more leisure time than we do, easier/better transportation and communication than we do, more comfortable/luxurious dwellings, than we do, entertainment options and conveniences that we can't even imagine, and most of them will still be bitching about those 10% who have more than they do.  Cry me a river.

 

[Jurgis]

Yes 100-200 years from now 80-90% of people will be unemployed and will enjoy longer healthier lives than we do, more leisure time than we do, easier/better transportation and communication than we do, more comfortable/luxurious dwellings, than we do, entertainment options and conveniences that we can't even imagine

 

I am happy that you have this vision of future.

I'd like to believe this will be the case too.

There's a small wrinkle in the fact that supporting 80-90% unemployed people is not something that a lot people can accept. ;)

[rkbabang]

Yes 100-200 years from now 80-90% of people will be unemployed and will enjoy longer healthier lives than we do, more leisure time than we do, easier/better transportation and communication than we do, more comfortable/luxurious dwellings, than we do, entertainment options and conveniences that we can't even imagine

 

I am happy that you have this vision of future.

I'd like to believe this will be the case too.

There's a small wrinkle in the fact that supporting 80-90% unemployed people is not something that a lot people can accept. ;)

 

 

I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what a post AI/nanotech world will look like.  This is why some people refer to it as a (the) singularity, there is no visibility to the other side from here.    I think the world of 100 years from now will be as different from today as the world of 10000 years ago is from now.  And it may or may not include humans.

 

[Guest longinvestor]

In some sense, we already  have a couple of precedents while trying to frame the ueber productive future

 

1. agriculture, the farm bill etc.

2. Europe has been working less for about two decades. ~1500 hours/year versus 2000+ in the USA/Asia.

 

In both of these, productivity has resulted in freed up time for people to do other things. Ag productivity allowed farmers' kids to go to work elsewhere. That alone must be relaxing for them!

 

Time and quality of leisure activity in EU is a step function above the US. I know, I know, there are many in the US who think EU has gone communistic. Productivity has a numerator and a denominator. Is the 40 hour work week right for all time to come? How about 20 hours for providing a helping hand, every week? Take turns so that aged parents would not have to go to assisted living etc.

 

[Jurgis]

I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what a post AI/nanotech world will look like.  This is why some people refer to it as a (the) singularity, there is no visibility to the other side from here.    I think the world of 100 years from now will be as different from today as the world of 10000 years ago is from now.  And it may or may not include humans.

 

Completely agree.

[Jurgis]

Time and quality of leisure activity in EU is a step function above the US. I know, I know, there are many in the US who think EU has gone communistic. Productivity has a numerator and a denominator. Is the 40 hour work week right for all time to come? How about 20 hours for providing a helping hand, every week? Take turns so that aged parents would not have to go to assisted living etc.

 

Part time work is one possible solution. I'd love to work 75% part time (funny thing, I might even put in >75% hours). Companies in USA do not like this though. Maybe this will change.

 

I don't think "part time" solves hollowing out of some professions due to automatization. I.e. a segment of people having not enough education to work in remaining sectors (e.g. truck drivers if driverless trucks displace them). We will see if we can come up with good solution for this.

 

[APG12]

This thread is a great example how we as civilization are totally unprepared for coming machine age where 80%+ of people will be unemployed.

 

Something to think about.

 

Or not.

 

Isn't this one of the oldest economic fallacies in the book? How are humans using more machines than at any point in human history with more people employed than at any point in human history? There isn't a finite amount of work to do. If a machine replaces a human, the human is then freed to create values higher up the chain- values that were previously not considered important enough on a relative scale. It's already possible to only work 25% of the time while maintaining a higher standard of living than was available to people throughout 99% of human history.

[rkbabang]

This thread is a great example how we as civilization are totally unprepared for coming machine age where 80%+ of people will be unemployed.

 

Something to think about.

 

Or not.

 

Isn't this one of the oldest economic fallacies in the book? How are humans using more machines than at any point in human history with more people employed than at any point in human history? There isn't a finite amount of work to do. If a machine replaces a human, the human is then freed to create values higher up the chain- values that were previously not considered important enough on a relative scale. It's already possible to only work 25% of the time while maintaining a higher standard of living than was available to people throughout 99% of human history.

 

I agree, and that trend would be able to continue almost indefinitely if we never have strong AI.  We are almost at the point where humans are not really needed for their labor anymore.  Any labor which isn't done by machine now almost certainly will be in the near future.  But once humans are no longer needed for their intelligence and creativity either it will be a different world.  I'm not sure what it will look like.  Maybe there will always be some things that machines can't do and we will all stay busy. Or maybe there will be some reason why enough machines can't be built and the law of comparative advantage will keep us all busy.  Maybe we will just live lives of 100% leisure time while the machines do and decide everything.... or maybe the machines will decide that we aren't necessary for their pursuit of happiness.

[Jurgis]

Isn't this one of the oldest economic fallacies in the book? How are humans using more machines than at any point in human history with more people employed than at any point in human history? There isn't a finite amount of work to do. If a machine replaces a human, the human is then freed to create values higher up the chain- values that were previously not considered important enough on a relative scale.

 

Perhaps. Or perhaps there is an inflection point where there is no longer enough work for humans.

There are valid arguments why this time is different. But I agree that it might not be.

 

Edit: there is also potential issue of hollowing out that I brought up above. I.e. there might be work only for computer scientists, Ph.D. level bio/pharma and materials engineers, but majority of people won't be able to get to that level of education/proficiency/etc.

 

It's already possible to only work 25% of the time while maintaining a higher standard of living than was available to people throughout 99% of human history.

 

Only in certain countries and certain occupations.

But, yes, I don't disparage our current status of civilization. It is the best we've had so far.