It's actually the opposite. The more we can automate and the more we produce with the same time and effort input, the less we earn and the more we have to work. Which has been happening for a long time, and is why anyone thinking that AI would help anyone other than billionaires is a dummy.
In recent times, for sure. But that's because the capitalist class have done a very good job of making people afraid to rock the boat like their ancestors did...
After all when you're one bad paycheck from starvation, or you're working two jobs just to make ends meet, your first priority is surviving.
And for those who aren't, there's a practically militarised police force to keep you down should you ever step out of line.
The decline in unions and collective bargaining has been a big part of this is my opinion. The anti-union propaganda was so effective that a couple generations killed it off before the younger ones could see it in action.
And globalization meant that companies could just threaten to move the jobs overseas if the remaining unions didn't accept the bad conditions. Then they moved them overseas anyway
There's a lot of improvements that have come about as a result of being technically feasible, in many cases over the objections of the workers.
E.g. safer working at heights - harnesses, scissor/boom lifts, scaffolding with kick guards and netting.
In other cases, both the workers and employers wanted improvements. Compare the nose end of a modern truck or freight locomotive with a WW2 era or even 1980s one, for example.
Here's a weird trick I've learned: I just care a lot less than I used to and only do the bare minimum a lot of the time. If you're good at what you do, you can slack off quite a bit without drawing any attention to yourself most of the time. Obv only applicable in certain job roles / conditions, so I plan to stay at this job forever.
Slacking off doesn't cut it for me anymore.
I've been doing it for years and I still long for freedom where I'm not paid to sit on a chair all day long.
I want to work.... on things that makes sense for me or others that I care more about than the company profit.
Paid work is preventing me from doing that. If the pay was higher I could afford to take more time off to work on my own interests.
Lowering the number of humans in a natural way is a good thing
I don't think that's strictly true, as emissions per capita have little correlation with raw population size.
Also, when the Eugenics Axe falls, it inevitably falls on the weakest and most vulnerable. Shrinking the population will reduce the number of homeless folks, not the number of super yacht owners.
we depend on a system that relies on constant grow
We target growth of GDP, limits on inflation, and a low single digit unemployment rate. All of that can be achieved regardless of gross population size.
Consequently, we've built an economy that focuses on gaming these three numbers without regard to life expectancy, mortality rate, education rate, per capita hours worked, or real economic value produced.
We're just as happy to AI generate movie hours as grow corn or build homes. We're just as happy to bomb a hospital as build an MRI machine.
That's the rub in our economic calculus. If we were just trying to maximize the growth rate of - say - watts of power to each household? Or vacation days allocated to each worker? Or healthy life years? We have a large frontier in front of us to grow into.
I don't know what you mean by eugenics axe, but I was not talking about any kind of intervention, rather the opposite, let just not panic over ageing and just try to find a way for the economy to adapt to it.
you can say what you want, but humanity has multiplied and the planet resources are limited. So the current plan of keep multiplying doesn't seem reasonable. For as much effort anyone does to not pollute, having kids is by far the biggest pollution source.
Also is not like being many humans is lowering the power gap, rich people just have more people to abuse.
To finish my point, I'm European, and unlike America, here the mid/high class are not ultra Catholic having tenths of kids, so my perspective could be a bit different than yours. There is not a clear correlation between wealth and kids, if anything inverse.
No. But then you're not the one setting these policies, just kinda observing their consequences from a limited vantage point.
let just not panic over ageing
This isn't a panic over aging so much as a malaise over having kids. Exorbitant rents, depressed wages, and suffocating inflation - particularly in health care and education - make children cost prohibitive.
Consequently, policy makers (largely past the baby making age) are resorting to increasingly draconian methods decide who gets to procreate and to what degree.
"White Replacement Theory" dominating public political discussions can only end in widespread social murder.
humanity has multiplied and the planet resources are limited
The resources aren't being used equitably. Ergo, "humanity" isn't to blame in the aggregate.
I’m European, and unlike America, here the mid/high class are not ultra Catholic having tenths of kids
Bro, I'm an American Catholic with exactly one sibling.
Deranged beliefs like this are exactly what end in genocide.
dude you're tripping. And again, in American context might make sense, but I'm telling you, American social reality is not the only one. And American society, you Catholic specially, are the most preachy and "get involved in people's life" of them all. In most European countries we don't give a fuck about what our neighbours are doing, unlike you guys that keep exporting your morals to anyone around you and their dog, so don't you give me lessons about interventionism.
But let's be real, talking with Americans, specially Catholic, is useless... you guys chose trump... TWICE!
No. But then you're not the one setting these policies, just kinda observing their consequences from a limited vantage point.
let just not panic over ageing
This isn't a panic over aging so much as a malaise over having kids. Exorbitant rents, depressed wages, and suffocating inflation - particularly in health care and education - make children cost prohibitive.
Consequently, policy makers (largely past the baby making age) are resorting to increasingly draconian methods decide who gets to procreate and to what degree.
"White Replacement Theory" dominating public political discussions can only end in widespread social murder.
humanity has multiplied and the planet resources are limited
The resources aren't being used equitably. Ergo, "humanity" isn't to blame in the aggregate.
I’m European, and unlike America, here the mid/high class are not ultra Catholic having tenths of kids
Bro, I'm an American Catholic with exactly one sibling.
It's pathetic that there hasn't been a raise in the minimum wage in like 50 years. The epstein class is completely opposed. Forget about 4 day work week. Never even mentioned. Politicians would rather serve capital than win.
Your employer doesn't want you unemployed. They need to keep unemployment just bad enough so you would be afraid to lose your job, taking on more responsibilities for less money.
Ultimately the machine wants to preserve itself and strengthen. It does this by any means. Democracies stabilize the machine in that they prevents people from becoming bothersome. All people can voice their opinions, but ultimately everybody has to be in favour of the machine in fern to be taken seriously. If the people abandon the democracy, the machine will become less stable, and have to use more coercive means to maintain itself.
Electric lighting, Air conditioning, refrigeration, vacuums, washers/dryers, modern toilets + sewage systems, grocery stores, GPS guided + Air-conditioned combine harvesters.
This very moment I have my Instapot cooking, the dishwasher washing, the washer washing, the dryer drying, as I lie in bed (which I bought instead of made) cooled by a fan. I just took a drink from a water bottle I didnt have to whittle by hand. Life is, in this beautiful instant, pretty good.
While you're doing that, ask them if the food bank line is preferable to literal famine because the crop their family spent 14 houes a day to dig by hand failed.
Thanks bro I just told them all that their life is way better than a 16th century peasant. They were stoked. Then four of them OD'd on fentanyl and fucking died.
You're missing my point entirely. I'm saying the world is a much better place because of technology, and OP is a fool for implying it hasn't improved anyone's lives.
Here's infant mortality, another "happy" chart showing how technology vastly improves human lives! It's not all doom and gloom, life isn't as bad as the chronically online make out if you look at how bad it was!
I don't know. Some people I know are spending a lot of time on gaming and social media instead of doing shit in the real world. I don't know if more free time would translate in anything else than more time on addictive behaviors.
It's a complicated subject, there are a lot of issues with the current state of technology that can be blamed on capitalism but we also need to start blaming our consuming habits at some point if we at least want to promote the use of products that serves us the way we want to be served.
I mean, yeah? If you're going to be producing more in the same amount of time with no benefits and functionally a decrease in pay compensation... you're gonna start taking time for yourself. Your company won't, so why shouldn't you?
This has observed especially with the advent of "robots" for household tasks, e.g. the dishwasher or the washing machine. Before these machines existed, wifes spent about 51 hours per week cleaning the home. After the machines where there, they spent about 52. See: https://www.umb.ch/en/blog/news/detail/parkinsons-law-and-our-daily-quest-for-more-time
Yes, people forget how brutal early industrialization was.
Children had to spend their entire day in the mines. A machine eating a finger or two per month was okay. Working 70+ hours per week was actually normal for most children and adults.
65 Comments
A404@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 47 pts · 103d
Gotta keep the people off of the streets.
DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 104d
It's actually the opposite. The more we can automate and the more we produce with the same time and effort input, the less we earn and the more we have to work. Which has been happening for a long time, and is why anyone thinking that AI would help anyone other than billionaires is a dummy.
jimmy90@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 103d
seize the means of production and we all good yeah? yeah?
i mean that's what marx and lenin said did or something so must be true. right? right?
neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 103d
That's a pretty surface level take, but I'll bite.
What are you proposing instead?
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 103d
Well, I have them tagged as a Zionist, so I think we can take a few guesses as to what they'd want to do...
neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 102d
Ah, say no more fam
Hacksaw@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 102d
We should be able to share tags with other like-minded people. That way we all know who we're dealing with.
Riverside@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 102d
slazer2au@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 104d
It's almost like the lack of unions is causing workers to have worse conditions.
Th4tGuyII@fedia.io · 28 pts · 104d
In recent times, for sure. But that's because the capitalist class have done a very good job of making people afraid to rock the boat like their ancestors did...
After all when you're one bad paycheck from starvation, or you're working two jobs just to make ends meet, your first priority is surviving.
And for those who aren't, there's a practically militarised police force to keep you down should you ever step out of line.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 25 pts · 103d
The decline in unions and collective bargaining has been a big part of this is my opinion. The anti-union propaganda was so effective that a couple generations killed it off before the younger ones could see it in action.
Quill7513@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 102d
Maggie Thatcher fucked the kids
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 102d
And her BFF Ronald "The Devil" Reagan.
Quill7513@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 102d
Soviet leadership in the late 70s and 80s played a role, too, at least to the unions who are the most influential where i am
Riverside@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 102d
Ramenator@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 102d
And globalization meant that companies could just threaten to move the jobs overseas if the remaining unions didn't accept the bad conditions. Then they moved them overseas anyway
moakley@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 102d
It definitely, definitely was.
Riverside@reddthat.com · -1 pts · 102d
tae_glas@slrpnk.net · 15 pts · 104d
Just to put credit back in here, without bringing more clicks to Twitter:
https://xcancel.com/orevazsn/status/2056666244300825043
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 104d
It has a bit, but far far from what could have been possible (excluding the usa maybe).
Prunebutt@slrpnk.net · 44 pts · 104d
The improvements were a result of labor struggle, not of the increased productivity.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 104d
Oh yes totally!
People died for these benefits.
SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz · 7 pts · 104d
There's a lot of improvements that have come about as a result of being technically feasible, in many cases over the objections of the workers.
E.g. safer working at heights - harnesses, scissor/boom lifts, scaffolding with kick guards and netting.
In other cases, both the workers and employers wanted improvements. Compare the nose end of a modern truck or freight locomotive with a WW2 era or even 1980s one, for example.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org · 12 pts · 103d
Here's a weird trick I've learned: I just care a lot less than I used to and only do the bare minimum a lot of the time. If you're good at what you do, you can slack off quite a bit without drawing any attention to yourself most of the time. Obv only applicable in certain job roles / conditions, so I plan to stay at this job forever.
RagingRobot@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 103d
Are you an air traffic controller? Lol
bstix@feddit.dk · 2 pts · 102d
Slacking off doesn't cut it for me anymore. I've been doing it for years and I still long for freedom where I'm not paid to sit on a chair all day long.
I want to work.... on things that makes sense for me or others that I care more about than the company profit.
Paid work is preventing me from doing that. If the pay was higher I could afford to take more time off to work on my own interests.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 103d
Shhh, don't give away the secret
topperharlie@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 103d
This is what comes to mind to me every time "the demographic problem" of aging population comes up.
Lowering the number of humans in a natural way is a good thing and economy should evolve into supporting that, not the other way around.
But we depend on a system that relies on constant grow instead so a bunch of people can rape kids without repercussion...
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 103d
I don't think that's strictly true, as emissions per capita have little correlation with raw population size.
Also, when the Eugenics Axe falls, it inevitably falls on the weakest and most vulnerable. Shrinking the population will reduce the number of homeless folks, not the number of super yacht owners.
We target growth of GDP, limits on inflation, and a low single digit unemployment rate. All of that can be achieved regardless of gross population size.
Consequently, we've built an economy that focuses on gaming these three numbers without regard to life expectancy, mortality rate, education rate, per capita hours worked, or real economic value produced.
We're just as happy to AI generate movie hours as grow corn or build homes. We're just as happy to bomb a hospital as build an MRI machine.
That's the rub in our economic calculus. If we were just trying to maximize the growth rate of - say - watts of power to each household? Or vacation days allocated to each worker? Or healthy life years? We have a large frontier in front of us to grow into.
But we're not doing any of that.
topperharlie@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 102d
I don't know what you mean by eugenics axe, but I was not talking about any kind of intervention, rather the opposite, let just not panic over ageing and just try to find a way for the economy to adapt to it.
you can say what you want, but humanity has multiplied and the planet resources are limited. So the current plan of keep multiplying doesn't seem reasonable. For as much effort anyone does to not pollute, having kids is by far the biggest pollution source.
Also is not like being many humans is lowering the power gap, rich people just have more people to abuse.
To finish my point, I'm European, and unlike America, here the mid/high class are not ultra Catholic having tenths of kids, so my perspective could be a bit different than yours. There is not a clear correlation between wealth and kids, if anything inverse.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 102d
No. But then you're not the one setting these policies, just kinda observing their consequences from a limited vantage point.
This isn't a panic over aging so much as a malaise over having kids. Exorbitant rents, depressed wages, and suffocating inflation - particularly in health care and education - make children cost prohibitive.
Consequently, policy makers (largely past the baby making age) are resorting to increasingly draconian methods decide who gets to procreate and to what degree.
"White Replacement Theory" dominating public political discussions can only end in widespread social murder.
The resources aren't being used equitably. Ergo, "humanity" isn't to blame in the aggregate.
Bro, I'm an American Catholic with exactly one sibling.
Deranged beliefs like this are exactly what end in genocide.
topperharlie@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 102d
dude you're tripping. And again, in American context might make sense, but I'm telling you, American social reality is not the only one. And American society, you Catholic specially, are the most preachy and "get involved in people's life" of them all. In most European countries we don't give a fuck about what our neighbours are doing, unlike you guys that keep exporting your morals to anyone around you and their dog, so don't you give me lessons about interventionism.
But let's be real, talking with Americans, specially Catholic, is useless... you guys chose trump... TWICE!
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 102d
Well, there it is folks.
Anyone want to guess this guy's opinion on Muslims?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 102d
No. But then you're not the one setting these policies, just kinda observing their consequences from a limited vantage point.
This isn't a panic over aging so much as a malaise over having kids. Exorbitant rents, depressed wages, and suffocating inflation - particularly in health care and education - make children cost prohibitive.
Consequently, policy makers (largely past the baby making age) are resorting to increasingly draconian methods decide who gets to procreate and to what degree.
"White Replacement Theory" dominating public political discussions can only end in widespread social murder.
The resources aren't being used equitably. Ergo, "humanity" isn't to blame in the aggregate.
Bro, I'm an American Catholic with exactly one sibling.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 104d
It's pathetic that there hasn't been a raise in the minimum wage in like 50 years. The epstein class is completely opposed. Forget about 4 day work week. Never even mentioned. Politicians would rather serve capital than win.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 103d
Hey now, what's a bigger reduction in labor hours than unemployment?
Allero@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 102d
Your employer doesn't want you unemployed. They need to keep unemployment just bad enough so you would be afraid to lose your job, taking on more responsibilities for less money.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 102d
I've been through enough layoff cycles not to believe that
flandish@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 104d
nothing to discuss. this is how capitalism was designed to work. real benefits to the working class come, sadly, from fights and often involve blood.
libre_warrior@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 103d
Ultimately the machine wants to preserve itself and strengthen. It does this by any means. Democracies stabilize the machine in that they prevents people from becoming bothersome. All people can voice their opinions, but ultimately everybody has to be in favour of the machine in fern to be taken seriously. If the people abandon the democracy, the machine will become less stable, and have to use more coercive means to maintain itself.
Strength is all under the machine.
Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 103d
Or increased pay.
Formfiller@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 103d
Historically nothing changes until the pedophile class and corrupt politicians live in fear.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 103d
Plenty of things change if they don't live in fear.
For instance, a lot more little kids get buggered
elbiter@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 103d
So Marx did at least have a point...
Juice@midwest.social · 5 pts · 103d
He had more than a point
xia@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 102d
"When goods increase, they increase [the number] who eat them..."
Schmoo@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 103d
Chiming in to say this appears to be a quote from David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs.
Godric@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 103d
This is silly, off the top of my head:
Electric lighting, Air conditioning, refrigeration, vacuums, washers/dryers, modern toilets + sewage systems, grocery stores, GPS guided + Air-conditioned combine harvesters.
This very moment I have my Instapot cooking, the dishwasher washing, the washer washing, the dryer drying, as I lie in bed (which I bought instead of made) cooled by a fan. I just took a drink from a water bottle I didnt have to whittle by hand. Life is, in this beautiful instant, pretty good.
gurty@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 103d
Great, I’ll let the people in the line outside the food bank know that things are actually pretty sweet right now.
Godric@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 103d
While you're doing that, ask them if the food bank line is preferable to literal famine because the crop their family spent 14 houes a day to dig by hand failed.
PlantDadManGuy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 103d
Thanks bro I just told them all that their life is way better than a 16th century peasant. They were stoked. Then four of them OD'd on fentanyl and fucking died.
gurty@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 103d
“Sure glad I don’t live in medieval Europe, guys!”
Godric@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 102d
I answered the topic "has technology ever improved working hours, conditions, leisure time?" with examples of how it objectively has.
Can you explain your reasoning otherwise; or are we just here to have an doomer circlejerk about the existence of poverty instead?
Riverside@reddthat.com · -1 pts · 102d
Godric@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 102d
You're missing my point entirely. I'm saying the world is a much better place because of technology, and OP is a fool for implying it hasn't improved anyone's lives.
Here's infant mortality, another "happy" chart showing how technology vastly improves human lives! It's not all doom and gloom, life isn't as bad as the chronically online make out if you look at how bad it was!
Riverside@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 102d
UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca · -4 pts · 103d
I don't know. Some people I know are spending a lot of time on gaming and social media instead of doing shit in the real world. I don't know if more free time would translate in anything else than more time on addictive behaviors.
It's a complicated subject, there are a lot of issues with the current state of technology that can be blamed on capitalism but we also need to start blaming our consuming habits at some point if we at least want to promote the use of products that serves us the way we want to be served.
eronth@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 103d
I mean, yeah? If you're going to be producing more in the same amount of time with no benefits and functionally a decrease in pay compensation... you're gonna start taking time for yourself. Your company won't, so why shouldn't you?
UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 103d
I agree with a all this. I was talking about what humans do with technology.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 103d
For every person who are on social media and gaming, there are just as many who have outdoor hobbies.
UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 103d
Gaming and social media as a hobby is fine just like having a few drinks is fine.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 103d
It translates to comfort and quality of life
MoonManKipper@lemmy.world · -11 pts · 104d
I think you need to open a history book and look back more than 10 years
katze@lemmy.4d2.org · 19 pts · 104d
Or you should. This is called Parkinson's law, first stated in 1952. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191107-the-law-that-explains-why-you-cant-get-anything-done
This has observed especially with the advent of "robots" for household tasks, e.g. the dishwasher or the washing machine. Before these machines existed, wifes spent about 51 hours per week cleaning the home. After the machines where there, they spent about 52. See: https://www.umb.ch/en/blog/news/detail/parkinsons-law-and-our-daily-quest-for-more-time
Tja@programming.dev · 0 pts · 103d
That doesn't make it true. There's a Murphys law. There's a Godwin law. Plenty of others that are backed up by anecdotes and fairy dust.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · -8 pts · 104d
Ohh, burn, dude. Sick burn. Ooohh. Snap. Other words.
Kaligalis@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 104d
Yes, people forget how brutal early industrialization was.
Children had to spend their entire day in the mines. A machine eating a finger or two per month was okay. Working 70+ hours per week was actually normal for most children and adults.
inkblade@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 104d
Already did and it validated the posts
PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@anarchist.nexus · 3 pts · 104d
U 1st
ironycanal@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 104d
You are under thirty.