kimmy

We didn't get access to better medical services because some factory found a way of replacing workers with machines that can spit out more widgets per hour. Nor did we as a group decide that the poorest among us should receive assistance and their kids should receive education because of technological boosts to productivity. You might tell me that those things couldn't have happened without the economic benefits resulting from greater productivity, and perhaps this is true. But that's only half the equation. The other half is a collective decision that some of our economic success gets channeled back into public medicine and public education and social programs. We have all the technology and productivity we need to produce vastly more food than we already do, and the reason we don't is that there's no money in it. Like I said before, we're turning grain and corn into fuel for cars because it's more lucrative than selling to some would-be doctor or engineer in a third world country. It's not a lack of productivity that's the obstacle, it's the lack of an economic incentive. That isn't going to change regardless of how many farm-hands or factory workers get replaced by machines. Just the opposite: the less that unskilled workers are needed, the less money they will have, and the less economic incentive there will be to fulfill their needs. Resistance to tax increases comes from peoples' belief that they already pay more than they can afford. It's not a referendum on social programs, public education, or any other particular policy. -k

Sorry, I forgot to respond to this bit earlier: Interestingly enough the modern banking systems and fiat currencies actually address this issue reducing the value of capital (i.e. if money can be created from nothing then people don't need to get money from existing holders of capital if they need it). I realize that this has created a regulatory headache and requires that governments bail out private businesses from time to time but such hassles are price worth paying if means more people can access capital when they need it. There's nothing in our monetary system that "reduces the value of capital". And I'm not aware of any instance where the creation of M1 money is used to give people who need capital an alternative to borrowing from existing holders of capital. (The relatively new idea of "Quantitative Easing" is an example of the opposite, however: the Federal Reserve is creating M1 money and giving it directly to financial institutions to stabilize them after their own risky lending blew up in their face. The government isn't going to create money for you unless you're already wealthy and powerful.) If you don't have capital, the only way you can access it is from borrowing from those who do. Which is the primary reason why August's premise in starting this thread is so far off the mark. August supposes that the world's first trillionaire will be the guy who comes up with a revolutionary idea that changes the way everybody lives. In reality, the world's first trillionaire will be a guy who already starts off with billions and uses them to get a piece of the action from every guy who comes along with a revolutionary idea. We've talked about that a number of times before, I believe. We see IPOs where "preferred investors" who are given the option to pre-purchase stock and flip it the same day end up making far more money in one afternoon than the people who spent years building a company. And we see the would-be entrepreneur giving up much or most of his creation to the venture-capitalists and angel-investors who have the capital he needs to build or hire. Even Mark Zuckerberg, the example everybody points to as proof that a little guy with a big idea can get rich, gave big chunks of Facebook to investors on the road to making it work. If you don't have capital, and you need it, you can get it either by borrowing it from existing holders of capital, or by selling something to existing holders of capital. You, me, Mark Zuckerberg, all have to find ways of getting capital from those who have it. -k

Well, when I said "our society" I hadn't been thinking of the whole planet as our society, but we can talk about that too. On the specific issue we've been discussing-- the elimination of labor by technology-- the elimination of "artificial barriers" has allowed businesses to hire 3rd-world laborers to reduce costs. So we've got textile workers in Bangladesh who are earning a better living thanks to western outsourcing. But when someone comes up with a technological advance to further reduce labor costs, those jobs too will be gone and the former textile workers will be back in the same dire straits as their neighbors. Their increase in purchasing power has occurred because they are currently cheaper than machines. That won't be a permanent situation, especially if standards of living around the world increase. Technological improvements to productivity will make the Bangladeshi textile workers unneeded too eventually. On the broader issue... no, technology is not the only way to improve the lives of the underclass. If we're talking about people in the 3rd world starving and suffering from disease and living in shoddy conditions, no, their problems won't be solved by technology. They're dying from diseases that have been easily curable for decades... they're becoming sick from sanitation problems that have been solved for centuries... amazing technology like electrical infrastructure and water and sewage infrastructure could greatly improve the lives of probably billions of people in the world, and the problem isn't that this technology doesn't exist, it's that people don't have access to it. Advances in agricultural technology have brought us to the point that we could feed everyone... but we don't, because there's no profit in it. We're at the point that we're turning corn and grain ethanol for cars instead of food for people, because people who have cars can pay more for ethanol than starving people can pay for food. The problems faced by this permanent global underclass don't exist because we don't have the technology to solve their problems, they exist because there is no economic incentive to solve their problems. Well, I agree that other workers don't have job security or big pensions the way that government workers do, so there's that. However, I don't believe that the increasing cost of advanced education or the decrease in support for public education can be blamed entirely on teachers unions. -k

That's an interesting question. We might all be working from a different mental picture. The story says it was a "park", but are we talking a playground, or are we talking like a park with a playground that sort of thing, or are we talking like a treed and secluded area? The news story says "several hours" (well, "several house", actually, but I'm sure they meant hours.) Is "several" 2, or 4, or 8? There's different factors that aren't explained here that could give the story a somewhat different look if we had a better mental picture. (slight mea culpa: I read "Augusta" earlier and assumed Augusta, Georgia. It's actually North Augusta, South Carolina, which is a suburb of the better-known Augusta, right across the state border. Not sure if that makes a difference.) -k

There has to be some kind of balance. Society is better off because of the better products and services that technology brings us. Society is worse off when fewer people can afford to access those things. Soviet era Moscow would be an example of one extreme: everybody can afford to buy everything that's available... but there's nothing available for them to buy. What would the other extreme look like? A world where only the elite benefit from technological advances, while an ever-increasing poor underclass has no access to this technology and lack of class mobility means they won't in the future and neither will their kids. We've seen it in movies like Elysium, but is it possible that our society could eventually reach such a state too? We have social programs that are supposed to prevent that from happening and to prevent a permanent underclass from occurring. Public school and public funding for advanced education are supposed to help preserve class mobility. Do they do a good job? I'm not sure. It does seem like the programs that are supposed to protect the underclass and preserve class mobility are constantly under attack. What worries me about the future is this: for the overwhelming majority of us, labor is the only means we have to ensure our survival, but technological advances in productivity reduce the value of labor and the benefits of these advances flow only to those who have capital. -k

I'm pretty sure the distinction you're looking for is that women have been freed from unpaid labor to work at paid labor. Because most work that women are doing out side the home is still menial. -k

It should be pointed out that areas with low unemployment will still be allowed to bring in TFWs. Minister Kenney's announced reforms stated that explicitly. So whiners crying that it's "an attack on Alberta" can give it a rest, because hard-hit areas of Alberta will be exempted. As well, it should be pointed out that there's no express or implied promise of future citizen made to TFWs. It simply isn't so. That was made abundantly clear during recent coverage that unearthed emails from agencies to employers reminding employers that they had no obligation to support citizen applications, and that the threat of sending them home was an effective tool for commanding obedience from TFWs. I think it's hilarious that Restaurants Canada is crying about how onerous it is to prove they've made efforts to hire Canadians, when they've been claiming (falsely) that their members only turn to TFWs after efforts to recruit Canadians have failed. I don't sneer at those in menial jobs. Like many others, my first job was a McJob. I've been there, I know what it's like, and I don't sneer at people working those jobs. You know who does sneer at people working those jobs? Their employers. -k

My friends and I all played outdoors without parental supervision at age 9 (and younger, for that matter.) Public parks! Playgrounds! The city parks and rec swimming pool! Has the world changed that much in the past 20 years? Is Augusta that different from Edmonton and Victoria and Ottawa? -k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIo6pUkAcI8 -k

The reasons you provide would make the priesthood an obvious choice for young Catholic males who start to feel same sex attraction, at least in the past. I doubt that pedophile priests will be a widespread problem in the future, because young people who feel same-sex attraction now feel that just quitting church is an option, and they now have much more freedom to pursue sexual fulfillment without resorting to predatory behavior. -k

And then when they're almost ready to contend, he can jump ship to some other team! -k

A true classic! You've managed to work many of the classic August themes into yet another masterpiece. Computer graphics suck! People have been deceived by hype! Pining for the old days of cel animation and Julie Andrews! 14 year olds in Hong Kong! I think that looking at a brilliant piece of animation like Frozen and congratulating the data wranglers for keeping the files in the right directory is like looking at a great painting and congratulating the guy who mixed the paints. I think if I had to pick out one element of your messages that I enjoy above all the rest, it would be the steadfast conviction that you know what's Good, and that people who think they enjoyed something you decided was Not Good have obviously been Duped. Ah, the large eyes... devised to appeal to Asians. How fiendishly clever! Old Walt himself no doubt had just that in mind when he came up with these big-eyed little guys. I don't remember that part. There's a shocker... You've concluded that Disney doesn't know it's audience because you didn't enjoy the film? I'm pretty sure Disney's audience isn't middle-age snobs who can't stand anything made since 1980 except the occasional French art-house movie. -k

Link If a kid can be charged with making "child pornography" for sending pictures of his own dick to his girlfriend, it seems equally likely that the cops and prosecutor can be charged with making child pornography for photographing his dick against his will. Throw the fricking book at them. It seems utterly nonsensical that the prosecution of a "sexting" case has gone to such extremes of idiocy. -k

What makes you think that? Certainly there will always be new fields of enterprise, but they won't necessarily employ a lot of people, and they won't necessarily employ the people who are no longer needed in agriculture or manufacturing. -k

-k

I would prefer that students have at least a basic grasp of both scientific and literary concepts. But if I have to choose either calculus or irony, I think I have to go with calculus. I think that people (aside from Alannis Morisette and yourself, apparently) get a working grasp of concepts like sarcasm, irony, double-entendre, simile, metaphor, symbolism, motif, allegory, and all manner of other literary techniques, simply by existing in our culture. In days of yore, commoners hid political humor in nursery rhymes... and they didn't have college degrees in the liberal arts. Perhaps if you're new to the workings of literature, you might think the white whale is just a white whale, but by existing in our culture you become familiar with how we tell stories, how we craft humor, and so-on. It's an ongoing process. When I first read "The Watchmen" most of it went over my head, but when I revisited it after the recent movie adaptation I understood a great deal more. And it's not that I received more formal education in the meantime, it's just that I've spent a lot more time pondering the finer points of a lot of other stories since then. Science, on the other hand... when uneducated people decided that they can science, you get... well, you get Jenny McCarthy and vaccines, or Pliny and magnets, for example. People not understanding stuff isn't that big a deal, until their ignorance spreads. One person deciding that vaccines are bad isn't a problem. A hundred people deciding vaccines are bad leads to outbreaks, if their kids go to the same school. -k

Would it be ironic if some guy started a thread to talk about how important it is for people to understand irony, but when asked to explain what he actually means by irony, gives a completely inaccurate definition? -k

Conversely I think a lot of employers in the trades aren't interested in supporting apprenticeship. They don't want to train people, they want to bring in fully-trained guys, preferably with multiple years of experience. If the government is willing to train Filipinos, in the Philippines, at Filipino salary while they live at Filipino costs of living, then bring them over here to work as fully-ticketed tradesmen, they've given employers a handy way of cheaping out on the costs of traditional trades apprenticeships. -k

I think we could all use a little more badger ratchet. -k

Well, you're doing a great job of convincing me that living in a technologically advanced society has benefited us, but a pretty poor job of convincing me that the elimination of labor by technology is a great thing for laborers. -k

If the impact of this decision was just limited to Hobby Lobby, I wouldn't be too concerned. Hobby Lobby apparently pays its employees much better than most retail employers. Hobby Lobby apparently provides employee benefits far beyond what most retail employers provide. The list of drugs they're exempt from covering sounds pretty minor, and their employees will probably be better able to afford them than most other employees in the retail sector-- many of whom don't have benefits, period. Personally I have no drug coverage at all, so the Hobby Lobby plan sounds like a pretty sweet deal. What does concern me is the potential for a slippery slope. These guys get an exemption to the law based on a sincerely held religious belief. What about the next guy, and the guy after that? There's lots of people with sincerely held religious beliefs. Here's what Hobby Lobby's law firm says about that: http://www.becketfund.org/faqhobbylobby/ They're optimistic that judges will balance religious liberty against "other interests" and presumably not grant any exemptions that are too crazy. It appears the floodgates are now open, so it looks like we will soon find out if their optimism is warranted. -k

As usual I have no idea what the hell August is talking about anymore. Ok, August, I think everybody here knows what calculus means, but perhaps you should expand on what you mean by "irony" and why you believe that billions of people need to learn it. -z