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hardbass • today at 3:26 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

Ludditism is a civilization ending disease. If we don't control it we will never get cures for major diseases, travel to the stars, etc.


Replies

mlyle • today at 3:30 PM

I think we should automate more of deliveries.

But I think we should also make deliberate choices to keep humans and human meaning in many things, even if they are less "efficient" by some chosen metric.

Automation and mechanization is desirable to the point that it serves core human wishes and desires-- and through some kind of global/social metric, not that it serve individual humans at the expense of everyone else.

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tavavex • today at 4:07 PM

You know what else will lead to us not getting your cures or space travel? Fully automating enough people such that there are no longer enough jobs in society to do for the majority. That would create a destitute underclass that can never get employed and earn anything to survive, and a tiny elite class that can truly live and afford a fully automated lifestyle, space travel, etc. We are well on track to making this happen within this century. The only way to avoid this is to share some of the value of removing people's jobs with the people it displaced. People doing delivery work are already at jobs of last resort, how do you think "sucks to suck" fares for them as an argument towards removing their livelihood?

Ludditism is not 'a disease', how dehumanizing. It's an expected response. If we did anything towards sharing the profits, it would not exist. If we answered the hard question of "how will a person survive if we permanently cut the number of all jobs in half?", it would not exist. Ludditism for the people being made irrelevant is stepping out of the oncoming train instead of proudly letting yourself be run over to take one for the team so maybe in a few decades' time some of the added value of new automation cancels out the job loss (how it was in the past - and that was when automated jobs still required loads of brand new workers).

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nikanj • today at 3:27 PM

But at least we get jobs!