TheSensibleTurk t1_j81qnuz wrote
A healthy economy needs consumers who are able to purchase products and services.
It is not in the interest of big business to shoot itself in the foot. Profit is the driving factor behind innovation. You can't profit if you don't have customers.
[deleted] t1_j820nxh wrote
That's the old way of thinking when labor wasn't automated. With automated labor you just need more robots and AI to drive innovation, not profit to drive innovation.
The other half of automation people overlook is that everything that can be made with automation starts to decrease in value, which winds up being almost all products and commodities, because most products and commodities main cost is labor.
So you wind up with the cost of living being a fraction of what it is today and money itself becomes worth much less because it's not as important to buy commodities and labor with anymore so it doesn't represent what it used to.
You still need some tweaks to your economic system and you have to get used to the idea your house and car and assets are all effectively much easier to replicate now and thus worth much less.
So I say the upside to managing that transition is that it will cost less than ever to have people not working and we can invent a lot of jobs that just wouldn't be even remotely cost effective.. if that's the route peple want to go to feel more normalized.
The downside is humans learn too slow and human behavior will be the biggest obstacle of the future.. which is the same main problem as every year. ;)
MonkeyParadiso OP t1_j866mih wrote
Consumption is used in the expense formula to calculate GDP.
I think corporations can just lay off people, and profit by having greater profit margins distributed between less employees and shareholders.
The government would lose if Consumption falls due to Tax revenue loss. But that too could be overcome if they just start cutting G expenditures and letting unemployed people at the margins just die out. It's not like we do a great job with our homeless population now, even though we have more food than we need to feed everyone AND greater aggregate wealth than the world has ever seen - like 300% per average person in the 1970s, in the West.
The environment is already quite stressed by the massive load of people on the planet, so there are environmental benefits to be had by reducing the global human population.
Also, people are going to be able to live longer, and I don't know how that's going to get paid for, unless we let people go.
It's an interesting argument, but I'm skeptical 🧐
TheSensibleTurk t1_j86fzwc wrote
Why not just skip the extra steps and utilize an industrial scale liquidation program then? Not like it hasn't been tried before. What do you think? Random lottery? Oldest person or the firstborn of every household? Or some kind of an aptitude test and a certain percentage of those who fail get "let go?" Genetic screening to favor those with the least amount of inheritable disease genes? /s
MonkeyParadiso OP t1_j885tus wrote
No, I don't think that's necessary. Just say in America, we pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps, this is not a welfare state.. Adam Smith.. QEd. And go on with your merry way. We're already doing it and it's scalable :) Starving, disconnected social outcasts don't make for good revolutionaries; I believe it's all already codified in the Rules for Rulers Playbook
TheSensibleTurk t1_j886atf wrote
America very much is a welfare state. You don't even need to be a citizen to qualify for a variety of aid programs. As we saw in the SOTU speech, the otherwise fiscally conservative GOP balks at the prospect of cutting social security or sunsetting other welfare programs.
MonkeyParadiso OP t1_j8csldu wrote
I can't argue with the trillions of $$$ spent on the bailouts of 2008 and corporate subsidies before & since.
TheSecretAgenda t1_j820zkt wrote
Providing customers will be the other guy's problem until everyone automates. I then expect the business owners to wake up and say, "Wah Hoppen".
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