[rossriley]

People bring the value that they generate for an economy. Once they can be replaced with AI/Robots then that labour can be reallocated further up the value chain which in turn makes our economies and culture richer and more productive.

Imagine if we were all working 18 hour subsistence farming jobs now just to survive, it's ridiculous to argue that eschewing automation for anything is detrimental, it only serves to enhance society and make it more productive.

[bamboozled]

Have you ever seen with your own eyes a farmer working 18 hours a day ?

My theory is the 18 hour subsistence farmer story is a myth we tell ourselves that the world we’ve created is better, no questions asked.

I live in a part of the world where people do a surprising amount of farming by hand. Very little machines and almost no fertiliser is used. No one, absolutely no one is working 18 hours. Mostly they have busy springs, relaxing summers and festivals for autumn harvest. Most farmers are in their 70s so they’re not looking to work hard either.

I’m sure subsistence farmers existed, but they likely worked hard because they weren’t educated well. I bet there have always been some higher quality farming going on.

I’ve also stayed with a remote Aboriginal tribe in Australia. I have to be honest they had very relaxed lifestyles.

We bag out the last to make ourselves feel better about the future we’re creating. We’re insecure.

[TerrifiedMouse]

Automations like the automatic loom made clothes cheaper. Automation is responsible for a lot of our current quality of life. Do you really want to go back a 200+ years in QoL?

[heavyset_go]

> Imagine if we were all working 18 hour subsistence farming jobs now just to survive

Pre-industrial workers actually worked less than people who have 40 hour work weeks do[1].

[1] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...

[epolanski]

> People bring the value that they generate for an economy.

Nurses, teachers? Those bring insane value but get little recognition, in all senses, for that.

[kibwen]

The sleight of hand that has been perpetrated here is to conflate "value", as in the degree to which something is good, with "value", as in the market price for which something can be purchased, in order to suggest that markets reveal how good a thing is rather than merely how scarce/in demand it is.

[chii]

> Those bring insane value

but those value is not privately captureable by them, but is instead captured by the students, or the patients etc.

[Syonyk]

> Imagine if we were all working 18 hour subsistence farming jobs now just to survive...

Then you definitely shouldn't look at actual reports of time spent, leisure time, etc, in those eras.

Because that's nothing at all what life was in the eras you're thinking of.

How much of our modern time - work hours - do we spend to maintain the cars we take to work, and the large houses we were convinced to buy "as an investment," etc? Or just our personal tech stacks that always somehow seem to need replacement?

[Aerroon]

In those eras your entire life was basically work, because nobody else would do things for you. Fence broke? You gotta fix it.

Sure, they might not have spent as many hours farming, but they also needed to manually do all of the other things necessary for a decent life. Wash clothes by hand, take care of the (farm) animals, repair your house, build a house, cut trees, make firewood etc. It's an endless list of things that nowadays you just pay someone some money for.

[msm_]

I'm not sure I get your point. I don't own a car, and I rent my apartment. So... 0 in both cases? (unless vacuuming once a week counts as maintenance, then add a dozen minutes). I definitely don't feel like I have any significant burdens other than my paid job.

[peteradio]

Bit of a rosy picture though. People aren't reallocated, instead they are fed opioids/various other drugs to death. There are very much winners and losers.

[noduerme]

You can both be right. An obese, drug addled society is by definition a wealthy one (although it may not be for long).

[thuuuomas]

> that labour can be reallocated further up the value chain

Not in America - upskilling workers is too expensive.

Displaced workers are gonna break rocks in debtor’s prisons & the median voter already thinks they deserve it.

AI will bring mass downward mobility.

[TA23091417]

Subsistence farming would not take 18hr days if peasants were not required to spend the first 12hrs farming cash crops for the landlord, as the price for allowing them to farm actual food on his second rate plots.