[ExI] retrainability of plebeians

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 1:27 AM, Dagon Gmail <dagonweb at gmail.com> wrote:

<massive snip>

### Dagon, I really don't know what you are talking about. Read
Hernando de Soto. You are too confused about whatever you are trying
to get pissed about. Also, you should look deep into your soul, and
expel envy. Then run the numbers again, and come back if you have any
more questions.

But I can comment on one paragraph where you tried to provide a
mechanistic explanation of how robotization is supposed to cause mass
poverty:

>
> People have limited skills and ability to do meaningful work.
> There is a limited demand for complex and highly rewarded work.

### Obviously, if there is low demand for complex work, it will not be
highly rewarded. So the premise on which you build the argument is
incorrect, in almost the most basic way imaginable, by directly
contradicting the law of supply and demand.

--------------------
> People are left doing simple jobs and as a consequence cannot improve
> themselves.

### You cannot draw correct conclusions from incorrect premises. Here
you are adding a restatement ("people are left doing simple jobs") of
the first part of the previous sentence ("There is a limited demand
for complex ....work"), and claim that somehow doing a simple job
prevents you from improving yourself. Whatever the meaning of
"improving oneself", this is manifestly untrue. So another completely
useless sentence.

-----------------
> Large amounts of people are doing machinelike jobs.

### I assume you mean "doable by machines". Well, yes, trivially true,
absolutely all human jobs that do not explicitly demand humans as part
of the job definition can be in principle performed by sufficiently
sophisticated machines.

----------------
> Machines become available, in the span of a decade (2015-2025) than can
> replace simple jobs.

### Maybe. So what?

--------------

> Simple jobs are replaced by machines.

### Restatement of the previous.

------------------

> Pay for jobs decreases below the value of having machines do the job.

### Say it again? Obviously, if the pay for a human is lower than the
cost of using a machine, then the human worker will not be replaced.
So you contradict the previous two sentences.

------------------

> People who do simple jobs can not find jobs that pay them enough to live
> humane existences

### Now this is the heart of your argumentation - a statement that if
true, would certainly be a very good reason to break the machine, or
otherwise do something wild and emotionally liberating. However, this
statement floats in a vacuum - all the previous sentences are
irrelevant, self-contradictory, or manifestly untrue, so the statement
is just an expression of faith, not a reasoned, mechanistic
explanation of your reasoning.

--------------------
> US and EU society stratifies into a "rio de janearo model"
> Many will claim, like people always did "something like that will never
> happen here"
> Rightwing and "free market" ideologies blame the unemployed to secure their
> value systems.
> Left wing and "socialist" ideologies start implementing statist, wasteful
> bureaucracies
> Black markets fill the gap and large criminal syndicates develop.
> Society dehumanizes. We end up in a world where I do not want to live.
>
### And here is the vision of dystopia used in roughly 80% of heated
social arguments, making clear that all honest men must heed your
word.

I actually know a mechanistically plausible scenario where your vision
could true but I don't feel like expounding on it.

Please excuse me but I will not continue our conversation.

Rafal