The Democratic Party's Middle America Heartland Problem

[Starbuck1975]

AI is only going to take lower skilled jobs. If you do repetitive tasks all day, if your job doesn't involve judgment, craft, or skill, then yeah, you're in trouble. That's why senseamp is pointing to the GOP's attacks on education, and to right wing populism in general, as how those people are shooting themselves in the foot.
But you're right on one thing. The world is changing, and AI is going to be a big part of that change. Countries that invest in their workforce's educations will be the winners.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak

 

[Starbuck1975]

Worked well for me financially, since most of my compensation is stock based and Trump tax cuts are basically raiding money from the treasury and passing it on to techie liberals like me. If they want to kill themselves to make political news headlines less pleasant for me for another 4 years, they can knock themselves out. I am just going to read less political news and keep doing my part to help automate away their jobs. If they want to vote to be without a job and without a safety net, I'll be fine either way.

At least you admit you are part of the problem

 

[senseamp]

At leaat you admit you are part of the problem

What problem?

 

[Starbuck1975]

Is he wrong?
And isn't every Trumper in this thread being condescending with their 'if you don't kiss my ass, I'll vote for Trump' line of BS? But somehow they're allowed that, but liberals are 2nd class citizens who better watch their tone, is that it? And finally, since they're going to vote for Trump regardless, why bother?

Yes, he is wrong. Trump is a rejection of the world he is helping to create. Trump is what happens when automation and globalization moves faster than those displaced are able to retrain. As he said, his motivation is to his stock portfolio, which serves the interests of the robber barons who created this mess. And no, UBI is not the answer. Only people in the self serving echo chamber of Silicon Valley thinks its a good idea.

 

[Starbuck1975]

What problem?

Exactly

 

[UberNeuman]

lol. Tonight's "libertarian" game: Keep putting the cookies on increasingly higher shelves so no one can ever get to them.

 

[Vic]

Yes, he is wrong. Trump is a rejection of the world he is helping to create. Trump is what happens when automation and globalization moves faster than those displaced are able to retrain. As he said, his motivation is to his stock portfolio, which serves the interests of the robber barons who created this mess. And no, UBI is not the answer. Only people in the self serving echo chamber of Silicon Valley thinks its a good idea.

That world is going to happen regardless. Pandoras box is open and cannot be closed. This problem cannot be voted away.
I agree with you (quite strongly in fact) that UBI is not the answer. Education is. Knowledge is. Both of which the Trumpers reject, to their own detriment.

 

[Vic]

What problem?

These people are still under the delusion that Hillary was the Goldman Sachs candidate. That Trump is the anti-establishment President. The populist billionaire. That bullshit.

 

[Starbuck1975]

That world is going to happen regardless. Pandoras box is open and cannot be closed. This problem cannot be voted away.
I agree with you (quite strongly in fact) that UBI is not the answer. Education is. Knowledge is. Both of which the Trumpers reject, to their own detriment.

The election of Trump was very much an attempt to vote it all away. Let’s not pretend that tech isn’t complicit as well. Without social media there is no Trump.

The tech elite tend to fund the social justice causes and campaigns of Democrats. This creates a dilemma, as Democrats are financially entangled with the very forces that are hurting “the heartland” and contributed to the rise of Trump. I see it as a vicious circle.

Once we get rid of Trump, the challenge of managing rapid disruption/automation and addressing the ethics of privacy and arrogance of tech monopolies will remain.

 

[pmv]

AI is only going to take lower skilled jobs. If you do repetitive tasks all day, if your job doesn't involve judgment, craft, or skill, then yeah, you're in trouble. That's why senseamp is pointing to the GOP's attacks on education, and to right wing populism in general, as how those people are shooting themselves in the foot.
But you're right on one thing. The world is changing, and AI is going to be a big part of that change. Countries that invest in their workforce's educations will be the winners.

That does, though, assume that there will be sufficient number of jobs that require education.

I think the big change will happen if and when automation starts to take jobs from newspaper columnists, economists, and politicians. At that point it will be seen as a serious problem.

 

[vi edit]

Not *really* related to this thread, but sort of on the automation side of it.

3 weeks ago I walked into a Chase branch to cash a check. I go to the cashier and she says "You can also use our automated teller to deposit checks". I nod and smile and say thank you and tell her I prefer to work with another human. It struck me as odd and kind of eerie that someone was basically trying to solicit the loss of their job.

Fast forward to this week and I walk into a different Chase branch to cash another check. Look at where the tellers used to be. There's no tellers. Just a wall. And an "automated" teller where real humans used to be. There was one person staffing the bank as basically a smiling face and directing you to deposit checks into the machine.

It was a very surreal feeling. I knew one of the tellers at that second branch. She would work the starbucks near my office in the morning and then go there in the afternoons.

That's just a small personal glimpse of automation and cashing out humans for a computer. I've yet to see a candidate really give a good path forward against that.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak

There's a common belief that skills will save people but that is not true because machines are "evolving" at a fantastic not seen with carbon-based entities. A general purpose AI is in some indefinite future but while many of us "have ours", there's an FU in the future for humanity which is already started. Professional systems can replace every office business task up to middle management in likely two AI generations, perhaps a dozen years, and after that? Board members on down can go as well, although they will be among the last.

So what is left in two or three decades as not only intelligence but movement and dexterity improve? These machines will be so complicated that they will have to program themselves with humans trying to shepherd them to our goals.

Humans will be obsolete in the workforce with few exceptions and things that require the analysis of massive data sets which is where we are now will require a "mind" qualitatively greater than ours to manipulate, correlate and put together causally linked information that may be impossible to describe to a human other than "I have answers but you can't grasp them".

Naturally that won't be for all things all the time but solutions may pop out as if by magic like a treat for a dog. Hopefully our master will treat his pets well.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

That's just a small personal glimpse of automation and cashing out humans for a computer. I've yet to see a candidate really give a good path forward against that.

They'll get around to it when they can be replaced but as usual when it's too late.

 

[senseamp]

I've already been automated out of my job. All the work I was doing 5 years ago has been automated by software tools. But I am making at least double the money now by moving up the value chain and taking advantage of automation instead of being a passive victim of it. It's just part of life in tech that you have to ride the automation wave or be swept away by it. We are used to it.

 

[dank69]

AI is only going to take lower skilled jobs. If you do repetitive tasks all day, if your job doesn't involve judgment, craft, or skill, then yeah, you're in trouble. That's why senseamp is pointing to the GOP's attacks on education, and to right wing populism in general, as how those people are shooting themselves in the foot.
But you're right on one thing. The world is changing, and AI is going to be a big part of that change. Countries that invest in their workforce's educations will be the winners.

Judgment, craft and skill is being automated away as we speak.

Not *really* related to this thread, but sort of on the automation side of it.

3 weeks ago I walked into a Chase branch to cash a check. I go to the cashier and she says "You can also use our automated teller to deposit checks". I nod and smile and say thank you and tell her I prefer to work with another human. It struck me as odd and kind of eerie that someone was basically trying to solicit the loss of their job.

Fast forward to this week and I walk into a different Chase branch to cash another check. Look at where the tellers used to be. There's no tellers. Just a wall. And an "automated" teller where real humans used to be. There was one person staffing the bank as basically a smiling face and directing you to deposit checks into the machine.

It was a very surreal feeling. I knew one of the tellers at that second branch. She would work the starbucks near my office in the morning and then go there in the afternoons.

That's just a small personal glimpse of automation and cashing out humans for a computer. I've yet to see a candidate really give a good path forward against that.

It's eventually going to have to be some form of UBI or abandonment of capitalism altogether.

 

[IronWing]

Not *really* related to this thread, but sort of on the automation side of it.

3 weeks ago I walked into a Chase branch to cash a check. I go to the cashier and she says "You can also use our automated teller to deposit checks". I nod and smile and say thank you and tell her I prefer to work with another human. It struck me as odd and kind of eerie that someone was basically trying to solicit the loss of their job.

Fast forward to this week and I walk into a different Chase branch to cash another check. Look at where the tellers used to be. There's no tellers. Just a wall. And an "automated" teller where real humans used to be. There was one person staffing the bank as basically a smiling face and directing you to deposit checks into the machine.

It was a very surreal feeling. I knew one of the tellers at that second branch. She would work the starbucks near my office in the morning and then go there in the afternoons.

That's just a small personal glimpse of automation and cashing out humans for a computer. I've yet to see a candidate really give a good path forward against that.

I've been amazed at how long this has taken. I went to England in 1995 and the Barkclay's Bank lobbies back then are as you've described: a row of ATMs. If you wanted to talk to a human teller, there was a fee.

 

[Jhhnn]

I've already been automated out of my job. All the work I was doing 5 years ago has been automated by software tools. But I am making at least double the money now by moving up the value chain and taking advantage of automation instead of being a passive victim of it. It's just part of life in tech that you have to ride the automation wave or be swept away by it. We are used to it.

It's not like everybody in your former job description moved up, is it? Far from it, I'm sure. There would be no point to it if fewer humans weren't involved.

It's not all about you.

 

[pmv]

I've already been automated out of my job. All the work I was doing 5 years ago has been automated by software tools. But I am making at least double the money now by moving up the value chain and taking advantage of automation instead of being a passive victim of it. It's just part of life in tech that you have to ride the automation wave or be swept away by it. We are used to it.

Yeah, but the higher up 'the chain' you go, the narrower that chain gets, it seems to me. Are there enough places higher up to accommodate everyone?

That world is going to happen regardless. Pandoras box is open and cannot be closed. This problem cannot be voted away.
I agree with you (quite strongly in fact) that UBI is not the answer. Education is. Knowledge is. Both of which the Trumpers reject, to their own detriment.

I'm actually very dubious about UBI myself. I think it would be politically almost impossible to set it at a level where it doesn't just become a subsidy for employers paying ultra-low wages, in effect being no different to 'tax credits' now. So I'm not at all sure it's the answer. They are not talking about setting it at a level where people can have a decent life without a decent job, rather the aim seems to be to allow wokers to just about stay alive (and possibly produce new workers) without requiring employers to offer any real security or continuity of employment. Thus creating a big pool of exploitable-labour for the high-tech overclass to fish from and throw back as needed.

But I don't share that faith in 'education' either. When they expand education and try and send everyone to university, it seems as if it often turns out there aren't the high-skilled jobs for them afterwards, and a 'sorting' occurs anyway, based largely on social networks, class-based cultural capital, and other factors unconnected to supposed 'merit'.
The number of good jobs does not appear to be infinitely elastic. You increase the qualified candidates and you just get new barriers appearing so as to ration access to those jobs.

One of the things that contributed to earlier periods of violence in Sri Lanka, as I understand it, was the massive expansion of the university system. Lots of young people came out with STEM qualifications, only to find there weren't jobs for them other than as rickshaw drivers. So they put all that engineering skill to use in building bombs instead.

I admit I am not saying much more than ' it's a very complicated problem'.

 

[IronWing]

It's not all about you.

Is there a brochure available on this idea that we could offer to our more conservative brethren?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Not *really* related to this thread, but sort of on the automation side of it.

3 weeks ago I walked into a Chase branch to cash a check. I go to the cashier and she says "You can also use our automated teller to deposit checks". I nod and smile and say thank you and tell her I prefer to work with another human. It struck me as odd and kind of eerie that someone was basically trying to solicit the loss of their job.

Fast forward to this week and I walk into a different Chase branch to cash another check. Look at where the tellers used to be. There's no tellers. Just a wall. And an "automated" teller where real humans used to be. There was one person staffing the bank as basically a smiling face and directing you to deposit checks into the machine.

It was a very surreal feeling. I knew one of the tellers at that second branch. She would work the starbucks near my office in the morning and then go there in the afternoons.

That's just a small personal glimpse of automation and cashing out humans for a computer. I've yet to see a candidate really give a good path forward against that.

Humans are incompetent. The more we can avoid the better off we will be.

I don't need someone to cash my check. It is a meaningless and overall stupid task.

There are plenty of things that used to involve humans that we just don't do anymore such as pumping gas. I don't need someone to hold something for me - it's not complex. I don't want people to be sub-servants in life.

 

[Jhhnn]

Humans are incompetent. The more we can avoid the better off we will be.

I don't need someone to cash my check. It is a meaningless and overall stupid task.

There are plenty of things that used to involve humans that we just don't do anymore such as pumping gas. I don't need someone to hold something for me - it's not complex. I don't want people to be sub-servants in life.

Yeh, but within the framework of Capitalism people need jobs to survive. Go figure.

 

[HomerJS]

The election of Trump was very much an attempt to vote it all away. Let’s not pretend that tech isn’t complicit as well. Without social media there is no Trump.

The tech elite tend to fund the social justice causes and campaigns of Democrats. This creates a dilemma, as Democrats are financially entangled with the very forces that are hurting “the heartland” and contributed to the rise of Trump. I see it as a vicious circle.

Once we get rid of Trump, the challenge of managing rapid disruption/automation and addressing the ethics of privacy and arrogance of tech monopolies will remain.

I'll ask you a question which help my postulate that middle america itself is just as much of a problem.

So the election of Trump is a response to job losses due to automation and productivity.

How does Trump solve that?
Has Trump made the problems worse?

 

[senseamp]

It's not like everybody in your former job description moved up, is it? Far from it, I'm sure. There would be no point to it if fewer humans weren't involved.
It's not all about you.

It's not a zero sum game. Automation lowers cost of entry and allows a lot more and/or bigger opportunities to be pursued.

 

[senseamp]

The election of Trump was very much an attempt to vote it all away. Let’s not pretend that tech isn’t complicit as well. Without social media there is no Trump.

The tech elite tend to fund the social justice causes and campaigns of Democrats. This creates a dilemma, as Democrats are financially entangled with the very forces that are hurting “the heartland” and contributed to the rise of Trump. I see it as a vicious circle.

Once we get rid of Trump, the challenge of managing rapid disruption/automation and addressing the ethics of privacy and arrogance of tech monopolies will remain.

Tech is not hurting the heartland, the heartland is hurting itself. Techies consistently vote to increase their own taxes to help others left behind in the modern world. We have great health insurance and big retirement savings, yet we vote for more universal health care and to protect social security.
Heartland is the one voting to gut the safety net that they will need in the age of automation, and they are the ones voting for politicians that gut antitrust laws and allow for monopolies to emerge. They also vote to block help for people like themselves to have health insurance through medicaid if they fall on hard times. And then when we tell them that, they call us arrogant and threaten to hurt themselves even more. At some point you just gotta tell them to knock themselves out.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I'll ask you a question which help my postulate that middle america itself is just as much of a problem.

So the election of Trump is a response to job losses due to automation and productivity.

How does Trump solve that?
Has Trump made the problems worse?

Trump was more in tune to the underlying problems. He unfortunately has no solutions to them, which is why he is now doubling down on identity politics.