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Comment by Red_Leaves_Flyy | Hacker News Reader

We're already at a point where machines do most of the work.

There are so many homeless Americans because our government has failed to manage the resources of our country to provide even a basic poverty level standard of living for everyone. There are countless reasons and studies about how or why this occurred but I think the reality is rather simple. People in power exploit those they control to get more wealth and power. Whether it's the manager at mcdonalds or bezos himself, if they can abuse their power they will. The reason there is so much anger against handouts to the destitute is because this reduces the power these oligarchs hold. Unless you're topping Forbes richest list then you're a peon in their game and they're not going to capitulate to the life of a pleb without a fight that'd make Hitler look like Rosa parks.

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> We're already at a point where machines do most of the work.

We're at a point where machines are very clearly doing far less than a quarter of the work. I think it's more likely under 10%.

If you were right, right now we'd have true mass unemployment as we're nowhere near prepared for that level of automation in the global economy. The next tier of jobs are not here yet to absorb the labor. Scan from country to country, you'll find global unemployment has never been lower.

Further, if we were at that level of machine labor share, we would have likely seen a large increase in productivity or profitability in manufacturing. Manufacturers are not replacing humans en masse unless it makes a lot of business sense (in output, cost, or a combination; and we're not seeing anything even remotely close to those types of seismic-shift figures showing up in manufacturing numbers anywhere).

The vast majority of all manufacturing in China is still done by hand, with minimal machine contribution. They've barely begun to scratch the surface of machines taking over their manufacturing (and naturally they're freaking out about the future unemployment prospects of that, just as people in the US and elsewhere are). And Chinese manufacturing is further down the machine-adoption curve than other countries like Mexico or Vietnam.

We have hardly even automated a consequential share of the labor in your typical fast food chain. Globally we're just getting around to electronic ordering kiosks as the norm.

If work means mechanical work (which was once important!) then machines must be well over 99% now.

More generally, the only sensible answer is probably to divide labor productivity today with that of pre-industrial labor. Which amounts to approximately the ratio of GDPs. Which means about 500/50_000 (USD, very roughly). Which again leads to the conclusion that machines & automation are doing about 99% of the work, right now.

We don't have mass unemployment because all the people no longer working with their muscles have found other jobs, providing things other than food, which their ancestors simply didn't have. Like hospitals, HVAC, websites, and food stamp programs.

BTW both China and fast food are massively automated/mechanized. The price difference between McDonalds and having a personal chef cook you a similar burger is the degree to which machines have been used instead of human hands. The fact that none of them look like C-3PO is irrelevant.

If work also counts as things like performing mathematical calculations, communicating between people, data entry, and most other unskilled tasks, then your point still applies.

Comparing GDP only means we’ve gotten more efficient, and only when it’s compared on a per capita basis. It doesn’t mean machines are the sole method of that increase in production.

>"There are so many homeless Americans because our government has failed to manage the resources of our country to provide even a basic poverty level standard of living for everyone."

Americans enjoy a higher general standard of living than most others in the developed world precisely because our government has a relatively hands off approach to "managing resources".

Homelessness is the result of addiction and mental illness. The government could pour huge sums of money (even more than it already does) into initiatives focused on addressing these issues and the broken people that comprise the homeless population will still not get better.

> Americans enjoy a higher general standard of living than most others in the developed world precisely because our government has a relatively hands off approach to "managing resources".

How can one come to this conclusion?

Does it account for the boost the US got for not being destroyed in WW2? For having tons of natural resources per capita? For having land borders with only 2 countries, neither of which can threaten it, and oceans on other sides?

I can easily see how there are more factors to the quality of life in America than the government being relatively “hands off” managing resources. Although, even that is tough to define as the US government is very hands on in many businesses.

> Americans enjoy a higher general standard of living than most others in the developed world

I'd question that. Rich americans maybe. But the average american has to deal with long working hours, poor access to high quality food, extortionate costs for healthcare, cities where you can't walk anywhere, etc.

Homelessness is indeed a difficult issue. But what about the people working 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs. They'd benefit big time from mote government support.

> But the average american has to deal with long working hours, poor access to high quality food, extortionate costs for healthcare, cities where you can't walk anywhere, etc.

I'd question that. Poor Americans maybe. But the average american has relatively average work hours[1], shops at large grocery stores or supercenters[2], and has among the highest median income in the world(adjusted for PPP)[3]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#OECD_ranking

2. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2015/august/most-us-hou...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gross_median_hou...

Including part time workers distorts the average.

On average, a full-time employee in United Stats works 1,768 hours per year, or 38.6 hours per week. By comparison, Europeans work up to 19 percent fewer hours annually compared to those working in the US.. Even more extreme On average, a full-time employee in Germany works 1,363 hours per year, or 34.3 hours per week That’s the equivalent of 26 days more per year full time Americans are working.

Median income PPP is not that great of a means for comparing standards of living. The US bottom 25th percentile earn less than 1/2 the 50th percentile. I would argue for disposable income PPP after taxes, food, shelter, and medical care at the bottom is more representative as a minimum standard of living.

It would be useful to look at the median in addition to the average here. I suspect that because there are specific highly compensated professionals in the US that regularly work 60 or 70 hour weeks (Lawyers, doctors), the average may be distorted upwards.

The original comment I responded to compared the average American to the average citizen in the "developed world". I'm using OECD countries as a proxy since the term "developed" is ambiguous. But comparatively, US workers are only slightly above the OECD average in number of hours worked per year (1,781 vs 1,763).

>The US bottom 25th percentile earn less than 1/2 the 50th percentile.

Again, only considering the average American here. I would agree that it's worse to be poor in the US compared to a lot of other countries due to fewer social safety nets.

OECD is a common list for developed countries. But did you ever really look at it? It includes included Mexico and Turkey with a ~10k per capita GDP. Even Latvia, Chile and Hungary @ 15k USD seem a bit underdeveloped. Czech Republic and Slovenia at 20k per capital are borderline but probably fine. Granted things change somewhat when you look at PPP, but large PPP differences generally mean an underdeveloped economy.

https://www.oecd.org/about/document/list-oecd-member-countri...

Income is a worthless metric if getting in a moderate severity car accident means I'm going bankrupt and will be mostly unemployable the rest of my life.

>Homelessness is the result of addiction and mental illness.

Citation needed.

You're wrong, but spout long since debunked victim blaming rhetoric as fact. Apt username.

> We're already at a point where machines do most of the work.

This premise is false on its face, given how aggressively western countries are trying to encourage working age immigration. The entire developed world is facing shortages of construction workers, nurses, daycare workers, doctors, engineers, etc.

Jobs aren’t being automated away for you look at the labor force participation rate: https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-particip...

From 1998 to 2028, there will have been a sharp drop in the 16-24 age group. But there will have been only a few points drop among 24-55, and sharp increases among 55+ (which mostly happened from 1998 to 2008).

You're completely missing the point. Either willfully, or you're just so blissfully unaware of the marvels of modern technology. You're missing things like automated knitting and sewing. A garmet that would take 25-100 hours by hand can by made by a machine in minutes and sewn into shape in just moments more. Have you ever done a needlecraft? I have. Besides the yarn for a sweater costing over $100 itself, I'd have to ask $3,000 for the labor alone. Brick roads used to take weeks just for a few blocks with an equivalently sized crew, and several orders of magnitude greater effort. Now far more length can be torn up recycled and paved over again in days with relatively minimal effort. We used to have manned switchboard operators. Do the math on how many we would need to accommodate the internet at current scale without routers and switches then get back to me.

You just don't see now many thousands of billions of hours of hard, boring labor is done by machines every day, and mostly perfectly. It's truly marvelous. The fact that people are still homeless is a crime against humanity that rests squarely on the world leaders who allowed so a tragedy to occur. In a truly civilized society these leaders would imprisoned.

Want to really know how dann good you have it? Spend 10 years in the northern reaches of canada. I doubt You could survive the summer months. You can only bring the clothes on your back. No tools, supplies, books, or resources. If you want to take my bet drop me an email. I'm sure we can come to a fair wager.

> People in power exploit those they control to get more wealth and power.

True, if we include bureaucrats. Otherwise that's a just-so story leftists tell to cement their grip on power.

Despite the US Federal government controlling over 36% of all money spent in the economy, it's not enough cause oligarchs. Meanwhile our nomenklatura are pure of heart, selfless with only the interests of the people at heart.

Sorry, I assumed that was clear. I'm specifically referring to any relationship where one party has distinctly more power than the other. This includes bureaucrats, police, politicians, managers, c level, teachers, HR, advertising companies, the list goes on and on. Everyone's angling for more at the expense of everyone around them and that's the accepted status quo. Taking a step back to think about this and it's like everyone's on crazy pills.

We have to be really careful! If not the distant future will be dystopian nightmare where government controls everything you do and tells you how to do it.

To stop it, we need to make sure the government is telling everyone what to do and how to do it! It’s the only way!

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