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Comment by dventimi | Hacker News Reader

> We need some type of off-ramp

Now, we're talking. Often, there will be handwringing about low-wage jobs from people who wouldn't dream of working low-wage jobs and who benefit from the existence of low-wage jobs. Often, that will be invoked as a rebuke to automation. But, automation in general isn't a threat to workers or well-being. In fact it's productivity gain which benefits well-being by lowering costs and raising living standards. If a portion of those productivity gains aren't used to help the people they displace, that's a matter of policy not of technology.

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Oddly enough people are self-regulating, so few people are having children now because modern economics makes it a bad idea for most people .

In my grandfather's time you could work a normal job and buy yourself a three-bedroom house in what's now one of the most expensive cities in America.

If I wanted to buy the same house at the same city, me and a partner would both have to make 150k to 200k each. And even then we'd barely be middle class, we wouldn't really be doing exceptionally well.

Homeownership shouldn't be regulated to the top 5% of income earners.

However I don't realistically imagine a tech utopia. I think we're headed towards unholy levels of income inequality. And income inequality isn't a problem by itself. Hypothetically if Billy Bob makes 60k a year, but he owns a house worth 400k and he's able to leave it to his kids, that's just fine .

The problem emerges when he's renting his home from a mega corporation that raises rent by 15% per year, until he ends up either homeless ( unhoused, shelter challenged, pick your semantic softening) or sharing a room with 2 other people.

It's a complicated problem with no clear solution.

I feel you. Thing is, I think there is a solution or at least part of one, on paper. We know what to do. Trouble is, we can't do it because of politics, politics that transcends the usual divisions. It's hard to have a tech utopia and deep income inequality without policy to make it that way. Policy creates markets, and markets create and distribute wealth. How that's done, whether evenly or unevenly, is determined by politics, policy, and the market structures they create.

Patents, copyrights, subsidies, ZIRP, foreign policy, etc., even without reporting to value judgments of "good" and "bad" and sticking safely with neutral terms, all these things involve trade-offs. They have consequences. They do tend to pick winners and losers.

The point is that the shape of society is a matter of choice not chance, technology, or divine providence.

If you're the age I think you are (mid-30s), then during your grandfather's time most women didn't work and many racial minorities were barred from many jobs and forms of housing. If you cut the labor supply in half or more, then wages naturally go up because demand doesn't change that much per capita.

That said I completely agree with you about everything else. I think the US needs to firm up its social safety net (hopefully through UBI, though I'm not hopeful) ASAP. I don't think AI will take over the world or even remove all jobs, but it will remove enough in our lifetime that we'll have a crisis of low-skilled employees out of work who just won't be able to transition into a job that pays well enough to pay four healthcare, housing, and transportation. Housing itself is a really hard problem too for various other complicated reasons.

The biggest issue is zoning and other restrictions on construction.

Back in the 1950s, it was much easier to build. Now it takes much longer and it's more expensive to just get permits. It's kinda wacky to think we're still using housing stock from 100 years ago. New construction is rare.

A middle class person, say a Firefighter needs to be able to buy a home where he works. Many city workers in California have to ride long Metrolink rides just to get to work. This is also a safety concern.

Do you really want a subway conductor to have to get up at 5am to get to their 9am to 6pm shift?

This has been an issue for decades, but it's coming to a head now.

100%. Our local bus system can't hire operators because they're priced out of the area for housing, so all operators have to come from a 4 hour Metrolink ride away.

100%. Incidentally (obviously) that also applies to teachers, restaurant workers, and others who aren't fortunate enough to be among the tech Eloi.

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