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Comment by lipowitz | Hacker News Reader

Removing jobs that could only be performed by those living near the particular fields with those that can be done anywhere makes jobs for the person willing to take the least satisfactory compensation for the most skill and work.

Working the summer fields was one of the least desirable jobs but still gave local students with no particular skills a good supplemental income appropriate for whichever region.

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depending on the job, it may also allow you to select for talent much better, which creates intense competition and raises salaries significantly.

A good example of this phenomenon is sports. Even thought it can't be done remotely, it's so talent dependent that it's often better to find a great player in a foreign country and ask them to work for you, rather than relying exclusively on local talent. If it could be a remote job, this effect would be even greater.

Yes, but automating these away means that food becomes cheaper.

We increase the overall total prosperity with that automation.

Increasing total prosperity is the wrong goal if distribution is completely unregulated. Investor and real estate owning classes like the 1% get more, the salaries can trend down because food costs are down, in a deflation spiral the youth are perpetual dependents and/or debtors who can't possibly earn enough over day to day costs given global competition includes people with no debts or debts from an economy that was less wealthy.

When and where has that ever happened?

Btw, most countries have taxes and welfare anyway.

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