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This is counteracted by the fact that employees now have the option of walking away from their jobs, and thus employers would have to raise wages to draw them in. Wages might rise in the type of jobs that nobody actually wants to do (eg. janitor), though wages may very well decrease in the jobs that everybody wants.

UBI and government job programs aren't mutually exclusive. I do think the government should create more jobs for the public good, especially in scientific research and development. But either way, I think a UBI is necessary so that people have the option of working for themselves rather than being forced to answer to someone else. UBI is like the libertarian approach, while government jobs are the more authoritarian approach. I think both should coexist.

I guess there's no guarantee that UBI would be a living wage. Regardless, I think we need a UBI. Money is one's claim on society's resources, and since we're all shareholders in this economy, we should receive a citizen's dividend, even if that amount isn't that much (eg. Alaska's Permanent Fund)

Well I already explained why GDP, the core metric economists fixate on, is flawed and incomplete. Unemployment rate as well is incomplete in that it doesn't account for those who drop out of the labor force (not to mention it says nothing of job quality or wages).

I think at this point the burden of proof is on economists to justify their profession. They completely failed to foresee the recent financial crisis, with the so-called "Great Moderation" and economists like Ben Bernanke saying the depression problem has been solved.

* Theory of competitive advantage is flawed and doesn't hold up to reality. Free trade is not unequivocally good. I wrote about it in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15159057 , but I'm basically parroting economist Ha Joon Chang who wrote multiple books about this

* The assumption of individuals being rational and utility-maximizing is false (eg. charity, stock market).

* Efficient market hypothesis. See any financial asset bubble.

* Austerity economics. The severity of the Great Depression was exacerbated by the government's austerity response. Yet here we are 80 years later demanding austerity from Greece and such.

* Money multiplier http://positivemoney.org/how-money-works/advanced/the-money-...

* Phillips Curve

Steve Keen wrote a book called "Debunking Economics" that explains theoretical flaws in the basic supply/demand curves that are the foundation of economics, though I'll admit I didn't read the book.

Ultimately though, neoclassical economics is just too damn oversimplified to result in many meaningful actionable policy takeaways. It's too constrained by its owned rigid model of how economies are supposed to work, and thus too free market dependent and status-quo preserving.

Buying a stock on the secondary stock market is not investing in the economy. Buy that logic, high-frequency traders are investing in the economy.

> If that were true, banks wouldn't need deposits

That doesn't follow from what I said. Banks are required by law to back their loans up with reserves. So when they don't have enough reserves, they borrow on the interbank lending market or from the central bank.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarte...

It's simple - if the private labor market is failing to provide something, then the government needs to step in to make it happen. This could be via subsidies/grants, creation of research institutions (like the university in the article), and/or creation of state-owned enterprises.

Unfortunately we've all been brainwashed by neoclassical economists and such to believe that free markets should dictate everything.

Fantastic article, we've truly been seeing a bifurcation of the workforce, and the development of a plutonomy. The interests of capital and labor are inherently opposed because the incentive of the employer is to reduce costs, and capital has been winning out.

I think there's a false tendency to blame Apple for this predicament. It's not Apple's responsibility to provide for the welfare of our country's citizens, it's our responsibility - and it's only through our government that we can really change things. No vacation, benefits, and 80% of one's paycheck going to rent is our government's responsibility to fix, not Apple's.

The most obvious policy here would be some sort of universal basic income. This would naturally prop up wages for the low-paying jobs like janitor that nobody wants to do.

Having to work under those precarious conditions for such lousy pay (relative to cost of living) and no prospects for advancement must be a downright miserable experience, the literal definition of wage slavery. 6pm-2am shift means she probably never even sees her kids during the week. All for a meager $600/month in disposable income after rent is paid (which when you're a contractor without vacation and benefits isn't much). And she'd never be allowed to complain about it because she'd be told that she should be grateful to have a job, there are people in Africa starving, she should've studied harder in school, and she shouldn't have had kids. What a world we live in.

Many oppose universal basic income on ideological grounds, but enough with this ideologically-driven bullshit that ignores the unnecessary suffering of the wage slaves at the bottom. Nobody in a first world country should have to live a lowly life like that janitor.

Parking money in index/hedge funds is not "investing it back in the economy". Bank lending is driven by demand, not deposits.

I agree, but how would we enforce a wealth tax? Seems like it'd be really easy for rich people to hide their money in assets.

What about just printing money? Not ideal obviously, but there'd be no way to avoid the inflation "tax".

Call it what you want, but it is most definitely not even close to on the same level of rigor as a hard science like physics or chemistry. Nor can it ever be even comparable to a field like psychology because economics is inherently political.

The commenter said that capitalism is unequivocally the best system, and to say otherwise is like denying that the earth is flat. Under what metrics is capitalism the best? Unless we can all agree on the exact same set of metrics with the exact same prioritization, then the question of whether or not capitalism is the best system is an inherently political question.

The commenter mentioned maximizing GDP (as would most economists). GDP is a heavily flawed metric that gets way more attention than it should. Apart from broken window fallacy and such, it says nothing about distribution of wealth, living conditions, happiness, effect on environment, non-monetary output (eg. open source software), technological advancement, social mobility, etc. It would be impossible to reduce any of these into a single meaningful metric.

The "rigor" you speak of in its models are comically oversimplified to the point where they're often completely divorced from reality and useless. One only needs to look at the atrocious track record of economists to see the uselessness of them. It's called the "dismal science" for a reason.

It's impossible to come up with objective metrics as to how a society should be organized and what it should prioritize because that is an inherently political endeavor. That's why economics will never be a science, just like politics will never be a science.

Not sure if you were being sarcastic, but to equate criticizing capitalism to being a "flat earther" is absurd. Economics is not a science. Capitalism has a ton of flaws, just talk to the masses in poverty in America. The fact that we ignore this while fixating on flawed metrics like GDP is a huge problem.

Capitalism is indeed a religion, and the definition of capitalism has changed over time to become more towards laissez-faire. Now we're at a point where any sort of government action aside from cutting taxes is considered "socialist", which is still considered taboo even after the cold war. The democratic party of today is more to the right than the Republican party of the past.

Well read "Bad Samaritans" to see why the consensus amongst economists is wrong.

There isn't a single first world country that developed under free trade. The US and the UK were highly protectionist with steep tariffs, and it was only after they gained world dominance that they started opening their borders and demanding free trade from everyone else.

The economic "miracles" of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan were all highly protectionist, and their now world-renowned industries were heavily subsidized by the government over decades. Toyota took 30 years to make a profit and 60 years to become a dominant player in the auto industry. Had these countries adopted free trade policies, these industries never would have developed due to being unable to compete with foreign competitors, and Korea and Japan would still be third world countries exporting textiles and refined sugar.

The developing countries that did adopt free trade policies (at the behest of the IMF/World Bank/WTO) all grew slower than they did before those policies were in place. Latin America's growth rate since the 80s has been a third of what it was prior, in Africa's case I believe it went from like 1-2% to .2% (don't remember the exact numbers).

The analogy in Chapter 3 titled "My six-year-old son should get a job" is brilliant. If a child is told to get a job and fend for himself, then he'll likely end up working low-productivity dead-end minimum wage jobs for the rest of his life. However if he's able to focus on his studies, get parental support, go to university, maybe do research for a professor on the side - then this insulation from the free market via parental subsidies will pay off in the long run as the child will end up doing much greater higher productivity work. Similarly, developing countries need to invest in high productivity industries to develop.

Highly recommend the book, it's a quick read. I took the same Econ 101 classes where I was taught that free trade is unequivocally good. This book changed my mind, while also helping me realize that much of economics is completely divorced from reality. Even if you ideologically can't let go of the theory that free trade is good, history and the data clearly say otherwise.

Debt, the first 5,000 Years (David Graeber) - Learned that most of history has been communist (eg. hunter gatherer societies), shops of the past were run on credit (eg. tally sticks), money/capitalism tended to emerge with the rise of the state, taxing to feed soldiers for war, and that the drive to pay off one's debt fueled a lot of the cruelty of mankind (eg. Hernan Cortez, Casimir).

21 Things they don't tell you about Capitalism, Bad Samaritans (Ha Joon Chang) - Learned that free trade is generally bad for developing countries, countries need to build out high productivity industries to grow their economy in the long term and avoid a balance of payments deficit (unless blessed with oil or something), manufacturing is vital to a country's economy and its service sector, "free markets" are a constantly evolving political definition with numerous inherent double standards, the only reason most of us in first world countries are paid well has nothing to do with our own superior ability (eg. bus driver in India vs. Norway), but due to immigration control and the institutions we inherit.

Also looking for more book recommendations, so feel free to send some my way!

The reality is that you need your job more than your employer needs you. We're all replaceable, and this is further exacerbated by technology and outsourcing. Hiring in the tech industry where senior engineers have to go through multiple rounds of answering data structures & algorithm riddles is probably the epitome of this absurdity.

As long as this is the case, employers are always going to demand the moon, only hire the "best", and offer as little money as possible. If employers really needed you, they wouldn't be holding out for the diamond in the rough willing to work for peanuts.

It boggles my mind that we as a society still cling on to this notion that everybody must rent themselves out to somebody else to survive. Wage slavery should not be the backbone of our economy. Something like a basic income would go a long way towards evening the playing field, so that desperate workers can walk away from this nonsense.

If you inherit $1m+, you can live off of that and not work a day in your life (or at least severely increase how much money you save) while the rest of us toil away as wage slaves for 40+ years.

So far he's basically just (unsuccessfully) attempted to roll back Obama's progress on healthcare, ban Muslims, build a wall to keep out the Mexicans, and give legitimacy to white supremacists. He's surrounded himself with Goldman Sachs executives.

I'm not really seeing the progress, but I hope he does make America great again.

It's all relative. I'm just saying that someone who's talented enough to get a job at Google could probably land a cushy remote gig and live somewhere dirt cheap, saving more money and enjoying a higher quality of life.

I think Jamie Dimon said it best, it's almost embarrassing to be an American these days. Homeless people everywhere, mentally insane people screaming on the streets, rude classless people (in the ghetto), failing infrastructure, a narcissistic demagogue trust fund kid as president. Every single major city in America has a ghetto not unlike a third world country - NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, etc. I've never understood why we tolerate this poverty in our own backyards.

There was a period when we were the model nation for the world, and that period is long gone. As long as America is ruled by the mindset of "everyone for themselves" and free market fundamentalism, nothing is going to improve - and in fact things are only going to get worse as the job market tightens due to technological automation.

Factor in cost of living in the bay area and it's not quite as glamorous as it sounds

This is why I never understood the obsession with working for the big prestigious corporations like Google and the unicorns. As far as I'm aware, they don't allow remote work and working from home without an excuse correct?

Just because he's not referencing a survey or study doesn't make it useless data. Anecdotal data is not useless.

There's been a noticeable increase in effeminate men in NYC over the last 6 years. Maybe it's due to the increased acceptance of LGBT, maybe it's something else...

I think all those are contributing factors, and you're right - it's not just the result of one thing.

It seems to be the result of a successful PR campaign on behalf of economists like Milton Friedman and the wealthy elites who stood to gain from it. The 1973 oil crisis was a tumultuous time, and so it was a ripe time for a new ideology.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-t...

This is due to the entrenchment of neoliberalism since the 70s (famously Reagan in the 80s), the ideology that government's sole responsibility is to enforce free markets, any other function of government is bad, and that every aspect of life should be dictated by free markets. Margaret Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society, only individuals" sums it up. Rising wealth inequality is simply a byproduct of this.

When we're indoctrinated to suppress our humanity and see each other as self-interested profit-maximizing businesses rather than people, then it shouldn't come as any surprise that we're less cooperative.

Even if the author's premise that women were "crowded out" of programming 40 years ago is true, that does not imply that “innate dispositional differences” between sexes don't influence one's tendency towards pursuing certain fields.

The author suggests that the current stereotypical portrait of a geeky socially awkward neckbearded male engineer was socially engineered, causing a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's idiotic conspiracy nonsense. Geeky reclusive men tend to pursue computer programming because dealing with a machine doesn't involve dealing with a human, not due to society's marketing of computer engineers as geeks.

The author is clearly not a computer programmer (professor of history apparently), nor someone capable of basic logic. If you're going to cash in on the diversity scandal for views, at least make a coherent argument.

(Also this post is a dupe, I submitted the same post before this and this is a copy and paste of my comment on the original thread)

Even if the author's premise that women were "crowded out" of programming 40 years ago is true, that does not imply that “innate dispositional differences” between sexes don't influence one's tendency towards pursuing certain fields.

The author suggests that the current stereotypical portrait of a geeky socially awkward neckbearded male engineer was socially engineered, causing a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's idiotic conspiracy nonsense. Geeky reclusive men tend to pursue computer programming because dealing with a machine doesn't involve dealing with a human, not due to society's marketing of computer engineers as geeks.

The author is clearly not a computer programmer (professor of history apparently), nor someone capable of basic logic. If you're going to cash in on the diversity scandal for views, at least make a coherent argument.

That parking lot comment has to be one of the best characterizations of American downtown areas I've heard. Well said.

NYC is a pretty terrible city to live in by first world standards unless you're wealthy. Crappy shoeboxes in tenement buildings that used to house servants go for outrageous prices, overcramped, awful subway (though Americans think it's amazing because they're not used to big cities that don't require a car). People put up with it because of the jobs, the people, the cosmopolitan nature of it, not needing a car, and because there aren't any comparable cities in the U.S. in terms of size, density, and significance. Millennials don't seem to be as fond as suburbs as the boomers (I personally hate suburbs).

NYC used to be a city where artists and writers could live, but it's become a city of trust fund kids, corporate shmucks, and tourists. Everybody works all the time - not because they're working on groundbreaking stuff - but to make a buck.

Personally my plan is to work remotely and go somewhere else, most likely outside the country because nothing in the car-obsessed suburban sprawl-infested U.S. compels me.

> How exactly would you change downtown Manhattan such that anyone & everyone who wanted to live there could?

That's not what we should be striving for. We should be striving to allow people to comfortably live and work outside of just downtown Manhattan. The biggest obstacles to that are zoning laws and a decrepit subway system that makes traveling between boroughs outside of Manhattan practically impossible.

> "I disagree completely and utterly that the (yes, real) average differences between men and women map to being better or worse at certain jobs."

Where did the memo say this? This is the most common strawman used to attempt to discredit the memo. The memo author never states that men are better at software engineering, just that these biological differences may help explain why women are underrepresented, choosing to pursue computer science and careers in tech less than men.

> "the takeaway from the memo is literally that the onus is on me to prove to men in tech that I’m not an “average” woman"

> "This is literally a discussion of whether half the human race is innately unsuited for a certain kind of work"

See above

> "I disagree that it’s possible to write what he did about general populations, then walk it back to say “but of course it doesn’t apply at an individual level.”

Essentially what you're saying is, "we're not allowed to talk about biological differences that make underrepresented minorities look bad". I disagree. No fact should be barred from mentioning, and it's not the author's responsibility to ensure that you don't misconstrue his facts to advance your own agenda of claiming oppression.

> "He did not address any counter arguments or research that opposes his views, or the validity of the studies he did cite and their reproducibility."

Did you address any counter-arguments in your research report? This is some dude's memo in an opt-in internet forum, not a comprehensive/rigorous discipline-defining research report seeking publication in an academic journal.

> "He claimed that Google’s diversity efforts represent a lowering of the bar."

I agree that he should have elaborated on this bold claim. Though it's not outrageous to suspect that this could be the case given that affirmative action policies in higher education do lower the bar.

> "Some people at Google reacted by saying “well if he’s so wrong, then why not refute him,” but that requires spending a significant amount of time building an argument against the claims in his document. On the other hand, if I remain silent, that silence could be mistaken for agreement. I should not be forced into that kind of debate at work."

The memo was posted in an opt-in forum, you didn't have to debate it. Silence does not imply that you agree with him.

> "I’m also disappointed that the men I know, including most of my male colleagues, remained silent on the topic. And the ones that did participate, either seemed to support Damore or demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding for the issues women engineers are faced with and care about."

Why do you think they remained silent? You said it yourself - anyone who disagrees with you is wrong. Damore got fired for stating a well-articulated opinion, why would any of your male colleagues jeopardize their jobs as well by speaking honestly on the matter?

> I wish more successful men in tech thought deeply about the advantages they’ve had – the situations in which they were more likely to be trusted, deemed competent, promoted, given raises, etc. as men than they would be as women. This exercise isn’t intended to place blame, but to inspire empathy toward those who feel the weight of their gender each day at work.

I wish more women in tech vilifying Damore would think about the advantages they have received (affirmative action), think about it from the perspective of a male in a field where we get no hand-holding or "women in tech" scholarships and are constantly accused of being sexist oppressors, and stop pretending like discrimination is the only or main reason women are underrepresented in tech. I firmly believe that women chose to pursue tech less than men and that this is the biggest driver of the underrepresentation (posted a little about that here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15012364). If it is indeed the case that women are choosing to pursue the study of computer science less than men, then stop placing the burden on us males to increase your participation.

Before you automatically dismiss me and others with views differing to you as a misogynist, consider that most of us in the first world do not consider women as being any less capable than men at software engineering, let alone ANY discipline. Women used to dominate the field, and no reasonable man believes that women aren't fit for the job or shouldn't pursue this field.

> By remaining silent on this topic or tweeting support for Damore, they are sending a message that philosophical arguments and principles take precedence over the lived experiences of many smart, talented female engineers and technical founders

What does this even mean? It's just another way of saying "by not agreeing with me, you're wrong"

> I think he could have written it differently, so that people who chose not to read the whole 10-pages could have read the tl;dr and not immediately concluded he was sexist.

So the onus is on the author to ensure that people don't flippantly conclude that he's a sexist?

> This is an emotional topic

That's the problem, it shouldn't be.

> He was not fired for speaking truth to power, he was fired for mishandling a complex subject in a way that caused harm to his employer (and many of his colleagues).

He wouldn't have been fired if the memo argued the opposite viewpoint

I can't speak to Google's hiring policy, but affirmative action indeed gives preference to underrepresented minorities at the expense of more qualified people on the basis of gender/race. If you want quantitative data, just look at test scores of underrepresented minorities vs white/Asian men at competitive high schools and universities.

You can sugar coat it all you want, but it's still discrimination on the basis of gender/race.