Automation is bad

Jesus Christ this is fucking embarrassing.

Mate you've posted what anyone with half a brain considers common sense. Jow Forums is not the place for logic, the posters here want neither economic nor social prosperity, they just want to feel angry because it's the one emotion they know how to express. Go outside and make a change in the world, others will appreciate it and you'll feel better about yourself.

>Wealth per person can literally only increase when productivity increases.
Why should I continue reading beyond this false statement? Wealth per person can be increased by increasing wealth. You skipped right over that to assume that wealth can only be increased by increasing productivity. Increasing productivity is not possible without first increasing resources (wealth). So you have it backwards. To have enough wealth for everyone is to have perpetually greater resources available than the rate of consumption of those resources. If you want to automate a processby which renewable resources can somehow be sustained to keep the supply above this rate of consumption, fine. Go ahead and figure out a way to make that happen and then maybe we can consider your communist utopia. Until then, stfu.

So market demand IS independent of price?

You mean that I can price my product at any value and the quantity that the market demands will always be the same whether it costs $1,000 or $1?

I can't think of a single product that has absolutely inelastic demand.

>Increasing productivity is not possible without first increasing resources
Ah yes, which is why the industrial revolution didn't kick off until the Earth mysteriously grew 20% larger.

>engineer devices
>make code
>operate plastic printer

Welcome to the future.

>10 men make 10 shoes each = 100 shoes
>new machine is invented that 1 man can operate = 10 men make 1000 shoes, we can all afford 10 times as many shoes because every shoe costs 1/10th as much
10 men no longer have an income to purchase shoes because machines are doing that now. Fucking idiot.

You live in Kyrgyzstan? You a Russian or a Kyrgyz? Or are you one of those Koreans?

Now that the shoes are so cheap, how to they get paid and how do they pay for the machines?

Just put them on welfare

>Now that the shoes are so cheap, how to they get paid
By making 10 times as many shoes.

>and how do they pay for the machines?
The same way they paid for the original machines.

>10 men no longer have an income to purchase shoes because machines are doing that now.
Machines are tools that enable them to do 10 times the work. They still have to operate the machines.

Can you not read?

So you run the machine for 1/10 the amount of time you would have had employees working on it. It's like downloading an mp3 over fios instead of dial up. But now that everything is automated, who the fuck is buying the shoes?

Now it doesn't take any craftsmanship to make shoes, anyone can make 100 shoes with a machine. How are you going to stop the guy who only has 5 employees from selling their shoes for cheaper and putting you (and your team of 10) out of business?

in the future you'll have to make your own damn shoes

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No you fucking retard, but people won’t buy 10x the shoes because they are 1/10 the price. The business owner has increased his overhead and lowered his income.

Moreover, people are not wholly rational beings, particularly women which control the lion’s share of consumption.

A typical man owns a cheap pair of sandals or slippers, a decent pair of running shoes, nice dress shoes, and expensive work boots

A typical woman owns 15 pairs of dress shoes that all cost more than the mans work boots, in addition to more functional footwear.

The man wouldn’t buy more shoes if they were cheaper, and the women wouldn’t buy much less if they were more expensive.

Back to your stupid fucking shoemaker:
Instead of saving 9 employees worth of labor to pay off his machine cost and maintenance, he invested TEN TIMES AS MUCH into cost and maintenance while reducing his labor costs by zero. Meanwhile his materials cost is multiplied by ten and his profit per shoe goes directly into the shitter because ALL OF HIS CPU HAVE INCREASED AND HIS PPU HAS DECREASED.

Meanwhile, by your own estimation, his revenue has remained constant.

Congratulations, if you were in charge 11 more people would be unemployed.

>How are you going to stop the guy who only has 5 employees from selling their shoes for cheaper and putting you (and your team of 10) out of business?
Why do you think that people should stay in business if they sell the same product at a higher price? Why do you think that market action leading to cheaper products is bad for the consumer and society?

You mean the wealth was already there and we have increased consumption? Now our wealth is threatened. If anything, automation is the biggest threat to our wealth until we can renew resources so efficiently that it is perpetually greater than our rate of consumption. You can't have such a utopian concept of wealth without that.

>reading too much into an analogy
The shoes and the shoemaker are the entire fucking economy, not a single business, you god damn mouthbreather.

All you’ve done is increase your costs and lower your profits, fucking retard. Further, you aren’t renting the warehouse for 1/10 the amount of time.

Or you could just buy one fucking machine and increase your profits.

"Welfare" is just a substitution word for "wealth". There is no welfare without the wealth to draw on. Increasing consumption without increasing wealth is just a fast track to destitution.

>You mean the wealth was already there and we have increased consumption?
Yes.

>Now our wealth is threatened.
I think you intend to say that there is a risk (or an inevitability) that we will consume everything and then starve.

I agree.

So what? You seem to be implying that we should just start being poor straight away because we'll be poor soon, rather than at least get to enjoy a bit of richness.

Increasing the supply of shoes does not increase the demand. It lowers the value of shoes. Are you a fucking abo?

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Lowering the price of shoes increases the demand.

So it's a race to make the most efficient machine, maybe one that doesn't need people? So you can sell at the lowest possible price, right? What about the jobs? If machines are more cost effective to run than your employees, why keep your employees at all?

No they aren’t you fucking mongoloid because automation is piecemeal and possibly never total. Analogies are supposed to be analogous retard.

Which is wholly irrelevant because you are a fucking simpleton with absolutely zero grasp of economics anyways, so why should anyone take your opinions on the subject seriously anyways?

>If machines are more cost effective to run than your employees, why keep your employees at all?
Because machines need operators.

>"but what about a machine that doesn't need an operator?"
Then we're in an unknowable new future.

It doesn't necessarily increase costs. At some point the cost of the machines breaks even with what it would cost to pay for human labor over T amount of time. I don't think you finished reading my previous comment though. It doesn't mean you can pump out 10X as many shoes and be profitable. You're retarded for thinking that's what I said.

>No they aren’t you fucking mongoloid because automation is piecemeal and possibly never total
So?

>At some point the cost of the machines breaks even with what it would cost to pay for human labor over T amount of time
Not if you are making 10x the product at 1/10 the price as per the example.

OP is a retarded communist who believes in the labor theory of value, he can’t grasp that materials maintenance, rent, and other overhead all mean that he is paying more money to make less money with constant revenue.

So you are fucking retarded. The only reason you fired back with the analogy argument is because you can’t actually respond.

Here: my argument you gave that response to was also an analogy for the entire economy.

Now address it.

This is actually how you got China. You still need people to buy all this shit. It's more attractive to export to people with more purchasing power rather than sell for 1/10th the price.
What really happens is that all 10 men just become conscripts after the cars get sold to wealthy Saudis.

0/10 communism was tried many times and it failed repeatedly

>You seem to be implying that we should just start being poor straight away because we'll be poor soon, rather than at least get to enjoy a bit of richness.
Nah I'm just saying there isn't enough to entertain the idea of the utopian "spread the wealth" meme unless we find a solution for renewable resources first. In the meantime, I'm sticking with capitalism. If we ever get to the point where we have virtually infinite food and materials then I will be all for automating as much as possible and providing for all.
What will happen in that scenario though? People will breed like bacteria until the rate of consumption catches up with the rate at which resources can be renewed. So there has to be a limit placed on population growth at the point where we can automate renewable resources. Niggers are definitely getting cut from the roster.

got to see a doc thursday about my nuts

>Now address it.
Okay.

Your poorly-expressed point appears to be that the new production is less efficient than the old production, therefore there will inevitably be job-shedding. You seem to believe this because you believe that automation in the shoe industry for example will happen before automation in the shoe inputs industry - so the price of shoes falls before the price of warehousing or leather or whatever falls.

Sure, that's possible.

All it means is that the shoe input industry will demand more labour, and so the 3 shed jobs in the shoe making industry will go into the shoe input industry to feed the 700 shoes per day being made.

No it doesn't. It doesn't increase the number of income earning feet.

>Nah I'm just saying there isn't enough to entertain the idea of the utopian "spread the wealth" meme unless we find a solution for renewable resources first.
I'm not proposing utopia, just explaining why automation doesn't equal less jobs. Automation has never equalled less jobs overall - it has only meant a shift in consumption towards increasing amounts of increasingly affordable luxuries.

>People will breed like bacteria
Actually, fertility rates tend to fall.

>OP is a retarded communist who believes in the labor theory of value
this

EXCEPT NOONE IS BUYING ROUGHLY 900 SHOES PER PRODUCTION CYCLE YOU STUPID FUCKING CUNT.

>No it doesn't.
Yes it does.

>It doesn't increase the number of income earning feet.
But there is an unlimited demand for shoes, independent of whether that demand is "rational."

Remember: shoes are an analogy for the whole economy. In real life maybe we will fully satisfy the demand for shoes and 3 of the 10 shoemakers will get a job operating the luxury yacht machines instead.

>Because machines need operators.

They really, really don't. It's not automation if it isn't automated.

Think user, why is the price of the shoes lower? Your principle argument is predicated on the cost of shoes being lower because with automation 10 times as many shoes are being made. You're lowering price by increasing supply and arguing that that increases demand. An economist you are fucking not mate.

>EXCEPT NOONE IS BUYING ROUGHLY 900 SHOES PER PRODUCTION CYCLE YOU STUPID FUCKING CUNT.
What part of "unlimited demand" escapes you?

Obviously, I am assuming unlimited demand. I made this clear in my OP. I think it's a pretty uncontroversial assumption.

They would need to if you're making that many shoes! Elsewise you end up with a mountain of free shoes or full shipping containers for export to people who do buy all the shoes.

>Actually, fertility rates tend to fall
Really? Because it seemsthat all the gibs sent to Africa have resulted in an increase in population. Look at the welfare state in first world countries even. These are the people who are breeding the most.
qz.com/africa/1099546/population-growth-africans-will-be-a-third-of-all-people-on-earth-by-2100/

>Because machines need operators.

>I am assuming unlimited demand.
>I think it's a pretty uncontroversial assumption.

I'm reporting this thread on the basis that it's giving me brain AIDS

>They really, really don't.
Yes they do. That's why the phrase "machine operator" even exists.

>why is the price of the shoes lower

>You're lowering price by increasing supply and arguing that that increases demand
It increases quantity demanded, not the actual demand curve. You're suggesting that we can increase supply for all products across the entire economy until the price for everything drops to zero and people start losing their jobs, which I don't think is true, but even if it is - is that actually a bad thing?

The increased consumption of resources used during production with the decreasd need for human labor is also representative of the entire economy. Even under the unreasonable assumption of unlimited demand, you are confronted with the inevitable approach of reaching the limit of available resources.much sooner. All that is currently being proposed by automation is to bankrupt our wealth more quickly than at present rate.

>That's why the phrase "machine operator" even exists.
And is falling rapidly out of use as fabrication method are, stay with me here, increasingly automated

>It increases quantity demanded,
why?

>is that actually a bad thing?
And there we have it folks

>I am assuming unlimited demand. I made this clear in my OP.

Then you are fucking retarded. You couldn’t afford to pay me to own a thousand monetarily worthless pairs of shoes. Not even a female professional basket player would want that many pairs of shoes.

No one wants 1000 monetarily worthless toothbrushes
No one wants 1000 monetarily worthless airplanes
No one wants 1000 monetarily worthless iPhones
No one wants 1000 monetarily worthless screwdrivers
No one wants 1000 monetarily worthless desk lamps

Stop having stupid axioms and maybe, just maybe, you’ll stop having stupid conclusions.

>why?
Because as price falls, quantity demanded increases.

You're not willing (maybe not even able) to pay $20,000,000 for your own luxury yacht. But if it was $50,000, maybe you'd buy one.

>And is falling rapidly out of use as fabrication method are, stay with me here, increasingly automated
But not completely automated.

Which is the point. So long as machines need people, there will always be a job for every person. Why? Because consumption will always be sustained at a level which demands the full labour of everyone in the economy. Consumption rises to meet productivity. You cannot outpace consumption with productivity. If a machine is invented that produces ten times as much, people will CONSUME ten times as much. That's the whole point of the OP.

See above.

What part of "the shoes are representative of the entire economy" escapes you?

>you are confronted with the inevitable approach of reaching the limit of available resources
I agree. But the only solution to this is being poorer. Why do that?

>Because consumption will always be sustained at a level which demands the full labour of everyone in the economy. Consumption rises to meet productivity. You cannot outpace consumption with productivity
But that's wrong you fucking faggot
How many times do you have to be told?

What part of reading before responding escapes you?

I honestly wonder if you think you are clever and hoping to make me believe you aren’t avoiding valid criticism, or are legitimately so fucking far up your own ass that you deluded yourself into thinking you aren’t avoiding criticism with responses like these.

>But that's wrong you fucking faggot
Then why has it been true at literally every point in history, both prior to and since the industrial revolution?

What possible empirical data could you be drawing from to reach the conclusion that human consumption is fixed and can never be increased beyond a certain point, let alone that we are reaching that point or will reach it?

>Stop having stupid axioms
Best advice for the modern era right here.

in 1859 a solar flare hit earth that was so powerful telegraph machines caught fire and some even continued transmission while unplugged. if a similar event happened today there would be outages for months or even years. a similar flare missed us by 9 days in 2012. in a fully automated world such a storm would knock us back to a dark age where people in your example wouldn't even know how to make their own shoes

>avoiding valid criticism
I don't see it.

I'm sorry that you feel like I'm ignoring your points but they genuinely aren't apparent to me. Perhaps you should focus more on clear expression and less on rhetoric. Beginners are often distracted by what they perceive as impressive turns of phrase, but the core of any good argument is always making sure you get your point across in the first instance. Leave the flourishes for when you've got a bit more experience, champ.

Protip: some industries are more labour-intensive than others, and these will soak up the excess jobs and become the new "luxury" items.

What I’m most mad about is OP tricking me into arguing economics with commies on Jow Forums yet again.

When will I ever learn...

>But the only solution to this is being poorer
No. The solution is competition (capitalism) until enough successful capitalists are willing and able to fund the development of renewable resources. Like it our not, capitalism is currently the only hope of ever reaching a communist utopia.

>why has it been true at literally every point in history
Because we've never had the logistical or manufacturing means available that we do now. Obviously. You must acknowledge that or you wouldn't have made the thread. You're advocating for massive change.

>Because we've never had the logistical or manufacturing means available that we do now.
So? The question isn't "do we have lots of productivity" - the question is "is human consumption fixed at a certain value?"

You have no evidence to support a yes answer, yet screech that I'm fucking wrong to suggest a no answer when all of the evidence - limited though you accurately point out it is - suggests a no answer.

>You're advocating for massive change.
Sure.

Okay, see the green part of my post? Those are your words that I am addressing. I am addressing your fantasy that unlimited demand exists. I give several non-shoe examples that should be fucking obviously universal, but I’ll spell it out for you anyways:
>you have two feet
>you have one mouth
>you have one ass
>you have two hands
It doesn’t have to be a thousand either, unlimited, right?

Why the fuck would I want a million iphones? Some time after four or five they will likely be LESS useful than just one. The idea of unlimited demand is outright farcical.

Your response?
>lol, I’m not talking about just shoes.

>Like it our not, capitalism is currently the only hope of ever reaching a communist utopia.

That’s just silly. Capitalism is one of the most difficult systems man has ever made to starve everyone to death under.

>Why the fuck would I want a million iphones?
You wouldn't, but you erroneously assume that because you can afford a million iPhones you can afford a million everything. You might be able to afford a million iPhones, but only one luxury yacht. And building that luxury yacht could soak up the jobs that used to go into making iPhones - because now we're building a million luxury yachts per year instead of 5.

>Some time after four or five they will likely be LESS useful than just one
Sure.

So you buy something else. Something that it doesn't even occur to you to want today, because you can't afford it. How about a private plane? You don't even know that you want one because it's just absurd that you could ever have one - but what if it costs $25,000? All of the jobs that used to go into making iPhones could go into making your private plan, building your hangar, keeping your runway clear, managing your flightplans, flying and cleaning and fuelling your plane. And so on.

Unlimited demand for a single product IS farcical. That's why I'm not suggesting it.

Of course there's no evidence, this thread is 100% conjecture. But there are constraints on human growth that we're rapidly meeting. Everybody in the Western world has a phone. If you make 10 times more phones who's going to buy them? Sure, there's a billion Africans who probably don't have the latest model, but what money are they going to buy them with? And when they all have phones, if you're cranking out phones at 10x the current rate, what then? Do you want people to buy a new phone every week? If you increase production you speed up the rate at which you approach market saturation. Consumption is limited to the number of people you can sell to and that's limited by living space and need.

>If you make 10 times more phones who's going to buy them?
Nobody, and the companies that bet on the infinite growth of the phone market will go bankrupt.

And their workers will move to the startup company named "Yachts for the Masses" building luxury yachts for customers who can suddenly afford to buy them thanks to innovative new automation.

But user:
>we aren’t talking about yachts, we’re talking about the entire economy.

Your intellectual dishonesty aside, you are either frantic and desperate to ignore the point or paradoxically literate for your intelligence level.

>Unlimited demand for a single product IS farcical. That's why I'm not suggesting it.
Yes you fucking are, because it was your stupid fucking response to over-production.

>Nobody, and the companies that bet on the infinite growth of the phone market will go bankrupt.
FULL CIRCLE. THREAD COMPLETE:
Commie is officially chasing his own tail.

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>the companies that bet on the infinite growth of the phone market will go bankrupt.
How do you not see that this statement generalises to
>the economies that bet on the infinite growth of the market will go bankrupt.

What about when everyone has a yacht, or more likely when we run out of berths for yachts. Just lurch to another luxury good, migrating incompatible skillsets, move the entire workforce from product to product, drying up each market in turn until.... we run out of things that people want?

>>we aren’t talking about yachts, we’re talking about the entire economy.
No, we are clearly talking about yachts and not the entire economy.

I'm sorry, I thought you were keeping up. In future I'll try to signpost more clearly.

>you are either frantic and desperate to ignore the point
Your point is that the very instant that automation happens we will instantly be able to saturate every market overnight, so therefore everyone will lose their jobs.

It's a silly point and that's why you're having trouble expressing it.

Furthermore, it's not even really a point. If we saturate every market, to the point where all products are free, why would we even need jobs to afford the products?

>market action leading to efficient distribution of resources is bad
I don't understand you.

>How do you not see that this statement generalises to
>>the economies that bet on the infinite growth of the market will go bankrupt.
Because economies don't go bankrupt.

If you saturate the entire economy, to the point where all products are free, why does it matter that nobody has a job? All the products are free.

>why would we even need jobs
Read this, it explains why

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>economies don't go bankrupt
Please never ever make a thread again

I've not read it, but I'm familiar with the themes. It's instructive, and a good example of why we need to be active agents in the coming changes and not just let them happen to us.

Point to a literally bankrupt economy.

>I've not read it, but I'm familiar with the themes
Ah, a dilettante. I suddenly understand this thread.

>people only disagree with me because they're not as clever as me
Ah, a retard. I suddenly understand your argument.

Venezuela?

I said "literally bankrupt" not notionally bankrupt.

As soon as people get bored, they‘ll more likely start to individualize even more. There‘s men right now all over social media, beeing your so called consumpion woman

The book answers your question. If you don't want to read it then you are a dilettante, plain and simple. And dilettantes definitively do not have a comprehensive understanding of whatever concept they claim to have an interest in.

Bankruptcy: a state of being unable to repay debts. Venezuela has been missing principal payments on bonds and its tax revenue is collapsing; it cannot materially service its debts.

>The book answers your question
I'll try to find time to read it then, but if the "answer" is in line with the arguments you've made then I doubt your characterisation of it as "answering my question" is accurate.

>Bankruptcy: a state of being unable to repay debts. Venezuela has been missing principal payments on bonds and its tax revenue is collapsing; it cannot materially service its debts.
That's the government you're talking about, not the economy.

Try again.

Or just admit you're being silly. Economies cannot go bankrupt. Furthermore, even if they could the state of being you're talking about isn't analogous to bankruptcy anyway - you're talking about a situation where there aren't enough jobs for everyone to earn a living because half the population can feed the whole economy. That's not bankruptcy even if economies could go bankrupt.

Which is the point. What you said was generalisable is NOT generalisable. You're just wrong.

>That's the government you're talking about, not the economy.
Semantics

Tell me, user, where does the revenue that drives an economy come from?

>Semantics
No, it's crucial to your point. You said that economies could go bankrupt, and your evidence is a bankrupt government.

A government is not an economy.

Furthermore, you didn't address my substantive criticism even if you perceive this one as semantics.

A government and an economy or for all intents and purposes synonymous. They are both facets of the state.

I addressed your other stupid point in my question there.

Oh user, reduced from arguing the finer points of the repercussions of automation to the meanings of words. How embarrassing for you.

>A government and an economy or for all intents and purposes synonymous
I disagree with that. Elaborate please.

>I addressed your other stupid point in my question there.
I don't think so.

>reduced from arguing the finer points of the repercussions of automation to the meanings of words
I agree, this pointless tangent that you have led us down is a waste of my time. To that effect, if your next post isn't up to standard I'm going to stop replying.

>paradoxically literate for your intelligence level

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