> Cities were places where normal people died and died ugly for most of human history, and much of the migration to them has historically been out of desperation.
I think that captures some of the contradiction in your claims. Yes, cities could be terrible places to live and work. Yet people have moved to them throughout recent history because the alternative is worse.
That said, I don’t disagree with your point that there will be pain associated with this technological jump. I dont know of there will be more or less than with previous jumps. There are some interesting considerations.
One, this one hits knowledge workers who are in the middle class, instead of hitting those who use muscle or hand labor. That may change the outcome.
Two, governments are much more sophisticated and have much better policy tools to deal with disruption. While that doesn’t fix the root, it can help to prevent compounding problems and soften the impact.
Three, the tools that are doing the disrupting appear to be near zero marginal cost, which is different than say a factory which improved efficiency with a large up-front capital investment. This factor probably will make it worse, but I can see possibilities of it making this change less painful too.
Fourth, it isn’t really clear how this will play out. It kinda feels like we have seen the first demonstrations of a steam engine, and are trying to predict the course of the Industrial Revolution.
> I think that captures some of the contradiction in your claims. Yes, cities could be terrible places to live and work. Yet people have moved to them throughout recent history because the alternative is worse.
I think this is a misreading. People who had options didn't urbanize until they had to. When a family had too many sons to split and or when Roman aristocrats or English magnates pushed people off their land or when a bad climate situation made farming impractical, people moved--but it's a very, very recent historical development to urbanize (en masse) when other choices exist.
Yes, the alternatives have been worse and so industrial urbanization became more appealing than starving. Who the hell made them worse and whose progenitors now control the capital needed to destroy ever more labor?
(Don't take not addressing the rest as dismissal--your other points are all within a coherent universe, they're just techno-optimism that I have no reason to share so I have nothing to say to them.)
Based on this and other posts, I think you are saying not that technological progress is bad, but that we as a society fail to take full advantage of the opportunity that could come from the advances.
And of course you are right. But that’s a societal problem, not a technology problem. I would call if societal-optimism to hope that human nature will go away and collective action problems will suddenly disappear, and all boats will be lifted equally.
I think that captures some of the contradiction in your claims. Yes, cities could be terrible places to live and work. Yet people have moved to them throughout recent history because the alternative is worse.
That said, I don’t disagree with your point that there will be pain associated with this technological jump. I dont know of there will be more or less than with previous jumps. There are some interesting considerations.
One, this one hits knowledge workers who are in the middle class, instead of hitting those who use muscle or hand labor. That may change the outcome.
Two, governments are much more sophisticated and have much better policy tools to deal with disruption. While that doesn’t fix the root, it can help to prevent compounding problems and soften the impact.
Three, the tools that are doing the disrupting appear to be near zero marginal cost, which is different than say a factory which improved efficiency with a large up-front capital investment. This factor probably will make it worse, but I can see possibilities of it making this change less painful too.
Fourth, it isn’t really clear how this will play out. It kinda feels like we have seen the first demonstrations of a steam engine, and are trying to predict the course of the Industrial Revolution.