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[sebastian_dangerfield]

And you are not quite right about the express intent of many forms of tech. The idea is to "disrupt" by creating something new and better. Eliminating labor is a collateral effect, but not the objective.

Where's the crying from laughing so hard emoji? We need that for statements like this.

The "better" always includes "cheaper." And the "cheaper" part comes from avoidance of the bigger costs. And the biggest cost is always this: Labor.

Now answer me seriously.

Maybe so, but almost always there is a creation of new value, not just a shifting of labor costs to tech company owners. Uber hurt a lot of taxi drivers, but now you can use an app to get a car much faster.

Correct. You have taken money from a cabby and given it to Uber shareholders and me. Thank you.

Were cars predatory because they eliminating buggy whip makers? No one says that.

No. But an algorithm that is designed to meet if not outperform an analyst is designed to avoid the cost of paying that analyst. A kiosk in a grocery store is not any more efficient than a worker. It actually makes the consumer's job harder. It's sole purpose is to eliminate labor costs.

I think we all want to focus on the value we are creating. Some of that is replacing things that don't work as well.

I can get a cab in a city just as fast as I can get an Uber. Often easier, as it's simpler to wave than pull up an app. Why do people nevertheless use Uber? It's cheaper. It eliminated the cabby's margin.

You like to talk about this problem, but you're not actually willing to do anything about it, are you? Except UBI, of course, the exception that proves the rule.

There is nothing to be done about it. The only thing that will fix the inequality accruing from tech disruption and policies that so disproportionately favor capital over labor is a crisis. Things will get so bad that there will be public outcry to reset the system which can no longer be ignored.

That could take the form of massive anti-monopoly policies (breaking up Amazon: See Galloway on that). It could result from populist rage coupled with social unrest. Idk what it will look like, but I know this: The country can't absorb the permanent job losses predicted coming out of this pandemic.

You argue that we should all have to pay marginally higher taxes to fatten a safety net for those tech is displacing. But you avoid the argument that I have made: "Tech broke it, tech can buy it." Let tech deal with the pitchforks. Let Wall Street deal with the pitchforks. Let Washington deal with the pitchforks.

I don't have to deal with them. I say Do Nothing because I know if we do nothing, this will bubble over into a crisis that won't harm me. I'm not putting people out of work, or profiting from the loss of others as private equity is poised to do. I'm not getting a bailout. No pitchforks come for me.

But when they come for others, being largely anti-fragile by dumb luck of choice of business, I might be able to profit, or survive nicely.

That's why I'm pretty much just doing what Lennon said: Watching the wheels go round. Tending my garden. And waiting to see how this clash of the mass unemployed and the profiteers and disrupters unfolds. (An amusing part of the pandemic acting as an accelerant in bringing this simmering conflict to a head is that now nobody can easily leave the country. If shit hits the fan, all interested parties are within the same borders.)

If you think tech should bear the burden for the safety for the rest of the country, explain how that should work.

Jaron Lanier has done this in each of his books. It involves a special form of taxation on use of people's private information. It makes sense, but will never become law.

What does the class war accomplish?

It's revenue neutral to me and the rest of us who aren't putting people out of work. It pits the luddites against the technocrats and leave them to fight to some bloody end while the rest of us just do what we're doing.

You can't explain what a "fix" even is, unless you mean UBI. What do you think should be done?

Nothing. UBI would work. But it won't be passed. So I do nothing, because in my position, nothing makes the most sense. The unskilled vs. tech is not my war. Wall Street vs. Main Street is not my war.

If you don't use tech, then you can be holier-than-thou about who pays. But you do. You want the benefits that tech creates for consumers, but you want to let someone else pay the costs.

Correct. He who makes the massive profits bears the risk.

Or, huge companies would have a lot of large campuses, like they do.

You know any huge company that exists on one campus alone? They all own pricey commercial space in multiple city centers.