Objectively intelligent.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Suspect Sebby will agree with an awful lot of this.

It explains why hearing people make this argument drives me nuts:

"Rationally, the poor should vote Democratic, as Democrats give them better safety nets and transfers."

First, these people aren't terribly rational in most instances. Second, as this author notes, transfers and safety nets won't redress the loss that ails them -- their lack of importance.

If these people were smarter on average, it might make sense to argue to them that they are not alone. They are simply the first line of people to be replaced by tech.

The author misses a huge issue -- the Knowledge Economy is easier to replace than the manufacturing economy. Algorithms are already replacing most traders and analysts. Wall Street, which works with numbers, is the most easily replaced sector of them all. (Google a bit on the flattening of bonuses and the layoffs hitting banking.)

The Knowledge Economy is basically the Data Economy, and no human can interpret data as well or as quickly as AI. At least the guy in the auto plant had a few years before the robots could be perfected and installed. The Knowledge Workers are, I think, going to be rendered obsolete at a frightening clip. Why? Because their work is largely fungible, and its easier to build and set loose a learning algorithm than it is to build and maintain a physical robot. That which can be done in one's head, using simple math or rational thinking, can be done a million times faster and more accurately by a computer. A variant of Moore's Law will apply to the tech eliminating Knowledge Workers that didn't so ruthlessly apply to the people who worked with their hands.

Stated more simply, your plumber is a lot less fragile than your broker. The former's work has a barrier to entry the latter will never enjoy.

But I understand... this is cold comfort to the under-educated and the left behind. They don't get it. And the condescension that angers them, which this author explained brilliantly, will not abate so quickly. As AI wipes out the Knowledge Workers, I think they will do what the displaced Trumpkins are now doing -- punch downward. They'll be exceedingly resentful because they'll have done what they were supposed to do and still wound up losing. And they'll have no one to punch up against.

That's when you get really interesting revolutions. They almost always gestate in the upper middle class. The real crazy stuff, I think, is going to start in 10 or so years, when the Knowledge Workers start falling prey to the algorithms in mass numbers.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

It explains why hearing people make this argument drives me nuts:

"Rationally, the poor should vote Democratic, as Democrats give them better safety nets and transfers."

First, these people aren't terribly rational in most instances. Second, as this author notes, transfers and safety nets won't redress the loss that ails them -- their lack of importance.

If these people were smarter on average, it might make sense to argue to them that they are not alone. They are simply the first line of people to be replaced by tech.

The author misses a huge issue -- the Knowledge Economy is easier to replace than the manufacturing economy. Algorithms are already replacing most traders and analysts. Wall Street, which works with numbers, is the most easily replaced sector of them all. (Google a bit on the flattening of bonuses and the layoffs hitting banking.)

The Knowledge Economy is basically the Data Economy, and no human can interpret data as well or as quickly as AI. At least the guy in the auto plant had a few years before the robots could be perfected and installed. The Knowledge Workers are, I think, going to be rendered obsolete at a frightening clip. Why? Because their work is largely fungible, and its easier to build and set loose a learning algorithm than it is to build and maintain a physical robot. That which can be done in one's head, using simple math or rational thinking, can be done a million times faster and more accurately by a computer. A variant of Moore's Law will apply to the tech eliminating Knowledge Workers that didn't so ruthlessly apply to the people who worked with their hands.

Stated more simply, your plumber is a lot less fragile than your broker. The former's work has a barrier to entry the latter will never enjoy.

But I understand... this is cold comfort to the under-educated and the left behind. They don't get it. And the condescension that angers them, which this author explained brilliantly, will not abate so quickly. As AI wipes out the Knowledge Workers, I think they will do what the displaced Trumpkins are now doing -- punch downward. They'll be exceedingly resentful because they'll have done what they were supposed to do and still wound up losing. And they'll have no one to punch up against.

That's when you get really interesting revolutions. They almost always gestate in the upper middle class. The real crazy stuff, I think, is going to start in 10 or so years, when the Knowledge Workers start falling prey to the algorithms in mass numbers.

If you were going to change the Democratic Party to better represent these folks, what would you do?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If you were going to change the Democratic Party to better represent these folks, what would you do?

Be honest? “I will bring back manufacturing jobs!” “I will give you all health care!” Kumbahya!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Be honest? “I will bring back manufacturing jobs!” “I will give you all health care!” Kumbahya!

There's got to be a better solution than just saying shit like that.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

There's got to be a better solution than just saying shit like that.

K. So find it? I was posted paraphrased quotes to make the point that the Dems are not honest.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

K. So find it? I was posted paraphrased quotes to make the point that the Dems are not honest.

Well, I asked Sebby because I think he's more focused on the problem than anyone here, but tends to assume that any kind of political action is pointless.

If you want to talk about whether Dems are honest, fine. The person I hear pretending to bring back manufacturing jobs more than anyone else is Donald Trump. If Dems have a pathology here, it's the idea that retraining programs (and going to college, per that article) are going to solve the problem.

On the healthcare issue, attacking Dems as dishonest is totally weird to me. If you have been paying any attention over the last decade, which is sometimes unclear, you know that the Democratic Party is committed to using the government to extend healthcare coverage to pretty much everyone, and the Republican Party is opposed to that, as much for political reasons than out of some conviction that the free market does it better, and has opposed and sabotaged the ACA and lately has taken to lying about it quite a bit, although to be fair Trump lies about everything so maybe this isn't anything unusual. IIRC, you were bent out of shape because you thought the Democrats were being insufficiently candid about how far they would go to implement HCR, so it's a little odd to hear you complain that they were lying when they said they wanted to get it done.

In point of fact, improving the ACA is one of the things that the government can do to really help people who don't have a college degree, and if I were redesigning the party's priorities per that Geoghehan article, I would put HCR and the provision of social insurance at the center. Strengthen Social Security. Stop pretending that the government can bring good jobs to parts of the country that are losing them right now, and create a real safety and benefits to make sure that people don't fall so hard.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Well, I asked Sebby because I think he's more focused on the problem than anyone here, but tends to assume that any kind of political action is pointless.

If you want to talk about whether Dems are honest, fine. The person I hear pretending to bring back manufacturing jobs more than anyone else is Donald Trump. If Dems have a pathology here, it's the idea that retraining programs (and going to college, per that article) are going to solve the problem.

On the healthcare issue, attacking Dems as dishonest is totally weird to me. If you have been paying any attention over the last decade, which is sometimes unclear, you know that the Democratic Party is committed to using the government to extend healthcare coverage to pretty much everyone, and the Republican Party is opposed to that, as much for political reasons than out of some conviction that the free market does it better, and has opposed and sabotaged the ACA and lately has taken to lying about it quite a bit, although to be fair Trump lies about everything so maybe this isn't anything unusual. IIRC, you were bent out of shape because you thought the Democrats were being insufficiently candid about how far they would go to implement HCR, so it's a little odd to hear you complain that they were lying when they said they wanted to get it done.

In point of fact, improving the ACA is one of the things that the government can do to really help people who don't have a college degree, and if I were redesigning the party's priorities per that Geoghehan article, I would put HCR and the provision of social insurance at the center. Strengthen Social Security. Stop pretending that the government can bring good jobs to parts of the country that are losing them right now, and create a real safety and benefits to make sure that people don't fall so hard.

You’re still focusing on buying off the angry faction of the Trump Nation. These are all fine ideas for avoiding widespread homelessness and more opioid deaths. But opioid deaths aren’t really the problem. Our decreasing life expectancy among hopeless males isn’t the problem. Those are actually examples of a “social market economy” winnowing out the losers.

That’s harsh, but factual.

The real problem is the unemployable who aren’t dying any time soon. What do we do with them? I like UBI. But in that regard, I’m also buying them off.

The problem is they want meaning and dignity and many of them are not the brightest bulbs. I suggest trades, but I’m being unfair to tradespeople. A lot of these people can’t and won’t learn trades.

We’re being asked to find a way to give dignity and respect to a lot of people who haven’t seriously earned it. It strikes me a tad indulgent to narcissists. That’s why I think offering them their own little communities, detached from the rest, might work.

It’s a bizarre solution, but it’s a bizarre situation.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

A toddler who is over tired but doesn't want to sleep sometimes also wants to kill you. Or at least behaves that way.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If you were going to change the Democratic Party to better represent these folks, what would you do?

I'd level with them. I think they suspect there's an honesty that's being kept from them and they don't like being messaged.

I'd say what Obama, Bush II, and McCain all said: "The jobs of the past aren't coming back."

I'd add:

"That's reality. Full stop. No carve outs. Coal mining is a dead end. Forever.

But you can still have vibrant communities. You can build something here the same way the people with nothing built lives for themselves here long ago. You can set up farming cooperatives, you can rebuild the town center, and you can have a life not terribly unlike the one you forebears had. But you have to rely on each other. You have to band together a bit. Don't be greedy. Value community and maybe you'll wind up a lot luckier than a lot of us on the coasts will be. We have what look like fabulous existences, but humans are wired for community... and it is not coming back for us. But it could be coming back for you. You could be the small hamlets. Maybe being distanced from us is the greatest gift you could be given?

But you have to do it. We won't do it for you. You have to rebuild. You have to cooperate. Democrats will help you do that because we actually care. Republicans will only work on behalf of the local land baron who'd make you serfs... They don't care about you, and they never did. They care about those with capital. And these 'populist' Republicans under Trump are just liars."

- OR -

"Move. If your town is awful, and you want to go somewhere with a future, we'll help you do it. We'll support laws that allow you to clear your debts more quickly, get rid of that home that's losing value and holding you back. We'll try to give you a second chance to make it somewhere with a better future."

In conjunction with the second message, we'd have to offer some form of mortgage/debt relief or tax credits to allow those trapped in these bad areas to escape. And it can't just be for Trumpkins in flyover land. It has to also be offered to all the people who for generations have been imprisoned in poverty in inner cities.

I don't know if it'd work, but I really can't think of anything to say other than, "Rebuild your shit or move." That's the bargain the immigrants who came here a century plus ago were offered. I say restate it, with some sweeteners.

But at a minimum, there has to be honesty. These angry Trump voters who have a burn-it-all-down mindset know they're fucked. Trump told them they were right, which gifted him their votes. Tell them again, but with an even more honest, and less divisive, more inclusive invitation.

It can't hurt. Honesty never hurts. And most of what's fucking up this country right now is myths, narratives, and dishonesty.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'd level with them. I think they suspect there's an honesty that's being kept from them and they don't like being messaged.

Geoghehan's point is that there's a serious honesty to the current message ("Go to college like us") that is being heard loud and clear, and that's the problem. But anyway...

I'd say what Obama, Bush II, and McCain all said: "The jobs of the past aren't coming back."

I'd add:

"That's reality. Full stop. No carve outs. Coal mining is a dead end. Forever.

But you can still have vibrant communities. You can build something here the same way the people with nothing built lives for themselves here long ago. You can set up farming cooperatives, you can rebuild the town center, and you can have a life not terribly unlike the one you forebears had. But you have to rely on each other. You have to band together a bit. Don't be greedy. Value community and maybe you'll wind up a lot luckier than a lot of us on the coasts will be. We have what look like fabulous existences, but humans are wired for community... and it is not coming back for us. But it could be coming back for you. You could be the small hamlets. Maybe being distanced from us is the greatest gift you could be given?

But you have to do it. We won't do it for you. You have to rebuild. You have to cooperate. Democrats will help you do that because we actually care. Republicans will only work on behalf of the local land baron who'd make you serfs... They don't care about you, and they never did. They care about those with capital. And these 'populist' Republicans under Trump are just liars."

- OR -

"Move. If your town is awful, and you want to go somewhere with a future, we'll help you do it. We'll support laws that allow you to clear your debts more quickly, get rid of that home that's losing value and holding you back. We'll try to give you a second chance to make it somewhere with a better future."

In conjunction with the second message, we'd have to offer some form of mortgage/debt relief or tax credits to allow those trapped in these bad areas to escape. And it can't just be for Trumpkins in flyover land. It has to also be offered to all the people who for generations have been imprisoned in poverty in inner cities.

I don't know if it'd work, but I really can't think of anything to say other than, "Rebuild your shit or move." That's the bargain the immigrants who came here a century plus ago were offered. I say restate it, with some sweeteners.

But at a minimum, there has to be honesty. These angry Trump voters who have a burn-it-all-down mindset know they're fucked. Trump told them they were right, which gifted him their votes. Tell them again, but with an even more honest, and less divisive, more inclusive invitation.

It can't hurt. Honesty never hurts. And most of what's fucking up this country right now is myths, narratives, and dishonesty.

There are places that had better prospects than they ever will again, and neither the government nor cooperation can change that. Detroit is never going to make cars for the world like it once did. Rural Iowa is losing farm jobs, because rural communities all over the industrialized world have been losing farm jobs for decades and it's not changing. My grandfather grew up in a town in Wyoming that doesn't exist anymore. It's not coming back.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Geoghehan's point is that there's a serious honesty to the current message ("Go to college like us") that is being heard loud and clear, and that's the problem. But anyway...

There are places that had better prospects than they ever will again, and neither the government nor cooperation can change that. Detroit is never going to make cars for the world like it once did. Rural Iowa is losing farm jobs, because rural communities all over the industrialized world have been losing farm jobs for decades and it's not changing. My grandfather grew up in a town in Wyoming that doesn't exist anymore. It's not coming back.

College will not save you. Grad school will not save you. The algorithms are terminators. If you’ve a mix of skills that require high education plus physical work with a great clientele (plastic surgeon), you’re safe. The rest of us are not. Even lawyers who go to court are going to be eliminated in the near future. The algorithms can’t get them directly, but the cost of court is so insane, nobody goes to trial anymore.

Society is splintering in many ways. I can’t point to all of them, but one I can see is rural poor folks being left behind. They can leave, as my immigrants forebears left Eastern Europe. Or they can stay and have limited but perhaps happy lives. I am advocating telling them, “We can’t help you. But we won’t hurt you. And your debts are cancelled, and we don’t expect taxes from you. Have a nice run in your off the grid lives. Or move and join us. But we’re not your enemies. We don’t want to tell you how to live. And we don’t want you to try to tell us how to live. We want to coexist and, if it’s best, leave you alone. You make the call.”

Allow the people who want to live outside the modern economy to do so. That seems to be what they desire. Let them have it. But if they want to move, welcome their effort to take a chance on bettering their lot.

Telling them to all go to college, and worse to get a STEM degree, which will land them in a glut, is a terrible idea. Better they go to trade schools. We’ll need plumbers. We won’t need people made obsolete by algorithms.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Society is splintering in many ways. I can’t point to all of them, but one I can see is rural poor folks being left behind. They can leave, as my immigrants forebears left Eastern Europe. Or they can stay and have limited but perhaps happy lives. I am advocating telling them, “We can’t help you. But we won’t hurt you. And your debts are cancelled, and we don’t expect taxes from you. Have a nice run in your off the grid lives. Or move and join us. But we’re not your enemies. We don’t want to tell you how to live. And we don’t want you to try to tell us how to live. We want to coexist and, if it’s best, leave you alone. You make the call.”

This rural-places-are-dying-and-cities-are-happening thing has been happening since forever. Dickens got several novels out of it. The American twist on it is to give each rural voter as many Senators as the City of Los Angeles, although this is not so new, either.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

This rural-places-are-dying-and-cities-are-happening thing has been happening since forever. Dickens got several novels out of it. The American twist on it is to give each rural voter as many Senators as the City of Los Angeles, although this is not so new, either.

A states’ rights advocate would argue this is the result of a too strong federal govt. In a more states’ rights’ oriented system, there wouldn’t be so much push to control one’s neighbors.

The down side of that is, of course, you’re neighboring state might decide it wants to jail women for having abortions. Hence the need for a robust fed govt to keep the crazy states in check.

Ya can’t win. The founders tried admirably, but it all rested on good faith. We’ve none of that since Gingrich.

That fat little fuck hacked the whole thing and infected it with a fatal virus. Amazing. Thankfully, history will nevertheless ignore him.