Bill Gates says a 3-day work week where ‘machines can make all the food and stuff’ isn’t a bad idea::“A society where you only have to work three days a week, that’s probably OK,” Bill Gates said.
I don’t care what one of the richest people in the world thinks about labour and work/life balance. I care what the average person thinks.
But he’s right about this.
You should, because they are the ones who will be making the decisions.
Until enough of us say that we don’t care what they think, and we demand better.
So unionization?
Yes. That’s certainly one of the best ways.
Unions are tragically toothless when the federal government can just decide a planned strike is illegal.
More unions need to coordinate and actually create threat of a general strike. The UAW ending their contract on May Day and calling for others to do the same actually seems like a pretty good way to leverage power. I don’t think the government can move quick enough to block that kind of collective action.
Biden literally signed an executive order blocking railway workers from striking. If he has that kind of authority and is willing to use it in that way, then all he has to do is make an executive order declaring all strikes illegal. Also, not trying to be a naysayer, but a general strike is a pipe dream. You can barely get people in the same union to cooperate, let alone multiple unions cooperating for a general.
yea! lets hope really hard and politicians might start taking hope as bribes for legislature
And their decisions equate to: how can we employ the fewest number of people with the least benefits and make the most profit off what we’re selling?
But definitely don’t consider that under- or unemployed people don’t have the money to spend on making those profits happen.
Companies would automate and save on employees, making people poor. Automation only makes sense if basic universal income is applied
The “””end goal””” would be people working half the time, earning half the money, and stuff costing half as much to make and half as much to purchase.
The issue is we have to force them to translate the manufacturing cost decrease in a price decrease, or it’s never going to happen.
A reduction in work hours is also a step forward until UBI is instated. If I make the same amount doing 4 or even 3 days of work in a week, while automation does the rest, that works for me. The idea is that people need to work less and make the same if not more. UBI or a reduction in work hours are both good paths forward. UBI being the ultimate goal.
If people are that poor they will just deautomate the machines in protest until UBI happens.
People don’t have that kind of power. Especially poor people.
A person doesn’t, but people certainly do. And a small number can do a surprising amount if they’re coordinated enough.
Yeah, every debate about reducing the number of cars always ends at something like “too many jobs are involved in the car industry, so we need to preserve these jobs, and also people need cars to go work in these factories”. I feel like there will hardly be a deep environmental breakthrough if it doesn’t come with a deep social change.
I would rather work down the road at a bakery than drive to the next town to be an engineering apprentice.
Only one of them pays, however.
“We’re too deep in the hole we’ve dug for ourselves. Just keep digging and hope we eventually come out the other side.” That’s what that logic effectively equates to: doing the same stupid thing and hoping it eventually works out for you.
It’s not a bad idea, but it also can’t exist without a complete re-haul of what it means to live in modern society. Right now, replacing workers and cutting hours means people don’t have enough money to live. That is not an acceptable result of automation. I’m not qualified enough to have a reasonable solution to this, but I know it needs to be addressed before we get to that point.
Look at this guy who doesn’t have billions he made from the 90s and 2000s to rely on!
In 2010 Bill Gates was worth 50 Billion. He is now worth 117 Billion.
He ain’t exactly coasting. He just has a higher PR budget than he did back in the 90s.
The machine doesn’t require a salary but instead of sending the money it saves to the workers it replaces it is added to the yearly profits, a three day work week with more automatisation can’t happen before that last part is reversed or there’s extreme deflation happening to compensate for lower wages.
Some of you [all rich folks] may cry but its a sacrifice I am willing to make
I do wonder if this is even a money thing as even OpenAI has warned investors that money in the future is not certain. Maybe we are going to be forced to look to alternatives other than money as the means of value?
Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing now
Yeah no shit. The problem is that capitalism hates it.
“Hmmm… Solve world hunger…Why don’t we do that?..”
“Sir, your dinner is ready.”
“The flies were wild caught yes?”
“From Botswana sir. Just as you like.”
Slurp
The Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Denmark are all capitalist societies and run on <5 day work weeks. Capitalism is not the problem, North American society in particular is what seems to have the problem.
Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Denmark
Each of which have about 2-4x union participation than USA, for example. Which indicates to me that they’re doing a better job of keeping capitalism at bay, not that capitalism is more benevolent in those countries.
Assuming the owners of those machines don’t restrict the people’s access to that “food and stuff”
You think Bill Gates of all people don’t know that? He’s just trying to gaslight us into thinking the stupid-rich gigacorporation owners like him are the solution and not the problem.
I don’t know about that. Young ruthless Bill Gates was another person, older and wiser Bill Gates has already achieved richest person in the world, Forbes #1, etc etc - all that’s in the rearview mirror - I believe he has awakened and realized it takes a village and he wants his legacy to reflect that
Just goes to show how you can change your public image with shit loads of money. He just laundered his image real good and you just ate it up.
He has not “awakened” to anything. He’s just very good at selling his BS. What’s even worse is that now if you bring up his shitty ways, you are associated with the anti vax idiots.
What’s more likely, a complete reversal of his world view, or a good PR team and some coaching. I’m not buying the first, especially considering that his Jeffrey Epstein association came after he left MS and started running his charitable foundation.
Bill Gates hasn’t really changed dude. He’s just developed a thicker veneer. He’s the largest landowner in the US now, because he’s been buying up as much arable land as possible. He can say its BAU all he wants, it’s incredibly sketchy af. Now in conjunction with this statement, its easy to see where once he cornered the software market, you could infer he’s aspiring to do the same with food with full automation.
Michael Burry (guy from the big short) has been doing the same. We all know climate change is going to fuck us, we all know we are headed towards serious water shortages, etc - these guys also know and have money to position themselves - for what final gameplan I don’t know, but at least with Gates his recent history has shown a care for the greater good for humanity at least. Can’t say the same for other billionaires.
I know Bills history pretty well, I just see a difference between him now and how he was a ruthless businessman in his prior life. Maybe he has me fooled, but I don’t really see it other than people’s conspiracy theory stuff. Guys like Elon are another story though
People who sell things that are in high demand and necessary for survival generally are not in the practice of denying people access to those things.
Um healthcare?
Health care providers are not in the habit of denying care. Health insurers are because they have a perverse incentives to do so - this is why they should not exist
Exactly the people who sell the thing in high demand the issurers are in the business of denying care to people by raising prices on healthcare. I feel like your mind is in the right place I agree insurance companies shouldn’t exist but what you said in your first comment is false large companies who sell high demand products absolutely gouge on prices all of the time.
That’s literally not true though. They compete with each other over offering the lowest price.
That’s funny. In reality they compete on increasing shareholder profits by colluding on prices and paying their employees as little as possible. And to be crystal clear “they” are the CEOS/boards of most major companies.
This is not at all how businesses operate lol
Then i have got a bridge to sell you. Its quite necessary you see…
Also, What mind bending drugs are you on? Healthcare is riddled with examples of denied insurance claims for treatments.
if you won’t deny a thing to someone it’s pretty hard to sell it to anyone
denying people access to those things.
The only way I can reconcile your statement is if you finish it with “if they can afford it”. Which also makes your statement meaningless. No one was ever arguing that business denies products/services to those who can pay for them.
Health care, food, and shelter are all in high demand, necessary for survival, and if you can’t afford it, you are denied it.
No one was ever arguing that business denies products/services to those who can pay for them.
“If they can afford it” suggests otherwise.
Yes, things do indeed cost money and always will until we discover replicator tech.
We will absolutely have automation but the workers will just be fired and all profits will be absorbed by the stockholder.
No cost savings will be passed on the other consumer either.
The problem is that would be wildly unstable. The capitalist class can’t sell automated-produced goods if people don’t have any money because they’re unemployed.
However, those mass layoffs will make this quarter’s numbers go up, and everything else is a problem for next quarter, which is why they’ll do it.
Once AI and robots can do/make anything they want on demand, they won’t even need money, so don’t need to make money by selling stuff. For sure, they will probably have a tough time transitioning from the idea of making money, but they won’t need to any more. The rest of us could split off our own fairer economy, but they’ll probably have the IP locked up on all the technology so we can’t use it and have to keep working 5 day or more weeks.
Crap, now all the braindead covid conspiracy theorists are going to roll this into their “15 minite cities are open air prisons” conspiracies
I mean…isn’t your pattern recognition starting to ring a little bit?
Literally what bro
Pattern recognition, do you have it?
I’m recognizing a pattern in your comments all right
Is it irritation?
Honestly it’w been a couple days, kinda forgot. Happy Thanksgiving.
My pattern recognition tells me there are faces in clouds too, should i believe in cloud giants?
Yes you should, that’s totally the same thing as recognizing trends over time.
You skipped class on the “correlation does not mean causation” day didn’t you?
People who believe in this insane shit shouldn’t be allowed to vote… in fact, should be in literal prisons, as they’re a danger to themselves and society.
I didn’t name a conspiracy theory. I asked if you had pattern recognition. It would seem not.
Sounds great. Only question is how we get paid well enough to live. A question which went conveniently unasked and unanswered.
We should stop measuring our productivity in hourly and need to go back to salary well paying positions, or everyone needs to share the costs with UBI instead.
Good luck convincing companies to change anything that won’t make them more money. I think the only way it can happen is with UBI, hopefully funded by the hoarded assets of the few biggest companies and billionaires where all the money is getting accumulated.
Salaried wages don’t make sense for a whole lot of positions tho - like you’d have 0 manufacturing employees.
machines will make money for us too, everyone gets a magic money machine
How in the world did Bill Gates go from being a scummy unethical monopolistic figure to now some trusted guru on everything? I need an explanation.
He used the money from the former to launder his image
Remember when he depended on the workforce and labor of others? Then remember when he stepped away from running a company and stopped depending on labor?
That’s when he magically turned “for” employee rights and sustainability. Weirdly coincidental, I know.
I applaud and respect Gates for what he stands for now and what his foundation achieves. But he would be the first one to mandate return to office and be against anything that cuts into his bottom line if he was still running a company.
His foundation is a stack of lies. His desire is the same as it always was, control of what should be free.
He strategically bought HUGE amounts of land on top of Aquivers in us and many many other countries…
What he menas here is, HE can provide you with food IF YOU WORK FOR HIM
Money = Infinity Stone
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Here’s what would happen in capitalist America: entities would own those machines and use them as a means of personal enrichment, it’d displace a ton of human workers, the taxes generated from profits generated wouldn’t offset the economic impacts, and then half of the lawmakers would introduce bills that would provide lucrative incentives to those entities if they maintain a certain ratio of human workers and they’d staple a bunch of regressive crap onto it like abortion or whatever, it wouldn’t pass because the other half of lawmakers would want to tax the hell out of profits made with those machines, government would shut down 4 times a year, Jeff Bezos builds a vacation home on the moon
He’s ok with it as long as the machines are all running Windows, and he gets his fair share.
I don’t think ol’ Billy cares much about Windows anymore, I’ll be honest.
Given that he has flirted heavily with Samsung as of recently.
As an end goal, with something like UBI and rescaled salaries etc … yes, this obviously true.
The catch is that there’d be a transition period, with uncertainties and states of incomplete capacity either from the AI or the implementation of the rearrangements of salaries etc.
In that phase, there will be opportunities for people or companies to acquire power and wealth over this new future. Who will make and sell the AIs? Who will decide what gets automated and how and with what supervision. That’s where the danger lies. It’s a whole new field of power to grab.
that’s not a problem because I plan on rising to power soon and will not let that happen
When someone says technology will make your work easier, they’re looking for an excuse to make you work harder.
Or replace you.
Or force everyone to work part time, and drop benefits…
It would be a great idea except it’s incompatible with capitalism. It would take away a lot of jobs from less privileged people and society would do nothing to support them. These people could then be exploited even harder due to job scarcity.
Would be nice though if we could have nice things.
it will NEVER happen as long as we live in an oligarchy in which the rich are dependent on the lower classes not only for their labor but they also need us to exist for their feelings of superiority. They need people below them to feel good about themselves, they will NEVER let us escape the wage-slave to profit vacuumer dichotomy.
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The easy solutiont o that is getting rid of the oligarchs then.
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I disagree, I think it’s always just about money. Power hungry-ness comes from the fear of losing your current position, the fear of not advancing and getting left behind. With power they secure the position they have. And it’s not just exclusive to the rich. You can see the exact same pattern in a random fucking McDonald’s.
If it was more profitable (and possible) to automate 40% of work at any given company (the ratio Gates said in this article), everyone would do it in a heartbeat.
Exactly.
As if we had a 4 day work week already. Maybe start with that?
