Re:Amazon Go
by russelluresti on Monday December 05, 2016 @02:40PM
(#13108600)
That's true. The details of how the system will work have yet to be nailed down. And, in the short term, things are going to suck HARD. It's basically going to be us riding the edge of societal breakdown. People are going to lose their jobs without a safety net that protects them. There will be a lot of people out of work, the income gap will increase, and government programs are going to be stressed to the point of breaking. But, perhaps this is the idealist in me, I believe that we will figure it out before our economy, country, and society collapse.
I'm not going to argue that we should hold back innovation to preserve jobs, or that we should have people working 40+ hours per week as our goal. The simple fact is, however, that attitudes and government policies are really far away from supporting a 'post-work' society, and are actually getting further and further away.
People who control capital in western societies - and are the primary beneficiaries of automation and other techniques that are causing many jobs to disappear - already feel like they pay too many taxes, and are generally good at finding ways to make sure they pay less. Even a level of basic income that would provide a poverty-level standard of living for people feels politically impossible right now.
I don't fully disagree with you, but I find a lot of these "post-work" responses to be really hand-wavy.