I think if we ban cars now we may still have a chance to save the horse industry

No, we won't need horse drivers either.

But you might decide to build in enough additional taxes on the self-driving vehicles to cover at least the state's increased costs in terms of unemployment, medical, and services.

This way all those people riding the fancy new cars are the ones subsidizing the new industry's hidden costs instead of every tax payer.

What is the normal annual turnover in those 2.3 million drivers? 20% perhaps? I doubt self driving cars are going to replace 20% a year - they'll take many years to roll out. So it'll just be less people entering the field rather than mass layoffs.

This presupposes that the move won't be forced. It'll show up as competition in the gig economy. And there will be slower adoption in the long-haul or commercial receivables market since someone will need to be responsible for the cargos.

In the end it will be forced, even if it's not a layoff. Fewer gig rides. Cheaper competition for hauling contracts as the driverless fleets grow and customers adapt. Forcing people to do more for less, or leave.

But where do those people go? The slow decline that forces people out by starving them out does not suit the situation well for retraining in a different career path.

The truckers will join all the tech support and customer service people queued up to interview for a smaller allotment of jobs. Then the programmers. Eventually even the business people who take up space following random business workflows that don't require an ounce of creativity will follow.

When automation starts to be really good, it will be the restaurant cooks. Servers will still be around, for dine-in restaurants, and personal services like massage therapists. But how long will it take for competition in the labor market to drive those wages down? Demand certainly won't be increasing since the pool of potential customers with disposable income will decrease.

The shrinking of the middle class that we've seen up until now is nothing compared to what we'll see in the next decade or two. This should not be handwaved away with an "Oh, those people? They'll just go do something else."

If we need to turn a 15-year long haul trucker into a solar power technician, what's the time frame and cost to do retrain, how does that trucker afford and avoid starvation while he does so?

Hopefully whatever minimally viable level of support we decide on as a society will be higher than "living in one of the growing tent cities while eating at the local soup kitchen". We're already struggling with those in the current labor market, which is a sign that the existing support system is insufficient. We're totally unprepared for the future labor market.

> But you might decide to build in enough additional taxes on the self-driving vehicles to cover at least the state's increased costs in terms of unemployment, medical, and services.

A better idea would be to tax capital returns more rather than selectively adopting taxes individually on newer, more efficient but also capital (vs. labor) intensive industries.

Make one change and solve the problem globally rather than creating a new legislative fight over each automating industry.

> This way all those people riding the fancy new cars are the ones subsidizing the new industry's hidden costs instead of every tax payer.

Reduced labor costs aren't a hidden cost (they are the opposite of a cost, in fact.)

If there is a hidden cost it is capitalist society hiding basic social support costs in payrolls, artificially inflating the cost of labor-intensive goods and services and subsidizing automation.

Technology will open up new jobs. But I don't expect employed drivers to suddenly become data scientists.

Its a fallacy we constantly use as an argument when we talk about technology taking people's jobs.

Low specialty professions have been in my view a great way to have people employed, people who may be less fortunate, unspecialized or even students. Now that such professions start getting absorbed by tech, I don't know how those people are supposed to get by.

I can see how somebody would argue 6hay this has occurred before, but for example replacing horses with cars just made postpone jump to learning how to drive. They didn't have to "specialize for 4 years" and become computer scientists. Now this is a bolder issue imo. But my perspective can be argued

> Now that such professions start getting absorbed by tech, I don't know how those people are supposed to get by.

Now? This has been going on since jobs were invented.

2.3m people we don't need to pay any more. Jobs'll open up, that money will go somewhere else.

Sure but building yachts is skilled labor, there will have to be a massive retraining operation

Eh, ask switchboard operators how they feel about the Internet.

Cars wiped out farriers. Should we go back to riding horses?

Gig work is a symptom. Not a triumph worthy of protection.

Hard agree. Soviet Union built its economy around making sure that everyone had a job and, as a result... oh wait, nevermind.

That was one of the few aspects of their economy which was probably good.

At some point my country started borrowing lots of money and spending it on social programs, which eventually led to its bankruptcy. Some people still think that the guy in charge back then was a great leader.