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points by Aurornis 3 days ago | 0 comments
> Two problems with that: one, the government can largely regulate access to its market -- the ability to do labor arbitrage is a policy choice not a law of physics

We’re talking about work that AI can accelerate, which is knowledge work that happens on computers (right now)

You’re still not seeing how portable this is. You can try to regulate this to death and force companies in your country to pay high prices for things that are cheap now, then add tariffs or import restrictions to force consumers to pay high prices for things that are cheap now, but this doesn’t matter.

It’s a global economy. The world will be moving on with or without you. You can try to protect chosen people and industries for a while, but it is not going to save you from the inevitable.

It would be like trying to use the force of law to stop farmers from using powered farm equipment because it reduces farming jobs. Do you think your current country would be doing great if they had done that 200 years ago in the interest of protecting farm worker jobs? We wouldn’t be having this conversation right now because you’d be busy doing farming work so you could eat this winter. But your job would be protected!

[–] smallmancontrov 3 days ago
The industrial revolution could have done a much better job taxing and regulating industrialists to reduce squalor. "They will outgrow us if we don't squalor-maxx" was a dogshit argument then and it's a dogshit argument now. But no, the industrialists were so dead set on ignoring social goals to maximize their own bank accounts that after growing to command their own country, and then the world, they eventually set eyes on each other and burned it all down. That was the point when labor was able to successfully demand and receive concessions which turned out to not be impossible after all! Even in the bombed out shell of a country that was left after the destruction wrought by the insatiable greed of the industrialists whose growth was supposed to be the only thing that mattered.

This time around, everyone has nukes and drones and AI bioweapons, so maybe we could consider the social goals first, and see if we can't grow on that dimension before we go through another episode of worldwide capital incineration? Just a thought.