undefined | Better HN

0 pointsjimkleiber13h ago0 comments

For so long, people, especially politicians, have said that companies want to create jobs. But I think most companies want to create profit.

And for so long, I've had people tell me to just get a job. But I tell them that I don't want a job: I want money and I want something to do. Those two things don't have to be together.

I think this is the hard part: philosophically so many of us have learned we need jobs and don't realize a job can be decomposed into money and something to do.

So I think we need to start looking more creatively at 1) how people receive money from others and 2) how people give services to others.

0 comments

irishcoffee13h ago

You’re trying to create nuance where there is none. Creating jobs exactly means “I want to pay someone less than the value they bring in to my company” and this has been true since forever.

Nobody cares that you want money and you want something to do that you enjoy. Nobody ever will.

If you actually dig into all the social programs that exist at least in the US, they’re just a massive payday for a small group of people under the guise of bettering humanity.

College/education is a fantastic example. Education as it has been established today is a joke. The humanities were originally established for rich bored wives to have something to do. They were never meant to create value. Colleges hang anvils around the necks of naive children via loans telling them “yes if you major in history you’ll have a job!” This is a joke, and a bad one.

Huxley was on to something. If everyone is educated, nobody collects trash, or chops lumber, mines minerals and metals, etc. it’s a big fucking not-talked-about open secret.

Nobody cares, either you bring something to the table someone else can exploit for money, or you lean into “I’m helpless and the government owes it to me to take care of me because I’ve been indoctrinated into learned helplessness.”

“AI” will at best lead to anarchy at this point, if all the grand visions of the billionaires comes to fruition. People have already tried to kill sama and burn his house down. Wait until armed humvees are driving around data centers. It’s coming.

jimkleiberOP11h ago

Well the essence of capitalism might be that people who own the capital receive money for owning it, not doing any labor on it necessarily.

So when we talk of people doing labor for money, we are assuming they can only own their body and receive money from that?

34df11h ago

owning capital comes with risk...

you may not like the fact the fat capital owner may not be lifting a finger, but they certaintly aren't getting a free lunch.

jimkleiberOP10h ago

Fair, I never said there wasn't risk involved with ownership. I even made sure to qualify when I said that people who own don't do labor, because often there is labor involved in ownership.

So I don't think it's a free lunch, it's more risk-for-lunch than labor-for-lunch. Maybe you could argue laborers are still risking their body or something, but I think the point might stand.

irishcoffee11h ago

The economic model is inconsequential to my point. Latching on to that as a boogeyman is a distraction, the point stands on its own.

jimkleiberOP10h ago

> Nobody cares, either you bring something to the table someone else can exploit for money, or you lean into “I’m helpless and the government owes it to me to take care of me because I’ve been indoctrinated into learned helplessness.”

You paint the economic model as a false dichotomy, and the main point of my posting was that it is not a false dichotomy. It is not either have a job (and be exploited by someone else) or be helpless and rely on government handouts.

For example, what if people who got laid off from companies were given significant stock in the company, so that they might partake in the potential savings and gains from replacing the workers with AI or other tools?

The whole conversation seemed to be about the economic model, so I'm not sure how it is a distraction, a boogeyman, or inconsequential.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

irishcoffee13h ago

You’re trying to create nuance where there is none. Creating jobs exactly means “I want to pay someone less than the value they bring in to my company” and this has been true since forever.

Nobody cares that you want money and you want something to do that you enjoy. Nobody ever will.

If you actually dig into all the social programs that exist at least in the US, they’re just a massive payday for a small group of people under the guise of bettering humanity.

Huxley was on to something. If everyone is educated, nobody collects trash, or chops lumber, mines minerals and metals, etc. it’s a big fucking not-talked-about open secret.

jimkleiberOP11h ago

Well the essence of capitalism might be that people who own the capital receive money for owning it, not doing any labor on it necessarily.

So when we talk of people doing labor for money, we are assuming they can only own their body and receive money from that?

34df11h ago

owning capital comes with risk...

you may not like the fact the fat capital owner may not be lifting a finger, but they certaintly aren't getting a free lunch.

jimkleiberOP10h ago

Fair, I never said there wasn't risk involved with ownership. I even made sure to qualify when I said that people who own don't do labor, because often there is labor involved in ownership.

So I don't think it's a free lunch, it's more risk-for-lunch than labor-for-lunch. Maybe you could argue laborers are still risking their body or something, but I think the point might stand.

irishcoffee11h ago

The economic model is inconsequential to my point. Latching on to that as a boogeyman is a distraction, the point stands on its own.

jimkleiberOP10h ago

The whole conversation seemed to be about the economic model, so I'm not sure how it is a distraction, a boogeyman, or inconsequential.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse