The Tragedy of the Commoner by Hugh Howey

This might all sound theoretical, but it’s actually what’s happening all the time. Every company is trying to increase profits, which means doing more work with fewer costs. Driving down costs means keeping wages as low as the market will tolerate and hiring as few people as required to do all the work. But every company also relies on all the other companies to pay great wages so there are consumers with dollars to spend. Walmart and Amazon might think they are in the business of selling widgets, but they are really in the business of generating wages. Their value to shareholders is measured by profits, but their value to the economy can be measured in how much in wages they inject into the system.

I did not know that Ford paid more wages for his workers and reduced their working hours.

This is the frustrating thing I have with how everyone is behaving wrt AI. Who will buy things when AI is doing everything? Who will buy these services if no one has any money to spend?

Here’s the thing: Walmart and Amazon would be idiotic to do anything other than what they are doing. Overpaying would be suicide. Hiring too many workers would be suicide. There’s zero incentive to do either. What both of them NEED, while they both fight to prevent with union busting, is MANDATED HIGHER WAGES. They both would benefit from a federal minimum wage hike to $30 an hour. It would increase consumer spending. Their profit margins would decrease, but SO WOULD EVERYONE ELSE’S, so there wouldn’t be a better place for investor dollars. In fact, the only way to prevent this gradual gutting of the middle class and the destruction of these business models seeking greater efficiency is for the government to rescue them with higher minimum wages.

The Limits of AI by Hugh Howey

The limit holding us back will never be the limits of AI, but rather the limits of our biology. Can we stop hurting ourselves and others? Can we expand our circles of empathy until they include every living thing and even most non-living things. Can we be satisfied with less than our neighbors if it means we all have the basic necessities of life? I’m an atheist, and the 10 commandments start off with some very weak sauce about fearing no other god and what not to believe, but even I can see that most of our problems would be solved if we lived by the rest of what’s there. No lying. No jealousy. No killing. We’ve had all the answers for thousands of years. We still can’t abide by them.

The Hopeful Romantics - Hugh Howey

To be happy in a world that contains suffering is an affront to many. It demonstrates naiveté at the very best and sociopathy at the very worst. You must not care about anything if you dare to be happy. Hope is a cancer. Misery the only true mark of an enlightened soul.