Comment by ericmcer

Comment by ericmcer 4 days ago

We might just keep making more jobs and coming up with more busy work to keep people grinding away for 40 hours a week.

If you look at 1940, women were ~24% of the workforce. Now in 2025 they are ~48%. The numbers are probably similar with immigrant workers having increased greatly in the last 80 years.

If you view AI workers as just more labor flooding the workforce it might have a similar affect. If we flooded the 1940s economy with 10s of millions of qualified women and immigrant laborers people would have viewed it as devastating to the economy, but introduced gradually over time we arrive at a point now where we fear what would happen if they went away.

morkalork 4 days ago

That example doesn't hold up once you expand your view to other countries. Where are all these jobs that magically materialize in labour surplus economies like Brazil or Bangladesh?

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cal_dent 4 days ago

Yes, i do feel that many people woho talk about jevon's paradox element of employment have not spent much time in developing economies. You can have a lot of people doing absolutely nothing, economically, day to day and still have a functioning state

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- tim333 3 days ago
  
  In the UK we have approx 22 million adults doing not much so you can see it in developed places too.
  
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tim333 3 days ago

Googling Bangladesh unemployment seems to be 4.7% and GDP growth has averaged about 7% so not so different to elsewhere apart from faster growth from a low base?

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