Nadine’s going to have to put up with more Tweets like this – politicalbetting.com

Casino_Royale said:

eek said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

The future of the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway is in question after the official infrastructure watchdog warned the “successful delivery” of the multi-billion-pound project “appears to be unachievable”.

In a report issued last week, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) applied a “red” rating to plans for the construction of the first two phases of the troubled rail line, from London to Birmingham and then on to Crewe in Cheshire.

It comes as a leaked document separately showed that a plan to strip back its proposed Euston terminal would still result in a £1 billion overspend.

The IPA said its red rating means that “successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/29/hs2-future-in-doubt-plan-unachievable/

No surprise - if you change a project like that the only outcome is going to be higher costs.

Give people a spec and then leave them to deliver it..

It's a total failure of sponsorship (HMG/DfT side) and the CEOs leading the delivery of HS2 Ltd. who've been both arrogant and stunningly inept.

A promising career in politics surely beckons.

34 u turns and counting

https://twitter.com/ripplecabin/status/1684449139579396097/photo/1

Peck said:

Those who run the entity formerly known as Twitter will have to be careful to distinguish 𝕏 from the usual X meaning "close this window", especially with it being in monochrome. The following is not good UX at all:

He's just copying Homer Simpson

French visitors anecdote #2 this evening.

Shocked by how cheap it was to eat out at a pub.

Not so surprising. Restaurants and hospitality are one area continental inflation has run way ahead of the UK. (Unlike housing costs).

LostPassword said:

boulay said:

LostPassword said:

Andy_JS said:

Getting customers to do the job of scanning items and putting them in a bag is a very clever wheeze by shops. Must save them a lot of money. It worked because it seemed such a radical idea when it first came in, and customers couldn't believe they were being trusted to scan items themselves, which made them feel happy for a while. It's only later that you realise you're doing a job that someone else used to do.

You could say the same about walking around the store and taking items off the shelves. Time past that was something done for you. Doesn't mean it was better in the past.

I generally prefer the robotills because they normally have a communal queue, and so I don't have someone specifically right behind me, with their goods on the conveyor belt, waiting for me to finish packing my shopping and forcing them to wait. If it weren't for the fact that they don't work, and can't weigh things properly, then they would be perfect.

And working all day at a checkout scanning people's shopping is a bullshit job, and I glory in fewer people having to do it.

I’m sure that for some people it’s not a bad job in the grand scheme of things. If you aren’t particularly mobile, have health issues etc then sitting at a till all day is a job you “can” do. It might be that you can get a job near where you live in the local supermarket when you don’t have means of transport or cannot afford to find work elsewhere further away. It might be the only way you get human interaction in your life. If those jobs go the people behind the tills aren’t always going to be able to get a job that they can do.

So I never mock it as a job and I always use those manned tills in the hope that if enough people still want to use them then the shops will keep those jobs to a small extent.

What's the difference between that and paying people to dig holes and fill them in all day?

It's always, unequivocally, a good thing to work out how to do the same thing with less effort and work. How we make sure that everyone shares in the benefits of that progress is a key task for politics and economics, but we should never be making things less efficient out of a misguided desire to "create work".

The one I really don’t understand is coffee baristas. Very clearly a job that could be done to at least the same standard, more quickly and cost effectively by a machine. I assume it’s customer driven - they need the human touch to justify to themselves forking out top dollar for a cup of coffee.

TimS said:

LostPassword said:

boulay said:

LostPassword said:

Andy_JS said:

Getting customers to do the job of scanning items and putting them in a bag is a very clever wheeze by shops. Must save them a lot of money. It worked because it seemed such a radical idea when it first came in, and customers couldn't believe they were being trusted to scan items themselves, which made them feel happy for a while. It's only later that you realise you're doing a job that someone else used to do.

You could say the same about walking around the store and taking items off the shelves. Time past that was something done for you. Doesn't mean it was better in the past.

I generally prefer the robotills because they normally have a communal queue, and so I don't have someone specifically right behind me, with their goods on the conveyor belt, waiting for me to finish packing my shopping and forcing them to wait. If it weren't for the fact that they don't work, and can't weigh things properly, then they would be perfect.

And working all day at a checkout scanning people's shopping is a bullshit job, and I glory in fewer people having to do it.

I’m sure that for some people it’s not a bad job in the grand scheme of things. If you aren’t particularly mobile, have health issues etc then sitting at a till all day is a job you “can” do. It might be that you can get a job near where you live in the local supermarket when you don’t have means of transport or cannot afford to find work elsewhere further away. It might be the only way you get human interaction in your life. If those jobs go the people behind the tills aren’t always going to be able to get a job that they can do.

So I never mock it as a job and I always use those manned tills in the hope that if enough people still want to use them then the shops will keep those jobs to a small extent.

What's the difference between that and paying people to dig holes and fill them in all day?

It's always, unequivocally, a good thing to work out how to do the same thing with less effort and work. How we make sure that everyone shares in the benefits of that progress is a key task for politics and economics, but we should never be making things less efficient out of a misguided desire to "create work".

The one I really don’t understand is coffee baristas. Very clearly a job that could be done to at least the same standard, more quickly and cost effectively by a machine. I assume it’s customer driven - they need the human touch to justify to themselves forking out top dollar for a cup of coffee.

Yes. I think the customer is paying for the performance in that situation. And, to a certain extent, I am willing to do that in some circumstances. With tea.

I will argue that there is an actual difference between having tea brewed from a teabag in a mug, and brewed from a teabag in a pot (though obviously would be way better to use loose leaf) but really if I choose to pay more for tea in a pot, then it's because I'm paying for the ritual of brewing tea in a pot before pouring it into a cup.

However, I think that's different to trying to preserve checkout jobs because you're worried about whether those people can find other jobs, or you value the social interaction. If we all had less work to do, it would be easier for people to find ways to socially interact, and if you really wanted to, you could pay former checkout staff to spend time visiting lonely old people at local old people's homes and chatting to them. That would be a better job than scanning supermarket shopping for customers who need you to verify that, yes, they are definitely way older than James Anderson, let alone 25, and no, I do not want you to judge me for the number of beer bottles I am purchasing.

MattW said:

Twilight of the not sure whats !

Claire Coutinho MP (somewhere in Surrey), sounding like Susan Hall AM.

Apparently the ULEZ legal action was some sort of Labour initiative, not a collection of Tory Councils pissing away their Council Tax Payers' Money:

I’m disappointed that Labour have won their court battle to expand #ULEZ, this is a policy which has been clearly rejected by the people during the Uxbridge by election.

Sir Keir & Sadiq Khan should think again, rather than imposing a tax on those who can least afford it.
https://twitter.com/ClaireCoutinho/status/1684866278899486720

I am old enough to remember when Tories tried to restrict judicial reviews of elected representatives decisions.

Casino_Royale said:

eek said:

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

The future of the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway is in question after the official infrastructure watchdog warned the “successful delivery” of the multi-billion-pound project “appears to be unachievable”.

In a report issued last week, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) applied a “red” rating to plans for the construction of the first two phases of the troubled rail line, from London to Birmingham and then on to Crewe in Cheshire.

It comes as a leaked document separately showed that a plan to strip back its proposed Euston terminal would still result in a £1 billion overspend.

The IPA said its red rating means that “successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/29/hs2-future-in-doubt-plan-unachievable/

The DfT strategy of deliberately sabotaging it through making it impossible pays off to the extent of Telegraph leaks at any rate.

But I do not see how the stretch from Old Oak Common to Crewe can be stopped at this point. Quite a lot of it has actually already been built.

And it'd be fucking stupid not to then build it into Euston too, unless they want to totally destroy its business case.

No-one is going to shuttle out into a random place in the middle of outer West London to catch a train.

From what I've heard (on the jungle drums) a lot of the work that was taking place for the bit between Birmingham and Crewe has been quietly shutdown...

It's appalling.

They were exceedingly arrogant several years ago about Crossrail on the basis it was a "failed" project, and they had nothing to learn from it - except what not to do. They refused to listen to any lessons learnt from the team there, nor did they have the humility to discuss the detail (it's always about detail) of what worked well in what context, and why, and what did not. There was no organised scheme to pull in learning and talent. A few people i know who did join subsequently left after a few months, appalled at what they'd seen. Most have gone on to Australian rail projects, or retired.

Well, guess what guys: Crossrail is now open, works properly across its full scope, is the most reliable railway in Britain and accounts for 1 in 6 of our rail journeys.

How's yours going?

Leadership is about humility and hard work - not ego and bravado. There are no magic answers and no short cuts.

The world doesn't work like that.

There is something similar happening in Ireland, though at an earlier stage of the process. Massive delays and cost overruns in the construction of a new national children's hospital, and it looks like the same sort of mistakes are being made in the early stages of a project for a new national maternity hospital. The only difference is that they haven't reached the stage of opening the first hospital and everything eventually working nearly flawlessly - so one still doubts whether they will do so.

TimS said:

gettingbetter said:

LostPassword said:

boulay said:

LostPassword said:

Andy_JS said:

Getting customers to do the job of scanning items and putting them in a bag is a very clever wheeze by shops. Must save them a lot of money. It worked because it seemed such a radical idea when it first came in, and customers couldn't believe they were being trusted to scan items themselves, which made them feel happy for a while. It's only later that you realise you're doing a job that someone else used to do.

You could say the same about walking around the store and taking items off the shelves. Time past that was something done for you. Doesn't mean it was better in the past.

I generally prefer the robotills because they normally have a communal queue, and so I don't have someone specifically right behind me, with their goods on the conveyor belt, waiting for me to finish packing my shopping and forcing them to wait. If it weren't for the fact that they don't work, and can't weigh things properly, then they would be perfect.

And working all day at a checkout scanning people's shopping is a bullshit job, and I glory in fewer people having to do it.

I’m sure that for some people it’s not a bad job in the grand scheme of things. If you aren’t particularly mobile, have health issues etc then sitting at a till all day is a job you “can” do. It might be that you can get a job near where you live in the local supermarket when you don’t have means of transport or cannot afford to find work elsewhere further away. It might be the only way you get human interaction in your life. If those jobs go the people behind the tills aren’t always going to be able to get a job that they can do.

So I never mock it as a job and I always use those manned tills in the hope that if enough people still want to use them then the shops will keep those jobs to a small extent.

What's the difference between that and paying people to dig holes and fill them in all day?

It's always, unequivocally, a good thing to work out how to do the same thing with less effort and work. How we make sure that everyone shares in the benefits of that progress is a key task for politics and economics, but we should never be making things less efficient out of a misguided desire to "create work".

It's hard to define productivity in a service economy. ike Boulay I prefer to go to a manned till, get my hair cut by scissors rather than an electric machine and to drink real ale. Does all this make me a Luddite?

I’m not sure real ale fits in that list. It’s a
different product.

It does need a hand pump.

People want service with their service industries. Not to press a button and get a coffee.

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

Stuartinromford said:

StillWaters said:

kle4 said:

StillWaters said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

StillWaters said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

StillWaters said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

StillWaters said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

StillWaters said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

StillWaters said:

viewcode said:

StillWaters said:

Yay for bullying!

Bullies don't have enough people speaking up for them

Which is ironic when you think about it

Nadine Dorris didn’t get a promotion she wanted.

Let’s all point and laugh at her.

She's a bully herself.

She's been caught out again.

Lest we forget she tweeted vile far right propaganda about Sir Keir Starmer and when she was caught out she deleted her tweet and didn't apologise.

Doesn’t make it right.

She’s an irrelevance. Leave her be.

No.

She has debased public standards, she deserves the whirlwind coming.

Sure. She should lose her seat. That’s just the operation of democracy.

Repeatedly mocking an individual is just unpleasant. She played. She lost. Move on.

She's a hypocrite.

She campaigned on wanting to take back control from our unelected rulers and yet
she wants to just become one of those.

Then debate policy - an unelected second chamber. Don’t attack an individual on a personal level.

If only she had done that when attacking Dave and George.

But I will stop criticising Nadine Dorries when she stops moaning about the non
peerage.

So your real motivation is revenge?

No, I think she's just a terrible human being.

https://news.sky.com/story/nadine-dorries-accused-of-spreading-fake-news-after-sharing-doctored-video-of-sir-keir-starmer-11988228

Quite possibly. But she’s an irrelevance.

Bullying is bullying regardless of whether the victim is a nice person or not.

I abhor the mob mentality

People being mocked does not automatically equal bullying, especially when they are a public figure. I abhor bullying, it's why the defences of the likes of Patel and Bercow can be so infuriating, because bullying can happen to grown ups, it need not be ostentatious, and people of serious demeanour and responsibility can still be subjected to it, but there is a wealth of cases that demonstrate the principle that people, especially in public life, need some level of thick skin. They do not deserve abuse, but the nature of political discourse will included invective, exagerration, mockery, and condemnation. It is not bullying to face that on its own.

But making a very entitled moan about not
getting a peerage and getting mocked about it? Get off.

It diminishes the real problems of bullying, and the dismissal of the less obvious kinds of it, to tie that into someone being mocked for her own silliness.

Will it still be acceptable in 5 years? In a decade? A group attack on an individual is unpleasant to watch

However, Nadine Dorries is in a pretty distinctive position. From the accounts I've seen, she has basically stopped doing
anything that might count as "being MP for Mid Bedfordshire" but is also blocking anyone else from doing those things.

If she wants the quiet life of a private citizen, super. She gets that the moment she actually resigns. Until that, her position can and should be mocked.

Criticise her for not doing her job then.

Not the same as a twitter pile on

Malmesbury said:

Peck said:

ydoethur said:

Foxy said:

ydoethur said:

Peterhead said:

ydoethur said:

kyf_100 said:

Peterhead said:

Leon said:

Conclusive proof: my weirdly chic hotel is WELL DODGY

Saturday night and it’s rammed with people spending money like this is St Tropez, and there is literally a Rolls Royce SUV parked outside, along with lots of other ostentatious cars


Some people are making money in this war. They are spending it here

Indeed some people love this war for that very reason. Good interesting comments today Leon from Ukraine.

Do you have any thoughts about the covid vaccine?

I'm hoping for the one about BA pilots. It's been a while since we had that one and it was very funny.

I hope you all recognise the conyribution Leon makes to this site. Excellent info today on ukraines struggles. Admirable they want to fight on but that of course also depends on further western support.

The problem is, as Russia's war effort implodes they just get more and more obsessed with Ukraine.

We don't get any entertaining conspiracy theories any more. The best we can hope for is when they get a bit confused and say Putin's a CIA agent dedicated to undermining Russia.

This is a new twist from Russias foreign office. Ukrainians fight so hard because they secretly love Putin and want him as president:

https://twitter.com/SythUK/status/1684928521259347968?t=1bEdZUXgV0DFPahoRBEInQ&s=19

Congratulations to Dmitry Medvedev.

We've finally found an official of the Russian government who has hit the vodka harder than you have.

Maria Zakharova is going through an Oscar Wilde phase: "Each man kills the thing he loves".

I propose the Dmitry Medvedev Award be created.

For public statements so bug fuck insane that your first thought is the Dmitry Medvedev wouldn’t say that, even if they salted the crack he dissolves in the vodka with PCP.

Zakharova is interested in psychology it seems. Before stating that Ukrainians hate Putin because they want him to be their president, she counselled people to be "honest with themselves" about Biden's supposed mental decline and not to be "afraid to talk about it". Hard to imagine a Foreign Office spokesman doing chat shows, let alone dancing the kalinka in 6 inch heels. Dunno about drugs but she probably knocks back a fair bit of Stoli.

A

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

LostPassword said:

boulay said:

LostPassword said:

Andy_JS said:

Getting customers to do the job of scanning items and putting them in a bag is a very clever wheeze by shops. Must save them a lot of money. It worked because it seemed such a radical idea when it first came in, and customers couldn't believe they were being trusted to scan items themselves, which made them feel happy for a while. It's only later that you realise you're doing a job that someone else used to do.

You could say the same about walking around the store and taking items off the shelves. Time past that was something done for you. Doesn't mean it was better in the past.

I generally prefer the robotills because they normally have a communal queue, and so I don't have someone specifically right behind me, with their goods on the conveyor belt, waiting for me to finish packing my shopping and forcing them to wait. If it weren't for the fact that they don't work, and can't weigh things properly, then they would be perfect.

And working all day at a checkout scanning people's shopping is a bullshit job, and I glory in fewer people having to do it.

I’m sure that for some people it’s not a bad job in the grand scheme of things. If you aren’t particularly mobile, have health issues etc then sitting at a till all day is a job you “can” do. It might be that you can get a job near where you live in the local supermarket when you don’t have means of transport or cannot afford to find work elsewhere further away. It might be the only way you get human interaction in your life. If those jobs go the people behind the tills aren’t always going to be able to get a job that they can do.

So I never mock it as a job and I always use those manned tills in the hope that if enough people still want to use them then the shops will keep those jobs to a small extent.

What's the difference between that and paying people to dig holes and fill them in all day?

It's always, unequivocally, a good thing to work out how to do the same thing with less effort and work. How we make sure that everyone shares in the benefits of that progress is a key task for politics and economics, but we should never be making things less efficient out of a misguided desire to "create work".

Disagree, strongly. How about if you enjoy making an effort? Creative labour should be man's prime need, not a drudge to be minimised. Do you want everyone to recline on loungers being vacuous for as many hours of each day as possible or what?

As for the "job":

"[in a good future] I could X in the morning, Y in the afternoon, Z in the evening and do critical theory at night, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming X, Y, Z, or critic." (Marx, 1844 Manuscripts) (Terms indicating support for the exploitation of animals redacted.)

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

viewcode said:

bigjohnowls said:

34 u turns and counting

https://twitter.com/ripplecabin/status/1684449139579396097/photo/1

@bigjohnowls. Humour me. Is he for "compensation for Waspi women" or agin? At least this month. Appreciate I might have to ask again next month, but I'll take a snapshot.

Fuck, hold on a minute. He's changed his mind on "repeal anti-union laws"???? What the actual fuck? Seriously????

TimS said:

French visitors anecdote #2 this evening.

Shocked by how cheap it was to eat out at a pub.

Not so surprising. Restaurants and hospitality are one area continental inflation has run way ahead of the UK. (Unlike housing costs).

I was in Berlin a few weeks ago, and was amazed how cheap it was relative to London and Amsterdam.

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

I've been watching a few 'futurologist' YouTube channels of late and it's been interesting see the debate shift, crossover, conflict between the utopian and dystopian 'factions'. Especially with the rise of "AI". The USA-specific discussion around UBI is quite fascinating between the 'libertarians' and 'socialists' in particular.

rcs1000 said:

TimS said:

French visitors anecdote #2 this evening.

Shocked by how cheap it was to eat out at a pub.

Not so surprising. Restaurants and hospitality are one area continental inflation has run way ahead of the UK. (Unlike housing costs).

I was in Berlin a few weeks ago, and was amazed how cheap it was relative to London and Amsterdam.

That’s because London and Amsterdam are London and Amsterdam.

And Berlin isn’t

Casino_Royale said:

eek said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

The future of the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway is in question after the official infrastructure watchdog warned the “successful delivery” of the multi-billion-pound project “appears to be unachievable”.

In a report issued last week, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) applied a “red” rating to plans for the construction of the first two phases of the troubled rail line, from London to Birmingham and then on to Crewe in Cheshire.

It comes as a leaked document separately showed that a plan to strip back its proposed Euston terminal would still result in a £1 billion overspend.

The IPA said its red rating means that “successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/29/hs2-future-in-doubt-plan-unachievable/

No surprise - if you change a project like that the only outcome is going to be higher costs.

Give people a spec and then leave them to deliver it..

The trouble with HS2 was that they totally misspeced it (for ultra high speed) at the start so it's heavily overengineered. Then, they pork-barrelled it all the way to assuage various politicians. On top of it the way the contracts were scoped and let were possibly the stupid I'd ever seen - all the contractors are on cost-plus and have a licence to print money. Land costs ended up being prohibitive. And they barely thought about integration until several years in.

It's a total failure of sponsorship (HMG/DfT side) and the CEOs leading the delivery of HS2 Ltd. who've been both arrogant and stunningly inept.

Plus the fact that even if it gets built, it will be over a decade late - which also severely impacts any economic benefit.

Corbyn's wife claims Starmer was in a CIA linked group when in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet

https://twitter.com/LauraAlvarezJC/status/1685251491433476096?s=20

StillWaters said:

rcs1000 said:

TimS said:

French visitors anecdote #2 this evening.

Shocked by how cheap it was to eat out at a pub.

Not so surprising. Restaurants and hospitality are one area continental inflation has run way ahead of the UK. (Unlike housing costs).

I was in Berlin a few weeks ago, and was amazed how cheap it was relative to London and Amsterdam.

That’s because London and Amsterdam are London and Amsterdam.

And Berlin isn’t

I miss The Beautiful South...

ohnotnow said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

I've been watching a few 'futurologist' YouTube channels of late and it's been interesting see the debate shift, crossover, conflict between the utopian and dystopian 'factions'. Especially with the rise of "AI". The USA-specific discussion around UBI is quite fascinating between the 'libertarians' and 'socialists' in particular.

Linky?

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

The whole point is to free up productive capability for doing more valuable things.

That is what gave us the surplus productive capability to have old age pensions. Then unemployment benefit. Than the NHS.

In quite recent times the USSR sent medical students to the fields to get the harvest in. Due to lack of mechanisation.

I understand the argument (it may sound silly but I am not actually dim and I can explain comparative advantage and maximising the creation of wealth by maximising added value) but the end point has been lost. Wealth is only the means to make people happy. If it is not doing that, but instead being redirected outwards, then we have lost our moral compass. I did not want to grow up and live in a remake of They Live, thank you.

Don’t tell me - the nobility of Proper Work vs Modern Work?

viewcode said:

LostPassword said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

The whole point is to free up productive capability for doing more valuable things.

That is what gave us the surplus productive capability to have old age pensions. Then unemployment benefit. Than the NHS.

In quite recent times the USSR sent medical students to the fields to get the harvest in. Due to lack of mechanisation.

The obvious way to make the demographic transition less painful is to find ways to increase productivity, so that the lower proportion of the population who are in work can produce more. If that doesn't happen then necessarily people have to become poorer, on average, because there will be less production to share around the same number of people.

How do people think the demographic transition is going to be paid for if they're so opposed to automation that they want to preserve manual checkouts?

The people who you are putting out of work are the demographic transition! Not everybody is a pensioner!

No. The reduction in working age population relative to the population as a whole means that either

1) you invent some more workers
2) you invent some means by which the reduced proportion of workers do more work.

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

The whole point is to free up productive capability for doing more valuable things.

That is what gave us the surplus productive capability to have old age pensions. Then unemployment benefit. Than the NHS.

In quite recent times the USSR sent medical students to the fields to get the harvest in. Due to lack of mechanisation.

I understand the argument (it may sound silly but I am not actually dim and I can explain comparative advantage and maximising the creation of wealth by maximising added value) but the end point has been lost. Wealth is only the means to make people happy. If it is not doing that, but instead being redirected outwards, then we have lost our moral compass. I did not want to grow up and live in a remake of They Live, thank you.

Don’t tell me - the nobility of Proper Work vs Modern Work?

Do you really think I'm that stupid? (Hint - no, and don't be rude). I am not some nepo-baby arts-graduate middle-class chinless fucking wastrel who thinks we should spin and weave and cows skin themselves by magic. I mean the point of the state is to service the people of the state, and the Government gets its legitimacy from the people (leaving out God and the Crown for the moment). If it forgets that (and I think it has) then something has gone badly wrong.

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

Were you even alive in 1948?

HYUFD said:

Corbyn's wife claims Starmer was in a CIA linked group when in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet

https://twitter.com/LauraAlvarezJC/status/1685251491433476096?s=20

Actually winning an election must seem like the stuff of fantasy to that faction, so anyone who looks like they might potentially manage it is presumably an agent of the deep state or something. At least it wasn't a claim he is working for the Israeli state I guess.

A

kle4 said:

HYUFD said:

Corbyn's wife claims Starmer was in a CIA linked group when in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet

https://twitter.com/LauraAlvarezJC/status/1685251491433476096?s=20

Actually winning an election must seem like the stuff of fantasy to that faction, so anyone who looks like they might potentially manage it is presumably an agent of the deep state or something. At least it wasn't a claim he is working for the Israeli state I guess.

The CIA is run by the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati and the Jews, jointly. Don’t you read the MAGA Patriot News*?

*Now a joint publication with the Daily Worker

MattW said:

Foxy said:

MattW said:

Twilight of the not sure whats !

Claire Coutinho MP (somewhere in Surrey), sounding like Susan Hall AM.

Apparently the ULEZ legal action was some sort of Labour initiative, not a collection of Tory Councils pissing away their Council Tax Payers' Money:

I’m disappointed that Labour have won their court battle to expand #ULEZ, this is a policy which has been clearly rejected by the people during the Uxbridge by election.

Sir Keir & Sadiq Khan should think again, rather than imposing a tax on those who can least afford it.
https://twitter.com/ClaireCoutinho/status/1684866278899486720

I am old enough to remember when Tories tried to restrict judicial reviews of elected representatives decisions.

On the other side, the recent attempt to FOI then Judicially Review the Tory Party was fun.
https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/tortoise-beaten-after-tory-race

Not a case that required world class lawyers to see it was going nowhere. Obvious posturing.

I would disagree with a part of the analysis though.

Few would defend the process of her election as leader, still less its outcome. But that’s a matter for the Conservatives and ultimately for parliament — not for the courts.

I'd think it would be quite easy to defend the process and outcome. The Tories had rules for electing a new leader, followed them, and that involved consulting its own membership. Sure, that's hardly mass democratic and lots of peopel didn't like that, but I'd defend their leadership process as no worse than other parties, and better in some parts. As for the outcome, I'd defend it on the basis of the rules as they stood, and the more popular candidate won.

Malmesbury said:

A

kle4 said:

HYUFD said:

Corbyn's wife claims Starmer was in a CIA linked group when in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet

https://twitter.com/LauraAlvarezJC/status/1685251491433476096?s=20

Actually winning an election must seem like the stuff of fantasy to that faction, so anyone who looks like they might potentially manage it is presumably an agent of the deep state or something. At least it wasn't a claim he is working for the Israeli state I guess.

The CIA is run by the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati and the Jews, jointly. Don’t you read the MAGA Patriot News*?

*Now a joint publication with the Daily Worker

I read a copy of the Socialist Worker I found on a train once. Quite an eye opener, I can tell you.

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

Were you even alive in 1948?

If you don't know my age, I'm not going to tell you, and if you do know, I'm not going to confirm it...

As i pointed out when I went thru my commuting load-out (B&B version) a few days ago, this month's improving book is "A Duty of Care" by David Hennessy. It's a book of two halves and criticisms of it as nostalgic and naive are entirely valid. But I was struck by how many politicians, from Attlee and Macmillan, thru Brown and Major, IDC and (arguably and surprisingly) even Thatcher, saw the duty of government as a means for making people's lives better. We appear to have lost that and I don't like it.

A

Peck said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

The whole point is to free up productive capability for doing more valuable things.

That is what gave us the surplus productive capability to have old age pensions. Then unemployment benefit. Than the NHS.

In quite recent times the USSR sent medical students to the fields to get the harvest in. Due to lack of mechanisation.

The rulers in the USSR slaughtered peasants by the million and forced many of the survivors off the land to work in industry, with agriculture being made to become more productive. Productivity was the watchword all the way through.

I don't know what period you are referring to with those medical students, but since you say it was in quite recent times I assume post-WW2 and possibly after famine, or maybe after a "hare-brained scheme" under Khrushchev. I doubt it was anything to do with the rulers forgetting the aim of increasing productivity.

Shouting productivity at the top of your voice doesn’t make it so.

Hence the jokes about tractor statistics (aka lies) in the USSR.

It shows to total fucking mindless stupidity of the Soviet system, that despite the Black Soil lands and claiming to be in favour of rationalising agriculture, the USSR depended on grain from the US. Which was sold to them at a cut price - because charging the full market rate would have wiped out the foreign currency reserves of the USSR and precipitated a crisis.

Yup, they needed a hand from their Main Enemy.

Following the end of that shitty, shitty system, farmers in Russia and Ukraine invested in actual tractors that actually *existed* and everything. Combine harvesters that could could combine harvesting functions. Crazy shit like that. Productivity soared. Russia and Ukraine became grain exporters.

viewcode said:

StillWaters said:

viewcode said:

StillWaters said:

rcs1000 said:

TimS said:

French visitors anecdote #2 this evening.

Shocked by how cheap it was to eat out at a pub.

Not so surprising. Restaurants and hospitality are one area continental inflation has run way ahead of the UK. (Unlike housing costs).

I was in Berlin a few weeks ago, and was amazed how cheap it was relative to London and Amsterdam.

That’s because London and Amsterdam are London and Amsterdam.

And Berlin isn’t

I miss The Beautiful South...

For your viewing pleasure

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7A0Td_G-j7E&pp=ygUKNyIgc2luZ2xlcw==

@StillWaters. Most kind, thank you.

Particularly apposite for a discussion of defunct pop groups

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

Were you even alive in 1948?

If you don't know my age, I'm not going to tell you, and if you do know, I'm not going to confirm it...

As i pointed out when I went thru my commuting load-out (B&B version) a few days ago, this month's improving book is "A Duty of Care" by David Hennessy. It's a book of two halves and criticisms of it as nostalgic and naive are entirely valid. But I was struck by how many politicians, from Attlee and Macmillan, thru Brown and Major, IDC and (arguably and surprisingly) even Thatcher, saw the duty of government as a means for making people's lives better. We appear to have lost that and I don't like it.

I pretty much agree with this.

Peck said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

The whole point is to free up productive capability for doing more valuable things.

That is what gave us the surplus productive capability to have old age pensions. Then unemployment benefit. Than the NHS.

In quite recent times the USSR sent medical students to the fields to get the harvest in. Due to lack of mechanisation.

The rulers in the USSR slaughtered peasants by the million and forced many of the survivors off the land to work in industry, with agriculture being made to become more productive. Productivity was the watchword all the way through.

I don't know what period you are referring to with those medical students, but since you say it was in quite recent times I assume post-WW2 and possibly after famine, or maybe after a "hare-brained scheme" under Khrushchev. I doubt it was anything to do with the rulers forgetting the aim of increasing productivity.

I'm no historian, but it would hardly be unique for a watchword to not be reflected in actual practice, particularly amongst authoritarian, secretive dictatorships with flimsy ideologies as cover.

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

The whole point is to free up productive capability for doing more valuable things.

That is what gave us the surplus productive capability to have old age pensions. Then unemployment benefit. Than the NHS.

In quite recent times the USSR sent medical students to the fields to get the harvest in. Due to lack of mechanisation.

I understand the argument (it may sound silly but I am not actually dim and I can explain comparative advantage and maximising the creation of wealth by maximising added value) but the end point has been lost. Wealth is only the means to make people happy. If it is not doing that, but instead being redirected outwards, then we have lost our moral compass. I did not want to grow up and live in a remake of They Live, thank you.

Don’t tell me - the nobility of Proper Work vs Modern Work?

Do you really think I'm that stupid? (Hint - no, and don't be rude). I am not some nepo-baby arts-graduate middle-class chinless fucking wastrel who thinks we should spin and weave and cows skin themselves by magic. I mean the point of the state is to service the people of the state, and the Government gets its legitimacy from the people (leaving out God and the Crown for the moment). If it forgets that (and I think it has) then something has gone badly wrong.

None of which has anything to do with trying to freeze innovation and change in the style of late medieval social theory.

Government has detached from the people, to the point of not really liking or wanting the people, for completely different reasons.

That's not what I meant (and I don't think it's what I said). My point, which I repeat for the n'th time, is that the function of the state is to service the people of the state. If we now consider people as economic units to be worn out and discarded, then things have gone wrong.

As I pointed out a few minutes ago, it didn't used to be that way. It's beginning to feel like Lieutenant George considering the tiddly-winking leapfroggers from the golden summer of 1914, and realising that a pointy stick will not be adequate.

kle4 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

Were you even alive in 1948?

If you don't know my age, I'm not going to tell you, and if you do know, I'm not going to confirm it...

As i pointed out when I went thru my commuting load-out (B&B version) a few days ago, this month's improving book is "A Duty of Care" by David Hennessy. It's a book of two halves and criticisms of it as nostalgic and naive are entirely valid. But I was struck by how many politicians, from Attlee and Macmillan, thru Brown and Major, IDC and (arguably and surprisingly) even Thatcher, saw the duty of government as a means for making people's lives better. We appear to have lost that and I don't like it.

I've not looked into it, but I'd have assumed politicians haven't lost seeing the duty of government as a means for making people's lives better, they've just gotten so twisted in convolutions and consumed by partisan rhetoric and polling and special interests and spin, that they've lost the ability to grasp what would make people's lives better in any broad sense.

We seem to get either pie in the sky pipedreams so abstract or vague that they are meaningless, or hyper focus on minutiae without thinking more than 5 minutes ahead at any time in order to deal with the latest crisis or opportunity for petty bickering.

The big issue with productivity increases however is that most people are cynical about companies if company has revenue of 1,000,000 with 20 workers on minimun wage staff costs making up 400k, material cost 400k and 200k profit. If they double worker productivity the likely result will be a company with a revenue of 1,000,000 employing 10 workers on minimum wage for staff costs of 200k , material costs of 400k and 400k profits + 10 workers out of work.

No one believes productivity increases will be passed down to workers instead of being used to swell profits

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

Were you even alive in 1948?

If you don't know my age, I'm not going to tell you, and if you do know, I'm not going to confirm it...

As i pointed out when I went thru my commuting load-out (B&B version) a few days ago, this month's improving book is "A Duty of Care" by David Hennessy. It's a book of two halves and criticisms of it as nostalgic and naive are entirely valid. But I was struck by how many politicians, from Attlee and Macmillan, thru Brown and Major, IDC and (arguably and surprisingly) even Thatcher, saw the duty of government as a means for making people's lives better. We appear to have lost that and I don't like it.

Thatcher was smash and grab, poster girl for spivs and property speculator scum. She was absolutely taking the piss when she said loads of wealth was created in the City. Attlee and Wilson went for some kind of progress worthy of the name. Attlee was partially successful. Wilson unfortunately failed but he tried. Corbyn would have tried but was nobbled before he got a chance. Corbyn is the "best prime minister Britain never had" since Bevan.

kle4 said:

Peck said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

The whole point is to free up productive capability for doing more valuable things.

That is what gave us the surplus productive capability to have old age pensions. Then unemployment benefit. Than the NHS.

In quite recent times the USSR sent medical students to the fields to get the harvest in. Due to lack of mechanisation.

The rulers in the USSR slaughtered peasants by the million and forced many of the survivors off the land to work in industry, with agriculture being made to become more productive. Productivity was the watchword all the way through.

I don't know what period you are referring to with those medical students, but since you say it was in quite recent times I assume post-WW2 and possibly after famine, or maybe after a "hare-brained scheme" under Khrushchev. I doubt it was anything to do with the rulers forgetting the aim of increasing productivity.

I'm no historian, but it would hardly be unique for a watchword to not be reflected in actual practice, particularly amongst authoritarian, secretive dictatorships with flimsy ideologies as cover.

Stakhanovism was real, and, even before then, Lenin really rated F W Taylor. I hold absolutely NO torch for the Soviet regime, but it's a fact that it increased productivity. That's a no brainer where agriculture is concerned. In industry, think of nuclear power and the space race. This doesn't mean there weren't very major problems with waste, and all the craziness associated with target indicator economics - there certainly were these things, worse than in the west at the time.

Malmesbury said:

A

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

"post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes"

Actually that sounds very much like the model pre-Brexit as well. We just used the EU as the input supply.

The horrible fact is, if those links to the papers people posted a few weeks back are true, then we still will be...

I thought you didn’t want productivity increases taking people’s jobs?

The alternative is lots and lots of cheap workers. Who will work for low wages in the existing poor conditions.

Is there any economic plan you like that doesn't involve throwing under-50s out of work and replacing them with something/one that can do it marginally faster/better/cheaper every five minutes? That's not an economy, it's destruction testing the Hunger Games.

The actual tested history of industrialisation and automation is more and better jobs.

Wasting human potential on manually operating lifts?

You are basing that theory on only one instance of it happening...the industrial revolution. Where muscle power was largely replaced. Humans have three things they bring to work....muscle power....knowledge power....creative power.

Not all of those who brought muscle power could transition to brain power or creative power they ended up either on the scrap heap or vying for the few muscle power jobs left. Replacing knowledge power which is what llm's are likely to do will leave mainly creative jobs as the money earners. A lot more wont make the transition from knowledge power to creative than couldn't transition from muscle power.

What creative job do you think someone is likely to be suited to that has spent twenty years on a supermarket checkout?

Malmesbury said:

Peck said:

kle4 said:

Peck said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

I doubt many supermarket workers are actually being laid off to be replaced by machines, staff turnover is pretty high in that industry anyway.

In an environment of full employment, we should be encouraging as many machines replacing people as possible, this is called raising productivity, and the UK has been rubbish at it in the past few decades.

That's true. The role of the government is to service pensioners and foreign investors, and if doing that fucks people's lives up, then that is not a problem

Without productivity from mechanisation, there wouldn’t be a welfare state.

I must have missed the automatic tills in supermarkets in 1948. At some point the state must service the people, otherwise it's just a machine that eats people for the profit of others. The British economic model post-Brexit is to use people up until they wear out then input more workers to replace them, whilst quartering them in smaller and smaller boxes. People are not fuses and investment funds are not people. If we are not here to make people's lives better, then what are we here for and why should we be proud of it?

The whole point is to free up productive capability for doing more valuable things.

That is what gave us the surplus productive capability to have old age pensions. Then unemployment benefit. Than the NHS.

In quite recent times the USSR sent medical students to the fields to get the harvest in. Due to lack of mechanisation.

The rulers in the USSR slaughtered peasants by the million and forced many of the survivors off the land to work in industry, with agriculture being made to become more productive. Productivity was the watchword all the way through.

I don't know what period you are referring to with those medical students, but since you say it was in quite recent times I assume post-WW2 and possibly after famine, or maybe after a "hare-brained scheme" under Khrushchev. I doubt it was anything to do with the rulers forgetting the aim of increasing productivity.

I'm no historian, but it would hardly be unique for a watchword to not be reflected in actual practice, particularly amongst authoritarian, secretive dictatorships with flimsy ideologies as cover.

Stakhanovism was real, and, even before then, Lenin really rated F W Taylor. I hold absolutely NO torch for the Soviet regime, but it's a fact that it increased productivity. That's a no brainer where agriculture is concerned. In industry, think of nuclear power and the space race. This doesn't mean there weren't very major problems with waste, and all the craziness associated with target indicator economics - there certainly were these things, worse than in the west at the time.

Soviet productivity stalled fairly early on Isie to the bullshit built into the system.

This is why the West buried Communism - with both Guns & Butter

Fuckwit Taylorism only gets you just so far.

As if there hasn't been Taylorism in the west. That's where it came from. That's how they ran industrial growth in the USA.

But yes, there was certainly a huge amount of bullshit built into the specific Soviet forms and this eventually brought those forms down, and you are quite right that the productivity growth there was was limited. I mentioned waste. Growth probably stopped in the 1970s. It lasted for almost half a century though. Western guns and consumerism had little to do with its coming to an end. Weapons didn't account for such an enormous part of the Soviet economy as western internal propaganda maintained. There was never much of a Soviet "threat" to western Europe.

There's a lot of bullshit built into western forms too and growth stopped here in Britain, dunno, maybe in the 1990s? Many towns in Britain, actually go there and it's obvious that growth stopped ages ago: signs of necrosis all over the place, and few have real jobs. Housing stock falling apart for much of the population. Massive overemployment in white-collar work across the country. Whatever computerisation achieved, it doesn't seem to have increased the "productivity" of office work. The specific forms can't last, just as the specific Soviet forms couldn't last. You see target indicator economics all over the place in Britain now and the whole line of basing everything on the info or digital economy is similarly cock and there's nothing to fall back on any more. Everywhere in the world is going down the toilet.

Jim_Miller said:

In American English "service" as a verb has a number of meanings. (True in British English, too?) I still recall laughing at a test answer I was grading where the student said that, as a Congressman, he would try to "service" the voters. He didn't distinguish between male and female voters.

(I didn't have the heart to explain the mistake to him.)

Yes, you can have a car serviced in British English, but also it can have the sexual meaning you refer to.