We can have shorter work weeks right now. Technological advances have enabled that long ago. The reason we don't have shortened workweeks has absolutely nothing to do with how productive tech has made workers, and everything to do with employers wanting long workweeks.

To most employers, the phrase "short workweek" means "I pay the same but get less out of my people, meanwhile my competitors pay the same but get more from their people." It is simply not rational for them to go for that.

If we want shorter workweeks in America, the means to obtain it is not new tech, but new legislation.

Corporations: We can afford to pay you much more, but we don't want to. We want to keep that money for ourselves. So, we will pay you only what you could get somewhere else, thus keeping your incentive to leave nice and low while saving money.

On the other hand, our rate of population growth has been dropping so quickly that many people are alarmed. So, the "there aren't enough jobs" problem and the "there aren't enough people" problem seem primed to cancel each other out.

I am sure it won't play out as neatly as that makes it sound. It never does. But after a generation of suffering it looks like it will balance itself out.

Though the "nobody wants to breed anymore" problem is likely to continue and get worse, since none of the root causes are being addressed (nor even admitted-to). So it may eventually overpower the "too many jobs are being automated-away" problem and leave us in dire straits. Hopefully by then the singularity will have happened and our enlightened future borg selves can solve the problem easily.

Oh you are just trolling. Ok. So that is why you accused me of saying things I didn't say, and believing things I don't believe. And also that's why you keep changing the subject to things outside the scope of my statements (but that are clearly more interesting to you).

Though I suspect there is a big hearty dose of generalizing in your responses, too. You seem to have lumped me in with a group of extremists, based on basically zero evidence.

So, it's clearly a discussion in bad faith. You are going to continue to "put words in my mouth" that I did not say, so you can then attack those words, and then get some kind of emotional payoff from that. You seem lucid enough to do better, but disinclined. I think that is unfortunate.

Indeed, "accelerating a space ship" is no way to get anywhere. What we need is to figure out how to open up holes in the warp so we can transport ships into and out of it. Travelling short distances through the warp equates to enormous distances in normal space. Though navigation through it is difficult, and the exposure to chaos can cause insanity or encounters with demons. So, we will need to develop defenses against those things as well.

What are you even talking about? I didn't say anything at all along the lines of what you are calling my "thesis". I am not blaming your for anything.

I was talking about historical use of words. "Aunt Jemima" as a slang term; the female version of "Uncle Tom." That is what the company wants to distance itself from.

You are making a mountain out of a molehill.

According to chatgpt, lettuce harvesters in America are usually seasonal workers who get paid either hourly ($15-$18 an hour) or per head harvested (which comes out to anywhere from $100-$400 a day depending on pay rate and worker skill and endurance). Some farms provide free housing seasonally. They generally don't provide health insurance to seasonal workers, though some might get a year-round deal that would then come with health insurance.

Some farms use machines instead of humans to harvest lettuce, and the machines generally require three operators each. These workers get paid $18 - $25 an hour, and also will only get heath insurance if hired year-round. This work is less labor intensive than manual harvesting.

You are correct. Though I think the belief that realtors drive the prices up is a common misconception from the basic intuition that realtors want to push the prices up since they get paid by percentage. It's an easy mistake to make.

I think the real cause for the housing crisis in the USA is simple: contractors stopped building houses after the last housing market crash (which was clearly caused by overdevelopment). They allowed the supply to naturally shift, so now demand outstrips supply and that is driving prices up. BUT, it is not driving sales up, because the prices are now so high that most people can't afford them. So that's why high-priced houses are sitting on the market.

I read, right here on slashdot, some time ago, that some states have made efforts at getting more houses built, but the only houses any contractors are interested in building are high-end luxury homes since those have a higher profit margin. They will sit unbought as well, since they will still be out of most buyer's price ranges.

I don't know the latest on "affordable housing" efforts, though I am aware of companies like "Boxabl" making affordable-yet-modern tiny houses to try to hit that market. I just don't know how widely-deployed these are, or are set to be in the near future.

This problem will sort itself out if we just wait long enough. With plummeting birth rates, demand will fall to the point where it no longer outstrips supply. That will force prices down, though it will clearly come with other economic problems.

Building more houses, especially low-end houses, is the fastest way to address the housing crisis, though even that will have an overall price-lowering effect which a lot of current home-owners clearly don't want (and they are a significant voting demographic, so their collective pressure against building more houses is non-trivial).

Calm down. Recessions come and go. It's normal. We have seen it before and the world didn't end. We can see it again and find a way to pull through, just like we did before.

The unemployment level is not the only metric of economic health. The stock market is doing quite well, for example. And, it's all connected. A growing stock market winds up presenting capital and incentives for businesses to expand, which in turn creates new jobs. It doesn't happen overnight, of course. All of these things take time.

And anyway, Trump will not be president forever. That pendulum swings back and forth. In fact, "change" is pretty much the one thing we can always count on (even if we don't know the exact nature of what that change will be).

Uncertainty creates fear, of course, but it also brings hope. Don't over-focus on the negatives, as that will harm your mental health. You can, instead, get involved in something positive, as having a positive impact can help you to see the silver linings that were there all along.

Socialism with American Characteristics

Iowa's rolling farm fields of coffee

You were born long after slavery had been eradicated. The culture in which you were raised was marked by many years of change. As such, much of the significance of the name "Aunt Jemima" and the imagery associated with it was lost on you. All it ever meant to you was "smiling sweet woman who brought me delicious pancakes and syrup," because you never experienced the use of the phrase as a racial slur, nor the depiction of servile black women as a slavery-associated image. You were simply too far removed from those historical roots.

But the historical roots are still there, and those who have studied their history know them. Personally, I don't know precisely who stirred up the controversy over this, and I have no idea how many "liberal white women" were involved, nor how many people of other genders and skin colors were involved. But I DO know that they have a solid case that these terms are tainted by harmful historical use, and that is enough of a reason to replace them.

So I don't see this event as evidence of some widespread, racist, movement to erase anything other than white. Maybe such a movement exists, I am not arguing against that, I am just not sure that this is the best example, given the legitimacy of the complaint.

Is there much on max that will keep people subscribed?

I imagine that a price hike would just drive more people to become transients; subscribing for a month each year or two to watch the new stuff, and then cancelling.

Of course, that is what I do with all streaming, so that's just kind of how the world looks to me. I realize that many other people watch stuff a lot more than I do, so maybe they will stay.

Indeed, I fully agree. The funny thing is, monthly numbers would help us move away from the distortions of the quarterly cycle. If key data reporting becomes frequent enough, you can't get into a cycle of "do adverse-numbers stuff early in the quarter and then cram positive-numbers stuff into the end of the quarter". You have to - *gasp* - just run your business normally.

Some businesses could still manage to switch to a monthly cycle, but anyone who deals significantly in transoceanic feedstocks/parts/goods shipments won't be able to.

BLS numbers aren't some sort of dark art. They're literally just the compiled numbers reported by companies. Numbers are what they are. To fight against jobs numbers is to fight against reality.

People get confused by the existence of revisions. The problem is that not all data gets reported in a timely manner. When late data comes in, it causes revisions to the earlier reported numbers, either up or down.

Firing the head of the BLS because you don't like what numbers US companies reported is just insane Banana Republic-level nonsense.