The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine

Megalith · Dec 31, 2017

Many US workers fear automation, but Sweden is actually embracing the robot takeover. The country’s citizens merely see it as a way of improving business efficiency, as their government gives them considerably less to worry about: free health care, education, and job transition programs mean that Swedes have an easier time leaving jobs in favor of new career options or training.

Such talk has little currency in Sweden or its Scandinavian neighbors, where unions are powerful, government support is abundant, and trust between employers and employees runs deep. Here, robots are just another way to make companies more efficient. As employers prosper, workers have consistently gained a proportionate slice of the spoils — a stark contrast to the United States and Britain, where wages have stagnated even while corporate profits have soared.

RussianJ · Dec 31, 2017

When you don't have to worry about losing healthcare, robots are great. US is top reliant on employer health and other benefits that is provided by the state in most places.

aeliusg · Dec 31, 2017

Robot takeover or Muslim takeover. Which will it be.

mavrocket · Dec 31, 2017

NY Times you say? Sweden is famously held up as a socialist success, completely ignoring that it's not a success at all except when viewed from outside it.

Have a read here (not a "right-wing" US source BTW) and see what the truth about Sweden's richness really is: https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states

mesyn191 · Dec 31, 2017

Well of course the Swedes would be fine with automation. Their govt. actually cares about their people and is at least somewhat competent and is doing stuff to help people adapt to a changing economy.

mavrocket said:
Have a read here (not a "right-wing" US source BTW)

Mises is as bad or worse than any Alt-Right site since its THE pro-Austrian Economics wing nut central and many of those guys are closely linked to Alt-Right anyways. Don't link to them or use them at all as a source of info.

And if you think me calling Austrian Economics (lol) "wing nut" is harsh then I'd point out they don't accept empirical (ie. actual real world) evidence. It has very little to do with the real word at all and most of it is garbage as are most of its "serious" (ie. Hans H. Hoppe, Molyneux, etc. who have all at times made various pro slavery, child porn, child labor, etc. arguments) proponents too.

travisty · Dec 31, 2017

mavrocket said:
NY Times you say? Sweden is famously held up as a socialist success, completely ignoring that it's not a success at all except when viewed from outside it.

Have a read here (not a "right-wing" US source BTW) and see what the truth about Sweden's richness really is: https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states

LOL that article totally misses the major benefits of socialism. Even though individuals are paid less, they more than make up for the loss in yearly income when factoring in things like free child care, education, medical costs, etc.

LuxTerra · Dec 31, 2017

travisty said:
LOL that article totally misses the major benefits of socialism. Even though individuals are paid less, they more than make up for the loss in yearly income when factoring in things like free child care, education, medical costs, etc.

So I take it you didn't bother to even read the article or paper it was based off of?

"These national-level comparisons take into account taxes, and include social benefits (e.g., "welfare" and state-subsidized health care) as income. Purchasing power is adjusted to take differences in the cost of living in different countries into account."

Edit: it also addresses the common complaints of using GDP and adjusted accordingly.

LuxTerra · Dec 31, 2017

mesyn191 said:
Well of course the Swedes would be fine with automation. Their govt. actually cares about their people and is at least somewhat competent and is doing stuff to help people adapt to a changing economy.

Mises is as bad or worse than any Alt-Right site since its THE pro-Austrian Economics wing nut central and many of those guys are closely linked to Alt-Right anyways. Don't link to them or use them at all as a source of info.

And if you think me calling Austrian Economics (lol) "wing nut" is harsh then I'd point out they don't accept empirical (ie. actual real world) evidence. It has very little to do with the real word at all and most of it is garbage as are most of its "serious" (ie. Hans H. Hoppe, Molyneux, etc. who have all at times made various pro slavery, child porn, child labor, etc. arguments) proponents too.

Your obvious bias aside, the study was done by two Swedish economists, including one who worked at the Ministry of Finance and their National Bank. Mises.org is just the messenger, which you've apparently killed.

mesyn191 · Dec 31, 2017

LuxTerra said:
So I take it you didn't bother to even read the article or paper it was based off of?

Edit: it also addresses the common complaints of using GDP and adjusted accordingly.

In a fundamentally dishonest manner. Purchasing power based on income alone isn't quality of life or standard of living, they're trying to equate the 2. Every economist knows this. Anyone in the US who has had to deal with a hospital bill, even with insurance, knows it too.

LuxTerra · Dec 31, 2017

mesyn191 said:
In a fundamentally dishonest manner. Purchasing power based on income alone isn't quality of life or standard of living, they're trying to equate the 2. Every economist knows this. Anyone in the US who has had to deal with a hospital bill, even with insurance, knows it too.

Fair point, but generally that's corrected by including the relative value of those social benefits as income, which was done and you'd have known had you taken the time to read the article.

However, that only accounts for the aggregate and not specific individuals, which I assume is your real complaint. There's a non-monetary value in the security of knowing you won't be an outlier and stuck with huge bills.

mesyn191 · Dec 31, 2017

LuxTerra said:
Your obvious bias aside, the study was done by two Swedish economists, including one who worked at the Ministry of Finance and their National Bank. Mises.org is just the messenger, which you've apparently killed.

Bias?!

Do Austrian Economists accept empirical evidence (facts) or not? Have Hans H Hoppe and Molyneux and other major Austrian proponents not written articles supporting the stuff I talked about?? More info on Hoppe if you don't know who he is. I'm not gonna bother linking anything directly to Molyneux since that scum bag loves the clicks and attention but his videos are easy to find on YT with his name alone. He is more of a cult leader at this point though.

And the economists being Swedes or their employment isn't a indicator of validity. Greenspan worked at the FED and so did Bernanke. Economics is called the dismal science for a reason but as bad as it is Austrian Economics is a incredibly awful portion of that should be ignored by everyone.

LuxTerra said:
Fair point, but generally that's corrected by including the relative value of those social benefits as income, which was done and you'd have known had you taken the time to read the article.

Which is obviously wrong since the hospital bills in the US regularly bankrupt people even with insurance have since at least the mid 90's and in general the US pays about twice (or more) as much as anyone elsewhere in the world does for healthcare. The whole study is garbage.

NAXDON · Dec 31, 2017

I'm waiting for my new robot body, thank you very much

LuxTerra · Dec 31, 2017

mesyn191 said:
Bias?!

The clearly emotional and not logical response indicates, yes, it's a strong bias.

The study may or may not be valid, but you're not arguing that...you're committing logical fallacies left and right by killing the messenger (who happened to like the study because it agreed with them). Your emotions are trumping your logic, which is more or less the exact definition of bias.

mesyn191 said:
And the economists being Swedes or their employment isn't a indicator of validity. Greenspan worked at the FED and so did Bernanke. Economics is called the dismal science for a reason but as bad as it is Austrian Economics is a incredibly awful portion of that should be ignored by everyone.

It's a dismal science regardless of which school of economic though you subscribe to because it can NOT be science. It fundamentally breaks several philosophical pre-suppositions of science (sort of like, but not exactly axioms for non-philosophy inclined), that prohibit the scientific method from being properly utilized.

I could write up an emotional post about all the math/data hacks and their schools of economic thought that, sort of like big data "scientists," find correlations (and even p-hack) and then create nice mythological stories about the results.

Go read the paper if you must and then come complain, stop claiming the paper is invalid because of who published a story on it. The study may indeed be invalid, but at least make a good argument as to why.

mesyn191 said:
Which is obviously wrong since the hospital bills in the US regularly bankrupt people even with insurance have since at least the mid 90's and in general the US pays about twice (or more) as much as anyone elsewhere in the world does for healthcare. The whole study is garbage.

That doesn't mathematically invalidate anything. The net result, assuming the study is valid, is that the median American is wealthier than a Swede. Although, as it was already noted, wealth isn't everything...there's very real value in not worrying that you're the outlier. Individual results may very greatly, as already noted.

mesyn191 · Dec 31, 2017

LuxTerra said:
The clearly emotional and not logical response indicates, yes, it's a strong bias.

I gave facts which you've failed to address, there is no logical fallacy or illogical response going on there. Having a strong emotional reaction due to real things that are real bad is perfectly reasonable. Bias is only actually bad when there is nothing factual to back it up.

So once again:

Do Austrian Economists accept empirical evidence (facts) or not? Have Hans H Hoppe and Molyneux and other major Austrian proponents not written articles supporting the stuff I talked about?? More info on Hoppe if you don't know who he is. I'm not gonna bother linking anything directly to Molyneux since that scum bag loves the clicks and attention but his videos are easy to find on YT with his name alone. He is more of a cult leader at this point though.

LuxTerra said:
It fundamentally breaks several philosophical pre-suppositions of science (sort of like, but not exactly axioms for non-philosophy inclined), that prohibit the scientific method from being properly utilized.

It breaks nothing, has no predictive modeling value, doesn't falsify anything, and rejects evidence as a tenet of its thinking. Its garbage "self evident reasoning" that you can twist and bend to mean whatever you want whenever you want which is why so many crackpots love it. Modern Austrian wackos get all bent out of shape over it and praxeology but they're just stupid word games.

"It totally isn't a axiom but yet it is. People do things because they want to. So deep" *rolls eyes*

LuxTerra said:
I could write up an emotional post about all the math/data hacks and their schools of economic thought

And you'd be at least a little bit right to since most of that is garbage too but most of them a) actually admit they're riddled with flaws and b) still have use for modeling past economic events c) admit they have tons of work to do and d) constantly strive to improve their models unlike Austrian Econ guys who act as if Mises was perfect for the most part so they're not useless unlike Austrian school BS.

LuxTerra said:
That doesn't mathematically invalidate anything.

You don't actually need the math because its obviously true. Real world evidence beats BS math every time.

Plenty of data out there on US healthcare costs vs rest of the world if you don't believe me. The topic has been done to death here. The wealth measurement they're using is obvious BS so therefore the conclusions are BS too of both the Mises article and the study.

SamuraiInBlack · Dec 31, 2017

Sweden seems to also have a very different attitude on an employer level about automation than the US does, which may be part of why it's easier for Sweden to embrace automation than we do here. It seems like Swedish companies actually work to take care of their workers and keep them employed, whereas in the US, if your job can be done better with a robot, expect to be replaced by a robot, and looking for another job.

Master_shake_ · Dec 31, 2017

the first line of defense against a muzzie invasion i see.

Spidey329 · Dec 31, 2017

mavrocket said:
NY Times you say? Sweden is famously held up as a socialist success, completely ignoring that it's not a success at all except when viewed from outside it.

Have a read here (not a "right-wing" US source BTW) and see what the truth about Sweden's richness really is: https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states

Yet, in metrics that matter to most, they rank near the top. I'm talking healthcare and quality of life. The US is consistently very low on these lists.

I really fail to see how any normal US household is making as much as that in Sweden when you factor in our outrageous medical expenses. A good amount of someone's paycheck goes to medical insurance or assorted costs. What these articles often compare is the "take home pay". But not the amount of money average citizens have to spend (or save) at the end of it. Families live paycheck to paycheck here with no savings what so ever.

LuxTerra · Dec 31, 2017

I think, that you think that I care about the study far more than I do...

I was enjoying nice cup of coffee and killing some time when I saw someone killing the messenger in an attempt to cut off debate about the actual study and thought, hey, someone should call them on it. So I did.

Killing the messenger is always an attempt to avoid intelligently discussing the issues at hand.

mesyn191 said:
I gave facts which you've failed to address, there is no logical fallacy or illogical response going on there. Having a strong emotional reaction due to real things that are real bad is perfectly reasonable. Bias is only actually bad when there is nothing factual to back it up.

Fair enough, but I'd point out that your bias was towards the messenger, not the study it was referencing. So your biased against a messenger and therefore the study is invalid? Sounds logical to me.'

I'm hoping that you missed that point/distinction intentionally...

mesyn191 said:
Do Austrian Economists accept empirical evidence (facts) or not?

Counterpoint 1: they wrote a whole article exposing the empirical evidence presented in the study. At the very least, you have to concede that they do accept empirical evidence that agrees with them. Unless you don't think things like GDP are empirical, in which case economics has no empirical data at all.

Counterpoint 2: You're the one arguing that the study, based on empirical evidence is invalid. It might very well be for all sorts of reasons, but you haven't presented anything actually supporting that other than attacking the messenger. You haven't even shown that the actual authors are even Austrian biased. Do you accept empirical evidence? So far, it appears no.

You keep picking on an Austrian economist that you don't like, let's just say for good reason, but as far as I know, he had nothing to do with the study you hate so much because it conflicts with your ideology.

I get it. You don't like the messenger and you don't like the results, so fling around your biases as facts and hope no one bothers to point it out. It's not science and it's not an intellectual stance.

mesyn191 said:
It breaks nothing, has no predictive modeling value, doesn't falsify anything, and rejects evidence as a tenet of its thinking. Its garbage "self evident reasoning" that you can twist and bend to mean whatever you want whenever you want which is why so many crackpots love it. Modern Austrian wackos get all bent out of shape over it and praxeology but they're just stupid word games.

"It totally isn't a axiom but yet it is. People do things because they want to. So deep" *rolls eyes*

So this is a bit disjoint, but I'm assuming it's in reference to my pre-supposition comment? Oh boy, you really don't understand the epistemology of your science...it's a very common error.

I'm not going to bother to write up a whole treatise on the epistemology of science and the scientific methods. However, here's just a very simplified taste:

The scientific method presupposes that:
1. Things are measurable. Philosophers love this topic and us scientist generally loose the debate and then give up and take the engineering "close enough for practical purposes" way out.
2. The universe is uniform and universal. That is to say, the "laws" do not depend on where or when in the universe your reference frame is...although we've given out Nobel prizes for theories that practically violate this, but say it's ok using fancy math.
3. Things are causal. Should be self-evident?
4. Etc. Again, no treatise.

Economics has epistemological problems with all three and more. Even extreme science has such problems, but we assume that it's our lack of knowledge and not these presuppositions being broken because it would turn our world on it's head otherwise. Or have you never heard of the uncertainty principle, inflation (which requires a neat mathematical space/time trick to avoid breaking nature's speed limit), quantum entanglement/tunneling, dark matter/energy, etc. Einstein hated our current theory of quantum because of the epistemological problems it poses as a science. If you've ever wondered why modern particle physics and astrophysics often reads more like philosophy with some fancy math vs. science, now you know.

mesyn191 said:
And you'd be at least a little bit right to since most of that is garbage too but most of them a) actually admit they're riddled with flaws and b) still have use for modeling past economic events c) admit they have tons of work to do and d) constantly strive to improve their models unlike Austrian Econ guys who act as if Mises was perfect for the most part so they're not useless unlike Austrian school BS.

I feel unqualified and lacking in data to make such an antecedent regarding the various schools of economics.

mesyn191 said:
You don't actually need the math because its obviously true. Real world evidence beats BS math every time.

Um, isn't the study based on empirical evidence, just evidence you don't like? I'm not sure what exactly the point of splitting "the math" and "real world evidence" here is...specifically since the empirical evidence you require is typically quantified using at least some branch of mathematics.

mesyn191 said:
Plenty of data out there on US healthcare costs vs rest of the world if you don't believe me. The topic has been done to death here. The wealth measurement they're using is obvious BS so therefore the conclusions are BS too of both the Mises article and the study.

I made no argument that the US healthcare system is not expensive. That was a red herring that you brought up. It is too expensive for many complex reasons. It's also empirically terrible on many levels, but again, we're wondering off topic.

Deleted member 204526 · Dec 31, 2017

A small homogenous (and that is quickly falling under the Muslim invasion) nation. They're counting their chickens too early.

mesyn191 · Dec 31, 2017

LuxTerra said:
I think, that you think that I care about the study far more than I do...

*rolls eyes* If you didn't care you'd stop posting or at least stop trying to defend a garbage study.

Pointing out real problems with a site and its ideology, ones that were brought up by the poster I was responding to as somehow legit, aren't cutting off debate or killing the messenger.

LuxTerra said:
Counterpoint 1:.....Counterpoint 2:

None of your "counterpoints" address my comment at all. You have to actually address what I'm saying first before I'll consider responding in any real depth here to the rest of what you're saying.

So here it is again, for hopefully the final time: Do Austrian Economists accept empirical evidence (facts) or not? Have Hans H Hoppe and Molyneux and other major Austrian proponents not written articles supporting the stuff I talked about?? More info on Hoppe if you don't know who he is. I'm not gonna bother linking anything directly to Molyneux since that scum bag loves the clicks and attention but his videos are easy to find on YT with his name alone. He is more of a cult leader at this point though.

These are simple questions with simple answers and you keep ducking them and its gotten tiresome.

LuxTerra · Dec 31, 2017

mesyn191 said:
*rolls eyes* If you didn't care you'd stop posting or at least stop trying to defend a garbage study.

Pointing out real problems with a site and its ideology, ones that were brought up by the poster I was responding to as somehow legit, aren't cutting off debate or killing the messenger.

I don't care about the study. I do care about what amounts to illogical bullying masquerading as intellectual debate based merely on ideological differences of the messenger, not the item of debate (i.e. the study).

mesyn191 said:
None of your "counterpoints" address my comment at all.

Really? You're upset because a data based study by two Swedish economists, whom you have't provide any evidence are card carrying Austrians (I don't know their backgrounds either), is being cited as empirical evidence of the validity of Austrian theory. So let's play this out:

1. The Swedes are Austrian (again I don't know), but just did a data driven empirical study, thus disproving your claim of not using/accepting empirical evidence as false...at least for some Austrians.

2. The Swedes are not Austrians, but the voice of the Austrian school (Mises.org), is holding up their data driven empirical study up as proof, thus again disproving your claim wrong for some Austrians.

This is irrespective of if the study contains empirical faults (as many, many studies do). The fact is, it's an empirical study and the Austrians are accepting of it, even promoting it. How is that not a valid counterpoint to your false claim that they don't accept empirical data?

I fully get that some members of any large school thought have differing opinions, as you've noted, but that doesn't mean all Austrians agree...to include, according to you, the god that is Ludwig Von Mises (to Austrians at least).

mesyn191 said:
You have to actually address what I'm saying first before I'll consider responding in any real depth here to the rest of what you're saying.

So here it is again, for hopefully the final time: Do Austrian Economists accept empirical evidence (facts) or not?

Too simple. Even a simple Google of Mises.org addresses the issue and shows that they have a far more complete and nuanced understanding of empirical knowledge and what is possible to know than you're claiming: https://mises.org/library/economists-and-data

So, if Mises.org claims to accept empirical evidence, is that enough for you? Of course not, you'll just run off the rails again claiming they don't accept your data or some such whatever.

What they do claim, is that empirical data has it limits (as does everything). And that we should use empirical data as a tool, but like a hammer it can't solve everything due to our inability to truly satisfy the presuppositions of a scientific experiment (mostly given the nature of human beings). - my paraphrase

mesyn191 said:
Have Hans H Hoppe and Molyneux and other major Austrian proponents not written articles supporting the stuff I talked about?? More info on Hoppe if you don't know who he is. I'm not gonna bother linking anything directly to Molyneux since that scum bag loves the clicks and attention but his videos are easy to find on YT with his name alone. He is more of a cult leader at this point though.

I thought you said that Mises was the end all be all and no one has done anything since him? So why bother reading anything else? Apparently they disagree with Mises and Mises.org...does that make them a outlier within the school of thought? Who'd have thought that people disagree about ideas even in the same school. It's almost like you think the Chicago Boys were always in lock step. (I actually don't know what school you subscribe too, but it appears you've mixed up economics with political ideology, namely socialism give your visceral reactions).

mesyn191 said:
These are simple questions with simple answers and you keep ducking them and its gotten tiresome.

The fact that you set up a straw man and repeatedly knocked it down like it means anything is disconcerting. At the risk of setting up a false dichotomy, it sounds like you've never had a formal logic course(s) or really just hate those two guys (perhaps with good reasoning) and want to paint all the others with the same broad brush.

You can hate them all you want, but pretending that your hate has anything to do with an empirical study, that as far as I can tell they had nothing to do with, is just illogical. It's not even clear to me that their specific branch within the larger school of Austrian thought had anything to do with it, other than discussing/promoting the results on Mises.org.

aeliusg · Dec 31, 2017

The basic premise of the argument given was that median income (adjusted or not) is somehow the end all and be all of defining the relative wealth of a nation. That study only goes to show that money isn't everything, a concept libertarian (((economists))) couldn't fathom. I'd rather live among the poorest of ethnic Swedes than in a median income Mississippi "community."

LuxTerra · Dec 31, 2017

aeliusg said:
The basic premise of the argument given was that median income (adjusted or not) is somehow the end all and be all of defining the relative wealth of a nation. That study only goes to show that money isn't everything, a concept libertarian (((economists))) couldn't fathom. I'd rather live among the poorest of ethnic Swedes than in a median income Mississippi "community."

Excellent!

That's a problem with attempting to measure everything using money/wealth. It often ignores the very real value of intangibles of the human experience. It also illustrates the problem with using medians or means for making decisions. Like all data, they're insightful, but hardly conclusive. Specifically, the argument would be that while the Swedes have a lower median wealth, they are "happier" due to other intangibles and have much less distribution of outcomes (high and low), such that it creates a less stressful life when you end up on the bottom of their social/economic ladder.

mesyn191 · Dec 31, 2017

LuxTerra said:
I do care about what amounts to illogical bullying

Facts aren't bullying nor was anything I posted illogical though.

LuxTerra said:
Really?

When did I claim the Swedish study guys were Austrians? Quote the part of my post where I explicitly said this.

I've already said why the study is nonsense and others have pointed it out too. You can claim they normalized everything and adjusted for costs appropriately but that doesn't hold when examining one relatively simple cost (ie. healthcare) at all. So yeah its not really empirical evidence.

LuxTerra said:
Too simple.

Apparently not since you didn't even read your own link. The opening quote by Mises pretty much says it all and the rest is their typical garbage.

"No laboratory experiments can be performed with regard to human action. We are never in a position to observe the change in one element only, all other conditions of the event remaining unchanged. Historical experience as an experience of complex phenomena does not provide us with facts in the sense in which the natural sciences employ this term to signify isolated events tested in experiments. The information conveyed by historical experience cannot be used as building material for the construction of theories and the prediction of future events. Every historical experience is open to various interpretations, and is in fact interpreted in different ways."

That is what they hold as a tenet of their economics. That is not what using facts or science looks like.

LuxTerra said:
What they do claim, is that empirical data has it limits (as does everything).

Yet they don't actually prove it (its a stated belief that they've rationalized), don't ever really do a strong definition of these limits (just handwave away at praxeology and philosophy BS), use axioms as a belief system instead, and won't use the scientific method like most other economists. None of that is reasonable and none of it is an exaggeration of what they believe or do.

LuxTerra said:
I thought you said that Mises was the end all be all and no one has done anything since him?

Quote me where I explicitly said that.

Mises is Austrian economics as Keynes was to Keynesian economics which is a whole other subject. Guys like Hoppe and Molyneux came well after Mises and are modern "experts" in their "field".

LuxTerra said:
Apparently they disagree with Mises and Mises.org

LOL you don't know a thing about them if you think they disagree with either of em'. Their stuff is linked or touted on that site for a reason.

LuxTerra said:
The fact that you set up a straw man

Straw man? How was you not responding to those comments a strawman exactly on my part? It took me nearly a whole page for me to finally get you to try and address em' (over almost a 4 hour period of time) and when you finally bother to do it you show you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

(edit) Actually you still haven't really addressed the whole comment yet either!

What a ridiculous waste of time.

SDplus · Dec 31, 2017

Sweden is far from perfect. But there is nowhere else I'd rather be. There is a few countries that seems fine in general, but when taking into account the finer things in life that has to be present in those countries, like good Ice-hockey on non-fighting inducing small rinks, then only Sweden remains...

daglesj · Dec 31, 2017

The crux is -

I love money. I'd love to be super wealthy etc. etc.

But would I move to the USA for it or if I already had it?

No fucking way. I'm not the kind to punch myself in the balls continuously.

The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine

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