Yes, that's good. It also prices out a lot of other better uses for their labor. Projects I work on have seen prices soar. I don't consider building the things everyone hates because they promise concentration of wealth and an attack on labor at the expense of building literally anything else to be somehow a big W for labor because a few people get a slightly higher temporary paycheck. Ask the Wagyu cows how they feel about the hand they are dealt.

"It also prices out a lot of other better uses for their labor...."

"Projects I work on..."

Considering we are in a gigantic housing shortage, it would be great if a house didn't have to compete for talent with a data center.

The housing shortage has nothing to do with a lack of electrical engineers or plumbers. It’s entirely self inflicted and cheaper electricians will not change that.

More directly: I doubt there will be a meaningful increase in housing in states that have banned construction of new data centers (NY, Maine) than those where data centers are allowed to be built.

You don't work in construction do you?

Lack of skilled tradesmen is a widespread problem and a major source of project delay (on top of massively higher housing production costs).

I assume next comes the zoning-causes-all-shortages and if only we could fix zoning then we'd solve housing – a thesis for which there's zero evidence.

That "lack" of labor is the norm because construction is a boom-bust business and nobody wants to pay to retain talent and skills they aren't actively profiting off. And very few want to spend time training new people when they are currently earning 3x their normal rate working a boom cycle.

If the AI boom crashes, how many of these people will get laid off and unable to find comparable paying work for years afterward? Even if it picks up again 5 years later, many of those people have moved on to new careers. And the only way to get them back, even temporarily, is pay them way more than their current career to pay for their losses and hardships of quiting their current career path. So ultimately boils down to "pay people more" because you aren't just incentivizing people to work for you specifically during a boom cycle, you are also trying to poach workers out of other industries for a job they know is temporary.

Yes, the labor supply for skilled tradesmen is very inelastic. Which is one reason it sucks to have so much of it drawn into a probably-speculative boom.

> and the pay sucks.

This is baffling to me from the homeowner's perspective.

I just checked the last invoice I had for electrical work - $300 for something that took <30 minutes and <$20 of supplies.

(And like, he did good work and I'd hire him again... but at those rates it's worth me doing anything I can myself even if it takes me 5x longer.)

I said the pay sucks, not the profit. Owning a residential electrical company is lucrative because they pay their electricians substandard wages.

It’s not possible for the standard wage to be substandard.

Fine, non-union residential contractors pay lower wages than union contractors.

Are you including travel time in the 30 minutes? Time to travel and provide free estimates? Sick/vacation time?

> Sick/vacation time?

Don't forget health insurance for when they have to use that sick time to get treatment - so they can get back to work ASAP. Plus, during a bust if they get laid off, we don't have universal health insurance, so they have to factor that in as well.

I mean, obviously not. (Though no travel for free estimates, estimates are just done by phone.)

Obviously my electrician isn't making anywhere close to $30040 hours52 weeks = $600k+/year - and I don't begrudge my electrician making a good living.

But from my perspective as a homeowner, skilled trades are punishingly expensive, and my response was to a post specifically claiming that the pay sucks.

> But from my perspective as a homeowner, skilled trades are punishingly expensive, and my response was to a post specifically claiming that the pay sucks.

My post is a response to yours, showing that the provider’s pay can suck even if you find a service punishingly expensive.

Volatility of pay, body wear and tear, hours per day and flexibility of schedule, extensive travel greatly increasing morbidity/mortality risk, and other components go into whether or not pay sucks or not.

What do those residential electricians do then? Become baristas?

tbf, I don't think Wagyu cows were that thrilled about their lot in life before Wagyu became a thing, either.

You may have a unique perspective on that, though...

> Projects I work on have seen prices soar.

Could you be more specific? Things are still competitive in the large commercial electrical market I am bidding in, if you’re bidding to make more than 10-15% you’ll get underbid by someone willing to accept a lower profit margin.

The employment is temporary, what follows a net negative, is the idea.

And "AI" as a concept has has no agency. This is all about humans who seek to further concentrate wealth.

>Meaning a big impact on homes – you know, the things people and families live in, in order to survive.

Maybe those people should pay their tradespeople better then. Everybody's all "workers should be paid more" until they're the one paying the worker.

"Those people" who? Homebuilders? You're saying you think the cost of homebuilding should be much higher? When I listen to some of you guys it's not hard for me to see why these DCs are so unpopular

That small bathroom job is literally the worst case scenario for a tradesman. They have to work nearly as hard to line that up as better paying longer term commercial work.

The residential buyer is the source of much less repeat work, is harder to deal with, more price conscious and harder to collect from than the commercial buyer they could be working for.

Anyone that can competently market, manage, and execute that small job can do the same for better customers.

The residential buyer has one advantage though: they do not demand as much from those working. You can start this business today, and likely find enough friends and family willing to take a chance on you that you can get started and from there you have references. Commercial projects tend to be big enough that you cannot get into them without experience (which in turn you cannot get).

The crew that can build a driveway cannot build a parking lot, and they will never be able to break into that market because it requires experience that a driveway cannot give. From a parking lot there is then road building - the previous companies cannot break into them. Again there are just not enough projects of the size that sits in between to build experience.

>The crew that can build a driveway cannot build a parking lot, and they will never be able to break into that market because it requires experience that a driveway cannot give. From a parking lot there is then road building - the previous companies cannot break into them. Again there are just not enough projects of the size that sits in between to build experience.

This is not true at all! Parking lots are not particularly complicated, with the main obstacle being machinery and logistics. I know folks that started off residential and moved to commercial once they accumulated enough capital to buy the necessary machines to take on bigger commercial work.

>You can start this business today, and likely find enough friends and family willing to take a chance on you that you can get started and from there you have references.

Highly questionable premise. I bet very few people are going to gamble their most valuable asset on a newbie trying to learn the ropes. I’ll pay someone experienced multiples more for my once in a decade or two capital projects on my home.

And even in residential, building million-dollar houses is easier (or at least not harder) and more profitable than building "affordable" starter homes.

> While we're at it, how much should small bathroom, 2 week renovation cost? $100,000 in labour?

Obviously much more than 2 weeks worth of work at a commercial job, since that's the worst possible kind of work you could ever offer any tradesman. Maybe 8x the hourly rate would be fair since it's intermittent work with generally horrible customers?

It's been interesting to watch the IT/engineering classes all of a sudden pretend to care about labor costs and outsourcing/job loss. As an industry they have been by far the most impactful in reducing wages, enabling outsourcing, and "gaining efficiency" via automation while as a class being paid top-tier wages for doing so. There is not another industry more directly culpable for blue collar job loss except perhaps finance and banking.

Only now when the shoe is on the other foot do such folks seem to care at all.

Learn to code indeed.

For any electricians/plumbers/etc. out there? Go get yours. When the shoe was on the other foot you were mocked and told to switch careers, lowballed on horrible residential projects, told to skill up and get better if you wanted to get paid more, there was no future in the trades, etc. Make hay while the sun shines and ignore the bleating. At least this time around the bubble is sharing a bit of that tech wealth.

> For any electricians/plumbers/etc. out there? Go get yours. When the shoe was on the other foot you were mocked and told to switch careers, lowballed on horrible residential projects, told to skill up and get better if you wanted to get paid more, there was no future in the trades, etc. Make hay while the sun shines and ignore the bleating.

yeah instead they did the smart thing and they got together and passed protectionist policy to artificially inflate the value of their labor. Let's see how union tough you are when the administration changes and you have to compete with a global labor pool again.

>compete with a global labor pool again

I don't really think electricians have to worry about that. There may be the some shops that employ immigrants as helpers, but most electricians have spent at least several years getting their hours, building their kit and learning the NEC + local codes. It's hard to picture companies importing labor and training them for so long.

That's a nice story and barely a reply to my comment, not engaging at all.

Good luck with robots traing to lay up bricks, or doing plumbing in a home.

Making a brick laying robot is easy. I'm happy to do that if you want to fund my mid-life crisis... Note that I did not promise my brick laying robot can effectively compete with human break layers on cost. I fully expect my robot to be at least double the cost of humans doing the same work, and it will be less flexible than humans as well (meaning you need a different robot for different buildings)

How would it be double the cost if it can work day and night and on holidays and during bad weather and not have strikes?

Double is probably a low estimate. There is a lot of engineering required in the robot. Much of the effort is setup, someone still needs to bring it to the site, and feed the blueprints in. Cleanup is also a lot of the cost. Not to mention mortar is made of sand which is abrasive and will wear it out fast meaning lots of maintenance work.

Working day and night isn't helpful as the limit to speed is waiting for the mortar to cure before doing the next row. (Generally you do about 5 rows and then wait a day)

could the robots not do more than one site? 5 rows, move to other side, a house if rectangle does have four sides, and a subdivison has multiple houses?

Vibe coding by people with no programming skills is not going to happen. What will happen is moving to higher and higher code representations. A compiler is already doing 99% of the actual coding when you realize that the only language computers understand is assembly.

People are already doing it to some extent, especially the sort of technical non-programmer crowd. A member of my family was even having a (now pretty out of date) version of chatGPT spit out VBA macros for them with precisely no idea what they were doing, but the result worked well enough for them. Now I know lots of programmers will scoff at that but when you see what the big models can do today in terms of breaking down a fairly large task and executing on all the steps with minimal need to stop it, including going to existing docs/web pages etc. to gather info, correcting itself, even troubleshooting issues and correcting them, it strikes me as hard to see a future where programming skill as such remains considered scarce in the market.

> Vibe coding by people with no programming skills is not going to happen

Hate to break it to you but it is happening, increasingly at the business stakeholder interface later.

> A compiler is already doing 99% of the actual coding when you realize that the only language computers understand is assembly.

Most of the value in the software engineering process isn't in the compiler, it's in deducing the requirements and weighing tradeoffs for various solution paths. LLMs have now automated the next step: translating human language requirements and specifications to code.

The compiler is just the last deterministic step, which while essential, is entirely commoditized in the value chain. When was the last time you paid for a compiler?

I am a UX Researcher, UX Design and Developer by trade since 2009. I don't know iphone development, python, any back end stuff and or in depth JS stuff.

But, Codex does and just by typing I just published a startup in python in two weeks using Codex and it's iPhone app will be available soon.

How do you not think AI will not destroy programming jobs if anyone can type to create anything they want or share your screen with Codex and have it guide you via voice? I just feed screenshot after screenshot to Codex to understand what I need to do next. Look forward to being able to share my screen and have it guide me via a voice conversation.

> How do you not think AI will not destroy programming jobs if anyone can type to create anything they want or share your screen with Codex and have it guide you via voice?

Extrapolate that to any other engineering or even medical discipline and you will understand that your conclusion has some flaws.

Well i guess there are two sides of table / arguement. Im on the side of believing the hype of the AI overlords who promote UBI not cause I don't want to work because I personally experience and see it slowly playing out now.

Careful with UBI. What they are thinking is reshuffling/re-branding Medicaid/Food Stamps/Housing voucher, etc, into one lump sum that just like the current welfare, will barely be enough to keep you alive.

What is you opinion of U.I "designed" by someone without UX experience, thru prompting. Most likely you cringe at how bad they are, as do the reset of us.

Similarly, programmers have a name for code generated without a coder guiding and reviewing, A.I slop.

Getting an idea out there quickly and cheaply is definitely a good use for AI. In the context of the original op, this is not putting any developers out of work. Quite the contrary, if the idea takes off then you will probably want to make a proper implementation with a carefully thought out UX.

The UI/UX Gemini made is less is more and follows how I have designed for years. The idea is musicians/bands find local venues to play out. Which is an easy UI/UX .. a logo ... sign up button, header that says "Bands find local venues to play out," and a search bar below for them to search local spots. Ive done these sites for forever so I know how to describe a startup idea quickly to humans and an LLM. That's a unique skill yet can be taught quickly like stop going on and on about your idea i dont care give it to me in 15 to 30 seconds.

That's pretty disingenuous.

The people losing jobs to AI can't just pivot into the trades. When you think about it, companies announcing they're pivoting into some other area where they have no prior background is usually a bit of a desperation move, aided by the fact that companies don't need to be licensed in any way to offer particular services, other than maybe in the military/national security sector.

As for the second point, it's true that this is just old-fashioned supply and demand. I predict the outcome is that there's a rush into the construction/contracting sector followed by a bust due to either the tech bubble popping and construction slowing way down, or the replacement of construction workers by humanoid robots, or perhaps some better form factor like robot spiders that can squeeze into small places - all the benefits of child labor but with double the appendages and double the productivity!

However, I'm not worried about the possibility of a robot takeover. The American people's final safeguard against a robot uprising is the irrationality of imperial weights and measures. Robots are digitals and can't do fractions like us higher beings. That's why I'm building my data centers measuring everything in cubits.

As an engineer in the US - we already do all the math in metric units. There are conversion functions in the UI layer to transform our units to whatever you want to see. (they also convert metric units if you don't like the units were are using internally)

Well let me know when US stores stop selling everything in imperial units and framing is done in metric.

That's correct! AI is a negative for society no matter how you look at it. That's the entire idea!

I don't think that ANY project employs electricians and carpenters for long, because they are there to build something that will ideally last decades or more...

I'm not even sure it's as simple as "stuff people don't like." Many of the anti-AI crowd use ChatGPT which kind of complicates the question of "do they REALLY dislike it?"

I guess you could complain that robots will replace electricians and carpenters, but it's still going to be a decade before anyone trusts an LLM to wire a house.

>I'm not even talking about at work, I'm saying that a large majority of Americans are using AI of their own free will in situations where it's not required but is genuinely useful. The sheer number of people means that a lot of them must also say they're anti-AI, and my point is that whether or not they say they like it they're undeniably choosing to use it.

I don't think there's really a contradiction there. You can recognize the utility of something while acknowledging that, on the whole, it'd be better if it didn't exist.

If people are using it presumably they're getting some value out of it which means that most objections to datacenters are NIMBYism and not some kind of principled stance.

Datacenters are fine. They're better than most kinds of industrial buildings, by and large they don't illegally set up fields of gas turbines, and their water usage is really not that bad compared to other large users. They make for a few nice, high-paying jobs. Sure, they're ugly and large, but this is America and we have no shortage of ugly, large buildings.

>If people are using it presumably they're getting some value out of it which means that most objections to datacenters are NIMBYism and not some kind of principled stance.

No, one does not follow from the other. I might campaign against the building of a road because I believe the funds could be better spent on something else. If the road is built, am I a hypocrite for using it? No. The road is already there. Whether I use it or not, the funds are already spent. I may as well use it.

Something can be positive under a narrow lens, and a negative under a broader one. There's no hypocrisy in acknowledging both realities.

>Datacenters are fine.

Datacenters and AI are distinct things. Someone can be in favor of one and not the other, with no contradiction.

> Someone can be in favor of one and not the other, with no contradiction

Sure, great, but the two seem to be treated as one issue and opinions are rarely stated in clear and falsifiable terms. They stay vague because there really aren't that many good reasons to oppose them, and IMO sane discussion on the subject leads to "building these really doesn't change that much" or "AI slop is really not that different from any other kind of slop."

> The road is already there. Whether I use it or not, the funds are already spent. I may as well use it.

If you then hear about someone building a new road and you go "I hate roads and I resent these guys for building a new road" and then you go and use the new road too, I'm gonna be suspicious of your motivations because clearly you don't hate roads that much. If you said "I think we should build fewer roads because adding more lanes doesn't really work that well to reduce traffic" then that would be different; you wouldn't be a hypocrite for saying that.

See my above statement. Opponents of AI and/or datacenters rarely seem to say what it is about them that they actually dislike. Yes, I suppose they could be thinking clearly on the topic and have internally consistent takes, but then why the hell can't they articulate complaints that make sense?

>Sure, great, but the two seem to be treated as one issue

I don't care. I'm responding on the topic of AI. I won't let you treat them as interchangeable just because you perceive them as treated that way.

>If you then hear about someone building a new road and you go "I hate roads and I resent these guys for building a new road" and then you go and use the new road too, I'm gonna be suspicious of your motivations because clearly you don't hate roads that much.

Cool, but you've specifically constructed a person that fits your narrative. What you said originally what the sheer number of users of AI means that some of them must be anti-AI. You went from a deduced existence of a broad kind of person to an asserted existence of a specific one, with no justification. I'm not sure your opponents are the only ones guilty of not thinking clearly.

>Yes, I suppose they could be thinking clearly on the topic and have internally consistent takes, but then why the hell can't they articulate complaints that make sense?

I don't know. Can't they? I don't even know who you're talking about because you're treating complaints about datacenters and about AI as equivalent. Myself, I don't think I've seen anyone be just anti-AI in the sense you said, of despising the existence and development of generative models, wholly and completely. Some people are concerned about the business practices of the AI industry; some resent the effect of AI on the hardware market; some are concerned about the labor market (even if they don't think they're in danger of being replaced); some look at it from the more physical aspect of it, as you've said the construction and operation of datacenters. If you treat these swaths of people as just one person, it's small wonder you'll think they flip-flop from one position to another.

> If people are using it presumably they're getting some value out of it which means that most objections to datacenters are NIMBYism and not some kind of principled stance.

Something can have a great deal of utility to everyone while simultaneously causing damage to a subset of people. Electricity is universally useful, but anyone downwind of a coal plant is hurt by air pollution even if they benefit from electricity. It's not contradictory for those people to ask for stricter controls on pollutant emissions.

Likewise with LLMs, they can provide a lot of utility to enterprises and individuals, while simultaneously causing damage to those individuals.

Hordes of now-fragile white collar workers are currently trying to use AI to figure out how not to be rendered obsolete by AI.

People who live near proposed datacenter sites are using LLMs, while also facing spiking utility costs due to the AI datacenters, and maybe significant quality of life regressions.

Everyone is trying to figure out how to maximize their own benefit from LLMs while simultaneously trying to put the costs of this technological revolution on others, and everyone has different positioning in that race, depending on their skills, adaptability, and privilege. This situation will test all individuals, institutions, and societies.

>You can recognize the utility of something while acknowledging that, on the whole, it'd be better if it didn't exist.

There's a word for that: hypocrisy.

That's when you say others shouldn't use it while you use it.

I don't like the parts of the city that are full of concrete and (edit: lacking) trees. I still walk or drive through there instead of making a huge detour, I still use them because that's what's there, currently. I know processed food sucks, sometimes it's easiest to grab something that's quick to make or can be eaten instantly because the supermarket is full of them.

And even assuming it means hypocrisy, so? You think you'd withstand examination? Face the arguments, instead of using some abstract fantasies about some average AI critic that doesn't exist as an excuse. At least they're only hypocritical like everyone else including you, instead of acting like a 3 yo, "yeah but you're stupid, so".

No. That's not what the word means.

> I'm not even talking about at work, I'm saying that a large majority of Americans are using AI of their own free will in situations where it's not required but is genuinely useful.

Where is your data to back up such an assertion? I'm not even sure how you could determine "of their own free will in situations where it's not required but is genuinely useful," except maybe in a yes/no survey question, which is suspect.

It's also worth noting that AI is getting shoved down peoples throats. Want to do a Google Search? Congratulations, you're now using AI of your own "free will"!

> The sheer number of people means that a lot of them must also say they're anti-AI, and my point is that whether or not they say they like it they're undeniably choosing to use it.

Usually when people like you make points like that, they're trying to undermine the "anti" argument by implying hypocrisy. My point is "choice" can't actually reveal that, because the environment of that choice is too complex. The observation is a meaningless factoid.

But that's true of most carpentry and electrical jobs. In-house carpenters and electricians are a minority.

I was responding to the implied symmetry in the GP: the "employs" does not balance out the "unemploys", because the unemployment is likely permanent and the employment temporary.

And then there's the fucked up resource allocation: throwing around insane amounts of money, driving up the prices of things the people actually want, to build hated things for investors and billionaires, which is a separate issue.

The unemployment of electricians and carpenters is permanent? On a long-enough timescale, where we have much more advanced robotics, probably. Not in the near or medium-term.

The fucked up resource allocation is itself an indicator of wealth inequality. A generation ago growing companies had to go public to access funding. Now they can find all the capital they need in private markets.

wouldn't the analogy be Wagyu farmers?

resi has been drained pretty hard in the last 10 years, this just adds more fuel to the fire.

If Meta decided to pivot to a brothel and meth lab building spree would you consider that to be a worse, equal, or better use of their capital and the labour in the regions where they are building out this infrastructure? Why?

I mean, at least some of us would consider it better with meth and hookers than them ruining the internet with their panopticon shit.

Yeah, I'm okay with that.

Uhm, aren't we all allowed to have an opinion on what's best for mankind?

FWIW I am a high voltage test engineer.

I used to be an electrician.

I would prefer to build the substations that power machines for the benefit of all mankind, rather than data centers that feed the already wealthy.

For example, keep the lights on for schools.

You have a warped view of the world if you believe anything should be allowed to be built just because someone has the capital to build it.

These sort of moral grandstanding arguments are annoying.

There is no "moral grandstanding". I wish to live in a functional society.

You're framing it so you can't lose by making the argument seem like a moral choice between "have data centres" or "live in a functional society".

That's a fallacy, and it is moral grandstanding. It's a useful way to win internet arguments (and internet points), but it is just a debate ending strategy.

No, I’m fine with data centers, I’ve built one myself and I’ve maintained multiple.

I argued against “if you have capital, you can do what the fuck you want”.

> Who on Earth are you to decide what is the "better" use for labor?

> In capitalism, people get to decide for themselves what they work on

Feels like there are some mixed signals here.

just don't forget these are temporary, eventually there will be "enough" data centers, and none of these jobs will exist, so if you are planning a 20 year + career, don't count on this being the norm.

Nah. If USA returns to its senses we are going to need tons of tradespeople to build all the stuff we need for the billion Americans.

It seems unlikely there will be a billion Americans. Population growth is 0.3% and will likely decline further as native FTR declines.

> If USA returns to its senses we are going to need tons of tradespeople to build all the stuff we need for the billion Americans

You're missing the /s?

The only thing that has been keeping the US population from declining is immigration, and the US isn't exactly the most welcoming country anymore.

Fairly sure last year was the first year of US population decline in a long time.

Yes. Because until now it was propped up by immigration — and mostly legal immigration — which has dropped precipitously.

> There is no reason a fully qualified, even residential electrician cannot make 200k a year

Where?

BLS Data

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/electric...

"The median annual wage for electricians was $62,350 in May 2024. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $39,430, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $106,030."

Seems like there is overwhelming reason for one to not make $200k/year.

> Tradespeople have always been getting paid well with lots of work. > Most electricians will make more than the average sysadmin, senior developer or network engineer here.

Where are you getting this? The median plumber in the US makes just under $63k, which is below the ~$65k median pay for all jobs in the US. The median sysadmin makes over $96k - a more than 50% higher median. The top 10% bracket for sysadmins is also 50% higher than plumbers. Why are people claiming that plumbers and tradespeople are raking it in when they’re clearly not?

> The amount of people getting into trades over the past decade has dropped drastically

The BLS projections for the next decade have plumbers at 4% growth and sysadmins at -4% - in decline.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/plumbers...

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

Allegedly many an American 'believes' that Jesus will be back some time right about now. They are serious about this belief, however, it is never explained as to how he waves a magic wand and fixes the many, many entirely man-made problems we have.

But now I see the light. Jesus was a carpenter, right?

I am imagining that Jesus, with his carpentry skills, is driving right now in his Chevy truck to the job site, to help erect that data centre for one of our billionaire overlords.

Just saying, it could happen, and is probably needed to happen, if this data centre build out is to get anywhere near completion.

>however, it is never explained as to how he waves a magic wand and fixes the many, many entirely man-made problems we have.

It's explained in the Book of Revelations - Jesus comes back and kills everyone who isn't Christian (and actually most Christians too) with plagues and fire and violence and burns the world down to ashes. And then (something something multi-headed dragon something something Whore of Babylon) a giant cube-shaped crystal city drops down from space lit by God's radiance and all of the dead Christians come back wearing white robes to live there and eat and drink and praise Jesus forever and never leave because why would you?

And belief in this is legitimately a big part of why we will never take climate change seriously.

An overwhelming number of Christians do not believe this and do not interpret Revelation in this way. The belief that "Jesus will come back and solve everything instantly" is only held by a minority of small 2nd Great Awakening groups and a few outspoken Evangelical groups, and is unique to theological traditions that arose in the United States. The official teachings of the Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches, Anglican and Episcopal communions, Presbyterian denominations, etc and other mainline Christians don't believe this. Before you blame a group for ruining the world or rejecting climate change please actually talk to a representative sample of real people in the group you are making claims about.

Due to the southern strategy that has been cemented into 1/2 of the available political parties for the better part of the last 50 years, outspoken evangelical groups hold an outsized influence on policy at large. Evangelicals are also the largest donors to AIPAC, which heavily influences our society.

It doesn't matter that most Christians don't believe it. Most Muslims don't do violent attacks on civilians, yet they all seem to pay the price either in their home countries or in the US.

It seems world-wide, a hard-right extremist subset of religious believers are ruining things for everyone else.

> An overwhelming number of Christians do not believe this and do not interpret Revelation in this way.

It's actually not that particularly relevant what Christians believe exactly (and they do believe that the world will be destroyed as-is), what's relevant is what the actual crazy book says.

And if you believe the book that says crazy things, or perhaps you cherry pick and interpret the crazy things to your liking and convenience - his point stands.

And the crazy book days say that the non Christians will burn (for eternity?) in flames of hell and that great many Christians won't be able to get through the narrow gate (and also be tortured to death in hot lava).

An overwhelming number of Christians with relevant political and economic power believe this. Orthodox, Anglicans, Episcopalians etc. might as well be a rounding error compared to the influence of American Evangelical and Conservative Christians. Might as well bring up the Amish while you're at it.

You might have a point about Catholics in terms of sheer numbers, but... the only people still listening to Catholics are right wing chuds and Warhammer fans - and even the former aren't listening anymore because the Pope is too "woke" for them. The days when the Pope's word mattered are long, long gone. What happened when he gave his encyclical on AI? It made headlines for a day or two then the world proceeded to ignore the silly hat man as usual.

So I stand by my point. The Christians who matter as far as climate change policy is concerned don't care because as far as they're concerned this world just exists for God to burn anyway.

>Jesus comes back and kills everyone who isn't Christian (and actually most Christians too)

I don't recall this part what's the reference

Are you under the impression that after the seven seals and seven trumpets and four horsemen and oceans turning to blood and earthquakes and famines and everything leading to a new Heaven and new Earth that most people will survive unscathed?

The entire thesis of Christian eschatology is that everyone who isn't Christian burns in hell. And Matthew says regarding the end times "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

Maybe you should read your Bible again, it's pretty clear that Heaven is meant to be a very exclusive club that even most Christians won't get into.

>"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

It's in the context of describing false prophets? It makes sense.

>Heaven is meant to be a very exclusive club that even most Christians won't get into

This is just false. At least be accurate if you have a major problem with the bible? I'm not really sure this is a great context to discuss further.

I was just looking for your reference about Jesus coming back to kill all the christians. Unfair to spout these types of things without some sort of basis right?

>It's in the context of describing false prophets? It makes sense.

I see no evidence from the text that false prophets are being described. False prophets don't cast out demons and do miracles. I know the prior verse talks about false prophets (and do please give me a definition for that which doesn't encompass most Christians) but it's just an assumption on your part that this verse is exclusively talking about false prophets. False prophets don't tend to do miracles, cast out demons, and witness. These are people who seem to put in more effort than most, and are sincere in their belief.

>I was just looking for your reference about Jesus coming back to kill all the christians. Unfair to spout these types of things without some sort of basis right?

I never said Jesus was coming back to kill all the Christians, I said Jesus was coming back to kill most Christians and all of everyone else.

And that is simply and unambiguously the canon. The only point that can be argued is how many Christians are a part of the body count. It certainly isn't zero.

> These are people who seem to put in more effort than most, and are sincere in their belief.

No, check this out:

"have WE not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?"

They are not sincere in their belief. Real Christians believe and rely in Christ and His work alone. The people this verse refers to are to the end clinging to their own merit and trying to earn their salvation through their own works rather than rely on Christ's perfect work on the cross.

Saved by Grace alone through Faith alone.

> Real Christians believe and rely in Christ and His work alone. The people this verse refers to are to the end *clinging to their own merit and trying to earn their salvation through their own works* rather than rely on Christ's perfect work on the cross.

Man, this is bloody convenient innit.

"Yo, amma big piece of shit, but lets be real here, ain't gonna self correct that shit by my own merit and by doing good work!

Hell nah!

All I have to do is nothing, uh, i mean, believe in Santa for he died on the cross. That's all!"

I understand the point you're making, but the criticism underlying this childish caricature of the Christian faith is discussed extensively in the Bible in books such as Romans and James.

As someone else mentioned, you can read the book of Romans or the epistle of James to find out by yourself why this idea is absurd.

But simplified, say you have a spouse who you dearly love. And say you found out that said spouse would forgive and get over any nasty thing you did to them.

Would that mean that you'd start being evil to them just because you can?

Or would that be yet another reason to try to live up to what such a spouse deserves?

edit: Actually, I think I misunderstood your issue with what I said. To clarify, a Christian will strive to do good and be better, but knowing that we'd never be able to be good enough, and that we can only be/do good through Christ, so we never deserve or earn our salvation (hence Grace), but we put our hope in Christ (hence Faith).

Yes, yes, Christians will "strive" to do better, but never really have try that hard, because you know, it's never gonna be "good enough" anyway, therefore accept that you will do "sometimes-woops" fucked up things, and then just ask for forgiveness (but never actually do anything).

The incentive structure is set up to produce bad people.

Kind of reminds of the sight where MMA fighters brutally mash some dudes head in, and then afterwards starts praising the Lord and that only through Lord he has gotten where he is. Weirdest shit ever, and yet it's not uncommon to see it.

Imagine you have two neighboors - neighboor A and neighboor B. As they walk past you, they say hello and smile. But other than that they don't leave their house very much.

One of the neighboors prays for the humanity and wishes the best to everyone all the time.

The other neighboor fantasizes about torturing people and animals.

Now tell me, which one is neighboor A and which one is neighboor B?

That's right, you can't tell, because from any observable thing in the world, they are virtually equivalent, A is as good and as bad as B. Their inaction in the real world are virtually equivalent.

The only way you can tell who's "good" and "bad" is only and only through actions and results of their actions. Not their thoughts, best intentions or prayers. Only through their actions and results of said actions.

If they represent themselves through inaction, they are virtually equivalent - equally as bad.

Like if somebody steals your bike? Do you want (a) their forgiveness ("i wont steal again I promise") or (b) your bike back + due compensation for caused distress?

Thus - if you do and have done bad things - and you don't make up for them via direct sustained remedial action, but mere prayer and "asking for forgiveness", you're a piece of shit that deserves to burn in the deepest depths of hell.

For better or worse, this applies to so many so called "Christians".

You're right in plenty of what you're saying, that's why I'd recommend you reading Romans and James in the Bible.

But stuff like "but never really have try that hard" and "(but never actually do anything)" are your own assumptions and silly ones at that, you're putting too many people in the same bucket.

> If they represent themselves through inaction, they are virtually equivalent - equally as bad.

In regards to Neighbours A nd B, you're also right, but that's a bad scenario. Christians should thrive to lead a life that reflects the goodness of God and the grace they have received.

Some are rubbish at it, some are better and do amazing things. Same for non-Christian people, mind you.

But ultimately it comes down to: Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins. Are you going to accept that, repent, and follow Him? or are you going to disregard it?

The first option, if done from the heart, WILL bear good fruit.

> Same for non-Christian people, mind you.

Yes, but with Christians there's always some sort of thick-layer of self-serving dishonesty on top of it all.

Imagine a person goes out of his way and really helps you out in a tough situation, would you rather have it:

1. Be a person who does it out of his own volition - out of his own will and mind decided to do that - because that's the right thing to do!

2. Be a person who did it, because a book told him to do so - under a threat of violence no less (being tortured in hot lava!)

I'd always take (1) over somebody who's operating held at gunpoint (2) - threatened with torture for misbehaving.

> But ultimately it comes down to: Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins. Are you going to accept that, repent, and follow Him? or are you going to disregard it?

This is not a free choice! This is thinly veiled threat of violence!

And what happens if I "disregard it" (It being what exactly? Also - what sins?)?

Ah, yes, you get tortured in lake of fire!

The whole thing is just layers and layers of manipulative dishonesty stacked on top of each other.

> Yes, but with Christians there's always some sort of thick-layer of self-serving dishonesty on top of it all.

At this point you're just rooted in absurd prejudice, this conversation is getting nowhere.

> because that's the right thing to do!

Quick question, how do you know what's right and what's wrong? Who says helping others and doing good to others is the right thing to do? Where does that come from?

Anyway, if you think Christians operate under/from fear, you understand nothing about Christianity.

Peace.

> Quick question, how do you know what's right and what's wrong?

So, wait a minute, you've got no idea what's right or wrong - and you're incapable deriving and figuring it out on your own?

Thus, without delegating your thinking to somebody else or some book telling you what to do - you'd have no clue what's good and what's bad?

Imagine if instead of The Bible you happened to run upon a different book that says different things, like how killing the nonbelievers is right and blowing yourself up along with bunch of nonbelievers will guarantee you 10 beautiful virgins in heaven.

I mean, you don't know what's right or wrong on your own right, so you'd go ahead and do it?

See - if you can't figure out whats right or wrong on your own - without somebody else telling you (and threatening noncompliance with being burned alive or being promised immortality and goodies) - you are fundamentally incapable of being a good person, if only by accident - as running onto one book over another would completely changes your perception of "right and wrong".

It's pretty crazy if you ask me!

> this conversation is getting nowhere.

This conversation is going somewhere, it's just not going where you want it to go at all. Sorry about that!

You're making my point with your rebuttal. A lot of people think different about right and wrong, good and evil, than I or you do, and that's because they look towards different sources.

I'll assume you think cutting the hands off someone who stole something from you is wrong. But some other people think it's the right thing to do.

What? Are you simply morally superior to them? Or is it that you've received from other sources than them?

Long ago slavery was globally mainstream and accepted until 'some weirdos' pointed to the Bible and said 'Hey, maybe slavery is wrong, according to this we're all created equal under God so we should not hold slaves'.

But no, I guess If you'd been born a thousand years ago you'd just simply have the moral clarity of condemning slavery, honor killings, and other things the rest of the world was happy doing?

> So, wait a minute, you've got no idea what's right or wrong - and you're incapable deriving and figuring it out on your own?

Would this mean that good and evil as absolutes exist?

edit: By they way, you never actually answered my question. Again, how do YOU know what's right and what's wrong?

> Long ago slavery was globally mainstream and accepted until 'some weirdos' pointed to the Bible and said 'Hey, maybe slavery is wrong, according to this we're all created equal under God so we should not hold slaves'.

Bible does NOT directly condemn slavery. Kind of worse than that, in the Old Testament it accepts it and puts out rules on how slaves are to be treated. The statement that Christianity is directly responsible for - or has anything to do with abolishment of slavery is absolutely baseless.

As far as Bible is concerned, it's “pro-status quo” as far as slavery is concerned.

> I'll assume you think cutting the hands off someone who stole something from you is wrong. But some other people think it's the right thing to do.

What's right or wrong doesn't change one bit depending on what other people think or what some random book says.

The goal here is to prevent theft, recidivism and to wholly compensate damages, right?

So, if you can achieve that goal causing less damage and suffering than chopping someones hands off, then that is objectively the morally superior thing to do.

You know there's this thing called a human brain, and if you can't use it and on your own derive some sort of Negative Utilitarianism or alike as your moral framework, then you're way too stupid to be a good person.

A person who can stop doing bad only via threats of most gruesome torture and promise of immortaltity and blissful after life, and wouldn't have no clue otherwise - fundamentally can't be a good person.

Imagine you're a God and you want to create freethinking beings that have free will, but you (for some reason, huh) can't create all of them "very good" to begin with, but it's more like random process - and large amounts of people created are inadvertently "bad". (seems pretty incompetent if you ask me)

So you have no other choice, but spawn them lots of them and let them "do their thing" and then at the end of it pick out the ones act well and DO the most good, and do the least bad.

Now, if you told them that doing good will let them into "heaven" and the "bad ones" will be tortured and burned alive, you're literally incentivizing (some of the most gullible of) bad people to merely "act good" under threat of gruesome torture.

You've created fakes and pretend do goodies - the self-serving dishonest kind of so called Christians (ie. vast majority of them)

The ones that don't do bad things on their own volition and do good, because it's the right thing to do, but merely because somebody is threatening them with violence, and promise of eternal bliss.

Purely on societal level - if you can manipulate bad and stupid people to do less crime and less bad things - using nothing, but make believe threats of gruesome torture and such, that's a great brainwashing tool to have. That however doesn't turn them into "good people" that can be trusted.

> The statement that Christianity is directly responsible for - or has anything to do with abolishment of slavery is absolutely baseless.

I politely invite you to do your own research, so you don't have to take my word for it.

> What's right or wrong doesn't change one bit depending on what other people think or what some random book says.

So you do acknowledge an absolute of good and evil, right and wrong. Good. We got somewhere.

In regards to the rest, you're drastically limited by your ignorance and misunderstanding of basic Christian concepts, most probably conditioned by your radical prejudices and already formed opinions.

This conversation has become absurd in the sense that you're trying to convince me, a Christian, about what motivates me, or moves me, or about my understanding of reality and absolutes.

Keep your prejudices, you're free to decide, and you're responsible of your decisions.

You still haven't directly answered my question.

Have a good one.

> You still haven't directly answered my question.

I did actually!

> So you do acknowledge an absolute of good and evil, right and wrong. Good. We got somewhere.

It's not an absolute. "Right and wrong" exists only within framing of living beings or atleast the humans with a functional brain.

And humans who don't believe Santa and alike will derive their moral framework from simple axioms (such as pain and suffering is bad) that are universal across living beings on Earth arriving at something along the lines of Negative Utilitarianism.

> This conversation has become absurd in the sense that you're trying to convince me, a Christian, about what motivates me, or moves me, or about my understanding of reality and absolutes.

The absurd part is that you think this conversation is about you.

Not everything revolves around you. Ground breaking thought, I know.

> In regards to the rest, you're drastically limited by your ignorance and misunderstanding of basic Christian concepts, most probably conditioned by your radical prejudices and already formed opinions.

So you're attacking me instead of refuting my argument or providing a well reasoned counterpoint.

Not that I expected more from a Christian. Sigh

As one miracle is solved, another is opened.

I had the guy rocking up in his truck to spend a day doing carpentry for our AI overlords, and could not see the magic wand.

So now we have him solving the world's problems by killing everyone, apart from a few good people, so have we moved on from a magic wand to a magic wonder weapon?

We should be scared of this man coming back, not waiting patiently for thousands of years. Honestly, I try my hardest to understand it, but I see a greater chance of vast AI data centers in space due to a shortage of resources on earth.It is not going to happen.

supply side jesus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Jesus

What passes for "AI" these days hasn't successfully replaced workers doing even the most menial jobs. Several efforts have been made by massive corporations to get "AI" to take fast food orders at the drive thru and so far they've failed. While I think there are still some trials out there, "AI" hasn't managed to take humans out of that workforce and that job is so simple that literal children often do it successfully.

I don't think we have to worry about "AI" being capable of replacing electricians and carpenters any time soon and that's ignoring all the unsolved problems with the robotics.

It's nice to have sci-fi fantasies and everything, but in the real world tradespeople are going to be around for a very very long time. They won't be building data centers for that long though. This is a short term hike in demand that just isn't going to last.

Doubt we'll see electricians, plumbers or carpenters being replaced anytime soon.

Factory workers maybe but all processes have to be redesigned with design for robotic automation in mind. That will displace a lot of people and they will naturally go into the trades since the skills translate more easily so while I agree they wont be replaced there may be downward pricing pressure.

I hear China is doing a lot of this already to stave off their upcoming demographic collapse. I haven't seen raw details or videos though other than demonstration stuff (anyone have anything to share?)

“Every time you ask for another dollar in wages, a thousand more robots start looking more practical.” -Roger B. Smith (GM CEO in the 1980s).

Factories have been automating for decades. Last factory tour I took they said in 1950 this plant had over 2000 employees working, now (2019) about 200. Then he pointed to the laser cutter which alone replaced 150 workers with just 2. This factory is not considered very automated by modern standards either.

Yes I am very familiar with auto automation. They are amazing. Tesla went so overboard that maybe the ROI isn't even there for some processes (installing wheels on a car by industrial robot? They repeated the mistakes GM made in the 70s and 80s with being too early and robots being ripped out and left in the parking lots.

Already products are designed for robotic automation: reduce fasteners, make a single piece do more, make sure a blind one armed dumb person can put the thing together(thats basically the industrial single arm robots you have in factories today).

Still maybe this time is different...but to be fair I put the caveat that you must design the product from the ground up for this new kind of potential automation. (I was talking about the new bipedal vision robots not the old school industrial robot arms) What that looks like? Well the Chinese are probably cooking something up for sure and hopefully somewhere in the US its happening as well.

I think you'll be surprised about that. I'm not in the robotics field (though perhaps I should be) but at an earlier stage in life I spent several years on remodelling and building houses - as in swinging a hammer, not singing deeds and checks.

Repair/remodeling is challenging because you need (approximate) knowledge of construction techniques from across a 150 year timespan, buildings settle and change shape over time, and generally owners don't usually want the building completely gutted and rebuilt from scratch. But it's not that hard. New construction is relatively straightforward. The biggest challenges for construction robots will be handling dust/debris (25% of construction work is cleaning things up) and maintaining health and safety (of the robots themselves; self-preservation is a skill that has to be learned).

That said I don't think you'll see this with the current generation of humanoid robots. A lot of the design assumptions seem almost comically wrong to me.

Knowledge is irrelevant. Idk why you'd think dust would be a problem too, that's also comparatively trivial. Health and safety is also a good one, lol.

It all comes down to robots being unable to hold and operate anything in 3d space, much less precision tooling in arbitrary environments, which is basically what construction is. Everything in construction needs extensive planning, then to be done in the exact right order, with almost perfect precision.

The idea that you could tell a robot how you want a house remodeled and that it'd be able to go from there to actually do it is frankly asinine.

We don't have robots at all, much less humanoid ones, not even doing comparatively trivial, fixed tasks like laundry or the dishes, and you think we're going to have them manage the infinitely complex task of remodeling a house? Your mental model of robotics is completely wrong.

It's better than your reading comprehension.

Sounds like Elon months, that means a decade of safe employment at least..

More like 6 years than 6 months.