lelio's recent activity
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Comment on AI, automation, and inequality — how do we reach utopia? in ~talk
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Comment on The comfortable problem of mid TV (gifted link) in ~tv
lelio LinkI think " Poker Face" is brilliant and like it much better than "Orange is the New Black." "Russian Doll" is somewhere in between. Every Natasha Lyonne performance I see is my new favorite!I think " Poker Face" is brilliant and like it much better than "Orange is the New Black." "Russian Doll" is somewhere in between. Every Natasha Lyonne performance I see is my new favorite!
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Comment on Startups want to geoengineer a cooler planet. With few rules, experts see big risks. in ~enviro
lelio LinkI am pro geoengineering. But this is what governments are for. Or international organisations. Profit driven geoengineering sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Money and free markets are a...I am pro geoengineering. But this is what governments are for. Or international organisations. Profit driven geoengineering sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Money and free markets are a powerful technology for achieving the things we want as a civilization. But at some point we actually have to decide and plan for what we want ourselves, and not leave it up the market.
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Comment on Laziness does not exist in ~humanities
lelio Link ParentIn the spirit of the article: g33kphr33k is probably not choosing to seem judgemental. They are likely trying to be the best person they can be, and we often don't have much control over who that...In the spirit of the article: g33kphr33k is probably not choosing to seem judgemental. They are likely trying to be the best person they can be, and we often don't have much control over who that is.
g33kphr33k, I appreciate you despite disagreeing with you. I think your neighbors are likely very similar to you inside, sometimes struggling, sometimes happy, sometimes confident, sometimes unsure of themselves and whether they are doing the right thing. I have a hard time believing that someone would consciously sit down and plan out their life. and end up deciding to get a check from the government for their whole life and then die having done nothing productive. It's hard to imagine someone having options but consciously choosing that path instead as their best possible life. How well do you really know them? Is it at all possible there is more depth to their life than just being "grubbies"?
I run my own small business and make a good living. but it's mostly because my life just led me to it. I had plenty of privileges, luck, and obstacles. I'm still forced to work hard to keep it going, but I don't really feel like I earned the relatively comfortable situation I'm in. I think life is really complicated, and we barely have any control over what is happening to us. We're all just being carried on down the river, trying to avoid the rocks and hold onto anything important to us. So maybe have some compassion? For your own sake, be easy on yourself, too.
I hope you have a good weekend.
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Comment on What cooking techniques need more evidence? in ~food
lelio LinkNot exactly cooking, but related. I've read and had people tell me I shouldn't keep bread in the fridge because it makes it go stale. They say staleness comes from crystalization and the colder...Not exactly cooking, but related.
I've read and had people tell me I shouldn't keep bread in the fridge because it makes it go stale. They say staleness comes from crystalization and the colder bread is the faster it crystallizes.Something about this always makes me feel skeptical. It seems too simplified and just sciencey sounding enough to make people want to repeat it and sound smart. I'd love to see an actual study or experiment on the subject.
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Comment on Which anime or manga transcend the boundaries of genre and medium? in ~anime
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Comment on How do you keep your home smelling nice? in ~life.home_improvement
lelio LinkThis works well for me: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01728NLRG That particular brand isn't necessarily anything special. I don't remember how I picked it out. But it does have a specific...This works well for me:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01728NLRGThat particular brand isn't necessarily anything special. I don't remember how I picked it out. But it does have a specific "Deodorization filter" you have to change it occasionally.
I can burn something and have the kitchen filled with smoke and fire alarms going off. If I turn this on full speed it smells completely fresh in 30 mins or so.So these filters can work, at least for me.
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Comment on Book recommendations, specifically in ~books
lelio Link ParentI keep seeing Cordwainer Smith and thinking I should read him. Sci-fi novels are my thing but I don't do short stories as much. should I start with Norstrilia or do you think a short story...I keep seeing Cordwainer Smith and thinking I should read him. Sci-fi novels are my thing but I don't do short stories as much. should I start with Norstrilia or do you think a short story collection is better?
Based on your description, maybe Philip K Dick would be similar? Do androids dream of electric sheep is a good one to start on. A novella that kind of fits your description and an easy quick read. Blade Runner is technically based on it but they're pretty different.
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Comment on Book recommendations, specifically in ~books
lelio Link ParentThe only David Foster Wallace I've read is the first 1/2 or so of infinite jest. Which I liked but still couldn't finish. But just based on that: For something similar in terms of unconventional,...The only David Foster Wallace I've read is the first 1/2 or so of infinite jest. Which I liked but still couldn't finish. But just based on that:
For something similar in terms of unconventional, convoluted, structure. Filled with a bunch of tangents and footnotes. I recommend House of Leaves . Its tone is a little more horror. Its fun but not funny. Dark, lonely, and scary even though it doesn't have horror tropes or monsters or anything, just the tone and setting are terrifying at times.
For something similar in tone to Infinite Jest in terms of being funny, cynical, satire, commentary, a little sci fi, and with good characters, I would suggest anything by Kurt Vonnegut?
Some of my favorites are Slaughterhouse five, Cats Cradle, The Sirens of Titan, Galápagos.
I've never read a Vonnegut book I didn't like. -
Comment on I fixed my dryer myself in ~life.home_improvement
lelio LinkThat's funny I just replied to another comment about how I fixed my dryer: https://tildes.net/~life.home_improvement/1ecw/how_do_you_even_find_quality_appliances_anymore#comment-c2fr Essentially I...That's funny I just replied to another comment about how I fixed my dryer:
Essentially I had a very similar sounding problem but instead, I replaced the board with a simple timer relay and a 3-position switch: https://envs.sh/FJ9.pdf
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Comment on Tildes Book Club - How is it going? Discussion of Cloud Atlas will begin the second full week in March in ~books
lelio LinkI had read all the books you guys chose except Piranesi so I figured Id try it. I just finished it a few days ago. And liked it, so thanks! I considered rereading Cloud Atlas, it's the one I...I had read all the books you guys chose except Piranesi so I figured Id try it. I just finished it a few days ago. And liked it, so thanks!
I considered rereading Cloud Atlas, it's the one I remember the least about.
But for now I just started Dawn by Octavia Butler and probably want to finish that first. -
Comment on How do you even find quality appliances anymore? in ~life.home_improvement
lelio LinkI have this issue too. For a laundry washer, I did a bunch of research and settled on a Speed Queen TC5000 series, about 2 years ago, no issues so far. It was $1500 at the time which I didn't...I have this issue too.
For a laundry washer, I did a bunch of research and settled on a Speed Queen TC5000 series, about 2 years ago, no issues so far. It was $1500 at the time which I didn't consider cheap, and it's just a basic top-loading machine that looks like it could have been made in the 70s or 80s. But everyone says they last forever. The company claims "they are built to last 25 years" (but only warrantied for 5 I think).
I noticed a decent amount of reviews I saw on Speed Queens were from landlords. It may be a good strategy to look at products marketed to or preferred by them.
So, this isn't a solution most people would or should feel comfortable with, but a while ago I decided to try and retrofit my appliances as they break. It has been interesting and rewarding. If you're technically minded and want a detailed description of how that went, that's the rest of this post. ;)
Please do not do anything unsafe based on my ramblings. there is certainly a safety risk here and it may be irresponsible as I'm not a consumer appliance expert, but I do work professionally with electronics in industrial equipment.
I started 5-6 years ago on my dryer. It was a cheapish Kenmore that we had bought used on Craigslist in 2009. We bought a washer-dryer set for I think around $200 for both. The washer had one of those knobs with all these settings, like "Perm Press", "Delicate", etc. on one side, the other side was a timer where you just set the minutes. From day one only the timer seemed to work right, the other settings would just run the dryer forever and not stop. So we didn't use them. It lasted almost 10 years like that and then one day it started stopping in the middle of a load, it would only run a few minutes and then just randomly stop and need to be restarted.
I had more money and time at that point and considered buying a new one, but decided to make a project out of it, figure out how this dryer worked, and decide if it was worth fixing. I found wiring diagrams online and after deciphering them a bit and just tracing out the wires to be sure, it actually seemed to be simple inside. The knob was attached directly to this clunky circuit board thing that controlled everything. The important safety stuff is all in these little modules or sensors so I could easily replace the timer knob/control while still leaving the elements in place that I didn't feel confident messing with.
Here is an electrical print of it when I was done:
https://envs.sh/FJ9.pdfI replaced the controller with an adjustable timer relay(T1 on the print) and a 3 position switch labeled HEAT: OFF/LOW/HIGH ("NoHeat" and LoHeat" on the print the high position has no contactor). I also added a 10-amp circuit breaker just cause.
The original appliance had the same wiring, except where the wires go to T1 or the selector switch, they would have gone to the knob controller module. I made a new drawing with all the modules in dotted lines so it was easier for me to understand and diagnose any issues.
It's a gas dryer which made me apprehensive about safety, but the module in the bottom right where I just pasted in the old print is a self-contained thing of pressed sheet metal and rivets that screams "NOT SERVICEABLE" to me. It controls and ignites the gas valves . It has the gas line going directly to it and only has 2 wires going into it. If those wires get 110VAC it does its thing and makes heat with gas. In general, I believe It pulls a decent amount of amps to heat an ignitor and then only when the ignitor is pulling the right amount of amps that indicate the temp is right it opens the gas valves. but there seems to be some redundancy and other temp sensors going on as well.
So I happily don't have to mess with any of that. I just control when I want heat and send 110 to the heat module when I do.
If you look closely the motor has an internal switch that will only allow the heater to run if the motor already is, that switch also doubles as a latch to keep the dryer running after you start it with the push button.
These appliances seem engineered so cleverly to be as cheap to produce as possible while also meeting safety standards. It's really impressive and kind of weird sometimes.
For example, check out the "Thermostat Heater". What's going on there is the thermostat is a single setting thermal switch, It just opens at one specific temp, like 150F or something. so when the dryer reaches that temp it turns the heating module off, then turns it back on when it goes below 150F (or probably 145F or something, there is probably a dead zone to prevent constant fast cycling)
When you want "Low heat" their solution is to feed 110VAC to a small heater attached to the thermal switch. So the ambient temp around the switch gets a little "boost" and, effectively, the switch opens at a lower temperature.Interestingly I had trouble seeing how any of the "Perm Press", etc. features would have ever worked. The circuit board was clunky, with no chips, just a few resistors and things, I didn't try to trace it out. The timer part was mechanical and physically moved the knob slowly unit it opened a contact. The other settings had no sensors or anything to tell it when the clothes would have been "done". I looked it up and some dryers have humidity sensors or other stuff. This one didn't have anything except what's on those prints. My best guess is that it somehow senses amp draw so it can see how often the heat is cycling and the timing of that somehow tells it when to stop. That seems pretty optimistic by the designers though, that some unconsidered factors wouldn't mess up that timing.
It's also possible the nicer models have those sensors and the cheaper ones don't but still have the non-working features on their knobs. But that seems dangerous to let it just run forever...Anyway, Those electrical parts were probably $50-$100 altogether.
I also went on one of those appliance repair parts websites and bought any parts that looked wearable, there was this strip that was like a seal and bearing in one that the drum rides on, I replaced that, a belt, and a few other things. Probably another $50 or so. I also sanded any rust spots on the drum and painted them with high-heat paint.
The drier has been working fine for at least 5 years since I did this. I feel that if it ever breaks electronically it will be easy for me to diagnose and replace whichever module is broken.
A few years after this my gas oven broke. It had a little LED screen to set the temperature. I found that the LED screen is just an adjustable thermostat connected to a probe that goes into the oven, when it reaches the temp setting it just sends 110VAC to a gas valve/igniter module much like the dryer. the LCD screen thing costs about $200 to replace. But I found you can buy generic oven thermostats that just have a knob and come with their own probe that fits in the same housing as the old one. I bought one for about $50. It's mechanical so maybe it will last longer. I just mounted a piece of sheet metal in place of the screen and mounted the thermostat knob on that. I also added an indicator light to show when the oven burner is on. because I've always wanted to be able to easily see when the oven is actually heating.
When my washer broke two years ago I thought I would do the same kind of repair. But its issue was the drum was loose and shaking all around. I took it apart and saw how it was engineered structurally to just barely be able to hold itself together. I considered redesigning it and making a stronger frame. But realized I would be basically designing and building a washer from scratch at that point. The $1500 Speed Queen seemed like a better bet. The hope is if it ever does break I will take it apart and find something worth fixing.
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Comment on CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living. in ~talk
lelio LinkThe last Question. This legendary Asimov short story takes this on. My thoughts are: We have no way of knowing what's on the other side of the phrase "develop civilization to its fullest extent"....This legendary Asimov short story takes this on.
My thoughts are:
We have no way of knowing what's on the other side of the phrase "develop civilization to its fullest extent".If humanity survives and continues to advance long enough we eventually won't be humans anymore. Maybe we will move beyond the concept of alive, into a realm of understanding that is as beyond us now as the concept of life is to a rock.
Carl Sagan said:
We are a way for the universe to know itself.
I believe Humanity's purpose at this time is to understand the universe. By the time that is accomplished, if ever, we will have transformed ourselves into something we inherently cannot currently understand. To assume anything about purpose or futility of existence before we even understand what existence is would be hubris.
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Comment on Year in Review: Your games of 2023 in ~games
lelio LinkThis year I got back into Minecraft. I bought it in 2010 when it was in alpha. My daughter was a 1 year old at the time. Now she's 14 and has been playing it most of her life while I have just...This year I got back into Minecraft.
I bought it in 2010 when it was in alpha. My daughter was a 1 year old at the time. Now she's 14 and has been playing it most of her life while I have just checked it out here and there. She showed me the Create mod this summer and it was what I had always wanted in the game. I had had conversations with friends in the first few years of Minecraft, about how it always felt like the end game should involve tech like automated mining equipment and big factories. Create is pretty much that, with a kind of steampunk aesthetic. its like trying to cram Factorio into Minecraft. It's more clumsy than Factorio for sure, but so much more immersive that it's worth it. And honestly create has way more polish than I expected from a 3rd party mod.
So I fired up a brand new survival single-player world and have been slowly progressing through the tech. I just last week finally got brass which unlocks a whole slew of automation stuff. I had to go to the nether for the first time ever and collect a blaze so I could smelt brass in a special heated mixing basin thing. I'm building all kinds of farms... It's been a huge learning experience not just because Create is such an intricate mod but because Minecraft has added so much over the past decade or so.
As I get older gaming has been so hard to find time and energy for. I mostly just want to do more passive entertainment like movies and books. But this has got me excited to spend hours playing in a virtual sandbox again.
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Comment on If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing in ~tech
lelio Link ParentI agree. Music used to be a big part of my piracy. from Napster to Oink, etc. Now there are reasonably priced music streaming services with almost everything I could want to listen to. I rarely...I agree. Music used to be a big part of my piracy. from Napster to Oink, etc. Now there are reasonably priced music streaming services with almost everything I could want to listen to. I rarely bother pirating music anymore.
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Comment on Alexander Skarsgård stars in ‘Murderbot’ sci-fi series ordered by Apple in ~tv
lelio LinkI just finished the latest book, "System Collapse" last night. I enjoyed it but felt like it is somehow predictable, and not really exciting or challenging. The series doesn't seem to be building...I just finished the latest book, "System Collapse" last night.
I enjoyed it but felt like it is somehow predictable, and not really exciting or challenging. The series doesn't seem to be building to anything. When/If another one comes out I am still looking forward to reading it though. I realized the books are serialized comfort reads for me. Like watching 'The Office" or like "The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon", the fictional show in the books, is to Murderbot. I'm not sure how purposeful that is and if I should have realized the symmetry several books ago. The books are each these little encapsulated stories, there is always action, violence, greed and drama. In the end, Murderbot always comes out ok and nothing really changes in the wider universe. They are almost willfully not epic. The characters and stories feel like small insignificant drops in an ocean of humanity and monolithic corporate greed.I wonder if the show will be that too. I hope they don't try to make it epic.
Also, I always picture a more feminine form for Murderbot, but Skarsgård can probably pull it off as long as they de-gender him a bit with make-up/effects.
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Comment on If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing in ~tech
lelio Link Parentyes, but only one standard-def version. https://envs.sh/uM3.PNGyes, but only one standard-def version.
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Comment on If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing in ~tech
lelio Link ParentI'll DM the names of the sites to you. But they are private torrent sites. and unfortunately, I don't have any invites at the moment. If you are unfamiliar with private torrent trackers. They are...I'll DM the names of the sites to you. But they are private torrent sites. and unfortunately, I don't have any invites at the moment.
If you are unfamiliar with private torrent trackers. They are a bit of a pain to get into by design. I think the idea is to have some kind of token barrier to entry to keep out anti-piracy authorities as well trolls/people with bad intentions who might vandalize the user-supported collection.
The barriers are basically social networking rather than technical in nature. if someone is interested my best advice would be to go to r/trackers or whatever other private tracker communities you can find. There are probably some good discords and stuff too, but I've been content with my memberships so long I've grown out of touch with the wider community. You can ask around these communities for invites or often private tackers will have official threads where they will give out invites for short periods when they want to grow the site.
Once you are on a private tracker each one has different minimum requirements to be able to keep your membership. But I've always found that part very easy to maintain. Basically, if you have a PC that you can leave on 24/7 and keep everything you download seeding for at least a few weeks then you are golden.
The best private sites are very hard to get invites to and have higher standards. So you may have to join a smaller lesser-known site that won't be quite as nice, maintain good stats there for a while, and then use connections there and show off your stats to get into a nicer site, and so on, climbing the ladder.It sounds like a pain and it is, I think mainly because it is illegal and not because of any practical limitations. But once you are on one of the major sites it is like a utopia. My movie site is like a cleaner version of IMDB except you can download every movie in whatever format you like. The community is obsessive about quality, there are no cam recordings or anything like that. If a movie is theatre only and no high-quality version has been released or leaked then it is just not available on the site. Any kind of audio artifacts, sync issues, burned-in subtitles or anything like that is unacceptable and the torrent will be flagged and removed within an hour or 2. I don't even remember seeing anything like that in years, most of the quality flags I see are about weird codec/frame rate complaints that I barely understand and would have never noticed, but people still argue about them and compete to upload "fixed" versions of the movie. The site has a linked database of cast and crew for every movie so you can quickly browse everything an actor/director has done and quickly download whatever you are interested in. There are curated collections of movies like AFIs top 100 etc. Each movie has its ratings based on internal site user ratings as well as meta critic and IMDB ratings with links. There are top 10 active lists for day/week/month/year so you can see what is popular. It feels like a peek at how great the internet could be if it wasn't profit-driven. Kind of like Wikipedia (or Tildes ;) ).
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Comment on If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing in ~tech
lelio LinkFor decades I have pirated at least 90% of the movies and TV shows I watch. I used to keep various subscriptions through Netflix, HBO, Hulu, amazon, etc. to feel like I wasn't completely leeching...For decades I have pirated at least 90% of the movies and TV shows I watch. I used to keep various subscriptions through Netflix, HBO, Hulu, amazon, etc. to feel like I wasn't completely leeching off the hard work and creativity that I know people put into the content. The streaming services themselves are such crap and so inconvenient compared to pirating that I rarely use them. Instead, I just download whatever movie I want to watch from one well-organized website that has every movie ever made in any format ever published. For TV shows, I go to a separate but similarly organized website with an all-encompassing collection of every TV show ever published. This year the strikes got me thinking, I'm giving my money to the wrong people, and I just started donating $20 a month to the Entertainment Community fund instead: https://entertainmentcommunity.org/
I know I'm playing fast and loose with morality here and this doesn't really absolve me of anything. I'm still stealing. But in the grand scheme of things, I feel pretty ok about it.
I had a naive but fun, pie-in-the-sky idea: What if the entertainment unions somehow negotiated a deal with the MPA etc. for a fund that went directly to union members with the lowest incomes. The consumers/pirate-philanthropists who paid a minimum amount into that fund (probably closer to a few hundred a month) would get some kind of waiver or soft agreement that the MPA at least would not actively prosecute them for piracy of union-made movies and TV shows.
It probably wouldn't be that popular and the MPA could still do all their DRM nonsense and go after the majority of pirates if they want. Not much would change from how it is now really, except some union entertainment people might get a little help. and movie production companies might get better-compensated employees without having to pay for it. the pirates wouldn't be exactly safe legally, but it would at least be a sanctioned way of paying into the entertainment industry without participating in all this DRM, fractured-streaming platforms, Intellectual property nonsense. Win-Win right?
It would never happen, but fun to think about. Imagine a kind of sandboxed entertainment industry socialism/basic income scheme. It seems to me distribution is no longer of any value for digital content. We just need to make sure the people who actually make things get paid. once a thing is made, present-day communication technology allows amateurs to distribute content much more efficiently and conveniently with low enough server costs that donations can easily cover them.
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Comment on Apparently I'm autistic? in ~health.mental
lelio Link ParentThanks for that. Because of my own ignorance, I think I had a flawed interpretation of the word 'neurotypical' as meaning someone who has a normal brain that is compatible with society. For...Thanks for that. Because of my own ignorance, I think I had a flawed interpretation of the word 'neurotypical' as meaning someone who has a normal brain that is compatible with society. For example, a person suffering from severe depression, a debilitating phobia, addicts, etc wouldn't have occurred to me as "neurotypical" before reading your comment.
But after your post and a few casual searches, it looks as though "neurotypical" is primarily used in the context of specifically neurodevelopmental conditions. Mainly Autism and ADHD. I hadn't realized that it was that narrow of a definition.
Maybe OBLIVIATER was thinking something similar?It makes sense that someone saying that everyone is a little autistic and no one is neurotypical would then seem dismissive. It's as if they are diminishing the significant (but minority) of people with neurodevelopmental conditions who struggle to survive in a society that usually doesn't make room for them. Neurodivergent people are surely an issue we need to put resources towards, into immediate help for individuals who need it and into long-term projects to understand and reshape society to make room for neurodivergent people. Since they have as much tangible, practical, value as anyone else. We're losing out in ways it's hard to even anticipate with every human that gets left out of society.
I've liked these words (Neurodivergent/Neurotypical) ever since I first heard them, even if they didn't mean exactly what I thought. It feels to me like an elegant way of saying different without making a judgment on whether something is a disability or not. It also seems to be a very practical word when looking at how the world works in specific ways. For example, the ambient noise of a room may strongly affect a minority of people who are sensitive to that versus the majority of "Neurotypical" people who generally find ambient noise levels fall within their comfort range because society is designed for them. Even with my previous wider definition, I would have understood the meaning and usefulness of Neurotypical to mean the majority of people in the context of ambient noise experience.
Please forgive any ignorance or offense, and educate me if there is a flaw I'm not considering. Would it be reasonable to advocate for using these words to apply to more contexts? Neurotypical could be a theoretical construct of how most brains work in a certain context of society. It seems like it would be in the same spirit of both removing judgment and helping address the needs of people who struggle to fit into a society that doesn't have room for them because of the way their brain works. If the definition of Neurotypical was a human individual who can move through every aspect of society with ease because their brain is the most typical one in every respect and context, then I don't think there would be any truly neurotypical people.
Even an individual's sexuality in some contexts could break that definition. I think every human experiences feelings of isolation and disconnection from the "norms" in some aspect of their behavior, if only in fleeting moments or rare types of interactions with society, Some people have a lucky enough dice roll that they can mask it, or find workarounds easily enough to get by alright or even hide their differences. For others, I think that's impossible and some people need more help just to be able to survive in our current society. Working to expand society to fit brains of all kinds can help both those groups.
I can see how there is value in differentiating between hereditary issues and issues that are from trauma or other external sources, like nature vs nurture. But my understanding was there was strong statistical evidence that autism is hereditary but the mechanics/genes aren't well understood. My science may be way behind on that. but I also thought the same was true in general for alcohol abuse as well. How well do we understand the brain at this point and what behaviors are genetic vs experiential? I thought it was still just a confusing mix of both, interacting in ways we don't quite understand yet.
I can also see a value in specifying "developmental" neurodivergence. Is that why Autism/ADHD/Dyslexia are considered Neurodivergent before these other conditions would be? Because they are conditions that affect how our brains learn? That does seem significant, but I'm not sure I see a clear dividing line there. I'll have to think about it and this comment is long enough.
Thanks for inspiring an interesting tangent for me tonight! [6]
Agreed, I think progress in social organization is more important than technological progress in this moment.
But I think there is strong feedback between the two. Technological progress is hampered by our superstitious reverence of the free market. Job creation is seen as a good thing. So there is natural pressure against increasing efficiency. Greed will drive companies to lay off employees whenever it's beneficial, but the short term profitability of paying humans as little as possible to do tasks that could be done more efficiently and safely by automated process is the norm in the manufacturing industry.
We have the tech now to automate away millions of jobs and provide much more wealth for humans. But it requires a huge upfront expense to develop those automation techniques and workout all the bugs. Our current economy very rarely allows companies to have that kind of long term planning. Instead it's just a matter of doing everything as cheaply as possible to stay competitive day to day.
If we took care of people regardless of their employment status, and incentivesed long term strategies like automation, those strategies would become cheaper very quickly as we developed economies of scale and established a knowledge base and standardized tools for setting them up.
So there is room and, I think, merit in politicians discussing advancements in technology and increased wealth for all as a result of eliminating poverty by mindfully and deliberately distributing resources more equally.