Vape shops should not be on the accredited employers list, how was this allowed to happen?
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@strypey I'm on the fence about "hobby businesses". If it doesn't add real value to a community, it probably shouldn't exist.
We should be diversifying away from jobs that are not future-proof. There are so many more enterprises that are needed: childcare centres, medical clinics, multi-use hubs such as libraries, do we really need yet another op-shop?
We've given tax-breaks to tobacco companies and accredited status to vape shops, but we haven't raised wages for nurses or hired more people at our hospitals when we know that we have a fast-aging population.
You want the regions to thrive? Bring in more IT skills that allow for remote work so that we have income sources that aren't just from agriculture.
As it stands, our priorities are messed up.
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@weekendspy
> I'm on the fence about "hobby businesses". If it doesn't add real value to a community, it probably shouldn't exist
Who gets to determine what does "add real value" and what doesn't? But that's a whole separate rabbithole. My point is that if these people couldn't run hobby businesses in the regions, they wouldn't move there. So although internal migration to the regions does happen, it doesn't necessarily help with filling jobs, even relatively unskiled jobs.
@strypey let me put it in another way. The current setup perpetuates the creation of lots of low-wage unskilled jobs that aim to funnel as much money into the pockets of the owners of production, while leaving the rest of the population struggling to meet basic costs.
We should instead invest in the creation of meaningful, well-paid jobs, that build long-term career progression in innovative industries that diversify our economy's reliance away from the main ones, namely: agriculture, tourism and real estate.
So I do have a problem with the tactless and directionless creation of lots and lots of dead-end jobs in our regions in the first place, because it keeps everyone stuck in this cycle of slave-wage renters propping up the lifestyles and retirements of landlords and those privileged enough to own a semi-profitable business, even if that business isn't actually truly sustainable, like constantly plagued by not being able to balance the books, often avoiding tax obligations, firing staff and throwing them into financial uncertainty because they have a slow season, and repeat offenders being bailed out constantly or simply rebranding to escape accountability.
So when you transfer foreign migrants to regional towns to do dead-end jobs, you inevitably get the expected outcome — a dead end economy.
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I agree with all of this, except;
@weekendspy
> when you transfer foreign migrants to regional towns to do dead-end jobs, you inevitably get the expected outcome — a dead end economy
You're trying to shoehorn anti-migrant sentiment into an analysis that provides a perfectly good explanation without them. Why? It comes across like you're starting with the anti-migrant sentiment, and looking for an economic justification for it. But there isn't one.
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If we fixed all the problems you describe, would immigration policy need to be adapted to the new circumstances? Sure. But mucking around with immigration policy is *not* a solution to *any* of those problems. It's a distraction from them, and a rather unsavoury one.
@strypey that's a lot of words to justify sticking with the status quo.
@weekendspy
> that's a lot of words to justify sticking with the status quo
This is a copout, and it's beneath you. How about you reread the whole thread, and *think* about what we've both been saying (maybe sleep on it), and try to engage with something I actually said. Or we can just agree to disagree and leave it there for now.
Either way, remember the ideas you put forward are not part of your *self* , so defending them is not self-defence. We're just thinking collaboratively here.
Seriously @weekendspy, if this ...
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/116960673521143154
... is your idea of ...
> sticking with the status quo
.. I'd love to know what you think the status quo *is*.
@strypey my take on sticking with the status quo is carrying on with the same kind of archaic education, employment models, and immigration systems, that don't seriously take into account the disruption that AI will cause across all industries, and pretending that our current employer accreditation is still fit for purpose, while a future scenario looms where even the regional hobby vape shops you seem to be defending can be fully automated.
We are not re-training and upskilling people nowhere fast enough to adapt to the changes that are coming. I'm not opposed to people moving here, freedom of movement is a basic human right that should be accessed by everyone, but if you want them to thrive, to sustainably make a living once they get here, we can't afford to be short-sighted. What do you think a high rate of unemployment would do for our crime statistics? The way things are, it's a ripple about to touch the edge. I don't even think a UBI will be enough to hold social cohesion together at that point.
It would be quite a utopian vision, if instead of being subjected to menial-labour, people can still be housed and fed as intellectuals and artists after most jobs have been made redundant, but that's not grounded in reality.
Instead of investing in future-proofing and genuinely bettering our lives using these incredibly powerful technologies, AI is being used to impose mass-surveillance and generating profit for a corporate backed police-state.
That is the status quo I'm against and I view immigration from that lens, it has nothing to do with racism.
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@weekendspy
Ok, we seem to be talking past each other. At no time did I defend vape shops, specifically. Like liquor stores, they're fundamentally extractive and predatory, and in my utopia this wouldn't be a business at all. All potentially habit forming recreational drugs, and drug paraphernalia (like vape devices) would be legal to possess and produce for personal use, including in not-for-profit co-ops, but illegal to market or sell for profit.
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But central government policy is a blunt instrument. IF you make a policy enabling employers in the regions - when they genuinely can't find kiwis to employ - to employ immigrants and give them a path to permanent residency, AND there are vape shops in the regions, THEN occasionally a vape shop will avail themselves of that policy.
The alternative is, the shop goes out of business, due to insufficient workers, and everyone who is working there ends up unemployed. Why is that better?
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@weekendspy
> the disruption that AI will cause across all industries
This seems unlikely;
https://disintermedia.net.nz/invasion-of-the-mole-trainers/
The current "AI" hype bubble will burst soon. Maybe this year, but certainly no later than the end of next year;
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-subprime-data-center-crisis/
Which means mass unemployment caused by existing "AI" tech doing everyone's job is not a real risk (more's the pity). Even if a Trained #MOLE could do anyone's job for them, which they can't;
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur
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There are many serious problems society needs to adapt to; like climate change, energy descent, resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and micro and nano scale pollution.
"AI" taking our jobs is not 1 of them. It's a *distraction*.
A distraction from real problems that can only be solved by taking back political control - and most our common wealth - from the 1%. Especially tech billionaires, who are using disproportionate control over our information environment to stop that happening.
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But I am curious about why you think this;
@weekendspy
> I don't even think a UBI will be enough to hold social cohesion together at that point
If, in theory, robots, automation and AI could replace all human labour, then we could live in an abundant world, where everyone has everything we need. Regardless of what kind of work we do and how (or even if we do). Assuming we keep a market economy for genuinely scarce luxuries, a UBI is the mechanism for ensuring that abundance is shared.
