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40 years ago watching the Jetsons we all wanted robots to do the work for us.
Now we're afraid of it.
I personally don't think its going to be a disaster.
Cars replaced horses, planes replaced trains - America adapted
have you paid your dues, can you moan the blues, can you bend them guitar strings
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Won't be long before you won't have to post on threads, it'll just auto fill the argument and slip to the back page.
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Joined: Aug 2005
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Campfire Ranger
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this kind of discussion always brings out some interesting comments. no doubt the nature of work is changing.
and as more automation comes on the scene, it'll take some really specialized labor to keep it running. car technology advances has about kilt off back-yard shadetreeing, but a bit still here and there.
we'll have unemployment just like we have it now. what's lacking is productive work for the unemployed. duh? well, there's plenty of work. it involves the natural world, the countryside, the invasive plants & animals that need eradicating. other types of forestry and wildlife habitat improvement work. but, somebody has to pay for it. oh wait, we're already paying a ton of welfare benefits out in order for folks to sit on the couch, eat junk food, watch tv, etc.etc.
additionally most welfare recipients are not mobile. that's a hindrance too.
but there's plenty of work to be done. whether it ever gets done is another question entirely.
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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The jobs available will certainly change as robots and computers do more and more work, but the iceberg below that is that those robots and computers don't buy the products they make or the services they offer.
Productivity might soar and cost/unit might decrease, but without paid human beings who is going to buy those products?
People will adapt, the Luddites in the early 19th century destroyed the emerging mills and other industrial technology but that didn't stop the technology from arriving, or from people getting jobs in those new mills - albeit as low paid replaceable factory workers.
The new economy has to include people but the interim of change is going to be very hard on a lot of those people.
I read a short story many years ago about "reverse consumerism". I forget all of the details but as automated technology produced more and more goods with fewer and fewer people, government mandated that people had to buy the products to keep the manufacturers in business. Those at the "bottom" had to buy the most products. As you worked your way up the socioeconomic scale you could afford to buy fewer things, i.e. you didn't have to buy and consume as many. The protagonist goes to someone's hosue and envies them their simple plastic furniture, ashamed at the clutter of complicated gadgets in his own house. It was sci-fi of course, but interesting that the long term effects of automation and widespread robotic technology were seen 50 years or more ago.
Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery.
Hit the target, all else is twaddle!
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Joined: Aug 2005
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Campfire Ranger
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The jobs available will certainly change as robots and computers do more and more work, but the iceberg below that is that those robots and computers don't buy the products they make or the services they offer.
Productivity might soar and cost/unit might decrease, but without paid human beings who is going to buy those products?
People will adapt, the Luddites in the early 19th century destroyed the emerging mills and other industrial technology but that didn't stop the technology from arriving, or from people getting jobs in those new mills - albeit as low paid replaceable factory workers.
The new economy has to include people but the interim of change is going to be very hard on a lot of those people.
I read a short story many years ago about "reverse consumerism". I forget all of the details but as automated technology produced more and more goods with fewer and fewer people, government mandated that people had to buy the products to keep the manufacturers in business. Those at the "bottom" had to buy the most products. As you worked your way up the socioeconomic scale you could afford to buy fewer things, i.e. you didn't have to buy and consume as many. The protagonist goes to someone's hosue and envies them their simple plastic furniture, ashamed at the clutter of complicated gadgets in his own house. It was sci-fi of course, but interesting that the long term effects of automation and widespread robotic technology were seen 50 years or more ago. the rather scary, dark underbelly to your Story is that the implication is strong that the Third Arm of Gov't will allow re-distribution of profits/wages in order to "encourage consumption." big gov't, big business & big labor. where have we heard that before. and now add Big Welfare. there's jobs, but it's not where the workers are, and no real mechanism to pay the workers to accomplish those jobs. but food stamps and other types of welfare business is booming. it's a good industry to be in. lol. and thank you for not disparaging me and my other Luddite friends who are suvivors, mostly.
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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Read Jeremy Rifkin's, "The Future of Work". Prophecy being fulfilled.
The degree of my privacy is no business of yours.
What we've learned from history is that we haven't learned from it.
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Campfire Ranger
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If we can subtract the false economy of way too many government jobs - paying (often over-paying) neighbors to do a lot of work we could be doing for ourselves - the contrast becomes more clear. Our society started without much of such "service", but we "evolved" as a society and our economy has been affected much more than we might like to recognize.
Want vs. need plays in. My wife and I may never need to purchase one more "thing" for the rest of our lives (in our case, may have been true for the past 20 years) in that most of getting "things" is driven by want. So is production of those "things", and a much higher percentage of the that stuff is now produced offshore. We can deal with the cost of "want" if we choose to do so.
We "need" electrical power, fuel, food, etc. almost every day, and we have little remaining means to control those costs - other than to eat less, control our climate less, and travel less. I think that a good bit of this "needed" stuff is now being produced more efficiently through mechanization/robots/etc., and the ostensible savings are going to places not as good or meaningful as when it went to the pockets of folks who could/would do the work personally.
After, and also mixed in with, the basic needs of food/shelter/safety and a bit of human interaction, our chosen economics have more effect than ever before.
NRA Member - Life, Benefactor, Patron
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Campfire Ranger
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...and thank you for not disparaging me and my other Luddite friends who are suvivors, mostly. No problem, Gus. I've been a computer programmer for 35 years but my sympathies are with the Luddites. 
Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery.
Hit the target, all else is twaddle!
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Campfire Ranger
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And in other news, Fred Reed postulated the same thing you are saying in a column a while ago. Won't bother to repost the whole thing but he speculates that with an increased production and fewer consumers aka paid employees needed, there might have to be some form of minimum wage or guaranteed minimum income paid to everybody. How that would affect society could be awful for most. Ready: New Rossum’s Universal Robots: Toward a Most Minimal Wage
...What would be the effects of a guaranteed income? Godawful, I would guess. Some people, probably including those who read columns on the web, would read, listen to music, drink wine and talk with friends, hike in the Himalayas, scuba dive, and earn doctorates in physics. But most would get up every morning, bored, without purpose, anticipating just another of unending days of television, beer, tedium, no driving desire to do anything but discontent with nothing to do. Would the young even go to school? They would have no need. What has happened among the welfare populations that in effect have a guaranteed minimum income?...http://fredoneverything.org/ready-new-rossiters-universal-robots-toward-a-most-minimal-wage/
Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery.
Hit the target, all else is twaddle!
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Campfire Ranger
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well, this is the reality that is threatening us, right in our face. we've already made the decision, as a society, to do that very thing.
food stamps helps a lot of people, both consumers and farmers (producers).
and all the in-betweens.
but, what else to do? we have tons of productivity, either here or globally. so, the distribution of goods & services is challenge number one. in a true market economy, user pays, right?
but, in our half-socialized economy, the gov't re-distributes wealth for the benefit of all, using the police state (police power), to effectuate said re-distribution.
but, if there's a better method, we don't hear much about it, since we're a democracy at least in part.
there's plenty to be accomplished, but what's the incentive if one can get by w/free medical, education, housing, food, and other services. why, there's no incentive. and most people aren't all that crazy. and so much needed work goes undone/unaccomplished because there's no set-works that allow it to occur.
we've got the unemployed/untrained bottled up in the ghettos, both rural and urban. they receive their sustenance/subsistance from the feds. we workers/owners/investors pay the bill, and grimace. sure'ly there's a better way?
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Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
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40 years ago watching the Jetsons we all wanted robots to do the work for us.
Now we're afraid of it.
I personally don't think its going to be a disaster.
Cars replaced horses, planes replaced trains - America adapted we did not adapt at all. We just increased the number of folks that can't find work. A handful of folks produce all the food eaten in America. A handful produce all of the few manufactured goods still produced in America. 95 million folks are out of a job. It's only going to get worse. People, workers, are paid for adding value to a process, product or material. That includes government workers that just push paper around. People, workers, get nothing when they are not producing anything.
Sam......
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Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
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but, if there's a better method, we don't hear much about it, since we're a democracy at least in part.
Government shouldn't be in the charity business. The churches and friends and family took care of their own before.
Molɔ̀ːn Labé Skýla!
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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but, if there's a better method, we don't hear much about it, since we're a democracy at least in part.
Government shouldn't be in the charity business. The churches and friends and family took care of their own before. i certainly agree. but somewhere's along the line the gov't got it's nose under the tent. the rest is history. but, here we are. not where we want to be, but where we are nevertheless. if the Kennedy/johnson regime can bring change to America, maybe Trump and us helping him can also accomplish the same, only better.
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Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
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When those entitlements are threatened, we hear the wailing and gnashing rise in volume.
It's pretty loud now....
Molɔ̀ːn Labé Skýla!
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Campfire Outfitter
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In the past the more physical manpower intensive industrial processes that weren't readily adaptable and/or cost effectively converted to some form of computer based automation have usually been moved to facilities located out of the USA for the much cheaper wage/benefits cost of labor.
Doubtful that more extensive use of automation will change that practice much if any unless no loop-hole rigid enforcement of increased importation rules and tariffs result in automation becoming the lesser in cost and bureaucratic hassle.
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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In the past the more physical manpower intensive industrial processes that weren't readily adaptable and/or cost effectively converted to some form of computer based automation have usually been moved to facilities located out of the USA for the much cheaper wage/benefits cost of labor.
Doubtful that more extensive use of automation will change that practice much if any unless no loop-hole rigid enforcement of increased importation rules and tariffs result in automation becoming the lesser in cost and bureaucratic hassle.
there we have it. the drumbeat of tradewars off in distance just over the horizon. in a controlled economy ldrshp can do whatever it wants, and we'll live with the results as long as possible. in a free-market economy, more or less, we'll do our best to live with the results as long as possible. that is, if mfg'r don't pursue lowest cost mfg practices, at some acceptable level of quality, they may go broke?
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