The Big 6 Banks are ready to invest $90 Trillion in Climate Change, but you voted for a moron who denies its very existence.
Right, to think that humans cause climate change vs. volcanoes and other massive scale processes like the star in our solar system is just silly. I suppose we caused climate change on Mars too, which is why there is no longer surface water? These climate change wackos want to tax carbon -- that's right we humans are all MADE of carbon, yet they want to play a carbon credit game! IT is telling that Chief Climate Change Money Maker in Waiting, Al Gore will not debate the Heartland Institute's climate change experts for many years! Lord Monckton of Brenchley, a former advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, issued the debate challenge which Gore also declines. You see, it is Gore's new niche to MAKE MONEY, it's not about anything other than smoke screens and money making for him, else why would he HIDE from debates?!
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
Why personalise a generalised argument.
Who personalized it? It was meant as a perfectly general comment, applicable to anyone (including me). My response, and the use of "you" was playing off of his reference to "..rest of us..." and "...our own pollution..." and "...us all..." and "...our country...".
Please read it again. In context.
OK. The answer to the generalised argument is that retraining will only work for some people. if at all.
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
No, the possibilities are scarce when you're in the mid 40s and the only thing available is highly skilled jobs.
and when programmers, financial analysts, doctors, etc will be replaced, will you be harsh also?
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
Why personalise a generalised argument.
Who personalized it? It was meant as a perfectly general comment, applicable to anyone (including me). My response, and the use of "you" was playing off of his reference to "..rest of us..." and "...our own pollution..." and "...us all..." and "...our country...".
Please read it again. In context.
OK. The answer to the generalised argument is that retraining will only work for some people. if at all.
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
No, the possibilities are scarce when you're in the mid 40s and the only thing available is highly skilled jobs.
and when programmers, financial analysts, doctors, etc will be replaced, will you be harsh also?
Yes.
Tell me that when 90% of the jobs are automated, including yours and mine
Automation happens at all levels, not just factory automation. Agriculture, entertainment, financial systems, education, banking, stock trading, security, defense, etc., all have radically improved productivity, efficiency, quality, and effectiveness via automation. I've spent more than 30 years directly involved in automation. There is no argument that automation has allowed societies throughout the world to be more productive with fewer people wielding controls. The problem with automation, like anything else, is that if you apply it narrow-mindedly and without consideration for its implications on other things affecting humans it can cause harm. Narrow minds and blind loyalty to ANYTHING is almost always a bad thing. For example, we've had the "capitalism is King" argument drilled into our heads for so long by so many blind loyalists that nobody questions the fact that there are downsides to capitalism especially in terms of how profits get reinvested to create narrow wealth versus reinvestment to create new products and job opportunities. It's up to us as citizens of countries and the world to be more open minded and question blind loyalties that ignore the downsides.
And just to refute a related claim that keeps getting spewed on this forum - China is not a Communist country. China has multiple political parties and one of them happens to be the Communist party. But China also happens to be one of the strongest and most influential capitalist societies on the planet. Like everything else that affects modern societies it's easy to come up with pat answers to quickly categorize and compartmentalize problems in hopes of reaching a quick & easy solution. But doing so is almost never the best or even the correct way to reach a good solution. You simply cannot distill thoughtful human interaction that requires broad based down to 140 character tweets. Any leader who is trying to drive national or global policy and leadership through Twitter is doing so with his/her brain disengaged from the cognitive process. Twitter feeds the kind of thinking pattern you'd expect to see taking place in a bar room, not a boardroom. I'm sure some of you have had those kinds of conversations and they don't stand up to sober reflection or the light of day.
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
Why personalise a generalised argument.
Who personalized it? It was meant as a perfectly general comment, applicable to anyone (including me). My response, and the use of "you" was playing off of his reference to "..rest of us..." and "...our own pollution..." and "...us all..." and "...our country...".
Please read it again. In context.
OK. The answer to the generalised argument is that retraining will only work for some people. if at all.
Another condescender... wow...
Not sure what that means. Have you a better argument I can engage with?
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
Why personalise a generalised argument.
Who personalized it? It was meant as a perfectly general comment, applicable to anyone (including me). My response, and the use of "you" was playing off of his reference to "..rest of us..." and "...our own pollution..." and "...us all..." and "...our country...".
Please read it again. In context.
OK. The answer to the generalised argument is that retraining will only work for some people. if at all.
Do you think re-training or re-educating will only work for some people (if at all)? If so, why do you think that?
I'd be more inclined to ask why you don't? The projected future automation is going to put millions out of work if it happens as forecast without significant increases in wages or productivity (driver less cars won't travel faster) and therefore new jobs won't match the old. This is already happening. Semi skilled unionised labour replaced by minimum waged labour. Reskilling isn't possible if there aren't jobs and in any case experience matters. Very few middle aged people will get into IT if they haven't started there.
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
No, the possibilities are scarce when you're in the mid 40s and the only thing available is highly skilled jobs.
and when programmers, financial analysts, doctors, etc will be replaced, will you be harsh also?
Yes.
Tell me that when 90% of the jobs are automated, including yours and mine
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
Why personalise a generalised argument.
Who personalized it? It was meant as a perfectly general comment, applicable to anyone (including me). My response, and the use of "you" was playing off of his reference to "..rest of us..." and "...our own pollution..." and "...us all..." and "...our country...".
Please read it again. In context.
OK. The answer to the generalised argument is that retraining will only work for some people. if at all.
Do you think re-training or re-educating will only work for some people (if at all)? If so, why do you think that?
I'd be more inclined to ask why you don't? The projected future automation is going to put millions out of work if it happens as forecast without significant increases in wages or productivity (driver less cars won't travel faster) and therefore new jobs won't match the old. This is already happening. Semi skilled unionised labour replaced by minimum waged labour. Reskilling isn't possible if there aren't jobs and in any case experience matters. Very few middle aged people will get into IT if they haven't started there.
First, I know I'm capable of re-training and re-educating myself and assume others can as well. Whether they will is a different question.
Second, this prediction of mass unemployment due to automation (much like the Malthusian predictions of mass starvation) have been made repeatedly for a long, long time and never come true.
About 60 years ago there were about 3B people on this planet. Yet, despite massive automation and technological enhancement over that 60 years, there about that many people currently working in the global workforce today. About the same number of people working today as existed 60 years ago. That right there is evidence that we keep creating new jobs despite (or perhaps because of) automation and technology.
At one point in this country about 90% of the people were employed in agriculture. Now it is about 3%. Yet we are wealthier and better off than ever and more people are employed doing jobs than that previous time. In fact there are more people are employed doing jobs than probably existed in this country at that time.
Yes, automation eliminates or reduces certain jobs. But we have always come up with new jobs for people to do. I suspect this will continue despite the dire, dystopian predictions of some. Some claim "it's different this time." I'm skeptical that it is. This fear has undoubtedly run through almost every generation to date but has been met with greater prosperity and well-being overall.
There is a small catch, and that catch is that people need to be adaptable. Most, I believe, are. They have to be willing to accept and endure change, some of which may demand some effort on their part. Those who chose to not do that will almost certainly fall behind. But there is possibility and hope for most.
But it is different this time. This time futurists are arguing that AI will be able to 90% of existing jobs. If true then the remaining 10% of types of jobs have to expand to become able to employ the rest. You can argue against the futurists but they probably have some truth on their side.
Economic growth and wage growth depends not just on automation but automation that increases wages (often driven by unions) which offsets job losses. Factories produce more, workers earned even more, so demand increased across the economy. That link broke during the modern era. Wages have stagnated. Productivity increased but the gains went to capital.
Future automation is not even about increasing productivity except marginally. A driverless delivery van will go as fast as a driven van. It will be the same size. Profits will increase without labour costs. Wages will collapse for the driver (and in aggregate for the rest of the economy).
Adaptability won't matter. It's not true that you can change jobs to skill up past a certain age. The ex drivers are not going to become brain surgeons. De skilling is more likely - the surplus IT guy becoming a taxi driver (I've met many already) except that won't even be available.
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
Why personalise a generalised argument.
Who personalized it? It was meant as a perfectly general comment, applicable to anyone (including me). My response, and the use of "you" was playing off of his reference to "..rest of us..." and "...our own pollution..." and "...us all..." and "...our country...".
Please read it again. In context.
OK. The answer to the generalised argument is that retraining will only work for some people. if at all.
Do you think re-training or re-educating will only work for some people (if at all)? If so, why do you think that?
I'd be more inclined to ask why you don't? The projected future automation is going to put millions out of work if it happens as forecast without significant increases in wages or productivity (driver less cars won't travel faster) and therefore new jobs won't match the old. This is already happening. Semi skilled unionised labour replaced by minimum waged labour. Reskilling isn't possible if there aren't jobs and in any case experience matters. Very few middle aged people will get into IT if they haven't started there.
First, I know I'm capable of re-training and re-educating myself and assume others can as well. Whether they will is a different question.
Second, this prediction of mass unemployment due to automation (much like the Malthusian predictions of mass starvation) have been made repeatedly for a long, long time and never come true.
About 60 years ago there were about 3B people on this planet. Yet, despite massive automation and technological enhancement over that 60 years, there about that many people currently working in the global workforce today. About the same number of people working today as existed 60 years ago. That right there is evidence that we keep creating new jobs despite (or perhaps because of) automation and technology.
At one point in this country about 90% of the people were employed in agriculture. Now it is about 3%. Yet we are wealthier and better off than ever and more people are employed doing jobs than that previous time. In fact there are more people are employed doing jobs than probably existed in this country at that time.
Yes, automation eliminates or reduces certain jobs. But we have always come up with new jobs for people to do. I suspect this will continue despite the dire, dystopian predictions of some. Some claim "it's different this time." I'm skeptical that it is. This fear has undoubtedly run through almost every generation to date but has been met with greater prosperity and well-being overall.
There is a small catch, and that catch is that people need to be adaptable. Most, I believe, are. They have to be willing to accept and endure change, some of which may demand some effort on their part. Those who chose to not do that will almost certainly fall behind. But there is possibility and hope for most.
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
Why personalise a generalised argument.
Who personalized it? It was meant as a perfectly general comment, applicable to anyone (including me). My response, and the use of "you" was playing off of his reference to "..rest of us..." and "...our own pollution..." and "...us all..." and "...our country...".
Please read it again. In context.
OK. The answer to the generalised argument is that retraining will only work for some people. if at all.
Another condescender... wow...
Not sure what that means. Have you a better argument I can engage with?
I really don't. It's really tough when someone can't even see, let alone get past, his own condescension.
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
Why personalise a generalised argument.
Who personalized it? It was meant as a perfectly general comment, applicable to anyone (including me). My response, and the use of "you" was playing off of his reference to "..rest of us..." and "...our own pollution..." and "...us all..." and "...our country...".
Please read it again. In context.
OK. The answer to the generalised argument is that retraining will only work for some people. if at all.
Do you think re-training or re-educating will only work for some people (if at all)? If so, why do you think that?
I'd be more inclined to ask why you don't? The projected future automation is going to put millions out of work if it happens as forecast without significant increases in wages or productivity (driver less cars won't travel faster) and therefore new jobs won't match the old. This is already happening. Semi skilled unionised labour replaced by minimum waged labour. Reskilling isn't possible if there aren't jobs and in any case experience matters. Very few middle aged people will get into IT if they haven't started there.
First, I know I'm capable of re-training and re-educating myself and assume others can as well. Whether they will is a different question.
Second, this prediction of mass unemployment due to automation (much like the Malthusian predictions of mass starvation) have been made repeatedly for a long, long time and never come true.
About 60 years ago there were about 3B people on this planet. Yet, despite massive automation and technological enhancement over that 60 years, there about that many people currently working in the global workforce today. About the same number of people working today as existed 60 years ago. That right there is evidence that we keep creating new jobs despite (or perhaps because of) automation and technology.
At one point in this country about 90% of the people were employed in agriculture. Now it is about 3%. Yet we are wealthier and better off than ever and more people are employed doing jobs than that previous time. In fact there are more people are employed doing jobs than probably existed in this country at that time.
Yes, automation eliminates or reduces certain jobs. But we have always come up with new jobs for people to do. I suspect this will continue despite the dire, dystopian predictions of some. Some claim "it's different this time." I'm skeptical that it is. This fear has undoubtedly run through almost every generation to date but has been met with greater prosperity and well-being overall.
There is a small catch, and that catch is that people need to be adaptable. Most, I believe, are. They have to be willing to accept and endure change, some of which may demand some effort on their part. Those who chose to not do that will almost certainly fall behind. But there is possibility and hope for most.
But it is different this time. This time futurists are arguing that AI will be able to 90% of existing jobs. If true then the remaining 10% of types of jobs have to expand to become able to employ the rest. You can argue against the futurists but they probably have some truth on their side.
Economic growth and wage growth depends not just on automation but automation that increases wages (often driven by unions) which offsets job losses. Factories produce more, workers earned even more, so demand increased across the economy. That link broke during the modern era. Wages have stagnated. Productivity increased but the gains went to capital.
Future automation is not even about increasing productivity except marginally. A driverless delivery van will go as fast as a driven van. It will be the same size. Profits will increase without labour costs. Wages will collapse for the driver (and in aggregate for the rest of the economy).
Adaptability won't matter. It's not true that you can change jobs to skill up past a certain age. The ex drivers are not going to become brain surgeons. De skilling is more likely - the surplus IT guy becoming a taxi driver (I've met many already) except that won't even be available.
I don't agree that it is different this time. Since both of these are predictions about the future we won't know until we get there. Also, since your other statements (e.g., "Future automation is not even about increasing productivity except marginally. A driverless delivery van will go as fast as a driven van. It will be the same size. Profits will increase without labour costs.") are also predictions of the future, we won't know until we get there. But here's what I do know: These same predications have been made repeatedly over the past couple hundred years and have yet to come true.
"Adaptability won't matter. It's not true that you can change jobs to skill up past a certain age."
I disagree. But then I'm evidently more of an optimist than you are.
I explained the differences though. You need to counter with an argument about the future not an argument rooted inthe past . Previous automation increased employment because it was part of an agreement between capital and labour to increase both production and wages. Explain how that would work for driverless cars .
Nothing to do with optimism. Macroeconomics trumps optimism. You might have been the most optimistic peasant in the middle ages, and the most creative or most productive but you still ended up as a peasant.
If I had to guess, I'd say we will consciously and conscientiously merge our two present economic systems into some kind of creative, evolutionary benevolence based on Nature, and begin turning Earth into a garden. Ya'll are going to laugh at this, but I think Jobs's vision of Apple was uniquely directed this way, and Cook is quietly (more or less) following that vision.
I'd love to see this, but I'm half afraid that, based on current trends, that more and more wealth is going to be locked up by the top 1% and the rest of us are going to be living in a Matt Damon/Elysium-style world, begging for scraps and choking on our own pollution.
Not to launch this thread in a political direction, but Trump and the GOP seem poised to accelerate that trend, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while in turn cutting funding and access to social services and medical care.
The benefits of automation and productivity and renewable energy can be used to benefit us all... or a very, very, very few.
Hence my comment regarding tectonic (grin) upheavals. Without good planning, things in our country could get very dramatic... and extremely messy, with no guarantees that the future we get is the one best for us all.
Not to sound harsh or anything, but consider getting re-trained, developing a new skill, and re-inventing yourself. The possibilities are endless. Whether you want to "choke on your own pollution" or take advantage of the "benefits of automation and productivity" is pretty much up to you in a country like the US.
Why personalise a generalised argument.
Who personalized it? It was meant as a perfectly general comment, applicable to anyone (including me). My response, and the use of "you" was playing off of his reference to "..rest of us..." and "...our own pollution..." and "...us all..." and "...our country...".
Please read it again. In context.
OK. The answer to the generalised argument is that retraining will only work for some people. if at all.
Another condescender... wow...
Not sure what that means. Have you a better argument I can engage with?
I really don't. It's really tough when someone can't even see, let alone get past, his own condescension.
designr said: Yeah. The job counts might decrease in some way in some areas and in the short term. But really what happens is the jobs themselves change and are redefined in some ways. And then there is demand (and supply of of labor) for other things.
The problem is that we're facing a massive dislocation of work in ALL areas. In the past, buggy drivers might become cab drivers and then Uber drivers, or switch and drive delivery trucks or long-distance trucking.
But all driving jobs are at risk.
Nor can dislocated drivers simply switch to another field, like agriculture, or manufacturing, in that those jobs are also disappearing at the same rate.
It's estimated that up to 45% of the jobs that people in the US currently do today are up for automation in the next couple of decades. That's 45% of the workforce, and if you're one of the those dislocated you're not going to just be able to switch to another field, because people there have also been dislocated and they're also looking for work.
I'd advise that everyone watch the following video, Humans Need Not Apply
We in for some serious social problems that we're not preparing to deal with. Heck, with Trump and Company we are, in fact, getting ready to dismantle the structures and institutions we're going to need.
And just to refute a related claim that keeps getting spewed on this forum - China is not a Communist country. China has multiple political parties and one of them happens to be the Communist party.
That may be the dumbest statement in any of the posts in this thread. The Chinese Communist Party wields total control over the PRC government. Whether they are "communist" or something else is in the eye of the beholder but all the other parties are window dressing.
I explained the differences though. You need to counter with an argument about the future not an argument rooted inthe past . Previous automation increased employment because it was part of an agreement between capital and labour to increase both production and wages. Explain how that would work for driverless cars .
In no way was the industrial revolution "part of an agreement between capital and labor to increase both production and wages".
And asking to counter a specious argument about the future without considering the past is simply a silly request. It's your job to definitively provide evidence that THIS time is different beyond an unsupported assertion by nebulous "futurists" that AI will replace 90% of jobs. There have been few futurists that have correctly predicted the future and the gross impact of technology on society.
First, I know I'm capable of re-training and re-educating myself and assume others can as well. Whether they will is a different question.
Second, this prediction of mass unemployment due to automation (much like the Malthusian predictions of mass starvation) have been made repeatedly for a long, long time and never come true.
About 60 years ago there were about 3B people on this planet. Yet, despite massive automation and technological enhancement over that 60 years, there about that many people currently working in the global workforce today. About the same number of people working today as existed 60 years ago. That right there is evidence that we keep creating new jobs despite (or perhaps because of) automation and technology.
At one point in this country about 90% of the people were employed in agriculture. Now it is about 3%. Yet we are wealthier and better off than ever and more people are employed doing jobs than that previous time. In fact there are more people are employed doing jobs than probably existed in this country at that time.
Yes, automation eliminates or reduces certain jobs. But we have always come up with new jobs for people to do. I suspect this will continue despite the dire, dystopian predictions of some. Some claim "it's different this time." I'm skeptical that it is. This fear has undoubtedly run through almost every generation to date but has been met with greater prosperity and well-being overall.
There is a small catch, and that catch is that people need to be adaptable. Most, I believe, are. They have to be willing to accept and endure change, some of which may demand some effort on their part. Those who chose to not do that will almost certainly fall behind. But there is possibility and hope for most.
It's true that people adapt to change but the change that happened over the last hundred years or so worked out because there were new industries that could accommodate mass employment like vehicle manufacturing, retail, construction, education and so on:
The danger going forward is that there may not be more categories like this. We are in the first generation of the internet and global retail where you can click on a website and have something delivered to your door. There could come a time soon where a single human being doesn't interact with the product you get from the time it leaves the manufacturing line to the point it reaches you. Construction could be changed by technology like 3D printing:
They had a single machine paste strips of cement mix like a cake and built the house in 45 days (it looks hideous but it's the first attempt). Here's a lego-like assembled house put together in hours, they just print the parts and ship them like IKEA to slot together:
These retail and construction advancements would replace tens of millions of jobs. They can also greatly reduce the cost of living though, a huge portion of a salary goes towards paying for a home and automated transport can remove the cost of vehicle ownership but both would have to happen to be stable. The first thing that would happen is margins would just get much better for sellers.
You can see from the stats above how many people are supported by government employment now (add it to the education amount):
Part of the adaptation to losing jobs has been to create 'socialist' government jobs (military, education, healthcare). The private sector is for-profit not for people and people are an expense on the balance sheet. If the same trend over the last 100 years continued over the next 100 years, government jobs would be over half of all jobs but where does the money come from to pay for those jobs? But that's why the notion of what money is and what it's for and what jobs are has to change. Right now, banks have the ability to invent money in the form of debt, people can place bets on debt to make more money and financial services can make money from facilitating it. Companies can come up with empty promises to produce billion-dollar valuations with nothing to back them and collapse just as suddenly:
At the most basic level, a job is necessary to provide income for survival: food and shelter. The vast majority of people are working to serve those fundamental needs with few luxuries. If those are covered more cost-effectively then there is less of a necessity for people to have jobs or high paying ones. The transition may not be smooth. There are developed countries suffering high unemployment just now and they aren't just adapting magically. You can't just invent/supply a job in a capitalist economy if there's no demand for it.
The other factor is how much people are paid. What constitutes a job isn't very well-defined. There was a story about the Scientology group that demonstrates this:
This is the reality of what happens without a minimum wage. This person says they were paid 39c/hour for the 16 years they worked there. You could still technically call that a job but ultimately we're talking about social contracts where the value of the labor of individuals are being weighed up against each other. Does it make sense to have an unlimited ratio between the value of one person's work and another? Both are human beings that are only capable of a certain amount of output every day so how could one possibly be valued at a million times more than another.
The system we have now by default values everyone at zero. As soon as you are born, you are assigned no value. This is evident from the fact that people are left to die homeless:
We don't treat criminals like this, it would be considered inhumane. At the same time, in some other parts of the world there are mansions sitting empty:
People with several homes can only live in one at a time. The problem when it comes to resolving these issues is that it requires people to think of the needs of others beyond their own interests and there's little motivation to do this. This is why the capitalist system thrives. It depends on the greed of individuals acting as countermeasures to each other. This works so long as there is the ability to compete. There will always be some industries that everyone can compete in but look at new industries like the App Store. Buyers aren't willing to pay enough for apps so while you have a market of over 1 billion buyers, they don't want to spend much money so the revenues can't sustain a large amount of people in employment. You get an oversupply of product with low demand.
I think the main problem to tackle faced with the prospect of automation replacing jobs is in housing and making it inexpensive. Look at all the complex technology that goes into an iPhone and it sells for <$1k but a pile of bricks with a roof on it is 100-200x more at least and used ones never get cheaper even after centuries. If homes were inexpensive, automation could cut the need for jobs in half without any problem.
People with several homes can only live in one at a time. The problem when it comes to resolving these issues is that it requires people to think of the needs of others beyond their own interests and there's little motivation to do this. This is why the capitalist system thrives. It depends on the greed of individuals acting as countermeasures to each other. This works so long as there is the ability to compete. There will always be some industries that everyone can compete in but look at new industries like the App Store. Buyers aren't willing to pay enough for apps so while you have a market of over 1 billion buyers, they don't want to spend much money so the revenues can't sustain a large amount of people in employment. You get an oversupply of product with low demand.
I think the main problem to tackle faced with the prospect of automation replacing jobs is in housing and making it inexpensive. Look at all the complex technology that goes into an iPhone and it sells for <$1k but a pile of bricks with a roof on it is 100-200x more at least and used ones never get cheaper even after centuries. If homes were inexpensive, automation could cut the need for jobs in half without any problem.
There are too many things to respond to, but let me focus on just your last two paras, and make three points. The main thing you seem to ignore -- and I dare say, misunderstand -- about free-market capitalism is that it is based on wants, not needs. And you do not seem to allow for the central role of the price mechanism in equating supply and demand. Nor do you seem to recognize the fact that trying to have (I am paraphrasing someone else's quote) capitalism without bankruptcy or failure is like trying to justify a role for religion if there were no sin or evil.
Comments
Since when shitty Gore's documentary was an scientific paper?
And just to refute a related claim that keeps getting spewed on this forum - China is not a Communist country. China has multiple political parties and one of them happens to be the Communist party. But China also happens to be one of the strongest and most influential capitalist societies on the planet. Like everything else that affects modern societies it's easy to come up with pat answers to quickly categorize and compartmentalize problems in hopes of reaching a quick & easy solution. But doing so is almost never the best or even the correct way to reach a good solution. You simply cannot distill thoughtful human interaction that requires broad based down to 140 character tweets. Any leader who is trying to drive national or global policy and leadership through Twitter is doing so with his/her brain disengaged from the cognitive process. Twitter feeds the kind of thinking pattern you'd expect to see taking place in a bar room, not a boardroom. I'm sure some of you have had those kinds of conversations and they don't stand up to sober reflection or the light of day.
Economic growth and wage growth depends not just on automation but automation that increases wages (often driven by unions) which offsets job losses. Factories produce more, workers earned even more, so demand increased across the economy. That link broke during the modern era. Wages have stagnated. Productivity increased but the gains went to capital.
Future automation is not even about increasing productivity except marginally. A driverless delivery van will go as fast as a driven van. It will be the same size. Profits will increase without labour costs. Wages will collapse for the driver (and in aggregate for the rest of the economy).
Adaptability won't matter. It's not true that you can change jobs to skill up past a certain age. The ex drivers are not going to become brain surgeons. De skilling is more likely - the surplus IT guy becoming a taxi driver (I've met many already) except that won't even be available.
Nothing to do with optimism. Macroeconomics trumps optimism. You might have been the most optimistic peasant in the middle ages, and the most creative or most productive but you still ended up as a peasant.
I wouldn't even count artists as being safe from automation.
And asking to counter a specious argument about the future without considering the past is simply a silly request. It's your job to definitively provide evidence that THIS time is different beyond an unsupported assertion by nebulous "futurists" that AI will replace 90% of jobs. There have been few futurists that have correctly predicted the future and the gross impact of technology on society.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/employment-by-industry-1910-and-2015.htm
The danger going forward is that there may not be more categories like this. We are in the first generation of the internet and global retail where you can click on a website and have something delivered to your door. There could come a time soon where a single human being doesn't interact with the product you get from the time it leaves the manufacturing line to the point it reaches you. Construction could be changed by technology like 3D printing:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/design/worlds-first-3d-printed-house-is-completed-after-just-45-days-in-china/news-story/05c819dfc0dc6bf7ec0fd2abfed23edd
http://inhabitat.com/3d-printed-house-in-china-can-withstand-an-8-0-earthquake/
They had a single machine paste strips of cement mix like a cake and built the house in 45 days (it looks hideous but it's the first attempt). Here's a lego-like assembled house put together in hours, they just print the parts and ship them like IKEA to slot together:
http://inhabitat.com/chinese-company-builds-3d-printed-villa-in-less-than-3-hours/
These retail and construction advancements would replace tens of millions of jobs. They can also greatly reduce the cost of living though, a huge portion of a salary goes towards paying for a home and automated transport can remove the cost of vehicle ownership but both would have to happen to be stable. The first thing that would happen is margins would just get much better for sellers.
You can see from the stats above how many people are supported by government employment now (add it to the education amount):
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/21955000-12329000-government-employees-outnumber-manufacturing
Part of the adaptation to losing jobs has been to create 'socialist' government jobs (military, education, healthcare). The private sector is for-profit not for people and people are an expense on the balance sheet. If the same trend over the last 100 years continued over the next 100 years, government jobs would be over half of all jobs but where does the money come from to pay for those jobs? But that's why the notion of what money is and what it's for and what jobs are has to change. Right now, banks have the ability to invent money in the form of debt, people can place bets on debt to make more money and financial services can make money from facilitating it. Companies can come up with empty promises to produce billion-dollar valuations with nothing to back them and collapse just as suddenly:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2016/06/01/from-4-5-billion-to-nothing-forbes-revises-estimated-net-worth-of-theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes/
At the most basic level, a job is necessary to provide income for survival: food and shelter. The vast majority of people are working to serve those fundamental needs with few luxuries. If those are covered more cost-effectively then there is less of a necessity for people to have jobs or high paying ones. The transition may not be smooth. There are developed countries suffering high unemployment just now and they aren't just adapting magically. You can't just invent/supply a job in a capitalist economy if there's no demand for it.
The other factor is how much people are paid. What constitutes a job isn't very well-defined. There was a story about the Scientology group that demonstrates this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7571678/Scientologists-sue-organisation-for-1-million-for-slave-wages.html
This is the reality of what happens without a minimum wage. This person says they were paid 39c/hour for the 16 years they worked there. You could still technically call that a job but ultimately we're talking about social contracts where the value of the labor of individuals are being weighed up against each other. Does it make sense to have an unlimited ratio between the value of one person's work and another? Both are human beings that are only capable of a certain amount of output every day so how could one possibly be valued at a million times more than another.
The system we have now by default values everyone at zero. As soon as you are born, you are assigned no value. This is evident from the fact that people are left to die homeless:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2939651/Passers-step-DEAD-homeless-man-New-York-froze-death-steps-record-store.html
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/7-homeless-people-freeze-death-wealthiest-area-country
We don't treat criminals like this, it would be considered inhumane. At the same time, in some other parts of the world there are mansions sitting empty:
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/10/20/the-empty-homes-of-the-super-rich/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2558125/Rotting-mansions-billionaires-row-How-rich-richer-letting-homes-decay.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/25/its-like-a-ghost-town-lights-go-out-as-foreign-owners-desert-london-homes
People with several homes can only live in one at a time. The problem when it comes to resolving these issues is that it requires people to think of the needs of others beyond their own interests and there's little motivation to do this. This is why the capitalist system thrives. It depends on the greed of individuals acting as countermeasures to each other. This works so long as there is the ability to compete. There will always be some industries that everyone can compete in but look at new industries like the App Store. Buyers aren't willing to pay enough for apps so while you have a market of over 1 billion buyers, they don't want to spend much money so the revenues can't sustain a large amount of people in employment. You get an oversupply of product with low demand.
I think the main problem to tackle faced with the prospect of automation replacing jobs is in housing and making it inexpensive. Look at all the complex technology that goes into an iPhone and it sells for <$1k but a pile of bricks with a roof on it is 100-200x more at least and used ones never get cheaper even after centuries. If homes were inexpensive, automation could cut the need for jobs in half without any problem.