You might not like what I have to say about this, but I've been doing a great deal of thinking about automation the last few 20 years or so, and it's actually quite good, here's why:
In the beginning - automation is going to cost us regular people a lot, we're going to see a rise in poverty, unemployment and people on welfare, well - needlessly to say that's ofc. bad! But only for a short term, and by short term I'm talking roughly 10-15 years.
Automation makes life easier for us, we can concentrate on higher education and things we WANT to do in life, after all isn't that the goal of your life? To do what you want and pursue your dreams? Not work in a repetitive soulless mind destroying job that just wears you out before time and doesn't really contribute to anything.
So eventually we will introduce Basic Income. Yes yes, I know what you're saying right now, you're probably yelling at the screen that it has been tried before and failed - well, that's because our society ain't fully automated yet, and people still fight for the simple jobs that doesn't require an education. When that time comes - there will MASS uproar on the streets, politicians will have to do something, wealthy people start to worry about their life and all hell breaks lose. This is INEVITABLE before things stabilize.
Several research teams have tested (amongst in Finland) this theory, that people will not automatically become lazy and without aspirations in life, on the countrary - people will now seek things to do, but more like things they WANT to do, and that means we will have people BETTER at what they DO - rather than people forced to do it for money!
Computer automation has been creating jobs for over half a century and will continue to do so. We have jobs that didn't even exist before automation, in manufacturing, distribution, sales, marketing, engineering,maintenance, accessories. It's a job maker.
Ultimately, demand for products and services is what ultimately creates jobs. They are provided for by energy and resources. Automation can allow you to do so more efficiently, but it doesn't create demand, although automation of farming, etc., can result in more resources. Marketing can help create demand.
Keep in mind that computers automate a lot of work that companies used to use masses of clerks and secretaries and accountants to do. Take a look at some pictures from the 1940s or earlier, and check out the floors of secretaries doing all sorts of paperwork that computers can now easily accomplish mostly on their own, or at least with far fewer workers.
That being said, it's absolutely true that computers have created entirely new industries. My own job, programming videogames, is part of a brand new indu
The training for new jobs is for the *next* generation of workers, not for retraining the current generation. And that is a major problem. As long as the time to retrain was short enough, it was a virtuous cycle. We're reaching the point where retraining may not be an option given the level of skill needed for the new jobs.
Wrong, I've had to learn many new skills for my current job I've had for almost a decade. You seem to be advocating a system where people are unwilling and unable to learn anything new. That won't fly. Didn't fly a hundred years ago and doesn't fly now. Best get off your ass and improve your skills.
New skills in a job is not the same as an entirely new career. A new career doesn't leverage existing skills and takes considerable time. I'm a great programmer. If you asked me tomorrow to pick up woodworking, I won't be able to make a living at it. I know because I've spent the last two years slowly acquiring the skills for woodworking as a potential second career! If I had to transition quickly to woodworking, I'd need a lot of savings to see me through the retraining period. And, yes, it did fly
Nonsense, my father, a machinist, had to learn CNC and then later the PLC that the presses and milling machines he made were using. My brother, mechanic and in late 50s like me, had to learn the electronic systems and OBD trucks, buses and cars now have. My mother, secretary, had to learn merging punched tape word processing systems, then later PC with word processor. My grandfather went from baker to coal miner to farmer.
Stay on the bus of change and learning or get run over by it.
Impressive. Most people I've met could not do what your family did. More than a few are lucky to be flipping burgers as adults. One person in front of the bus gets run over. But put enough people there, the bus stops.
Is it really that impressive when of necessity to stay employed?
I've changed careers a few times too, various engineering, IT or project management... for more money each time because wife and kids are expensive hobbies.
what nonsense you spew. All jobs require training. Employers train for many jobs, people have to train themselves for others and that also creates jobs. Get it out of your skull that higher level of training and education needed is a bad thing, no it's a good thing that creates jobs in itself. A job needing a lot of training pays more. There was no problem, there is no problem.
Or would all those airlines and hotels exist if you could not simply book your travel online?
30 years ago, I was dependent on an travel agency to buy either a plane ticket or a hotel reservation. And they had to call in front of my eyes if there are still slots free.
Or just take the plane only and see if I find a cheap enough hotel for my budget at that time (or sleep at the beach, which was frowned upon by local authorities).
Now I have two windows open, in one I shuffle flight schedules, in the other
How many jobs did it create? How many jobs did it annihilate? And what level of qualification was required for the old jobs and is required for those new ones?
The thing is that you cannot just train any person to do everything. People are not fungible. What's easy for one person is insurmountable for another one.
There is currently a huge shortage of good computer security people. Unfortunately you can't just take the average day laborer and train him to become a security professional. It just isn't in the cards.
meanwhile construction and certain manufacturing sector jobs (e.g. transportation related) are going up. Energy production from mining to alternative energy, up. Jobs jobs jobs... but not for the lazy and unmotivated.
> wealthy people start to worry about their life and all hell breaks lose.
I used to believe this, but I've come to realize that automation and computerization may solve that problem in a very different way. Looking at what is happening in places around the world, it's becoming easier to control the base population with an ever shrinking number of soldiers. Instead of shifting to basic income, there may just be a wholesale caging and erasing of anyone who tries to get angry at the system.
Looking back through history, this will not happen on its own. If history serves as a suggestion, there are two ways this can happen. Either by us having the insight to create it peacefully or them taking it by force.
The latter usually results in less overall prosperity, a lot of bloodshed and generally a 10-70 years detour before arriving at what we could've had peacefully.
"You must have an IQ of at least half a million." -- Popeye
It is going to hurt before it will be good! (Score:2)
You might not like what I have to say about this, but I've been doing a great deal of thinking about automation the last few 20 years or so, and it's actually quite good, here's why:
In the beginning - automation is going to cost us regular people a lot, we're going to see a rise in poverty, unemployment and people on welfare, well - needlessly to say that's ofc. bad! But only for a short term, and by short term I'm talking roughly 10-15 years.
Automation makes life easier for us, we can concentrate on higher education and things we WANT to do in life, after all isn't that the goal of your life? To do what you want and pursue your dreams? Not work in a repetitive soulless mind destroying job that just wears you out before time and doesn't really contribute to anything.
So eventually we will introduce Basic Income. Yes yes, I know what you're saying right now, you're probably yelling at the screen that it has been tried before and failed - well, that's because our society ain't fully automated yet, and people still fight for the simple jobs that doesn't require an education. When that time comes - there will MASS uproar on the streets, politicians will have to do something, wealthy people start to worry about their life and all hell breaks lose. This is INEVITABLE before things stabilize.
Several research teams have tested (amongst in Finland) this theory, that people will not automatically become lazy and without aspirations in life, on the countrary - people will now seek things to do, but more like things they WANT to do, and that means we will have people BETTER at what they DO - rather than people forced to do it for money!
It'll work, just give it time.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Computer automation has been creating jobs for over half a century and will continue to do so. We have jobs that didn't even exist before automation, in manufacturing, distribution, sales, marketing, engineering,maintenance, accessories. It's a job maker.
Re: It is going to hurt before it will be good! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Keep in mind that computers automate a lot of work that companies used to use masses of clerks and secretaries and accountants to do. Take a look at some pictures from the 1940s or earlier, and check out the floors of secretaries doing all sorts of paperwork that computers can now easily accomplish mostly on their own, or at least with far fewer workers.
That being said, it's absolutely true that computers have created entirely new industries. My own job, programming videogames, is part of a brand new indu
Re: (Score:2)
The training for new jobs is for the *next* generation of workers, not for retraining the current generation. And that is a major problem. As long as the time to retrain was short enough, it was a virtuous cycle. We're reaching the point where retraining may not be an option given the level of skill needed for the new jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong, I've had to learn many new skills for my current job I've had for almost a decade. You seem to be advocating a system where people are unwilling and unable to learn anything new. That won't fly. Didn't fly a hundred years ago and doesn't fly now. Best get off your ass and improve your skills.
Re: (Score:2)
New skills in a job is not the same as an entirely new career. A new career doesn't leverage existing skills and takes considerable time. I'm a great programmer. If you asked me tomorrow to pick up woodworking, I won't be able to make a living at it. I know because I've spent the last two years slowly acquiring the skills for woodworking as a potential second career! If I had to transition quickly to woodworking, I'd need a lot of savings to see me through the retraining period.
And, yes, it did fly
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense, my father, a machinist, had to learn CNC and then later the PLC that the presses and milling machines he made were using. My brother, mechanic and in late 50s like me, had to learn the electronic systems and OBD trucks, buses and cars now have. My mother, secretary, had to learn merging punched tape word processing systems, then later PC with word processor. My grandfather went from baker to coal miner to farmer.
Stay on the bus of change and learning or get run over by it.
Re: (Score:2)
Impressive. Most people I've met could not do what your family did. More than a few are lucky to be flipping burgers as adults.
One person in front of the bus gets run over. But put enough people there, the bus stops.
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Is it really that impressive when of necessity to stay employed?
I've changed careers a few times too, various engineering, IT or project management... for more money each time because wife and kids are expensive hobbies.
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> Is it really that impressive when of necessity to stay employed?
Given the numbers of people unemployed who don't want to be at any given moment: yes, I think it is impressive.
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for August was 5.2 percent unemployment and still dropping for over the last year, seems normal.
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what nonsense you spew. All jobs require training. Employers train for many jobs, people have to train themselves for others and that also creates jobs. Get it out of your skull that higher level of training and education needed is a bad thing, no it's a good thing that creates jobs in itself. A job needing a lot of training pays more. There was no problem, there is no problem.
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It is.
Or would all those airlines and hotels exist if you could not simply book your travel online?
30 years ago, I was dependent on an travel agency to buy either a plane ticket or a hotel reservation. And they had to call in front of my eyes if there are still slots free.
Or just take the plane only and see if I find a cheap enough hotel for my budget at that time (or sleep at the beach, which was frowned upon by local authorities).
Now I have two windows open, in one I shuffle flight schedules, in the other
Re: (Score:3)
How many jobs did it create? How many jobs did it annihilate? And what level of qualification was required for the old jobs and is required for those new ones?
That is the problem.
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There is no problem. Change in jobs inevitable, that was true a century ago and true now.
Somehow you think a job requiring training is a bad thing. Get that nonsense out of your head, almost all jobs do require it.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
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The thing is that you cannot just train any person to do everything. People are not fungible. What's easy for one person is insurmountable for another one.
There is currently a huge shortage of good computer security people. Unfortunately you can't just take the average day laborer and train him to become a security professional. It just isn't in the cards.
Re: (Score:2)
meanwhile construction and certain manufacturing sector jobs (e.g. transportation related) are going up. Energy production from mining to alternative energy, up. Jobs jobs jobs... but not for the lazy and unmotivated.
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It's not a matter of laziness, it's a matter of capability. Not everyone is capable of doing any job.
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There's always a group represented by a political party who don't agree and they get into power regularly, even if they have to cheat to do it.
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> wealthy people start to worry about their life and all hell breaks lose.
I used to believe this, but I've come to realize that automation and computerization may solve that problem in a very different way. Looking at what is happening in places around the world, it's becoming easier to control the base population with an ever shrinking number of soldiers. Instead of shifting to basic income, there may just be a wholesale caging and erasing of anyone who tries to get angry at the system.
I hope for the
Re: (Score:2)
Looking back through history, this will not happen on its own. If history serves as a suggestion, there are two ways this can happen. Either by us having the insight to create it peacefully or them taking it by force.
The latter usually results in less overall prosperity, a lot of bloodshed and generally a 10-70 years detour before arriving at what we could've had peacefully.