Ideally, automation can redeploy workers into better and more interesting work, so long as they can get the appropriate technical training, says Johannes Moenius, an economist at the University of Redlands.
Ideally, that's what should happen.
In reality, not everyone can learn the things required for those more interesting jobs. Those people are not working low-hanging fruit jobs because they want to - it's because it's the only jobs they're able to do.
This is one of those weird talking points Futurists like to trot out while smoking a joint. "Yeah, man, like instead of flipping burgers or pushing a high torque robotic arm into place twice a minute, these people will, be like, thinking up new ideas and being leaders and shit! Yeah, maaaan!".
I often wonder if I am physically capable of getting high enough to the point where I would think such a thought and then not immediately dismiss it as absolutely asinine.
I often wonder if I am physically capable of getting high enough to the point where I would think such a thought and then not immediately dismiss it as absolutely asinine.
In the interest of science you should experiment and report back.
It may be a bit more optimistic than you'd like, but at the same time, what's the point of wasting a person's time doing something if we can cheaply automate it happening? We act like 'taking away jobs' is some terrible thing, but it's worse to have people just tirelessly doing some asinine thing that can be automated. We may run out of other low-skilled jobs and then face a conundrum, but the answer is not to pretend we need humans to do more low-skilled jobs than we actually need, but to sort out some b
One, I'm not sure UBI is going to work and also even if it can work, I don't know if its time has *yet* come.
For another, we never had UBI even for a moment. You get a UBI even if you work. The money people were getting they would no longer qualify if they worked. So they got to choose $600/week to work zero hours, or they could maybe get $480/week by working 40 hours. We perversely paid people to *not* work and penalized them if they wanted to and could work a normal job. In a UBI scenario, you might pi
Now explain who those few months of unemployment caused prices to rise in China despite China not having any significant level of import/export of lumber with the USA.
No, go on. Prices for lumber have gone up globally, not just in the US, but you're claiming it's because of the extended unemployment benefits that the US provided to their own citizens. Tell us exactly how the US giving a few months of unemployment to people who lost their jobs in the pandemic caused global price increases in markets the US
Whenever I ask people what brilliant new jobs will be created for blue-collar workers when automation takes over, I am told, "I don't know! They haven't been invented yet!"
It's one thing to be an optimist, but generally we need to have some kind of plan. The current plan is to use automation to make tons of money. Society hasn't planned too much beyond that, much like we haven't planned how to deal with peak oil in 2020 until it finally happened, or global warming until it's too late (which is probably r
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
-- Christopher Lascl
Assuming a lot (Score:5, Informative)
Ideally, that's what should happen.
In reality, not everyone can learn the things required for those more interesting jobs. Those people are not working low-hanging fruit jobs because they want to - it's because it's the only jobs they're able to do.
Re:Assuming a lot (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of those weird talking points Futurists like to trot out while smoking a joint. "Yeah, man, like instead of flipping burgers or pushing a high torque robotic arm into place twice a minute, these people will, be like, thinking up new ideas and being leaders and shit! Yeah, maaaan!".
I often wonder if I am physically capable of getting high enough to the point where I would think such a thought and then not immediately dismiss it as absolutely asinine.
Re: (Score:2)
I often wonder if I am physically capable of getting high enough to the point where I would think such a thought and then not immediately dismiss it as absolutely asinine.
In the interest of science you should experiment and report back.
Re: (Score:2)
It may be a bit more optimistic than you'd like, but at the same time, what's the point of wasting a person's time doing something if we can cheaply automate it happening? We act like 'taking away jobs' is some terrible thing, but it's worse to have people just tirelessly doing some asinine thing that can be automated. We may run out of other low-skilled jobs and then face a conundrum, but the answer is not to pretend we need humans to do more low-skilled jobs than we actually need, but to sort out some b
Re: (Score:3)
One, I'm not sure UBI is going to work and also even if it can work, I don't know if its time has *yet* come.
For another, we never had UBI even for a moment. You get a UBI even if you work. The money people were getting they would no longer qualify if they worked. So they got to choose $600/week to work zero hours, or they could maybe get $480/week by working 40 hours. We perversely paid people to *not* work and penalized them if they wanted to and could work a normal job. In a UBI scenario, you might pi
Re: (Score:1)
Now explain who those few months of unemployment caused prices to rise in China despite China not having any significant level of import/export of lumber with the USA.
No, go on. Prices for lumber have gone up globally, not just in the US, but you're claiming it's because of the extended unemployment benefits that the US provided to their own citizens. Tell us exactly how the US giving a few months of unemployment to people who lost their jobs in the pandemic caused global price increases in markets the US
Re: (Score:2)
Whenever I ask people what brilliant new jobs will be created for blue-collar workers when automation takes over, I am told, "I don't know! They haven't been invented yet!"
It's one thing to be an optimist, but generally we need to have some kind of plan. The current plan is to use automation to make tons of money. Society hasn't planned too much beyond that, much like we haven't planned how to deal with peak oil in 2020 until it finally happened, or global warming until it's too late (which is probably r