Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes, I watched most of it. However, I don't see this as a bad thing. Automation, like specialization seen in early human societies, frees people to do other things. It also has increase worker output and made products more affordable to workers. I do realize that people losing their jobs is a horrible situation; yet, as the history of the 20th century has shown, society adapts to these changes and people have went to find work in new industries created by this automation.
The problem Tk101, is we are entering a far more encompassing period of jobs gone via robot.
When RFID chips go down to pennies each, instead of dimes as they cost now in even their most primitive state, we will see the ranks of cashiers decline as sharply as bank tellers 20 years ago. That job title, cashier, is the 3rd largest nationally, at 3 million jobs. Picture 2.4 million of them gone inside a 5 year period.
The same will be true of CSRs due to voice recognition, clerks of all types, and millions of other jobs.
Already the factory packout people of 20 years ago are more often than not, robots now.
This is not a case of freeing employee time up for other tasks; it is needing far fewer of them.
It's very telling that the one Dutch? company moved the factory home from China not because of concerns over employment, but cost. The cost of a robot is abou 3.50 an hour, about that of a Chinese worker. The cost of Chinese workers is rising. The cost of robots is dropping. It was a decision based on the balance sheet. It will become cheaper to run the factory at home.
Its astonishing that we're very close to being able to build HAL.
I think the point is quite clear that this is a different shift then mearly moving people to different jobs. The jobs created are specialized and fewer. The jobs lost are more general and don't require the training. The first to take the new jobs will be those with some degree of the skills already. Your average clerk isn't one of them.
Much science fiction was written in the fifties abour the 'left over' people. Some of it wasn't pretty. Just as it wasn't back when the strips of farmland were replaced by grazing sheep on estates in the 1600's. Some of the displaced went to factories, but most went to places like East London. The problem of 'excess population' was solved by shipping many, willingly or not, off to new continents to labor there. But we don't have that option.
But what we may see is a new underclass of those who don't qualify and don't have the connections which is like living next to a bomb factory, hoping it won't blow.
For things to work in the future, as it is becomming, we'll have stepped forward technologically and backward socially.
This has been the trend pretty much since the dawn of the Industrial Age. The ultimate solution is to have fewer people competing for those fewer jobs, but reproduction is a personal issue most people would rather rationalize or ignore.
Quote:
Some of the displaced went to factories, but most went to places like East London. The problem of 'excess population' was solved by shipping many, willingly or not, off to new continents to labor there. But we don't have that option.
..or war. Which, other than the unlikely option of humanity voluntarily living on less, seems to be where we're headed.
This has been the trend pretty much since the dawn of the Industrial Age. The ultimate solution is to have fewer people competing for those fewer jobs, but reproduction is a personal issue most people would rather rationalize or ignore.
..or war. Which, other than the unlikely option of humanity voluntarily living on less, seems to be where we're headed.
In a profit oriented world, there is also the dilema of the market. If your factory makes widgets, and people buy your widgets then you keep making them. If you don't sell enough, robots or not, then you ultimately won't make any more. But if we have a small population of widget buyers, and a larger population who can't afford it, then how do sell enough widgets to keep making them? This is why our world economy rewards those who ship factories to China, for there is a market for all the cheap stuff they make.
If you had fewer people you automatically have fewer widget buyers. Production is always linked to market. The excess who live off somewhere are probably not buying widgets either. Either you raise the price, making up for the difference, or lower it to cheap. Or ship it somewhere else to sell, IF you have one. Even robots have a cost. Without a market, you don't have them either.
The ability to manufacture cheaply made goods does not guarentee that it is going to an ongoing advantage. There has to be something more than cheap cost to keep you afloat.
[quote=Natural510;27755304..or war. Which, other than the unlikely option of humanity voluntarily living on less, seems to be where we're headed.[/quote]
I think more than anything, the US has to get really focused on getting young people ready for technology based jobs. We need to get good at teaching math and science again. The days of any high school grad getting a decent paying factory job are going to soon be a thing of the past.
The irony here is that this argument comes up on CD and the "tin foil hat" jokes get slung around with hardiness.....but needs a couple MIT professors and 60 Minutes, or any other MSM outlet, for common folks to put any stock into it.
This is a core proponent of Agenda 21.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
