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The difference in your example is that the car replaced the horse or the lawn mower replaced the push mower.
ATMS, robots and computers replace humans.
Robots can run factories and replace modules themselves in defective units as well.
It's true that the horse replaced the car, not the human. But consider that a team of horses and cart w/ two drivers might be able to haul, say 5000 lbs. of product 15 miles in a day. I'm making the numbers up; I have no idea how much or how fast a team of horses, can carry but you get the idea. Suppose a semi-truck with a single driver can pull 150,000 lbs. 500 miles in a day. Then you have replaced 2000 horse team drivers with one semi truck driver.
A primary goal of industrial technology has always been replacing human labor with machine labor. That's why the term "labor-saving device" is so often used. Unemployment was 5% in 1900. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c2644.pdf
After 100 years of incredible tech progress, US employment in 2000 was 4%. How do you explain that?
They depend on consumers, the consumer depends on jobs from them to make money. It's a cycle, if no one has a job the cycle is broken and everyone is screwed. It's going to be an interesting ride but I don't see how our capitalistic society can survive as it stands now.
These predictions have been made in the past but this is completely different scenario than replacing the buggy whip maker. Tech jobs in the robot industry will be plentiful but even those will be replaced. Consider something like the 3-d printer, in the future if you want to buy something you can just download it. Any idea how many jobs that eliminates?
Maybe industrial capitalism won't survive, and that might not be a bad thing. Let me put as a caveat I am not talking about industrial capitalism being replaced by another 19th century industrial economic system like Communism, but rather just as the industrial revolution created capitalism and communism to replace manoralism, it would not surprise me if some new 21st century economic system were developed in light of technological changes that hinder the efficiency of capitalism.
Imho capitalism is a good system for the sole reason that it efficiently utilizes resources, if capitalism can no longer efficiently utilize labor and other resources its value as a system will likely decline and be replaced by something new.
3D Printers and advanced robots will be common within 10 years.
Well, if you are a believer in global warming and you feel that humans are damaging the planet then since we don't need people for menial jobs we should start eliminating them. Get the population down to 1 billion world wide again.
Wow, that will make the liberal's heads explode won't it?
But really, if we are warming the planet we can look directly at the population. And the US just makes matters worse by shipping in millions of tons of food to people who cannot feed themselves and just use it to breed more dependent people that create more CO2 and warm the planet further.
So what is the solution liberals? Jobs are disappearing, the planet is warming and your idiotic policies are making things worse every day.
It's true that the horse replaced the car, not the human. But consider that a team of horses and cart w/ two drivers might be able to haul, say 5000 lbs. of product 15 miles in a day. I'm making the numbers up; I have no idea how much or how fast a team of horses, can carry but you get the idea. Suppose a semi-truck with a single driver can pull 150,000 lbs. 500 miles in a day. Then you have replaced 2000 horse team drivers with one semi truck driver.
A primary goal of industrial technology has always been replacing human labor with machine labor. That's why the term "labor-saving device" is so often used. Unemployment was 5% in 1900. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c2644.pdf
After 100 years of incredible tech progress, US employment in 2000 was 4%. How do you explain that?
Simple, society generally grew to have increasingly higher standards of living which created the demand for more products and services. The issue as of late is one of diminishing returns. This is to say that while labor saving devices and technology have continued at a clip I question how much room for improvement there is in our standard of living in our current economic system. Without that counter balance money will just go into the financial economy and sits there and the more money that goes into the financial economy and states there, I would argue the more under utilized it becomes, and the under utilization of money causes the under utilization or resources and labor, which causes everything to become less efficient.
Simple, society generally grew to have increasingly higher standards of living which created the demand for more products and services. The issue as of late is one of diminishing returns. This is to say that while labor saving devices and technology have continued at a clip I question how much room for improvement there is in our standard of living in our current economic system. Without that counter balance money will just go into the financial economy and sits there and the more money that goes into the financial economy and states there, I would argue the more under utilized it becomes, and the under utilization of money causes the under utilization or resources and labor, which causes everything to become less efficient.
Economic gibberish. If labor saving devices resulted in higher standards of living during the 20th/early 21st century, why couldn't it be expected to continue through the remainder of the 21st century? Or put conversely, if labor saving devices will cause unemployment in the 21st century, why didn't they do so in the 20th century?
Economic gibberish. If labor saving devices resulted in higher standards of living during the 20th/early 21st century, why couldn't it be expected to continue through the remainder of the 21st century? Or put conversely, if labor saving devices will cause unemployment in the 21st century, why didn't they do so in the 20th century?
Just a few decades ago, labor saving machines could chop a small percentage of required man hours out..a small fraction of the total.
The 21st century automation techniques are likely going to reduce it..exponentially. That last word is what is so different.
3D Printers and advanced robots will be common within 10 years.
Well, if you are a believer in global warming and you feel that humans are damaging the planet then since we don't need people for menial jobs we should start eliminating them. Get the population down to 1 billion world wide again.
Wow, that will make the liberal's heads explode won't it?
But really, if we are warming the planet we can look directly at the population. And the US just makes matters worse by shipping in millions of tons of food to people who cannot feed themselves and just use it to breed more dependent people that create more CO2 and warm the planet further.
So what is the solution liberals? Jobs are disappearing, the planet is warming and your idiotic policies are making things worse every day.
Ideas?
Well as a non genocidal type, im going to pull the idea of killing off 80% of the population that you seem fond of right off the table.
Then look at things like:
sustainable underground living
sustainable aboveground living
arcologies (look it up if you're unfamiliar with the term, its actually fascinating)
expansion to other planets and orbiting structures
And later into ideas like non substrate based intelligence.
Economic gibberish. If labor saving devices resulted in higher standards of living during the 20th/early 21st century, why couldn't it be expected to continue through the remainder of the 21st century? Or put conversely, if labor saving devices will cause unemployment in the 21st century, why didn't they do so in the 20th century?
OK let me explain.
Larger populations, expanded opportunities that require little or no training, and higher standards of consumption.
As automation comes now its going to envelop all the jobs that require little or no training. And guess what-the average intelligence person will NOT compete.
Eventually it will erode up until only the truly exceptional can compete
and then finally...we wont compete. At all. You can whine and moan about it, but if you look at it, its coming.
Basically machines could compete on strength, and repetitiveness....but not intelligence. Thats changing.
Well as a non genocidal type, im going to pull the idea of killing off 80% of the population that you seem fond of right off the table.
Then look at things like:
sustainable underground living
sustainable aboveground living
arcologies (look it up if you're unfamiliar with the term, its actually fascinating) expansion to other planets and orbiting structures
And later into ideas like non substrate based intelligence.
Please, please, please, please, please, stanford toruses and space elevators and ion engines and dammit I want the future nowwwwww.
Maybe we can use these future robots to create space ships which we can then send a bunch of now jobless people on to colonize Mars or something. Like opening up new territories.
I never thought I'd see a job title of "asteroid miner". And yet a recent job I applied for was to try and do software development for space based mining hardware.
What the...hell....and yet.....I applied for a job that when I was a kid was complete science fiction. I'd break someones leg for that job.
SpaceX is doing amazing things.
But we do need a new frontier. I honestly think we will expand to orbit and the near planets. We might even do it in my lifetime. Especially if I start eating better and exercising more.
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