What Are We Going To Do About Automation? (Congress, Iraq, Somali)

[dv1033]

Originally Posted by Volobjectitarian

So fun to watch all the Luddites who fear our robot overlords, but the simple fact is that while progress does disrupt and destroy for some, it always improves the overall standard of living.

In the last 100 years, technology has moved this country to being the most efficient agriculture producer in the history of the planet, with less than 2% of the population involved with farming in any way. As a result, of the 5 main "staple" agricultural items, we are the world's top producer/exporter of two and in the top five for the the remainder. Thank your robot overlords for the absurd, almost comical abundance of food in the US.

In the last 50 years, technology has put computers into phones that are more powerful than mainframes from even 20 years ago that took up whole rooms, and were affordable to only a handful of mega-corps. That's your phone now. Look just at education for how awesome that is for ALL of humanity. Any of us can virtually attend lectures at MIT and Harvard if we feel like it. Problem solving and information sharing happen instantly across the globe. I can get stuck on a problem at work and in seconds get help from someone on the other side of the world. The sum total of knowledge in all of history is a mouse click away. Yeah, that displaces people who wheel book carts in dusty libraries, yeah, that displaces the associate professor of Medieval Russian Poetry at Turnpike Tech...but the entire planet has access to knowledge like never before in recorded history.

Progress is always good - on net. Someday in some far future, robots will be more common. They're already ubiquitous in manufacturing, and will become more common in various other areas of repetitive, menial, non-decision making work. Yep, that will displace the lowest skilled and least marketable among us. But it always has. There used to be an entire job market for ice delivery. Strong, well conditioned men making a good living hauling blocks of ice up stairs all day long. You could make a good, honest living back in the day doing that job. Then came electric refrigeration to put an end to that entire job field. Look at what electric refrigeration has done for the world. Think just in terms of transport and storage of medicine in the 3rd World, and ask if we should simply eradicate electric refrigeration in order to bring back the job of ice delivery.

And there are lots and lots of things machines simply cannot do well, and never will. All of those things will remain the province of human labor.

This isn't the same thing. Certainly, automation and technology will make our lives better but all these breakthroughs were accompanied by societal changes. The industrial revolution brought labor rights and unions and the beginning of communism. The information age, all developed countries now have socialist policies in order to compete with the developing world. Not sure what the next major technological revolution will be called but it will certainly require us re-thinking how society treats labor and leisure.

Just think about it, in 2014 you can ask your cell phone relatively basic questions and it has the ability to answer them. Just think about how quickly we will be able to verbally communicated with technology and the impact on all the types of jobs that will be impacted.

[T-310]

What Are We Going To Do About Automation?

Nothing.

Its inevitable.

[dv1033]

Originally Posted by Opin_Yunated

We all know it is coming. Automation. Your jobs will be replaced by computers, robots, and a combination of both.

The UN predicts the Earth's population will eclipse 9 billion by 2050. The question is... how will we keep people employed in the advent of automation? We are going to need a lot of nonessential jobs, a larger safety net / basic income, or (probably) both.

Looking for serious discussion only. This is a serious social problem for the future generation. (Telling people to starve is not legitimate response)

What are we going to do? Hopefully, re-think how we administer welfare and look into a basic income. Automation will certainly be an event that will resemble the late 19th and early 20th century in terms of civil unrest of labor.

I wonder more about how we will deal with man's increasing merging with machine. How will we look at humanity when we are no longer 100% human. Certainly some interesting times ahead.

[Goinback2011]

Originally Posted by dv1033

What are we going to do? Hopefully, re-think how we administer welfare and look into a basic income. Automation will certainly be an event that will resemble the late 19th and early 20th century in terms of civil unrest of labor.

I wonder more about how we will deal with man's increasing merging with machine. How will we look at humanity when we are no longer 100% human. Certainly some interesting times ahead.

It's delusional to think the rich will fund 'basic incomes' for the forever-unemployables once the robotics revolution takes hold.

[CDusr]

Originally Posted by hoffdano

Not sure what your question is. Zero day attacks happen.

It ain't easy to build 100% secure or perfect software. No one has so far, whether the software is $$$$ or free.

I believe he is alluding to the profit/commercial motive being a driver behind tech in ways many would question. One should look at the biggest drivers of cybersecurity.


30C3: To Protect And Infect - The militarization of the Internet - YouTube


Remote Control System (RCS) - YouTube

Latest Spying from D.E.A. 4 billion records added everyday
FBI Pushing Hard for Realtime Email, Gchat, Skype, and Dropbox Spying Powers
Wire tapping is very profitable for Telcoms and ISPs.
How the NSA hacks PCs, phones, routers, hard disks 'at speed of light': Spy tech catalog leaks
FBI Alleged To Have Backdoored OpenBSD's IPSEC Stack
Side-Channel Leaks in Web Applications - Liquidmatrix ...

[greywar]

Originally Posted by Goinback2011

It's delusional to think the rich will fund 'basic incomes' for the forever-unemployables once the robotics revolution takes hold.

So you believe that the rich will choose mass starvation or extermination of 90% of the population? I find that hard to believe.

Interestingly enough many folks at the top are realizing that putting money into the people at the bottom helps generate growth. So I suspect you are wrong.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by Opin_Yunated

The question is... how will we keep people employed in the advent of automation?

Disband the Department of Education and repeal/rescind every illegal law the illegal national government enacted regarding education.

Originally Posted by tairos

Cut back work hours to spread them around more evenly.

It's called "job sharing."

Governments do not like to look bad, or be embarrassed, so the solution to constant complaining about perennial 10% unemployment with perennial 20% underemployment, a lot of government instituted job-sharing to make the numbers look better.

Originally Posted by Opin_Yunated

With less employed people, there is less money around to buy goods.

And the other 95.5% of the People on Earth will rejoice.

Originally Posted by Opin_Yunated

Prices dropping due to deflation is bad. Less demand is less wages. That is why the government stimulates inflation artificially if it has to.

Wow, what a massive fail.

The problem with opinionated people is they live blind-folded with blinders in a box.

Allow me to expand reality for you....the US is not the only State on this Earth. There are nearly 200 others with 6.6 Billion People...that would be the other 95.5% that you pretend don't exist.

What you do not consume.........they will.

Remember that as 4.5% of the Global Population, you insect-Borgs consumer 32% of all non-oil resources.

As your wages stagnate and decline, you will consume less, allowing the other 95.5% of Earth a chance to consume something.

I just totally annihilated your argument.

Originally Posted by Opin_Yunated

I don't have a solution other than more socialism. The more technology advances, the more we need to shift to socialism.

Uh, do you have any idea what you're talking about?

Government control of Capital, or private control of Capital by a non-governmental organization is Socialism.

For example, the American Dairy Farmers and the American Hospital Association would like to control Capital so that they can --- in the greatest tradition of the Soviets --- dictate the prices you will pay for the goods and services they offer.

You won't mind paying until you bleed from your eyeballs.

Don't deny it....you can't.....you already allow the American Hospital Association to charge $55,000 for an appendectomy......that didn't really cost $55,000......some sucker insurance company got hooked for $11,000....and the appendectomy cost less than a 1/3 of that.

Originally Posted by Opin_Yunated

There will come a point where technology simply eclipses the need for human work. At that point, we face the prospect of having billions of people on social assistance because their jobs are outsourced by robots and computers.

That, is where you are so off base it isn't even funny.

It's not nice to impose your short-comings, failings and limitations on others.

While Americans are having lofty debates on whether or not Obamacare should cover the services of a prostitute and you should be able to buy dope with your EBT card, the rest of Earth will be advancing into their 5th Level Economy -- Research & Development -- creating all kinds of new things that Americans won't be able to afford.

But don't worry....I'm certain you'll be able to sell your body for scientific research.

Originally Posted by Opin_Yunated

Without social assistance, society will just get violent.

You cannot say that with any certainty.

Bread & Circuses will take care of the masses.

Not that it matters. In the event of a sudden collapse, there is an increased likelihood of violence.

However, as I told all of you way back in 2007.....there will never be a collapse. You Standard of Living and life-style will decline ever so slowly over time, so that you don't even notice.

Sort of like Deep Horizon, only different.

Oh, yeah, look how quickly you forgot.....that's what Bread & Circuses does.

Originally Posted by Opin_Yunated

People need their basic necessities.

Okay, you can live in a Quonset Hut with 49 other people, and I'll give you a tupa to wear, and you can eat potato chips and french fries all day....since that's what you all eat anyway.

Your Socialist government can provide a bus to transport you to the fields to work as a migrant farmer.

I'm willing to spring for one of them cool hats Vietnamese wear in the fields to keep the rain and sun off of you while you toil for your food.

Automating...

Mircea

[No_Recess]

Originally Posted by CDusr

I believe he is alluding to the profit/commercial motive being a driver behind tech in ways many would question. One should look at the biggest drivers of cybersecurity.

And we have a winner.

I was working in loss prevention (in the private sector) on/around 9-11 as well as Columbine in 1999.

So as a non-capitalist I'll say the following as truthfully as possible (which means I'll have to spare the emotions of the events...forgive the coldness)

9-11 and Columbine made me alot of money. It made several of my bosses very wealthy. I can honestly say without those events and more importantly the fear that resulted I would not have been able to do as much as I did in my 20s (which was move numerous times to different offices as well as travel for leisure).

[No_Recess]

Originally Posted by nononsenseguy

Why do you think a person does not have a right to their "intellectual property?"

Why do you think there should be no private property?

What do you think would be the benefit of not protecting "intellctual property" and of no right to private property?

Private property is one of our poorest social constructs...if not the poorest. It's why Marx emphasized its abolishment so much. I agree until someone can suggest a better use of it.

Of all the unnatural processes/institutions resulting from this construct the fact that a human can't eat or sleep without recognizing the concept of private property shows how counterintuitive/counterproductive it is.

"Intellectual property" is simply intellectually dishonest. An idea is merely a physiological processe (as simple as cell division) in an organism...a human for the sake of this convo.

"Owning" an involuntary process such as cell division is absurd. Combining the results of past organism's cell divisions with your own and then attempting to exclude others from the resulting idea/action is even more absurd. You're basically suggesting all ideas/actions are spontaneous and/or time can be suspended and noted based on the results.

[mofford]

Money won't matter when the robots can spit out so much product that, by pure efficiency, everything can be made so cheap it can be given out like candy. I sort of think ChrisC and Andywire have the drift of what may happen when automation reaches a certain point. The limitations will be the earth's natural resources needed for the robots to make our stuff. I would guess a pitch would be made to third world countries with high birth rates, that if you want the system goods and wish to lead a comfortable lifestyle, they have to play by a set of system rules like everyone else. Probably have to submit to a two child per household limit, just for an example of what may be required. They may have to surrender rights to natural resources of their countries, for the raw materials to feed Landru.

Some of the fun might be sucked out of being a rich person of tomorrow. Lots of people don't mind working, they just don't want to work for a boss that orders them about like a sea captain. Part of the kick of being rich is having a bunch of people working for you (under you) that you get to order about, because they're hungry and you are the food source. I'm sure this is one of the prime enjoyments for wealthy people past and present, although they may not openly admit it.

The new challenge will be to get people to do what you want by persuasion, not force. Fame will be what attention seeking humans will strive for, not money, or the plentiful things the Landru plant can spit out. People can still get more stuff than others, by doing tasks the robots can't do, and being athletes, scholars, actors, artists, entertainers. The masses will "vote" for that admired person to get more stuff from the Landru plant (a lear jet for the traveling entertainer for example) than the average person would get, as a reward for doing something that brings pleasure to many. And for those elites that fall from grace by doing something offensive, they may swiftly lose their perks by vote as well.