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.
You think the lumpen who become obsolete will spend their free time gardening and caring for the sick? What planet are you from?
Of course they will spend their time on diversions like drugs and video games.
P.S. machines will be better at gardening and elder care than humans, so why on Earth would you do either?
The majority of jobs, IMHO, already do things which are, in a sense, running on the treadmill in the basement. Why do treadmills and health care memberships still sell? Why do people Kayak? Bike?
Nothing wrong with good food, good drugs and good sex and good company and good nature, etc.
The point is, when we run on a treadmill or watch a movie or cook a good dinner...or garden, it's not a question of efficiency or productivity - it's the exact opposite.
As it stands right now my guess is that at least 50% of the workers in this country are useless...not needed...make work. That might include 100 Realtors working out of a single office, legions of salespeople when almost none are needed, all MLM, much of finance and most everything one can think of.
But there is no impetus to change and make things more efficient - since these people are producing, not for productivity, but in trade for unlimited "money" which the government prints more and more of.
That's quite a deal.
If we got rid of all the jobs that didn't do anything...or that worked at terrible efficiencies...or that actually did negative things...well, as the old saying goes, that would leave just You and Me, bro.
It's fine bc that guy operating the new machine was paid the wages of everyone that was displaced.
Yeah, that happens.
__________________ ____________________________________________
My posts as a Mod will always be in red.
Be sure to review Terms of Service: TOS
And check this out: FAQ
Moderator: Relationships Forum / Hawaii Forum / Dogs / Pets / Current Events
Being able to retire young means you are conscientious and self-motivated. The lumpen are not.
I don't know what a lumpen is.
__________________ ____________________________________________
My posts as a Mod will always be in red.
Be sure to review Terms of Service: TOS
And check this out: FAQ
Moderator: Relationships Forum / Hawaii Forum / Dogs / Pets / Current Events
No I'm afraid you are mistaken: There is nothing in my scenario that says or implies there will be a surplus of labor.
There are 5 people for 1 job. That's the definition of a surplus of labor. In addition, why would the owner pay a dime more in wages when there are 5 people competing for 1 job? That flies in the face of everything you understand about capitalism.
Being able to retire young means you are conscientious and self-motivated. The lumpen are not.
Having had some of my family move a bit west of here, I can now claim some "lumpen" extended family. Some might even call some branches of my Italian tree (in the USA) such monikers
I can assure you that these people want to spend more time with their grandkids. They would probably also do other things, but they have been sentenced to work until the very day they keel over.
There are 5 people for 1 job. That's the definition of a surplus of labor. In addition, why would the owner pay a dime more in wages when there are 5 people competing for 1 job? That flies in the face of everything you understand about capitalism.
Which is why capitalism is certainly not the system (in the current form...) that is going to be creating this future paradise for us. It can't.
It was a great system to make people climb on each others backs to get to the goodies.....but after a society matures something else is probably better.
lum·pen
/ˈləmpən/
adjective
1.
(in Marxist contexts) uninterested in revolutionary advancement.
"the lumpen public is enveloped in a culture of dependency"
noun
1.
the lumpenproletariat.
This?
__________________ ____________________________________________
My posts as a Mod will always be in red.
Be sure to review Terms of Service: TOS
And check this out: FAQ
Moderator: Relationships Forum / Hawaii Forum / Dogs / Pets / Current Events
People here are still making the mistake that 4 people will be out of a job. Just because I said that 1 person can now do what 5 people used to do, does not mean there will be 5 people looking for 1 job. I explicitly pointed out that the other 4 people will be doing things that the increased wealth of the 1 person will bring, AND that the process that benefited the first person will also eventually apply to the other 4 people in their new vocations, in a continuing process of productivity improvements and, thus, wealth creation.
I note that the process I described has been going on for at least 200 years. If it was true that people displaced by technology don't or can't get new jobs, then the unemployment rate would by now be astronomical. But it isn't.
Robots and AI are no different from other technologies. Electric street lights did not permanently put out of work the people who used to light and turn out gas street lamps 150 years ago - those people found other things to do. Robots and AI will be no different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by James Bond 007
A machine lets 1 person do what, say, 5 people used to do.
This lets 1 person produce the output that 5 people used to do. That is why the wealth of the worker will go up.
The usual retort is that the other 4 people will be out of work. But you're forgetting that the 1 person will have 5 times the income of the old person. As a result of this increased income they will be able to consume more. Due to this increased consumption, they will create more demand for goods and services that will necessitate need for more labor. That is what the other 4 people will be doing.
Now, what holds true for that first, one person will in turn be true of the other 4 people. Thanks to machines, robotics, etc., they will be able to do what 5 people used to do, and the cycle created by the first person will also be true for these other four.
Furthermore, since this machinery, robotics and AI will decrease the need to do harder, menial tasks in addition to creating greater wealth and productivity, the jobs created for the other 4 people will be increasingly geared toward serving the wants of people, not the needs of people. This is part of what I meant when I said, "Greater income & wealth will give people more time to enjoy life and do things we want to do, rather than things we have to do."
I might be exaggerating a bit here, but imagine a future society in which people can earn enough money to buy a nice house, a nice car, and have 4 weeks' vacation by working just 30 hours a week. They will produce all this wealth for themselves by "hiring" machines, robots, AI and all kinds of other technologies to do much of their work for them.
All this wealth, and all that extra free time, will give them the resources to travel a lot, have lots of time for hobbies, engage in spirituality, or whatever else makes them happy. They might even have time to have more kids (I can actually back that up with a recent trend, but it's another topic). This will create demand for people engaged in serving people who like to travel, do hobbies, teach children, etc etc. Each of those people engaged in those occupations, in turn, will have a bevy of technologies at their disposal to make them much more productive and wealthy as well. That is, you will get people building cruise ships who are 5 times more productive than cruise ship builders of yore used to be. You will get restaurant workers who are 5 times more productive than restaurant workers of yore used to be. And so on.
In other words, ultimately it won't just be the 1 person who becomes vastly more productive and wealthy due to technology while the other 4 are out of luck, it will eventually be the other 4 people as well.
Robotics, AI and mechanization will make people vastly more productive. More productivity = greater incomes and wealth (yes, that is basically a fact of economics).
Greater income & wealth will give people more time to enjoy life and do things we want to do, rather than things we have to do. In general this is good for humanity.
This is the very same thing we were told by liberals in the 1970s about the move from a manufacturing to a service economy.
They said that the service jobs would be much "cleaner", higher paying, and allow more "leisure time". Even then, I knew it was a lie and tried to argue with the high school teachers that no one can have "leisure time" without a job. That "leisure time" is what we call "unemployment". We now see the devastating effect of losing US manufacturing jobs.
As always, liberals will be wrong again.
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.
