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The idea that you need a new car every 3-5 years doesn't really work anymore. While it can be argued that the long you own a car the more the costs might be for upkeep it generally is still cheaper than getting a new car. Peace of mind of buying a new car generally fades as there have been countless recalls on cars over the past 20 years. The firestone issue with Ford was the largest story in the country just before 9/11.
Obviously products do improve over their life but there's only so far that can go. Smartphones for example have pretty much had everything they can make into them already. Going from Iphone 4 to 5 isn't that big of a leap..maybe 3 to 5. Changes become marginalized as the leaps aren't that big.
There's only so much that a consumer can consume before they either slow down or stop. Remember all the music formats in the past? LP's, 8 tracks, tapes, cd's and now mp3's. Do any companies realistically believe we'd buy the same music FIVE times?
Obviously within selling there's countless tactics. Maybe it's organic, cheaper, better, made with some sort of better labor standards, more efficient, better overall results etc. But there's only so far this can really go.
I'm usually not an alarmist, and I'm a firm believer in the idea that technology can create positions even as it eliminates others.
The Amazon dot com announcement that it was planning on using drone technology for deliveries is exciting on the one hand. It's science fiction that dares to become a reality. But I can't help but think that it could eliminate couriers. Maybe that's just one field that's getting affected, but as computers and robotics become more and more sophisticated, what happens to human labor? How can any politician or bureaucrat account for technology's impact on the American worker - on any worker for that matter?
Who would have ever though we could fly an "airplane" from the comforts of our local airbase office half-way around the world, through a specific window in a specific building, and blow it to smithereens; it is being done today!
I have seen tracked-tractors in California with no operator on board prepare soil / irrigation at 45-50 mph, within 7/16 - 10mm over the length of a 5 mile long field. Wonder how many field workers got eliminated?
Reading some of these posts makes me realize just how little most people understand about what is coming.
We are not talking about burger flippers, we are talking about a complete change in our economic reality that has not been seen since the industrial revolution.
The vast majority of the jobs which humans do today will simply disappear as the pace of mechanization increases. Our electric grid itself is becoming obsolete as inventions like the "cube" are coming online converting cheap plentiful natural gas into electric onsite. Soon power lines, poles, and underground infrastructure will go the way of the land lines for telephones. 3D printers will soon replace the need for machining parts from metal stock.
The point is that in the past technology advancements made workers more productive which grew the overall economy and created more jobs and prosperity.
The future for mankind is in jeopardy due to the combination of exponentially increasing population along with the the kind of technology that eliminates jobs without providing the collateral job creation we saw in the past.
While the labor pool increases exponentially, the need for that labor is decreasing rapidly.
In addition the profits from the technological advances are not being evenly distributed among the overall population and instead are being absorbed by the wealthy at the top of the pyramid who can afford to be owners of the corporations by way of being shareholders.
Reading some of these posts makes me realize just how little most people understand about what is coming.
We are not talking about burger flippers, we are talking about a complete change in our economic reality that has not been seen since the industrial revolution.
The vast majority of the jobs which humans do today will simply disappear as the pace of mechanization increases. Our electric grid itself is becoming obsolete as inventions like the "cube" are coming online converting cheap plentiful natural gas into electric onsite. Soon power lines, poles, and underground infrastructure will go the way of the land lines for telephones. 3D printers will soon replace the need for machining parts from metal stock.
The point is that in the past technology advancements made workers more productive which grew the overall economy and created more jobs and prosperity.
The future for mankind is in jeopardy due to the combination of exponentially increasing population along with the the kind of technology that eliminates jobs without providing the collateral job creation we saw in the past.
While the labor pool increases exponentially, the need for that labor is decreasing rapidly.
In addition the profits from the technological advances are not being evenly distributed among the overall population and instead are being absorbed by the wealthy at the top of the pyramid who can afford to be owners of the corporations by way of being shareholders.
This is a worst case estimation. For example, 3D printing will likely never replace manufacturing process outside of prototyping, or in a few select cases. 3D printing is a slow process. Why spend 5 hours printing a handful of parts when you could make 300 of them a day with standard manufacturing processes? There are a lot of people who seem to be predicting this kind of a future just like people were predicting flying cars in the 50's. Yes, many jobs will be automated away, but not in the numbers people predict I'm afraid.
Actually, there are many jobs being created here by foreign companies looking to invest in automation. That's a good sign of what the future might have in store. If we have one of the most efficient workforces, don't you think people will want to tap into that?
The future for mankind is in jeopardy due to the combination of exponentially increasing population along with the the kind of technology that eliminates jobs without providing the collateral job creation we saw in the past. While the labor pool increases exponentially, the need for that labor is decreasing rapidly.
In addition the profits from the technological advances are not being evenly distributed among the overall population and instead are being absorbed by the wealthy at the top of the pyramid who can afford to be owners of the corporations by way of being shareholders.
That's the entire reality in a nutshell.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andywire
This is a worst case estimation. For example, 3D printing will likely never replace manufacturing process outside of prototyping, or in a few select cases.
Maybe not, but people made the same types of equivocations about the mechanized assembly line, yet it still had the impact it had. I think, either deliberately or inadvertently, you're trying to evade what Jim wrote with inadequate deflection.
This is a worst case estimation. For example, 3D printing will likely never replace manufacturing process outside of prototyping, or in a few select cases. 3D printing is a slow process. Why spend 5 hours printing a handful of parts when you could make 300 of them a day with standard manufacturing processes? There are a lot of people who seem to be predicting this kind of a future just like people were predicting flying cars in the 50's. Yes, many jobs will be automated away, but not in the numbers people predict I'm afraid.
Actually, there are many jobs being created here by foreign companies looking to invest in automation. That's a good sign of what the future might have in store. If we have one of the most efficient workforces, don't you think people will want to tap into that?
3D printing is in its infancy. Yet is one of the fastest growing technologies. What it will be able to do in a few short years is yet to be seen, although it just makes sense to evolve from a system of producing bulk quantities of items and needing to transport or store them, to a system of local manufacture on a as needed basis. The model has already been established with "just in time" manufacturing".
Also the 3D printer can work 24hrs a day, never gets sick, never asks for a raise, never gets a vacation, never needs health insurance, and never sues the company for sexual harassment or discrimination.
As a work force, people are problematic and expensive.
Whenever automation is possible, corporations have taken full advantage to implement it. If you want to see a real time example of the effect of robotics on an economy you need look no farther than Detroit. The big difference now is that with computing power and robotics increasing their abilities at a compounding rate, it is now becoming feasible to replace humans in the work force at an alarming rate.
Sure some jobs will be created by this evolution, but the number of jobs created will be dwarfed by the number of jobs lost.
Also your analogy of flying cars is flawed, a better analogy would be for someone to argue for the continuing need for horses when the industrial revolution started. The only difference is this time it is humans who are the beast of burden.
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