[swake]

Originally Posted by justanokie

Nice reading comprehension. It wasn't an argument about the cheapest calories. It was an argument about the most abundunt, nutritious and cheapest calories.

No, I understand what the article was about. I gave examples of even cheaper and healthier food. It was a stupid and very slanted article.

Originally Posted by justanokie

As for the rest. How about McDonalds and Walmart just elimante most of their workers and put in robots......

Robots Could Take Over Fast Food Jobs - Careers Articles

Yes, exactly right! As automation improves and expands more and more we are facing a future where many fewer people are going to need to work. Driverless cars are being tested now. Factories are quickly becoming robotic. Automation is at the verge of a huge expansion. The expanding income disparity we see today is a symptom of this change as it happens. We are going to need a new wealth distribution system to support the lives of most of the population because there will be no need for them to work and no jobs for them to fill.

At Walmart for example you are already seeing fewer and fewer checkout people. Soon they will have no need for people to clean the floors or deliver the goods to stores. The warehouses will be automated. Security will be automated. You will probably have people to wrangle the carts and stock and fix the shelves but a store like a Walmart in the coming years will have many fewer employees. There will be no need for airline pilots, no delivery drivers, no truck drivers, no bus drivers, no one needed to mow your lawn, no mailman, no call center employees, no factory workers, no one working in mines, far fewer doctors or lawyers, probably no one working in fast food, no one working in food processing, far fewer farmers. Construction will become more and more automated. We are facing a near future where many millions of us are not going to be needed anymore. This isn't 20-30 years from now, this is already starting, now.

Paying people sub sustenance wages just because you can to further marginally profit a very few shareholders will be a recipe for disaster. Everyone is going to be expendable very soon. Everybody.

[Johnhw2]

Originally Posted by swake

No, I understand what the article was about. I gave examples of even cheaper and healthier food. It was a stupid and very slanted article.




Yes, exactly right! As automation improves and expands more and more we are facing a future where many fewer people are going to need to work. Driverless cars are being tested now. Factories are quickly becoming robotic. Automation is at the verge of a huge expansion. The expanding income disparity we see today is a symptom of this change as it happens. We are going to need a new wealth distribution system to support the lives of most of the population because there will be no need for them to work and no jobs for them to fill.

At Walmart for example you are already seeing fewer and fewer checkout people. Soon they will have no need for people to clean the floors or deliver the goods to stores. The warehouses will be automated. Security will be automated. You will probably have people to wrangle the carts and stock and fix the shelves but a store like a Walmart in the coming years will have many fewer employees. There will be no need for airline pilots, no delivery drivers, no truck drivers, no bus drivers, no one needed to mow your lawn, no mailman, no call center employees, no factory workers, no one working in mines, far fewer doctors or lawyers, probably no one working in fast food, no one working in food processing, far fewer farmers. Construction will become more and more automated. We are facing a near future where many millions of us are not going to be needed anymore. This isn't 20-30 years from now, this is already starting, now.

Paying people sub sustenance wages just because you can to further marginally profit a very few shareholders will be a recipe for disaster. Everyone is going to be expendable very soon. Everybody.

Some body designs and builds and maintains those automation devices you dislike, there will be jobs just more highly skilled than in the past. Can we evolve the workforce? Hard to say for sure but we have a long ways to go to be successful in doing so.

[swake]

I don't dislike the automation, I think this is positive overall. There will be some highly skilled jobs that remain. I disagree that there will be anyone building the automation necessarily, that itself will be automated. Maintenance will have some people but can be largely automated as well.

Take the idea of the fast food cook. a machine would replace the cooks. Not would, this is actually already happening remember. There certainly would be a couple of people to maintain and manage the machine, but you are replacing probably 20-30 jobs with two or three. Certainly the machines have to be built, but built by machines. The factory that builds the machines will make thousands of them. The machines would need to be designed, but that would take hundreds of people.

Take an example of say 5,000 of these machines built. Several hundred jobs to design and test. A few dozen to manage the manufacture of the machines. Some hundreds to install them. Two or three each to maintain the machines. Maybe a total of 7,000 to 8,000 people to implement and maintain the machines. But those 5,000 machines are replacing 100,000 to 150,000 workers. Costs to the owners of the restaurants will plummet and prices will fall and profits will rise.

But how do we distribute wealth to the newly 100,000 unemployed people? What is the new economic model when machines can do most of the work for us?

Turn the register around in that fast food place and have you self order and that's hundreds of thousands of more workers gone. Just like what we see with people going through self checkout lanes at supermarkets. And paying bills or ordering products online. This is happening now.