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Everyone should be happy about this. Robots will allow people to work fewer hours, while earning more due to productive gains. What's not to love? Unless, you would rather see it play out in another fashion. In which case, more of the same for America, except worse.
But workers haven't been gaining higher wages or benefits since productivity has skyrocketed. This is a reason why our employment situation has been declining over several decades.
Wrong; workers gained higher benefits. In the last 2 decades, the typical employer has gone from paying $1k or so towards employee healthcare to today where they subsidize usually around 9k (singles are around 5k, families 12k plus for employer portion). That is $8k more in benefits the typical employee has gained, out of his employer's pocket.
But workers haven't been gaining higher wages or benefits since productivity has skyrocketed. This is a reason why our employment situation has been declining over several decades.
Exactly.
I'd love it if robots did the necessary jobs. Everyone would be free to pursue things they want to do, rather than just working because they have to eat. But the conservatives have in their mind that work is why we live, which is true up to a point, but we're at a point in society where work doesn't mean what it used to. Become writer, and artist, a photographer. Travel and become wise. But as you said, robots replace workers, but no one is being paid more except the guys at the top and despite literally proof of this existing, the cons just say 'people are lazy.'
It's insane to me. I value hard work, but I value people doing what they love more. If people are free to pursue passions, we'll be a more productive and thoughtful and happy society. But I guess we're content with being pretty much poor and miserable. That's how it was then so that's how it must remain because tradition.
Wrong; workers gained higher benefits. In the last 2 decades, the typical employer has gone from paying $1k or so towards employee healthcare to today where they subsidize usually around 9k (singles are around 5k, families 12k plus for employer portion). That is $8k more in benefits the typical employee has gained, out of his employer's pocket.
Too bad it's really the same or less since the *value* of that health insurance keeps decreasing.
Hardly decreasing. When I first entered the professional workforce, insurance covered just hospital stays. I paid for annual checkups, blood tests, much of lab work, prescriptions were 100% my money, etc.
Now its a $10 co-pay for the doc; $20of mine for my $170 per month Crestor. And that is paid from Flex Med, so my costs are actually 70% of those amounts net of tax reductions due to Flex Med.
Today we expect that tremendous coverage, and it isn't just insurance anymore. It is insurance plus what once was out of pocket medical costs.
We've seen this before with the industrial revolution. In the short term (and I mean 'short in a relative sense- this could take DECADES), industrialization (or in this case automation) is BAD for workers. In the long run (could take decades for the adjustment to take hold), automation could be very good for all of our standards of living.
Our challenge is to make the transition less painful. And redistributing ever more dollars to billionaires is NOT the solution.
In a perfect world, we could allow robots to do the mind numbing work that's necessary and free up people to pursue other jobs or continue to work in different industries with more pay (since labor costs go down). But we don't live in a perfect world, at least we try not to.
Yeah...
Quote:
"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance." --- Nancy Pelosi
We've seen this before with the industrial revolution. In the short term (and I mean 'short in a relative sense- this could take DECADES), industrialization (or in this case automation) is BAD for workers. In the long run (could take decades for the adjustment to take hold), automation could be very good for all of our standards of living.
Our challenge is to make the transition less painful. And redistributing ever more dollars to billionaires is NOT the solution.
So, unlike in the past where the changes were gradual, and over a large period of time, the current estimate is that we are going to lose somewhere between 30-60% of all jobs within 20 years.
And heres the thing....those job losses will continue to increase over time. 30 years from now I fully expect my job to be gone (software engineer).
This is vastly different then in the past.
So what IS the solution? Especially given that the job loss is not going to stop, but rather continue?
Everyone should be happy about this. Robots will allow people to work fewer hours, while earning more due to productive gains. What's not to love? Unless, you would rather see it play out in another fashion. In which case, more of the same for America, except worse.
Hmmmmmmmmmm............................... funny, but that is what they told us about automation in the 1960s- everyone will be happy, as they will make more money, work fewer hours and have more leisure time! I remember, even as a kid, telling my teacher she was nuts, as incomes would decline and the standard of living for the average person would decline. Just another liberal lie (which they can never remember, such as the global cooling issue) which has not come to fruition, despite marked enthusiasm and "the best of all intentions". These same liberal idiots in the education system tried to convince me to go into auto mechanics, despite being the valedictorian of my high school class and later becoming a physician.
A massive uneducated, unemployed, poor population is fertile ground for civil unrest. Our political system is SUPPOSED to help create an environment in which people can prosper (or fail) due to effort, luck, and innovation.
Despite being a conservative, I am fully in the tank for the middle class (I was from the lower middle class myself). Developed nations around the world should explore the concept of mandating a fixed percentage of manufacturing and services require human labor. Why? There MUST be a source of employment for those who cannot become CEOs, physicians, land owners, and business owners.
The response of developed nations, in the absence of fair and equitable trade, is to expand automation as a means of providing even lower employment costs than the slave labor of third world nations. Automation and robotics is a great thing, but expansion in an unchecked fashion will lead to social chaos.
Great. Then we'll have illegal alien robots doing the jobs American robots don't want to do.
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I remember, even as a kid, telling my teacher she was nuts, as incomes would decline and the standard of living for the average person would decline. Just another liberal lie (which they can never remember, such as the global cooling issue) which has not come to fruition, despite marked enthusiasm and "the best of all intentions". These same liberal idiots in the education system tried to convince me to go into auto mechanics, despite being the valedictorian of my high school class and later becoming a physician. 
