Should People Have to Work?

[colourwheel]

 

 

I've always been against the constant automation of jobs.....

If humans never needed to work again, I would guarantee that the human race would become a lazy, selfish, slobbish species that wouldn't be able to plug in a lightbulb, let alone do other complex things that might be needed if technology suddenly failed. You can already see it with some rich spoiled people, many of them don't even have a clue how to use a washing machine. That would be the route humanity would end up going if such a thing happened.

 

Isn't a washing machine an example of technological automation replacing what was once a manual job and a source of employment? If you oppose the automation of jobs then you should be paying someone to hand wash your laundry in a tub.

 

I can understand where one would be trying to get at where we have machines doing some things people use to do manually... but in replacement we have created improved customer service industry around tedious and redundent labor such as washing clothes manually. His example of the washing machine has only built a new and stronger industry around dry cleaners and laundromats as well as sales of the machines themselves and other laundry cleaning products. Even before there was the invention of the washing machine people would pay others to wash their clothing manually and use their facilities to take baths. I hardly see even if something new was created where as humans would no longer be needed to do manually would be any less of a threat as the invention of the washing machine. If anything the invention of washing machine has created more jobs and personal income to those in the industry than one can even realize.

Edited June 18, 2013 by colourwheel

[TRoaches]

@colourwheel: That was what I was hinting at, in an indirect way. Automation of laundry certainly destroyed a particular form of employment, but it was a very low yield occupation. Replacing a large number of low yield jobs with a smaller number of high yield jobs is an unavoidable fact of automation. Some people WILL lose income in the short term, like the low-income women who commonly worked home launderers to supplement the family income. If we just look at automation as a simple "more automation == fewer jobs" equation than it ignores the greater context. There are more losers than winners in that narrow short-term equation, but if we expand the scope of the equation we see that the winners are able to support more people through their employment.

[McclaudEagle]

I should have mentioned that my opposition to automation mostly involves military and major manufacturing. Understandably, we can't go back to the times when Ford was making cars using a production line of people. However, I don't see why we should continue to endeavor to make more things automated simply because it's more efficient. Efficiency won't matter if there's no one able to buy the goods because they all got made redundant and can't afford it.

[dave1029]

I should have mentioned that my opposition to automation mostly involves military and major manufacturing. Understandably, we can't go back to the times when Ford was making cars using a production line of people. However, I don't see why we should continue to endeavor to make more things automated simply because it's more efficient. Efficiency won't matter if there's no one able to buy the goods because they all got made redundant and can't afford it.

You forget that efficiency lowers prices. If say a Ferrari took a second to build and very few resources, it would be cheap as a rock.

[Beriallord]

The very best comes out in humans when people are challenged and pushed to their limits. A society where robots do all the work, and everyone sits around and relaxes won't be a healthy environment for future progress. If nobody had to do anything to survive, then why would anyone have the motivation to strive for something better? Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

Early humans had to fight to survive on a daily basis, and in many ways they were much heartier and more adaptable that we are today regardless of all our technological achievements. If people become lazy and compacent, then if something happens that throws a wrench in their lifestyle, then how would they have the skills to survive if they were forced to do something? If water and power were cut off in the USA for a long period of time, lots of people would die in a matter of weeks. The same would go for lazy people who have become reliant on robot laborers to feed them. If those robots were taken away, they would die.

 

Humanity will face another gut check in the future, where the ones who can't, or won't adapt to the new challenging situation will perish.

Edited June 18, 2013 by Beriallord

[colourwheel]

 

Humanity will face another gut check in the future, where the ones who can't, or won't adapt to the new challenging situation will perish.

 

Despite automation of robots doing manual labor for humans, humans are already perishing from obesity in america. More than one-third of U.S. adult population suffer from obesity leading to heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer, some of which are actually preventable of death. Medical costs associated with obesity were estimated at $147 billion a year in 2008. Taking this in concideration a majority who suffer from obesity are actually people with low income who can't afford the medical costs associated to their own conditions. Those who are obese and have offspring are highly likely to give birth to obese children leading to a never ending cycle of generations of obesity. Humanity is already facing the gut check of the future "literally" in america, when obesity has hardly declined in the last decade and seems every year obesity is just climbing in numbers...

 

Leading cause of obesity is poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and health literacy. Not the automation of robots doing manual labor for humans.

Edited June 18, 2013 by colourwheel

[McclaudEagle]

And why do the majority of people avoid exercise? Because it involves effort and people are lazy. Automation of industry will only increase that laziness as people begin to realize there's no point doing anything they don't want to because they won't have to. The modern society is the "largest" humanity has ever been in terms of waist size. Part of that is the abundance in food, however, the majority of it is that people are becoming more and more lazy. We're becoming reliant on technology to do things for us, which is also making us more "simple".

 

Anyway, the other big problem is that how would people earn money? A massive portion of the population works in the very sectors that would see the most automation, where would all those people go then after being made redundant? Companies wouldn't give away their products for free, so how is anyone supposed to buy anything if there are no paid jobs to give them that money?

[colourwheel]

 

Anyway, the other big problem is that how would people earn money? A massive portion of the population works in the very sectors that would see the most automation, where would all those people go then after being made redundant? Companies wouldn't give away their products for free, so how is anyone supposed to buy anything if there are no paid jobs to give them that money?

 

Just like anything like the washing machine example, man will build new jobs and industries around new inventions regardless of manual labor. The day where as machines are taking away all jobs completely will endup being a failed economical disaster. If no one is making money then what is the point of robots doing work when their is no exchange of money in the society anymore. Even if we endup having robtos doing everything there would have to be a system created where people will be able to make income. If you have machines creating products and no one is making any money then no one would even be able to buy the products the machines are making...

Edited June 18, 2013 by colourwheel

[sukeban]

@Lord

 

I'd say that being pushed to the limit can either bring out the best OR the worst in people, depending on their character. So while some degree of innovation does definitely spring from this, so too do nearly all forms of violence and predation. In any sort of future automated society, you would have to preserve certain means of allowing people to compete with one another--which I agree is human nature--while not forcing all people to compete in the same way, i.e. economically. You don't necessarily need material scarcity to motivate people to improve themselves and contribute to society, you just need other avenues for them to be able to differentiate themselves and prove their brilliance. I would contend that material scarcity can actually have an adverse effect on developing human potential as a species, as folks talented in one field might be funneled into another more economically advantageous field--a case which, I think, is demonstrated by the best and brightest of MIT, Cal Tech, etc. often going into finance rather than the hard sciences. In any case, I would hope that any future society would allow its citizens to do what they are naturally best at rather than bending them to fit what the economy happens to prioritize that day. Imagine, for example, if Einstein had been wasted on Wall Street....

 

@Nutrition

 

Most of the obesity epidemic can be traced to a) poverty and b) the influence of the "program crop" (corn, sugar, potato, wheat, etc.) lobby in Washington. Via the Farm Bill, prices for various Washington-favored crops are artificially cheapened via subsidies and price supports, while prices for unfavored crops retain their market value--putting them at a steep disadvantage. "Big Ag" in the United States is almost exclusively comprised of growers of these program crops, and through their influence, prices of these crops (and products derived from them) are usually bargain basement (and wind up in other places like public school meals). Without disrespecting these otherwise noble vegetables and grains, they are far from healthy for you if eaten in excess--which is why their artificial cheapness is all the more sinister from an obesity perspective. Ultimately, poor people end up buying these horrible-for-you products because they are cheap (and because they are designed to taste "good" which usually means sweet).

 

Recently, there was a study about Mexican immigrants and their American children's health outcomes. Perhaps counter-intuitively, said immigrants were actually healthier when living in Mexico, yet they were still healthier than the average American citizen even after they had emigrated. This was in large part due to their retaining their Mexican dietary preferences (largely unprocessed and vegetable-based), rather than adopting those of Americans (especially those of poor Americans). However, their children were far less healthy than their immigrant parent--as well as less healthy than other Americans children--due primarily to their preference for (and excessive consumption of) nasty "corner store"-style bakery products and cheap sweet drinks. In any case, one might laugh at yuppies eating kale, but really we should all be laughing at how our Farm Bill prioritizes those foods and products that are worst for you, essentially forcing them on all people without the means to buy their much more expensive alternatives. In any case, I would hope that any future society would opt for the total opposite of the situation that we have now.

Edited June 18, 2013 by sukeban

[dave1029]

Money will go away in a robot future. Robots don't need to get paid, so therefore they won't charge for their products. Literally everything would be free. The only way you run into problems is if you have a shortage of something. In our pretend future society, if every desirable thing is being made in excess, money becomes pointless and worthless.