Machines over taking the workplace

[TRoaches]

Can you find a single source for that quote which isn't a goldbug/white supremacist forum?

Source 1

Source 2

 

eta: corrected url (i think)

Edited July 19, 2013 by TRoaches

[Vagrant0]

I think you're missing the core of the problem. The issue really lies in the fact that the lowest tier labor is being done away with, without any new opportunities being opened up as a result. It isn't one isolated advancement which is pushing the labor out of one sector, but rather a broad range of advancements coupled with an economic recession which are diminishing the entire bottom tier job pool. Probably the closest example would be the impact that the broadening of slave labor had on paid domestic servants or rural farm hands. Although the actual costs weren't much different, it led to cheaper labor, exploitation, and an increase in unemployment among those without a trade or education. Unfortunately, that whole bottom tier is essentially what the economy depends on, both from a production standpoint as well as a consumption and social one.

[gunslinger6792]

 

I think you're missing the core of the problem. The issue really lies in the fact that the lowest tier labor is being done away with, without any new opportunities being opened up as a result. It isn't one isolated advancement which is pushing the labor out of one sector, but rather a broad range of advancements coupled with an economic recession which are diminishing the entire bottom tier job pool. Probably the closest example would be the impact that the broadening of slave labor had on paid domestic servants or rural farm hands. Although the actual costs weren't much different, it led to cheaper labor, exploitation, and an increase in unemployment among those without a trade or education. Unfortunately, that whole bottom tier is essentially what the economy depends on, both from a production standpoint as well as a consumption and social one.

 

Thats exactly what I was trying to say I just couldn't find the words for it thank you.

 

Adding to this by taking away your unskilled labor jobs you're forcing entire group into other areas. Many of those people will become unemployed and probably permanently part of the a welfare system. If they're in the states they go to college. The problem with this is that they're already to many people graduating from college. Here in the states the average income (when adjusted for inflation) for a college graduate with a BA makes around $50,000 that's down $10,000 from a decade ago. Why is this because so many people go to college now they're more supply than demand. It could become a cycle and that scares me. When even educated labor becomes excess supply there's a huge problem and thats already taking place. I know some of you have said that technology and machines help make new jobs. They do however if the overall trend for example is for every 10 jobs lost we make 4 its not going to be pretty.

 

It is nice to know however that atleast a few people here have or do think about this. To few people do and we'll probably pay the price for that later. Again hopefully I'm wrong because I don't understand the complexities of economics and labor market trends.

[TRoaches]

I think you're missing the core of the problem. The issue really lies in the fact that the lowest tier labor is being done away with, without any new opportunities being opened up as a result.

I think you are seeing a problem where one does not exist, or worse yet seeing a beneficial situation as problematic. New opportunities are always created by technological advancements, even if they are not readily apparent. An average modern university physics student is more knowledgeable about physics than Newton ever was. It is not because that average student is "smarter" than Newton, but because they were able to grow up with very little concern for their basic survival needs relative to someone alive during Newton's time, and were thus able to dedicate most of their time to their studies instead of food procurement. This would not be possible if technology had been stifled in the interest of preserving jobs. If such measures had been taken, and that university physics student was instead "guaranteed" (meaning "restricted to") a job as a farmhand, that would be considered by most people to be a lost opportunity. The new opportunities opened up by technological advancement are not always just another job. Decreasing the focus on pure survival allows one to increase their time spent on personal advancement, such as academia.

 

 

Probably the closest example would be the impact that the broadening of slave labor had on paid domestic servants or rural farm hands. Although the actual costs weren't much different, it led to cheaper labor, exploitation, and an increase in unemployment among those without a trade or education. Unfortunately, that whole bottom tier is essentially what the economy depends on, both from a production standpoint as well as a consumption and social one.

 

 

 

This does not at all describe what actually happened. Prior to slavery there was....slavery by a different name. Do you think that a feudal farmer actually profited? He did not sell the crops that he tended for profit. They belonged to the land owner, who paid for the labor by letting him eat just enough of the crop to stay alive and allowing him to live in a house with a dirt floor just large enough to allow his family to sleep. It doesn't matter how cold it is, don't burn too much of the manor Lord's timber! Don't hunt his game or catch the fish in his river! If they protested too loudly against their "employer" they would imprisoned, tortured, or executed. That does not sound much different from slavery to me. The same goes for every other laborer in a feudal society. They were not stacking up savings accounts for their children to attend Oxford. They were barely scraping by under a system that was another form of slavery. Later feudalism was renamed again to the "landlord" system. During this period 1 million Irish died during a potato blight. They were growing plenty of food, but they were not allowed to eat it because it did not belong to them. It belonged to their lords (slave masters). It was just more slavery.

 

The logic that you are presenting would be better applied as a defense of slavery, in that the abolition of slavery led to unemployment (if not death) for the slaves, with no immediate opportunities being opened as a result. THAT whole bottom tier was what the economy depended on at the time. Should we have maintained the slavery system in order to prevent negatively affecting the economy or putting slaves out of work? I certainly don't think so. I think the negative effects on the economy brought about by abolition were outweighed by the positive effects that it had on society at large, and that the problems that abolition caused for the emancipated slaves were justified by the opportunities that it represented for their progeny. Abolition was not a technological advancement, but it was a social advancement that had similar short term negative effects with long term benefit similar to those presented by technological advancement.

 

Adding to this by taking away your unskilled labor jobs you're forcing entire group into other areas. Many of those people will become unemployed and probably permanently part of the a welfare system.

 

It is more accurate to say that the unskilled laborers who lose their jobs to automation are being forced to choose between entering a new field or being unemployed and on welfare. They are not, however, being forced into either one of those choices.

 

 

. If they're in the states they go to college. The problem with this is that they're already to many people graduating from college. Here in the states the average income (when adjusted for inflation) for a college graduate with a BA makes around $50,000 that's down $10,000 from a decade ago. Why is this because so many people go to college now they're more supply than demand.

 

How do you propose that the over-abundance of college graduates is remedied? Are you suggesting that we maintain the unskilled jobs so that people with BAs can perform unskilled labor? I don't see the problem with a loss of demand for unskilled labor coupled with a surplus of educated people.

 

I suspect that the statistic ($10k reduction in BA income) is more complex than you suggest. Has there been any change in the statistics on choice of major study? For example, if more people are pursuing lower-paying fields of study (i.e social work, arts, etc) than 10 years ago then that would easily explain that statistic. I don't know if this is the case or not. It is just an example of one factor that could be influencing that statistic.

 

Also, I think that having a surplus of educated people is a clear indicator of positive social progress, not something to be feared because the graduates feel entitled to a high level of pay. Would you be willing to trade a 20% reduction in nationwide college attendance in return for a 20% raise for yourself?

Edited July 19, 2013 by TRoaches

[gunslinger6792]

 

The problem here is that you automatically assume that more technological progress is good and because historically its created more jobs it will this time also. It very well may work the way you believe.I on the other hand do not. If you're right than there is little to worry about other than making sure workers are protected and the usual economic polices are done correctly.

 

If I'm right though or even partially right then its an extremely dark road we're heading down. As for how to fix it or how I would fix it I have no idea. What I do know is that too few people are talking about it and thats scary. Its to easy to say that past technological progressions have been beneficial because one day it might not. Banking on the idea that because things have worked out in the past they will in the future is somewhat flawed.

 

As for progress I don't want to get to far off topic but there was another country that tried to modernize at all costs for the sake of "progress" China. China had its great leap forward and left 50 million dead in its wake. It has ever growing gaps between rich and poor, gaps which are beginning to become more permanent. Progress may have helped some Chinese but its hurt many others.

 

As for fixing the over abundance of college students again I have no idea. Its a classic catch 22. Cut back on the number of students and you're population isn't as well educated. To many students and tuition costs soar and basic salaries drop. Again I'm not saying any of my ideas are the best way or even right. Blindly charging into a new era doesn't work either. The industrial revolution helped the world but it took decades of fighting before conditions got better for workers. If they're one constant with tech progress companies will find a way to make you work more, work longer, and work less before making things better.

 

Forgive me if I digressed at all.

[TRoaches]

@gunslinger6972: I did not "automatically assume" anything. Rather, I pointed to historical precedent. This is not a guarantee that anything in particular will happen, and I did not claim that it was. It is, however, widely agreed to be one of the best methods available to anyone who is trying to make an educated guess about what will happen in the future. It is particularly effective if you are looking at something that has been trending steadily in one direction for a very long time. To illustrate, if you look back on any given period of time (decades, centuries, or millenia):

 

-technology has increased

-Health and life expectancy has increased

-common level and quality of education has increased

-democracy has increased

-free will has increased

 

You can find brief and localized periods of reversal of these trends (such as your example of China), but overall they are fairly consistent patterns of improvement. If you are in an airplane ascending shortly after takeoff and you state "I think we will continue to gain altitude for several minutes" you are not making an assumption. You are making an observation based on the current trajectory of the airplane. You could be proven wrong if the fuel tank explodes and the plane plummets to earth, but the odds of this happening are extremely low compared to the chance that the upward trajectory will continue as predicted.

 

 

Blindly charging into a new era doesn't work either.

 

Blindly charging into a new era is the only option available to anyone who lacks prescience.

 

 

The industrial revolution helped the world but it took decades of fighting before conditions got better for workers.

 

Conditions got better for workers the moment that they were able move away from year-to-year subsistence farming because it made upward economic mobility possible. Andrew Carnegie started as a boy working with his mother in a cotton mill. For him this was an improvement over the alternative situation of young Andrew working just as many hours in the field and the whole family praying that the harvest was sufficient to prevent starvation that winter. That impoverished boy became so economically upwardly mobile that he returned to his native country as an adult and bought a castle. Had his family stayed in Scotland and he grew up a farmer he likely would have been killed on sight if he had been caught trespassing on its grounds. Carnegie in his Scottish castle is a perfect image illustrating the opportunities that industrialization opened up for "common" people like him. I would say that his conditions improved quite a bit by any measure.

[Nintii]

 

-technology has increased

-Health and life expectancy has increased

-common level and quality of education has increased

-democracy has increased

-free will has increased

 

 

interesting list well here's my response;

 

1) Technology has increased ............and so have new ways of destruction, annihilation and

murder.

 

2) Health and life expectancy ........... so true but lifestyles, mental illness and stress related diseases

have gone through the ceiling.

 

3) Education increase ....................... yes sirree, but so has stupidity, with all the FREE information

out there we should all be gazillionaires.

Are you aware of all the "dumbing down" that's out there ... the

increase of education has only served

to show how dumb society really is. Read Charles Sykes.

Idiocracy more real than we realise.

Do you realise that only a couple of books on stupidity have ever

been written and half of them are anecdotal.

 

 

4) Democracy has increased ............ And so has death by dictatorship, failed political systems and

war in general.

 

5) Free will has increased .................. And so has spying on Society.

 

At the end of the day for all of our advances we're still holding ourselves back ... maybe it would

e better to have a society run by AI and hook up to an alter ego or a Surrogate.

We can always end the "robots" out to beat up the enemy.

Didn't Einstein say something like "stupidity being as infinite as the universe ?"

Edited July 20, 2013 by Nintii

[TRoaches]

1) Technology has increased ............and so have new ways of destruction, annihilation and

murder.

New methods have developed, but those new methods have actually resulted in fewer casualties and more localized damage during conflicts. There is less murder than before (especially considering that many acts currently defined as murder were not even defined as such in the past). War causes less damage to property (consider the Dresden bombings vs current "smart" bombs) and fewer casualties among civilians and combatants. In the distant past sieging a single city meant sending thousands to their likely deaths. This is no longer the case

 

 

2) Health and life expectancy ........... so true but lifestyles, mental illness and stress related diseases

have gone through the ceiling

 

I don't think it is the rate of mental illness that has increased, but rather the definition of such illness has been broadened and detection has been improved. If a person in the middle ages was hearing voices they were more likely to be hailed as a medium or prophet, or considered affected by spirits or demons, than regarded as a person with an illness. In any case there was no clinic for them to attend, no field of medicine dedicated to their troubles, and no personnel trained in their treatment. Even comparing the current rate of the mental health diagnosis to that of 50 years ago is not a fair comparison because the field has advanced by so much.

 

 

3) Education increase ....................... yes sirree, but so has stupidity, with all the FREE information

out there we should all be gazillionaires.

Are you aware of all the "dumbing down" that's out there ... the

increase of education has only served

 

Even the least educated among us can still read and do simple math, provided that they are educated to some level. A construction worker who could read one century ago was a rare thing. This is no longer true, and even the most basically educated laborer has an opportunity to start his own construction company and employ others, apply for bank loans, insurance, perform payroll duties, negotiate contracts, advertise, etc. There is no logic in the statement that we should all be gazillionaires: Are you a gazillionaire? Why not?

 

 

4) Democracy has increased ............ And so has death by dictatorship, failed political systems and

war in general.

 

This is not true. There are fewer casualties of war than at any point in the past. The revolutions are less bloody. Forced conscription is more rare, and when it is done many more factors are considered than the physical ableness of the conscript. A few hundred years ago 99.9% of the world's governments were dictatorships, and conscription meant an overlord of some kind rode into town and rounded up the young men to be sent to near-certain death.

 

 

5) Free will has increased .................. And so has spying on Society.

 

The efficiency of such spying has increased, so more people are surveilled for more of their time. While I agree that this increase in surveillance is troubling, it is still does not compare to the government surveillance that preceded it for the last few thousand years. It is an improvement over the old system of A) Accuse neighbor of witchcraft/sedition B) Convict neighbor based on confession given during torture C) Execute neighbor publicly. The danger with our current surveillance practices is that they may lead to a step back for our legal system towards these old methods if left unchecked, but currently there are no same-day public executions based on tortured confessions and hearsay in most countries. Even those accused of the worst crimes receive legal counsel and opportunities to appeal their convictions.

Edited July 24, 2013 by TRoaches

[HeyYou]

Nah, instead, we just hold people in prison with no trial, no likelihood of having one, and no hope at all for release. Not to mention those that we have already determined aren't really a threat, but, due to miles of red tape, we can't release them either.

 

I put forth that free will has NOT increased either. In fact, it has been significantly curtailed by our government. They keep adding to the list of things we can't do, as we might offend someone..... The movement toward being more 'politically correct', has done more damage to our society than any war.

[TRoaches]

My premise was not that free will has been maximized, only that it has increased over the course of history. There are some people being held without trial (Gitmo), but they are a very small group that is the exception to the rule. This is an improvement over the historical norm, which is that nobody ever receives a fair trial. The point is that more people receive fair trials now than at any point in history.

 

I find it hard to swallow the idea that political correctness is more damaging than war. Imagine telling a child who just had their limb kinetically amputated by a bomb "You are SOOOO lucky, kid! In my country we are FORCED to be PC! I envy you kids from (war torn country). Well, I'm off to work at my oppressively PC job. Try not to die of blood loss between here and the hospital, which was also bombed!"

 

Here in the US nobody is being legally prevented from saying anything offensive to anyone. I can be as offensive as I want towards anyone, from the President down to the garbage collector, and there is no chance that I will be imprisoned for it. If you feel like you can't say something it is not because you are afraid of the government. It is because you are afraid of the reactions of your peers, and this is entirely your problem. Some of the European countries like to enforce political correctness, but even that is an improvement over the world wide historical norm of absolute and unquestioned censorship.

 

Also, the term "free will" as I used it here means more than just free speech. Do you perform the same job as your father? If not, then you exercised your free will in a way that was not possible for most of history. In the past if you were born a farmer you died a farmer. If your father was a cobbler then you were taught the business, and inherited it upon his death. Common people were not offered many options of how to earn their living. This extended to every other aspect of life. Travel was difficult or impossible, so our current ability to be anywhere in the world in one day or less demonstrates an increase in free will. Food had to be grown locally, so people had less choice in what they ate. Music had to be performed live, so there was little choice of what to listen to. It goes on and on like this, to the point that our current level of mental and physical freedom becomes incomparable to those who lived just one century ago.