White collar automation?

[bae]

Perhaps people could create their own jobs, rather than assuming jobs will be provided to them.

[dmc]

Perhaps people could create their own jobs, rather than assuming jobs will be provided to them.

But that takes work.

[LDAHL]

Moving beyond this last statement, I really have to ask - if you don't like this idea, fine. Then what do you bring to the table to solve the upcoming problem of mass automation of jobs? I see disparagement of my idea but no solutions being brought to the table as to this problem. No one says you have to like my solution. But what do you bring to the table instead in regards to this problem? I wait patiently as I send the ball back to the court as it were.

The "solution" for technological and economic change, is the same as it ever was. Learn, prepare, plan, work, adapt. If we as individuals can't do that, how can we as a society hope to? It's hard, and there will be winners and losers, but I think that it is ultimately more practical than triaging our society by creating a dozen little Liberias in the Third World or a new Socialist Utopia on the west coast. It's certainly more practical than "making America great again" by shutting out the world economy.

[jp1]

Society won't collapse due to automated jobs in various categories any more than it collapsed due to mechanized agriculture. People and markets will (sometimes painfully) adapt. I don't doubt your sincerity, but I don't see how your vision of "a life without work" can be realized from a practical standpoint. I don't think your buyout and export idea would have the slightest chance of being approved either by US taxpayers or the countries we would be sending our surplus population to. Nor do I think an independent California would be the haven you might think it would. They would have water and power issues, the possible loss of readily accessible US markets and the need to pay for a defense establishment, central banking system, etc. There probably wouldn't be all that much left to finance a large influx of benefit seekers.

Personally, I think the most likely route to a life without work is to earn oneself financial independence through saving and investing coupled with living simply.

Your comparison to the agricultural revolution doesn't really fit, as far as I can tell. The agricultural revolution was a result of, and went hand in hand with, the industrial revolution, which created plenty of jobs to absorb the people who formerly worked on farms. I don't see anything happening now that will require droves of former white collar workers.

[ToomuchStuff]

What is amazing to me is that there are people here who don't seem to understand that I am not talking of a life of leisure per se EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, FREE TIME from work at others expense- I'm talking about avoiding a collapse of this society in which in the future there will be many fewer jobsSo you won't be working at the woodwrights shop, next to the farrier, making wagon wheels, for the "plumbers" who go dig the outhouses? To prevent revolution the government is going to have to do something and social welfare is already very expensive. Offshoring US citizens to lower cost locations - say a good place would be Columbia, which is overall much safer these days than in the 80's Imperialist! and wise first world folks these days are actually retiring in Medellin On the sweat of their backs and savings which was once a very Juarez-esque place of danger - would make whatever monies the US can pay out for social welfare go further. I am really only being cold bloodedly practical here No, that would be moving in with your mom and letting her support you. Same thing, welfare.

Moving beyond this last statement, I really have to ask - if you don't like this idea, fine. Then what do you bring to the table to solve the upcoming problem of mass automation of Current jobs?
Rob

You really think there won't be new things that people never even thought of? Mechanics, didn't exist before the car, and the closest to them, would have been a blacksmith. Been to one of them lately?

The masses will have to learn to get by with less if they can't contribute. They may have to start doing some of the jobs the illegals are now doing. They are also going to have to stop breeding if they can't afford kids. I think we are a long way off before everything is automated.

Smart people will always adapt. They do things like don't make themselves indentured servants by building up debt. People do complain about illegals and comedians make jokes (best humor is always truth based), about who is going to do your landscape/roof, etc. These are jobs people don't want to work and illegals do, and work hard they do, to support themselves and their families. They are not after welfare, but opportunity, Gimme wants welfare.

Your comparison to the agricultural revolution doesn't really fit, as far as I can tell. The agricultural revolution was a result of, and went hand in hand with, the industrial revolution, which created plenty of jobs to absorb the people who formerly worked on farms. I don't see anything happening now that will require droves of former white collar workers.

How many people are out of work, today, due to combines and tractors? How many horses/mules, etc.?

[jp1]

How many people are out of work, today, due to combines and tractors? How many horses/mules, etc.?

Most of the people who got replaced by combines and tractors went to work in factories. Are all the people who are going to get laid off due to automation going to get jobs making automation?

I suspect the horse and mule population today is much lower than it was 100 years ago. As they got replaced there wasn't any work available that they were capable of. Perhaps that's what's coming with automation of more and more human tasks?

[pinkytoe]

Perhaps people could create their own jobs

If so, then parents and schools should be teaching our kids how to be either entrepreneurs or homesteaders. As it is, most of us are are shaped into being wage slaves before we even realize there are other choices. I see a lot of aimless youth here where we moved to (way more than back in Texas) who seem content to smoke pot and just get by which makes me sad.

[LDAHL]

Most of the people who got replaced by combines and tractors went to work in factories. ?

I think it was a lot more complicated and interesting than that. They went into transportation, mining, energy, education, insurance and financial services, retail and any number of other industries. I don't think it is it so hard to imagine people and industries reinventing themselves now the way they did then. But then I'm an optimist.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/artic...he-robocalypse

[jp1]

While it's entirely possible that some new industry(ies) will come along that create boatloads of new jobs it doesn't seem likely that they will come from the automation revolution. When cars were invented they created the need for gas stations, repair shops, motels for travelers, etc, all of which required employees, thus growing the overall economy. Or the lightbulb. Once homes started having electricity all kinds of new gadgets were invented to utilize the electricity now flowing to people's homes, again requiring lots of new workers to make them. Automation is fundamentally different. It is more about wringing increased efficiency out of existing industries. Driverless vehicles won't need lots of people doing different things than they currently do. They will just eliminate a lot of existing jobs driving vehicles. Basic infrastructure needed to support those vehicles already exists. The same for paperwork automation in most industries. That will just improve the efficiency of paper pushing within organizations. In my company we have spent the past several years figuring out every little step that happens in the property/casualty insurance lifecycle. With that knowledge we have moved the paper pushing tasks to places with cheaper employees. People like me, in high priced labor markets can now sell more product per person because we spend less time on paper pushing tasks. The next logical step will be to automate those rote tasks and eliminate those employees all together. Sure that will lower the price of insurance, which is a good thing. But I'm doubtful that it will result in my employer transitioning those employees to other tasks. They will just not be needed anymore.

[LDAHL]

I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that IT and other emerging technologies could spawn any number of new industries. The commercial exploitation of space. Gene therapies. Smart power grids. The "internet of things". Whole new arenas for us to sue one another. Deadly new weapons and their countermeasures. Climate engineering. Weird, wonderful, marketable stuff we can't even think of. Why assume we will be less imaginative and greedy than our ancestors?