5 ms·

To be perfectly blunt: too bad. At the rate automation is occurring, either a basic wage becomes a thing, or society is going to collapse. Our populations can

by tw04 11y ago

To be perfectly blunt: too bad. At the rate automation is occurring, either a basic wage becomes a thing, or society is going to collapse. Our populations cannot shrink enough to make up the gap between jobs taken by automation and new jobs created in other market segments. IT will be the next industry to get hit, and it's going to get hit HARD.

LesZedCB 11y ago
Probably capitalism will collapse (hopefully). Society is strong and resilient, and will likely be just fine. The real question is whether there will be a way to issue in the next iteration of societal order, or if it will regress when the capitalist empires of the world are destroyed.
- ethbro 11y ago
  If capitalism collapses, then we're going to have to figure out a new way to incentivize production, transport, and distribution of food real quick.
  - LesZedCB 11y ago
    I think many people naturally see ways that society can be improved and are wiling to work on them. It's hard to make this point without going into all aspects of socialist thought. However, in basic, the reason most people produce now is to have enough to buy food and housing. The incentive for people to do above and beyond is to get wealthy for a big payout of some sort. However, while that does incentivize entrepreneurship, I think it's hard to argue that most of the ideas that come out of those efforts are socially beneficial. I would argue it would actually require relatively little work in order to provide a high quality of basic necessities to all people (food, housing, healthcare), which would allow people to spend more time focusing on building out things that would be beneficial for society.
jld89 11y ago
Just curious, how will the IT industry will be the next to get hit and what makes you say it will get hit "HARD"?
- tw04 11y ago
  It's already happening. All those "server and tape monkeys" that were getting middle class salaries at large corporations are finding themselves downsized as companies move to more XaaS platforms for their mission critical apps, and the rise of AWS/Azure. It's the tip of the iceberg at this point (in my opinion). Not to mention, as people move to AWS, what happens to all of the sales reps, sales engineers, implementation engineers, support staff, etc. at all of the major hardware manufacturers? Those jobs just go away...
  - toupeira 11y ago
    You make it sound like there aren't any humans involved in maintaining such huge platforms and eco-systems as AWS and Azure.
    - tw04 11y ago
      The number of humans involved is a FRACTION of the number involved otherwise. That's part of how they command the margins they do.
  - jld89 11y ago
    But you are talking only about one section of the IT industry (Servers and Hardware). The apps that are moved to those saas platforms have to be developed and maintained by someone. What about development? research? security? consulting? etc...? I remain skeptical...
nickik 11y ago
Do you have any evidence for your 'society is going to collapse' theory? Because the rate of automation was much higher when all the farming jobs were replaced. Since then, many times over jobs were created and destroyed. I could take a article from a birish newspapers, 200 years ago, replace 'maschines' with 'robots' publish it in the NYT and most us Progressives would not notice it. The arugment is the exact same, and it has been for 200 years. Why is it different 'this time'? The computer has existed for a long time, it has replaced many jobs already and society did not collapse. The pridiction that IT will be crushed is also not knew, I remember the 'all the jobs will move to India' crap. No to mention all the ink spilled on 'runable specifications'.
- ethbro 11y ago
  What's different this time is there may not be any replacement job categories for those automated out of their current job. Especially not one that produces enough economic value for the employer to be able to offer a living wage from a strictly capitalist valuation. Where did the majority of farming and manufacturing jobs go after their respective revolutions? The services industry. Do you really think it can hold that many more jobs? And if not there, where? Creative pursuits? Most people just aren't cut out to be artists...

by tw04 11y ago

LesZedCB 11y ago

Probably capitalism will collapse (hopefully). Society is strong and resilient, and will likely be just fine. The real question is whether there will be a way to issue in the next iteration of societal order, or if it will regress when the capitalist empires of the world are destroyed.

ethbro 11y ago
If capitalism collapses, then we're going to have to figure out a new way to incentivize production, transport, and distribution of food real quick.
- LesZedCB 11y ago
  I think many people naturally see ways that society can be improved and are wiling to work on them. It's hard to make this point without going into all aspects of socialist thought. However, in basic, the reason most people produce now is to have enough to buy food and housing. The incentive for people to do above and beyond is to get wealthy for a big payout of some sort. However, while that does incentivize entrepreneurship, I think it's hard to argue that most of the ideas that come out of those efforts are socially beneficial. I would argue it would actually require relatively little work in order to provide a high quality of basic necessities to all people (food, housing, healthcare), which would allow people to spend more time focusing on building out things that would be beneficial for society.

jld89 11y ago

Just curious, how will the IT industry will be the next to get hit and what makes you say it will get hit "HARD"?

tw04 11y ago
It's already happening. All those "server and tape monkeys" that were getting middle class salaries at large corporations are finding themselves downsized as companies move to more XaaS platforms for their mission critical apps, and the rise of AWS/Azure. It's the tip of the iceberg at this point (in my opinion). Not to mention, as people move to AWS, what happens to all of the sales reps, sales engineers, implementation engineers, support staff, etc. at all of the major hardware manufacturers? Those jobs just go away...
- toupeira 11y ago
  You make it sound like there aren't any humans involved in maintaining such huge platforms and eco-systems as AWS and Azure.
  - tw04 11y ago
    The number of humans involved is a FRACTION of the number involved otherwise. That's part of how they command the margins they do.
- jld89 11y ago
  But you are talking only about one section of the IT industry (Servers and Hardware). The apps that are moved to those saas platforms have to be developed and maintained by someone. What about development? research? security? consulting? etc...? I remain skeptical...

nickik 11y ago

Do you have any evidence for your 'society is going to collapse' theory? Because the rate of automation was much higher when all the farming jobs were replaced. Since then, many times over jobs were created and destroyed. I could take a article from a birish newspapers, 200 years ago, replace 'maschines' with 'robots' publish it in the NYT and most us Progressives would not notice it. The arugment is the exact same, and it has been for 200 years. Why is it different 'this time'? The computer has existed for a long time, it has replaced many jobs already and society did not collapse. The pridiction that IT will be crushed is also not knew, I remember the 'all the jobs will move to India' crap. No to mention all the ink spilled on 'runable specifications'.

ethbro 11y ago
What's different this time is there may not be any replacement job categories for those automated out of their current job. Especially not one that produces enough economic value for the employer to be able to offer a living wage from a strictly capitalist valuation. Where did the majority of farming and manufacturing jobs go after their respective revolutions? The services industry. Do you really think it can hold that many more jobs? And if not there, where? Creative pursuits? Most people just aren't cut out to be artists...