4 ms·

You solve it by re-training these people for other jobs (free education) and a minimum living wage.

by feld 10y ago

CPLX 10y ago
Retraining has been this sort of ludicrous dogma for awhile, especially since the 90's when the Clinton administration seemed to be obsessed with it. I keep thinking this year will be the year this fiction finally dies. The solution involves real jobs with living wages, not sending former factory workers to sit in de facto community college seminars three nights a week for free.
- jfoster 10y ago
  "Real jobs" doing what? If it doesn't require any education, it might be the next thing that will get automated.
  - feld 10y ago
    It will be the next thing to get automated. Wake up people, the United States is a post-industrial society. We cannot manufacture things and pay people living wages to do it. We want things cheap and we want them now. Sorry. I'd rather pay these people to be on welfare for the rest of their lives than try to bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA.
    - CPLX 10y ago
      > bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA. The United States is the world's second largest manufacturer. > We cannot manufacture things and pay people living wages to do it. It's important to recognize this statement as highly political dogma rather than neutral fact. Of course we can. We just often choose not to, as a matter of public policy.
      - feld 10y ago
        Sure, and things like the auto industry are increasingly becoming automated with robotics. So yes, we can manufacture things. We just can't pay people to do it. Not if we want to afford these nice shiny new things.
- norea-armozel 10y ago
  I know I'm going to be the jerk here so I'll say maybe we don't need jobs? Maybe we need a better distribution of the wealth created? I know folks don't want to touch that idea with a 10 foot pole but it's a legitimate question. I'm not saying we need state socialism but maybe we do need some kind of socialism to handle these permanent changes to the economy because automation isn't going to stop just at blue collar skilled jobs. You got legal staff, financial advisors, and many more kinds of work that's on the chopping block once the automation schema is figured out for them (plus/minus time for insurance companies to figure out liabilities). Just shifting us into another bullshit job like marketing or legal isn't going to fix the underlying problem in that work is seen as an end in itself rather than a means to an end (to feed/cloth ourselves). Once we remove the myth that we need to work to live (work in the sense of working in a cubicle or around a table in an office 8-5 and commute to/from said office five times a week) then we can talk about what we should do next.
  - CPLX 10y ago
    There's really no reason we can't have an advanced society with reasonably compensated skilled manufacturing jobs. The Germans and the Swiss have demonstrated as much, for example. Once you take it as fact that it's "impossible" for workers to have rights and a proper social contract in the modern global economy you start acting accordingly and become blind to the fact that it's not inevitable at all. It's important to recognize that our policies towards the working class in this country are deliberate political choices borne of the way power and influence works in our political system, not laws of nature.
    - norea-armozel 10y ago
      I think you're missing my point which is that no one should have to have a job to work or to live. Work isn't just 8-5 cubicle or factory setting nonsense. Cleaning your laundry is work. Cooking is work. Telling a story is work. Carving wooden figurines is work. But they don't have to be jobs. They don't have to follow an 8-5 schedule. And most importantly, the benefits of that work doesn't have to be majoratively sold at a discount to capitalists. To have housing, food, or medical care shouldn't come with the condition of repetitive drudgery. If a machine can do the drudgery then get the human out of it as soon as possible. This isn't entirely utopian either considering many kinds of work in textiles and plastics have been automated away. The same goes for building electronics to a point where all most people are tasked with is QA or packing (hell, I've seen machines replace people in packing and warehouse work). What has to change is our legal and social dynamics around who owns the wealth of production. Once we socialize the capital we can discuss whether or not we should have drudgery for it's own sake.
greedo 10y ago
So you're a 50 year old truck driver. High School education, no college, but a damn good driver. What exactly do you think he's going to retrain? A few weeks at a bootcamp and he'll be a rock star coder, pulling in the $60k/year he made working his ass off on the road? Please. Less simplistic "solutions" that have continually failed workers.
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  It's worked for every other industry that was displaced by technology, but This Time It's Different? The US was over 70% farm labor in the 1800s, where do you think those truck drivers came from? Edit: also, one hardly needs to be a rockstar to make $60k/year as a coder. If you can write a coherent select in VBA you can make that.
  - losteverything 10y ago
    Serious question. Would the 60k include 33 days off paid per year and very good benefits (25% employee 75% employet)?
  - greedo 10y ago
    Where do you get that it's worked in every other industry? Using the Industrial Revolution/Farming revolution is not even applicable since jobs shifted from one manual job to another. And again, you think a 50 year old truck driver, who hasn't done any schooling 32 years, is going to be able to do SQL statements. And find a job at that age. I'd love to think that, but the IT industry has shown huge levels of ageism, and isn't exactly overflowing with entry-level jobs.
- grecy 10y ago
  > So you're a 50 year old truck driver Only 15 years till retirement. I feel quite certain there will still be a lot of "human" driven vehicles on and off the road in 15 years, even if self-driving really takes off. We just need to make sure no "new" drivers are going into the business.
  - 10y ago

You solve it by re-training these people for other jobs (free education) and a minimum living wage.

by feld 10y ago

You solve it by re-training these people for other jobs (free education) and a minimum living wage.

CPLX 10y ago

Retraining has been this sort of ludicrous dogma for awhile, especially since the 90's when the Clinton administration seemed to be obsessed with it. I keep thinking this year will be the year this fiction finally dies. The solution involves real jobs with living wages, not sending former factory workers to sit in de facto community college seminars three nights a week for free.

jfoster 10y ago
"Real jobs" doing what? If it doesn't require any education, it might be the next thing that will get automated.
- feld 10y ago
  It will be the next thing to get automated. Wake up people, the United States is a post-industrial society. We cannot manufacture things and pay people living wages to do it. We want things cheap and we want them now. Sorry. I'd rather pay these people to be on welfare for the rest of their lives than try to bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA.
  - CPLX 10y ago
    > bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA. The United States is the world's second largest manufacturer. > We cannot manufacture things and pay people living wages to do it. It's important to recognize this statement as highly political dogma rather than neutral fact. Of course we can. We just often choose not to, as a matter of public policy.
    - feld 10y ago
      Sure, and things like the auto industry are increasingly becoming automated with robotics. So yes, we can manufacture things. We just can't pay people to do it. Not if we want to afford these nice shiny new things.
norea-armozel 10y ago
I know I'm going to be the jerk here so I'll say maybe we don't need jobs? Maybe we need a better distribution of the wealth created? I know folks don't want to touch that idea with a 10 foot pole but it's a legitimate question. I'm not saying we need state socialism but maybe we do need some kind of socialism to handle these permanent changes to the economy because automation isn't going to stop just at blue collar skilled jobs. You got legal staff, financial advisors, and many more kinds of work that's on the chopping block once the automation schema is figured out for them (plus/minus time for insurance companies to figure out liabilities). Just shifting us into another bullshit job like marketing or legal isn't going to fix the underlying problem in that work is seen as an end in itself rather than a means to an end (to feed/cloth ourselves). Once we remove the myth that we need to work to live (work in the sense of working in a cubicle or around a table in an office 8-5 and commute to/from said office five times a week) then we can talk about what we should do next.
- CPLX 10y ago
  There's really no reason we can't have an advanced society with reasonably compensated skilled manufacturing jobs. The Germans and the Swiss have demonstrated as much, for example. Once you take it as fact that it's "impossible" for workers to have rights and a proper social contract in the modern global economy you start acting accordingly and become blind to the fact that it's not inevitable at all. It's important to recognize that our policies towards the working class in this country are deliberate political choices borne of the way power and influence works in our political system, not laws of nature.
  - norea-armozel 10y ago
    I think you're missing my point which is that no one should have to have a job to work or to live. Work isn't just 8-5 cubicle or factory setting nonsense. Cleaning your laundry is work. Cooking is work. Telling a story is work. Carving wooden figurines is work. But they don't have to be jobs. They don't have to follow an 8-5 schedule. And most importantly, the benefits of that work doesn't have to be majoratively sold at a discount to capitalists. To have housing, food, or medical care shouldn't come with the condition of repetitive drudgery. If a machine can do the drudgery then get the human out of it as soon as possible. This isn't entirely utopian either considering many kinds of work in textiles and plastics have been automated away. The same goes for building electronics to a point where all most people are tasked with is QA or packing (hell, I've seen machines replace people in packing and warehouse work). What has to change is our legal and social dynamics around who owns the wealth of production. Once we socialize the capital we can discuss whether or not we should have drudgery for it's own sake.

greedo 10y ago

So you're a 50 year old truck driver. High School education, no college, but a damn good driver. What exactly do you think he's going to retrain? A few weeks at a bootcamp and he'll be a rock star coder, pulling in the $60k/year he made working his ass off on the road? Please. Less simplistic "solutions" that have continually failed workers.

Godel_unicode 10y ago
It's worked for every other industry that was displaced by technology, but This Time It's Different? The US was over 70% farm labor in the 1800s, where do you think those truck drivers came from? Edit: also, one hardly needs to be a rockstar to make $60k/year as a coder. If you can write a coherent select in VBA you can make that.
- losteverything 10y ago
  Serious question. Would the 60k include 33 days off paid per year and very good benefits (25% employee 75% employet)?
- greedo 10y ago
  Where do you get that it's worked in every other industry? Using the Industrial Revolution/Farming revolution is not even applicable since jobs shifted from one manual job to another. And again, you think a 50 year old truck driver, who hasn't done any schooling 32 years, is going to be able to do SQL statements. And find a job at that age. I'd love to think that, but the IT industry has shown huge levels of ageism, and isn't exactly overflowing with entry-level jobs.
grecy 10y ago
> So you're a 50 year old truck driver Only 15 years till retirement. I feel quite certain there will still be a lot of "human" driven vehicles on and off the road in 15 years, even if self-driving really takes off. We just need to make sure no "new" drivers are going into the business.
- 10y ago