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It's interesting and a little scary, we're going to have to drastically rethink the way our economies operate and what our lifestyles will be like in the future

It's interesting and a little scary, we're going to have to drastically rethink the way our economies operate and what our lifestyles will be like in the future, and fast. The problem is we've seen that people struggle to let go of old ideals, for instance climate change deniers, because they're reluctant to let go of their lifestyle despite all evidence that it's not sustainable. Unfortunately, the more you fight it the harder the fall will be. This also makes Trumps promise to bring manufacturing back to the US quite interesting, because the labor cost is too expensive in places like China and they are loosing the manufacturing jobs themselves, just to automation. The only way to reverse the tide would be for large subsidies on US based manufacturing, and tariffs on imports, i.e. a protected economy, which has never worked in the past. In fact manufacturing IS returning to the US, Foxconn has been building US factories as have other large contract manufacturers, it makes sense from a supply chain perspective. But the return of manufacturing does not equate to a return in manufacturing jobs, those jobs are gone and will never return. And many, many more jobs will be lost within the coming years.

grecy 10y ago
> This also makes Trumps promise to bring manufacturing back to the US quite interesting.... The voting in of Trump shows how conservative and not forward-looking the US is. Vast swaths of the South are hell-bent on keeping things the way they are (for better or worse). The US has also been one of the "lower" OECD countries for a decade or two in a lot of measures [1]. I won't be surprised if it's one of the last OECD countries to have a strong manufacturing sector, requiring humans to do a lot of work that in other countries has been replaced. Other countries will figure out how to rethink economies, happiness, purpose, etc, and the US will just keep doing what it's always done. I think there will be tens of millions in OECD countries living with basic income (or something in a similar vein) with tens of millions in the US are still laboring at work. [1] The US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in: infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use, incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality, wealth inequality, and economic mobility.
- TulliusCicero 10y ago
  Sure, but in terms of GDP per capita we're one of the best (and the best overall large country)! U-S-A! U-S-A!
- disordinary 10y ago
  It's very easy to judge, but when you're in the situation that you've lost your job of 20 years because the plant you work at is no longer competitive, your bank is about to foreclose on your house, and you have to pull your kids out of university because you can no longer pay the tuition. Then the promises of the Trump campaign (and Brexit) become very persuasive. The scary thing is if the politicians themselves actually believe in what they're saying. But maybe they're right, the US has the benefit of being a huge country with most of the resources it needs to survive within its borders, perhaps you tear up trade agreements and start a policy of being more reclusive to protect your industries and employment. I see one huge advantage that the US has in a global world though, and that is (at least for now) it is by far the dominant player in the web space. Countries like Russia and China have their own services that are playing catch up on their US counterparts, but they are still well behind for the most part. In any future imaginable the web, or a successor is going to continue to be the biggest part of our lives and therefore the worlds money will continue to flow into the US. Despite what I just said, I too worry about the US. There seems to be a deep seated suspicion of anything socialist and most of the solutions to a massively automated society seem to be socialist ones (i.e. a universal basic income, or the government regulating businesses to provide for the common good). You'd hope that if it came to that scenario the US would follow suit and provide for its citizens that cannot work. But there is precedent for the opposite, the world went through a similar scenario in the 30's with the great depression. Most countries in the OECD came out of that decade with comprehensive social welfare systems, the US did not.
  - grecy 10y ago
    > It's very easy to judge, but when you're in the situation.... I wasn't trying to judge, or to say my comments are pointing out things are inherently good or bad, just that I think that's how things are. Who knows, maybe in 50-100 years tons of OECD countries will have homeless millions out of work, while the US is more-or-less similar to today...?
madaxe_again 10y ago
The fact that you will see resistance to the idea that automation will eat jobs and a change is needed even here on HN to my mind underscores the gravity of the problem you describe. You will have replies saying "never heard of a jacquard loom lol?!" And "new categories of jobs, idiot!", and "it's always been fine before!". It wasn't fine before. I recently pointed out that living conditions for the average Victorian nose-dived as available labour exceeded demand due to automation. It wasn't a magical instant orderly transition. Perhaps we should seek to avoid the same mistakes - I know that that's a radical and divisive idea but there it is. This mandates either universal basic income or a meat-grinder war. We went for (2) last time - and afterwards even women could get jobs!
- disordinary 10y ago
  I agree, but then I also think that the people who were working the fields with subsistance farming had no idea that a whole new category of work was about to emerge, they simply couldn't understand. Maybe we can't see the new work opportunities because we're so invested in what we do now. I can't see it, but that's the point. The problem is that previous revolutions like the industrial revolution were fueled by an increase in the extraction of raw materials from the earth which fueled growth. Now I see us as having the perfect storm with multiple attacks on our way of life which previous revolutions hdidn't have. We have a massive acceleration of automation and artificial intelligence, coupled with dwindling natural resources, and catastrophic climate change. We don't have the resources to keep our way of life going, and we don't have the resources to have another huge leap forwards economically (unless we start mining asteroids at scale, or something like that). It could be that this is the peak of humanity, or it could be that the peak is yet to come. But this is no doubt the peak in the way of life that we've been building since the late 1700s.
  - visarga 10y ago
    When automation becomes able to self reproduce, we bootstrap a self replicating factory. If it can work with generally available materials and doesn't need rare ones, it can lead to zero costs of production, as the factory will self replicate and expand as needed. We are probably closer to self replicating factories than AGI. It's just a matter of organizing industrial processes and automating them.
jasonm23 10y ago
My assumption is that Trump knew full well what he meant by saying he'd bring jobs back to America. Just he neglected to mention that they'll not be done by people.

grecy 10y ago

> This also makes Trumps promise to bring manufacturing back to the US quite interesting.... The voting in of Trump shows how conservative and not forward-looking the US is. Vast swaths of the South are hell-bent on keeping things the way they are (for better or worse). The US has also been one of the "lower" OECD countries for a decade or two in a lot of measures [1]. I won't be surprised if it's one of the last OECD countries to have a strong manufacturing sector, requiring humans to do a lot of work that in other countries has been replaced. Other countries will figure out how to rethink economies, happiness, purpose, etc, and the US will just keep doing what it's always done. I think there will be tens of millions in OECD countries living with basic income (or something in a similar vein) with tens of millions in the US are still laboring at work. [1] The US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in: infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use, incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality, wealth inequality, and economic mobility.

TulliusCicero 10y ago
Sure, but in terms of GDP per capita we're one of the best (and the best overall large country)! U-S-A! U-S-A!
disordinary 10y ago
It's very easy to judge, but when you're in the situation that you've lost your job of 20 years because the plant you work at is no longer competitive, your bank is about to foreclose on your house, and you have to pull your kids out of university because you can no longer pay the tuition. Then the promises of the Trump campaign (and Brexit) become very persuasive. The scary thing is if the politicians themselves actually believe in what they're saying. But maybe they're right, the US has the benefit of being a huge country with most of the resources it needs to survive within its borders, perhaps you tear up trade agreements and start a policy of being more reclusive to protect your industries and employment. I see one huge advantage that the US has in a global world though, and that is (at least for now) it is by far the dominant player in the web space. Countries like Russia and China have their own services that are playing catch up on their US counterparts, but they are still well behind for the most part. In any future imaginable the web, or a successor is going to continue to be the biggest part of our lives and therefore the worlds money will continue to flow into the US. Despite what I just said, I too worry about the US. There seems to be a deep seated suspicion of anything socialist and most of the solutions to a massively automated society seem to be socialist ones (i.e. a universal basic income, or the government regulating businesses to provide for the common good). You'd hope that if it came to that scenario the US would follow suit and provide for its citizens that cannot work. But there is precedent for the opposite, the world went through a similar scenario in the 30's with the great depression. Most countries in the OECD came out of that decade with comprehensive social welfare systems, the US did not.
- grecy 10y ago
  > It's very easy to judge, but when you're in the situation.... I wasn't trying to judge, or to say my comments are pointing out things are inherently good or bad, just that I think that's how things are. Who knows, maybe in 50-100 years tons of OECD countries will have homeless millions out of work, while the US is more-or-less similar to today...?

madaxe_again 10y ago

The fact that you will see resistance to the idea that automation will eat jobs and a change is needed even here on HN to my mind underscores the gravity of the problem you describe. You will have replies saying "never heard of a jacquard loom lol?!" And "new categories of jobs, idiot!", and "it's always been fine before!". It wasn't fine before. I recently pointed out that living conditions for the average Victorian nose-dived as available labour exceeded demand due to automation. It wasn't a magical instant orderly transition. Perhaps we should seek to avoid the same mistakes - I know that that's a radical and divisive idea but there it is. This mandates either universal basic income or a meat-grinder war. We went for (2) last time - and afterwards even women could get jobs!

disordinary 10y ago
I agree, but then I also think that the people who were working the fields with subsistance farming had no idea that a whole new category of work was about to emerge, they simply couldn't understand. Maybe we can't see the new work opportunities because we're so invested in what we do now. I can't see it, but that's the point. The problem is that previous revolutions like the industrial revolution were fueled by an increase in the extraction of raw materials from the earth which fueled growth. Now I see us as having the perfect storm with multiple attacks on our way of life which previous revolutions hdidn't have. We have a massive acceleration of automation and artificial intelligence, coupled with dwindling natural resources, and catastrophic climate change. We don't have the resources to keep our way of life going, and we don't have the resources to have another huge leap forwards economically (unless we start mining asteroids at scale, or something like that). It could be that this is the peak of humanity, or it could be that the peak is yet to come. But this is no doubt the peak in the way of life that we've been building since the late 1700s.
- visarga 10y ago
  When automation becomes able to self reproduce, we bootstrap a self replicating factory. If it can work with generally available materials and doesn't need rare ones, it can lead to zero costs of production, as the factory will self replicate and expand as needed. We are probably closer to self replicating factories than AGI. It's just a matter of organizing industrial processes and automating them.

jasonm23 10y ago

My assumption is that Trump knew full well what he meant by saying he'd bring jobs back to America. Just he neglected to mention that they'll not be done by people.