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This is, for society at the very least, a "good thing". Who's dream is it to perform a "relatively narrow set of repeated tasks" for 8 hours a day? As mention

This is, for society at the very least, a "good thing". Who's dream is it to perform a "relatively narrow set of repeated tasks" for 8 hours a day? As mentioned, take these "prime aged workers" teach them skills, and suddenly we have a spike in actually valuable labour instead of a middle class of unfulfilled office drones stuck in a stupor. IMO, the framing should be look at this amazing business opportunity to onboard high value workers, not cautionary doom.

st3v3r 10y ago
"Who's dream is it to perform a "relatively narrow set of repeated tasks" for 8 hours a day?" Someone who wants to provide for their families, not worry too much about work, and be able to enjoy their weekend? " IMO, the framing should be look at this amazing business opportunity to onboard high value workers, not cautionary doom." How?
zepto 10y ago
Who is going to 'take' people and teach them skills?
- lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
  We can start with the ones crying about a shortage of programmers and engineers (read, ones that think the cost of employees is too high). If you can impart a skill for $X at a discounted salary of delta(Y) so long as X ~ Y you're breaking even or making money over the the 1-2 year time frame the average person spends at a job. Note this is how finance has been hiring line engineers for years.
  - zepto 10y ago
    If it is so simple, why aren't they already doing it? And if they are not already doing it, how do you 'start with' them?
  - knieveltech 10y ago
    Without exception the people crying about programmers and engineers want the market flooded so they can pay lower salaries. If there really was an epic shortage of programmers we'd all be getting executive level compensation.
    - ams6110 10y ago
      Not really. There's a maximum value on the worth of programming work, as defined by the demand for the product the programmers are producing. It's the flip side of why high minimum wages cause more unemployment. Some work activities are just not worth $15/hr.
      - knieveltech 10y ago
        That high minimum wages cause more unemployment is not a settled question, and there is research that suggests that this is, in fact, a myth.
        VLM 10y ago
        That sounds rather unlikely. What would prevent the result of dividing revenue by hours worked from falling between 8 and perhaps 14? In quantum physics there's lots of hand waving, some of it true, about inaccessible states and distinct energy levels and such, but no explanation how that could apply to revenue numbers or timeclock numbers or the division operator or some mysterious combination. There might be a very local substitute effect where in a small enough area part of a large enough system, almost any arbitrary value can be applied and it'll be filled, as long as its a small enough area and a large enough system. Along the lines of 10000000 monkeys on typewriters might not produce Shakespeare anytime soon but you can expect the occasional short English language word in that stream fairly often.
        knieveltech 10y ago
        As unlikely as that sounds there is, in fact, research that backs the assertion. Wiggle room in company profits and increased disposable income upping demand have both been pointed to as potential drivers. shrug IANAE (economist)
mark_edward 10y ago
That's well and good except the economy doesnt give a shit about not wasting human potential. Gives a shit about profits and return on capital, which can go either way in terms of destroying or building human potential and skills.
mhurron 10y ago
> This is, for society at the very least, a "good thing". That depends on if you live in a society that believes people should be free to pursue their 'dreams' or in one that uses work as a measure of a persons worth. The US is the latter.
- jwallaceparker 10y ago
  What's an example of the former?
  - phkahler 10y ago
    There aren't any. Nobody is going to reward you for your dreams.
  - mhurron 10y ago
    Works of Fiction? People pay lip service to letting people expand their horizons and bettering themselves right before they tell you to get back to work. Simply because I said the US is an example of one way does not mean other country is an example of the other, which is what the OP I was responding to was talking about. The US is just one of the worst examples of your worth being tied to your work.
  - VLM 10y ago
    The USA is really large, similar to the old story about blind men encountering an elephant and having ridiculous observations about elephants based on their very limited experience of elephants. Likewise work work work is a coastie thing specifically the worst infection is in New England although its getting worse out west. Away from the coasts nobody is looked down on for joining the military for a couple years or the peace corps or going for missionary or volunteer work. Go find yourself, go work off some energy, come back calm and ready to settle down. On the coasts, people who do stuff like that are hated, reviled, made fun of.
    - mhurron 10y ago
      The US you describe doesn't exist. Military is acceptable work, peace corps, that's only something rich people who don't need to do real work do. Your coasts are pretty small too because outside of a few major cities, the highest calling you can answer in the US is killing brown people for your country, yes, even in New England. Hell, I'm looked down at by my in-laws because IT isn't 'real work.' Choose to try to learn how to play an instrument, or some other artistic endeavor and the first thing everyone will ask you is 'how do you plan to make money with that?' You'll get a lot of 'that's nice dear, but how do you intend to live.' You will be met with nothing but condescension because you are not perusing work. Stick with not working and you'll be 'that weirdo down the street.' > ready to settle down And work like an adult because you're not an adult and worthy of being treated like one until you work.
crispyambulance 10y ago
That would be certainly be a nice thing. But I think the BIG problem here is the part where you "teach them skills". What skills? who will teach these skills? and most importantly who will pay to teach these skills?
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  And what skills? Machine operator just got automated, whats next? Taxi drivers, truck drivers... what should they get an education in?
- gipp 10y ago
  And even more importantly who will trust these "skills" taught by a probably artificial and minimal re-education program enough to hire them? This stuff has been and is tried all the time and doesn't typically work out. It needs a major rethink if we're to invest substantially in them.
douche 10y ago
That's fine if you have an average or above IQ. There's a lot of people that don't, and no manner of training is going to rectify that hole they start in, especially with everybody else pulling ahead at the same or greater rate. Manufacturing used to be a solid living for those who were none-too-bright but capable of semi-skilled drudge work for 8-12 hours a day. More and more, those people are getting left out in the cold. I feel badly for them, but I don't know what the answer is. I was smart enough to go to college and get a degree in something technical, find a job and make good money. Most of my high school classmates would be ecstatic if the old jobs in the paper mills and the shoe shops and the sawmills that their parents and grandparents had were still available.
- VLM 10y ago
  The classic reply to that is if those jobs were still available, we'd have to give up all our post 1950s technology. You starve people enough, hunger drives some interesting responses. If keeping your iphone means watching your kid die, lots of people will totally go for some kind of neo-Amish 1950s revival. Or just go full on Amish. Currently the Amish standard of living is somewhat higher than the general population and that is only going to increase in the future as the median standard of living continues to decline with technological "progress" and environmental change, while the Amish hold relatively constant, which is going to drive lots of recruitment. If you give a choice of living under a bridge while starving in iphone-land or being a successful carpenter in Amish-land, well, kinda a no brainer choice there...
  - shostack 10y ago
    I think the cultural differences would prevent a significant shift towards Amish culture. Maybe a shift towards living off the land, but I don't see poor middle America becoming Amish anytime soon.
knightofmars 10y ago
This is anecdotal evidence from conversations I've had but it has been recurring. A portion of the 18-50 "prime aged workers" believe that when people say "teach them skills" or "provide continuing education" they take it as being told they're stupid. Which, to me, is a viewpoint that makes sense. They are the group that completed high-school and went straight into the workforce or didn't complete high-school at all. They view the public education system as having failed them. It was something they were required by law to do and as such did it until it was no longer required. The last thing they want to do is to go back into a system where they were repeatedly told they were "inadequate" either through grades, by their parents, peers, teachers, or all four. It is my opinion but I believe this is going to be much harder to fix than just teaching new skills. Specifically for those individuals I described above. We need to fix how we as a country approach education and how our population views it before we can move ahead with teaching those already out of the system, and jaded by it, new skills.
- cylinder 10y ago
  ..
  - ams6110 10y ago
    And you had no role in this at all? The school sucked you in and made you take out student loans before you ever had a chance in 8 years to look at the job market for what they were making you learn?
stupidcar 10y ago
Now you have a glut of skilled workers all chasing the few remaining well-paid jobs, and driving down their wages in the process. Plus you still have a huge mass of unemployed people who ended up in those jobs because they lacked either the aptitude of temperament to gain skills in the first place, or are too old, poor or poorly situated to take advantage of the opportunity now. Soon, due to the dearth of people employed, and the shrinking wages of the minority who are, there is no longer enough people left with money to buy most goods and services. As a result, businesses start to shut down, exacerbating unemployment and sending the economy into a contractionary death spiral. Yes, in a healthy job market, people will gradually retrain and relocate in order to fill demand. But what we're talking about here is a total breakdown in the jobs market, to the point where it becomes non-functional. It's the difference between supply problems causing the prices of a few foodstuffs to rise, and an unending drought that destroys harvests year after year. The market can cope with the first, but not the second. The result will be famine and mass starvation.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  How do you know that new forms of jobs would not arise?
syshum 10y ago
>>Who's dream is it to perform a "relatively narrow set of repeated tasks" for 8 hours a day? No ones, but they also want to eat, have a home, and provide for their offspring > As mentioned, take these "prime aged workers" teach them skills, and suddenly we have a spike in actually valuable labor instead of a middle class of unfulfilled office drones stuck in a stupor. What about the people that can not be taught "skills", what about when the machines take over their skills? What about ... 100 other scenarios I can come up with >the framing should be look at this amazing business opportunity to onboard high value workers, not cautionary doom. To do what, exactly? No job is safe from automation. To deny the potential for this new wave of automation to create massive poverty is to deny reality. We have ti adjust how society functions, how we look at labor, and honestly how we look at human rights. If we do not, if we hold to the same Social Structure of 40 hours a week with minimum amount of pay as possible all that will be is suffering for the majority, because even in this "utopia" where you can take 100% of the lower skilled worker and magically impart upon them more skills all you have done is flood the market with a greater supply of workers for those higher skilled jobs while no increasing the demand for them. Economics 101 tells up that results in a reduction in the price of that labor, so what was once "valuable labor" is no longer valuable.
ska 10y ago
"As mentioned, take these "prime aged workers" teach them skills, and suddenly we have a spike in actually valuable labour." It's a noble goal, but history has a wide range of cautionary tales to offer. Anybody who tells you this is a straightforward process (or even highly probable to succeed) is either naive or selling something.

st3v3r 10y ago

"Who's dream is it to perform a "relatively narrow set of repeated tasks" for 8 hours a day?" Someone who wants to provide for their families, not worry too much about work, and be able to enjoy their weekend? " IMO, the framing should be look at this amazing business opportunity to onboard high value workers, not cautionary doom." How?

zepto 10y ago

Who is going to 'take' people and teach them skills?

lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
We can start with the ones crying about a shortage of programmers and engineers (read, ones that think the cost of employees is too high). If you can impart a skill for $X at a discounted salary of delta(Y) so long as X ~ Y you're breaking even or making money over the the 1-2 year time frame the average person spends at a job. Note this is how finance has been hiring line engineers for years.
- zepto 10y ago
  If it is so simple, why aren't they already doing it? And if they are not already doing it, how do you 'start with' them?
- knieveltech 10y ago
  Without exception the people crying about programmers and engineers want the market flooded so they can pay lower salaries. If there really was an epic shortage of programmers we'd all be getting executive level compensation.
  - ams6110 10y ago
    Not really. There's a maximum value on the worth of programming work, as defined by the demand for the product the programmers are producing. It's the flip side of why high minimum wages cause more unemployment. Some work activities are just not worth $15/hr.
    - knieveltech 10y ago
      That high minimum wages cause more unemployment is not a settled question, and there is research that suggests that this is, in fact, a myth.
      - VLM 10y ago
        That sounds rather unlikely. What would prevent the result of dividing revenue by hours worked from falling between 8 and perhaps 14? In quantum physics there's lots of hand waving, some of it true, about inaccessible states and distinct energy levels and such, but no explanation how that could apply to revenue numbers or timeclock numbers or the division operator or some mysterious combination. There might be a very local substitute effect where in a small enough area part of a large enough system, almost any arbitrary value can be applied and it'll be filled, as long as its a small enough area and a large enough system. Along the lines of 10000000 monkeys on typewriters might not produce Shakespeare anytime soon but you can expect the occasional short English language word in that stream fairly often.
        knieveltech 10y ago
        As unlikely as that sounds there is, in fact, research that backs the assertion. Wiggle room in company profits and increased disposable income upping demand have both been pointed to as potential drivers. shrug IANAE (economist)

mark_edward 10y ago

That's well and good except the economy doesnt give a shit about not wasting human potential. Gives a shit about profits and return on capital, which can go either way in terms of destroying or building human potential and skills.

mhurron 10y ago

> This is, for society at the very least, a "good thing". That depends on if you live in a society that believes people should be free to pursue their 'dreams' or in one that uses work as a measure of a persons worth. The US is the latter.

jwallaceparker 10y ago
What's an example of the former?
- phkahler 10y ago
  There aren't any. Nobody is going to reward you for your dreams.
- mhurron 10y ago
  Works of Fiction? People pay lip service to letting people expand their horizons and bettering themselves right before they tell you to get back to work. Simply because I said the US is an example of one way does not mean other country is an example of the other, which is what the OP I was responding to was talking about. The US is just one of the worst examples of your worth being tied to your work.
- VLM 10y ago
  The USA is really large, similar to the old story about blind men encountering an elephant and having ridiculous observations about elephants based on their very limited experience of elephants. Likewise work work work is a coastie thing specifically the worst infection is in New England although its getting worse out west. Away from the coasts nobody is looked down on for joining the military for a couple years or the peace corps or going for missionary or volunteer work. Go find yourself, go work off some energy, come back calm and ready to settle down. On the coasts, people who do stuff like that are hated, reviled, made fun of.
  - mhurron 10y ago
    The US you describe doesn't exist. Military is acceptable work, peace corps, that's only something rich people who don't need to do real work do. Your coasts are pretty small too because outside of a few major cities, the highest calling you can answer in the US is killing brown people for your country, yes, even in New England. Hell, I'm looked down at by my in-laws because IT isn't 'real work.' Choose to try to learn how to play an instrument, or some other artistic endeavor and the first thing everyone will ask you is 'how do you plan to make money with that?' You'll get a lot of 'that's nice dear, but how do you intend to live.' You will be met with nothing but condescension because you are not perusing work. Stick with not working and you'll be 'that weirdo down the street.' > ready to settle down And work like an adult because you're not an adult and worthy of being treated like one until you work.

crispyambulance 10y ago

That would be certainly be a nice thing. But I think the BIG problem here is the part where you "teach them skills". What skills? who will teach these skills? and most importantly who will pay to teach these skills?

monk_e_boy 10y ago
And what skills? Machine operator just got automated, whats next? Taxi drivers, truck drivers... what should they get an education in?
gipp 10y ago
And even more importantly who will trust these "skills" taught by a probably artificial and minimal re-education program enough to hire them? This stuff has been and is tried all the time and doesn't typically work out. It needs a major rethink if we're to invest substantially in them.

douche 10y ago

That's fine if you have an average or above IQ. There's a lot of people that don't, and no manner of training is going to rectify that hole they start in, especially with everybody else pulling ahead at the same or greater rate. Manufacturing used to be a solid living for those who were none-too-bright but capable of semi-skilled drudge work for 8-12 hours a day. More and more, those people are getting left out in the cold. I feel badly for them, but I don't know what the answer is. I was smart enough to go to college and get a degree in something technical, find a job and make good money. Most of my high school classmates would be ecstatic if the old jobs in the paper mills and the shoe shops and the sawmills that their parents and grandparents had were still available.

VLM 10y ago
The classic reply to that is if those jobs were still available, we'd have to give up all our post 1950s technology. You starve people enough, hunger drives some interesting responses. If keeping your iphone means watching your kid die, lots of people will totally go for some kind of neo-Amish 1950s revival. Or just go full on Amish. Currently the Amish standard of living is somewhat higher than the general population and that is only going to increase in the future as the median standard of living continues to decline with technological "progress" and environmental change, while the Amish hold relatively constant, which is going to drive lots of recruitment. If you give a choice of living under a bridge while starving in iphone-land or being a successful carpenter in Amish-land, well, kinda a no brainer choice there...
- shostack 10y ago
  I think the cultural differences would prevent a significant shift towards Amish culture. Maybe a shift towards living off the land, but I don't see poor middle America becoming Amish anytime soon.

knightofmars 10y ago

This is anecdotal evidence from conversations I've had but it has been recurring. A portion of the 18-50 "prime aged workers" believe that when people say "teach them skills" or "provide continuing education" they take it as being told they're stupid. Which, to me, is a viewpoint that makes sense. They are the group that completed high-school and went straight into the workforce or didn't complete high-school at all. They view the public education system as having failed them. It was something they were required by law to do and as such did it until it was no longer required. The last thing they want to do is to go back into a system where they were repeatedly told they were "inadequate" either through grades, by their parents, peers, teachers, or all four. It is my opinion but I believe this is going to be much harder to fix than just teaching new skills. Specifically for those individuals I described above. We need to fix how we as a country approach education and how our population views it before we can move ahead with teaching those already out of the system, and jaded by it, new skills.

cylinder 10y ago
..
- ams6110 10y ago
  And you had no role in this at all? The school sucked you in and made you take out student loans before you ever had a chance in 8 years to look at the job market for what they were making you learn?

stupidcar 10y ago

Now you have a glut of skilled workers all chasing the few remaining well-paid jobs, and driving down their wages in the process. Plus you still have a huge mass of unemployed people who ended up in those jobs because they lacked either the aptitude of temperament to gain skills in the first place, or are too old, poor or poorly situated to take advantage of the opportunity now. Soon, due to the dearth of people employed, and the shrinking wages of the minority who are, there is no longer enough people left with money to buy most goods and services. As a result, businesses start to shut down, exacerbating unemployment and sending the economy into a contractionary death spiral. Yes, in a healthy job market, people will gradually retrain and relocate in order to fill demand. But what we're talking about here is a total breakdown in the jobs market, to the point where it becomes non-functional. It's the difference between supply problems causing the prices of a few foodstuffs to rise, and an unending drought that destroys harvests year after year. The market can cope with the first, but not the second. The result will be famine and mass starvation.

maverick_iceman 10y ago
How do you know that new forms of jobs would not arise?

syshum 10y ago

>>Who's dream is it to perform a "relatively narrow set of repeated tasks" for 8 hours a day? No ones, but they also want to eat, have a home, and provide for their offspring > As mentioned, take these "prime aged workers" teach them skills, and suddenly we have a spike in actually valuable labor instead of a middle class of unfulfilled office drones stuck in a stupor. What about the people that can not be taught "skills", what about when the machines take over their skills? What about ... 100 other scenarios I can come up with >the framing should be look at this amazing business opportunity to onboard high value workers, not cautionary doom. To do what, exactly? No job is safe from automation. To deny the potential for this new wave of automation to create massive poverty is to deny reality. We have ti adjust how society functions, how we look at labor, and honestly how we look at human rights. If we do not, if we hold to the same Social Structure of 40 hours a week with minimum amount of pay as possible all that will be is suffering for the majority, because even in this "utopia" where you can take 100% of the lower skilled worker and magically impart upon them more skills all you have done is flood the market with a greater supply of workers for those higher skilled jobs while no increasing the demand for them. Economics 101 tells up that results in a reduction in the price of that labor, so what was once "valuable labor" is no longer valuable.

ska 10y ago

"As mentioned, take these "prime aged workers" teach them skills, and suddenly we have a spike in actually valuable labour." It's a noble goal, but history has a wide range of cautionary tales to offer. Anybody who tells you this is a straightforward process (or even highly probable to succeed) is either naive or selling something.