4 ms·

Converting a user operated machine from a steam engine to electric engine doesn't remove the user. Converting to a computer operated or assisted machine does.

icebraining 9y ago
If the electric engine can produce the same things ten times faster, you've just removed nine-tenths of the users. Sure, someone is still around, but then again, automatic factories still have some people supervising them - just much fewer.
- mjburgess 9y ago
  Increasing worker productivity has always lead to fulfilling larger a demand. What is missing from all these discussions is that human wanting is essential infinite. The more productive you can be at making something, the more it will be taken for granted and a new thing wanted. Demand is infinite. Work is created to supply it. There is no amount of labour that will ever exhaust it. All automation does is increase the space of "taken for granted products". The infinite space of potential products/services for human beings to supply still exists. 80% of the UK economy is already services from people to other people.
  - smaddox 9y ago
    Human wanting and economic demand are not identical. In order for human wanting to turn into economic demand, those who want need to have money (in a capitalistic society). If there are limited numbers of jobs and limited forms of need/want-based income redistribution, then demand is limited.
  - djrobstep 9y ago
    This ignores diminishing returns of additional labour and consumption. If we reach the happy situation where robots are providing us with the things we need for a good life almost automatically, why would we continue to work ourselves to the bone for additional goods and services that won't increase our happiness much? Most people would rather just work less. In fact, our current level of economic output is enough to give every household a comfortable life, even if we worked substantially less. Unfortunately the system is structured to maximize labour time, keep us economically insecure, and use us all as grist for the capitalist mill, rather than maximizing leisure time and quality of life.
    - Eridrus 9y ago
      There is a fundamental competition baked into existence in the form of land rights and human attention. Who gets to live where? Who are your friends? Who gets to go to that fancy college? While there are other ways of answering this question than "those who can afford it", it will always exist in some form. While automation of necessities will make it easier to opt out of the capitalist mill, I would expect that to not be a tradeoff-free choice.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    Demand is ultimately limited by human attention. There is only so much time someone can spend buying goods and services, especially if they intend to actually do something with them. And the demand for each individual product is far below that. There are some products virtually everyone will buy, but usually only once in a certain timeframe. Then there are specialized things like combines or milling machines where demand only goes up if some other industry expands. If you improve your factory equipment to produce double the items per employee-hour at a lower unit cost, you likely won't see the demand double in proportion. Most likely you'll just eat into the market share of a competitor. Maybe some new customers will newly be able to afford the product, but once it has "taken for granted" status, even that is impossible. And we are not increasing the number of these "taken for granted products" very quickly. As far as physical products are concerned, I can only think of the smart phone as a recent example; actually that decreased the number of those products, by obsoleting cameras and dumb phones for most people. Among internet services, advertising is the dominant money-maker, and that's a zero-sum game for eyeballs which only employs a relatively small number of people. As more and more products and services are provided by machines, fewer and fewer people become necessary to keep things running in the background. Sure, some of the replaced people can try to come up with new things to offer, but most of them won't succeed, and the vast majority will eventually be unable to cost-effectively provide value to other humans at all. At that point, we'll find out whether it's cheaper to feed them or shoot them.
    - toastermoster 9y ago
      You make some very solid points. However, most of the civilian guns are owned by people that most here would likely associate with being unable to cost-effectively provide any value to other humans at some point in the future. A large portion of those who are in the military associate with such people. Who is going to be performing said shooting? Just a thought.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        Who is going to be performing said shooting? Drones, of course.
  - wott 9y ago
    I completely disagree. It has been a while that demand stalls. We can see it by observing that energy (time, investment, ...) doesn't go much any more to production means, but to advertisement, marketing, new forms of distribution, and so on. Production is enough in many domains (and there is no room for newcomers, it contracts rather than develops, you just compete to take shares from someone else, not that much to contribute to a booming market), the current problem and aim of companies are to invent ways to get people to consume more and more stuff.

icebraining 9y ago

If the electric engine can produce the same things ten times faster, you've just removed nine-tenths of the users. Sure, someone is still around, but then again, automatic factories still have some people supervising them - just much fewer.

mjburgess 9y ago
Increasing worker productivity has always lead to fulfilling larger a demand. What is missing from all these discussions is that human wanting is essential infinite. The more productive you can be at making something, the more it will be taken for granted and a new thing wanted. Demand is infinite. Work is created to supply it. There is no amount of labour that will ever exhaust it. All automation does is increase the space of "taken for granted products". The infinite space of potential products/services for human beings to supply still exists. 80% of the UK economy is already services from people to other people.
- smaddox 9y ago
  Human wanting and economic demand are not identical. In order for human wanting to turn into economic demand, those who want need to have money (in a capitalistic society). If there are limited numbers of jobs and limited forms of need/want-based income redistribution, then demand is limited.
- djrobstep 9y ago
  This ignores diminishing returns of additional labour and consumption. If we reach the happy situation where robots are providing us with the things we need for a good life almost automatically, why would we continue to work ourselves to the bone for additional goods and services that won't increase our happiness much? Most people would rather just work less. In fact, our current level of economic output is enough to give every household a comfortable life, even if we worked substantially less. Unfortunately the system is structured to maximize labour time, keep us economically insecure, and use us all as grist for the capitalist mill, rather than maximizing leisure time and quality of life.
  - Eridrus 9y ago
    There is a fundamental competition baked into existence in the form of land rights and human attention. Who gets to live where? Who are your friends? Who gets to go to that fancy college? While there are other ways of answering this question than "those who can afford it", it will always exist in some form. While automation of necessities will make it easier to opt out of the capitalist mill, I would expect that to not be a tradeoff-free choice.
- yorwba 9y ago
  Demand is ultimately limited by human attention. There is only so much time someone can spend buying goods and services, especially if they intend to actually do something with them. And the demand for each individual product is far below that. There are some products virtually everyone will buy, but usually only once in a certain timeframe. Then there are specialized things like combines or milling machines where demand only goes up if some other industry expands. If you improve your factory equipment to produce double the items per employee-hour at a lower unit cost, you likely won't see the demand double in proportion. Most likely you'll just eat into the market share of a competitor. Maybe some new customers will newly be able to afford the product, but once it has "taken for granted" status, even that is impossible. And we are not increasing the number of these "taken for granted products" very quickly. As far as physical products are concerned, I can only think of the smart phone as a recent example; actually that decreased the number of those products, by obsoleting cameras and dumb phones for most people. Among internet services, advertising is the dominant money-maker, and that's a zero-sum game for eyeballs which only employs a relatively small number of people. As more and more products and services are provided by machines, fewer and fewer people become necessary to keep things running in the background. Sure, some of the replaced people can try to come up with new things to offer, but most of them won't succeed, and the vast majority will eventually be unable to cost-effectively provide value to other humans at all. At that point, we'll find out whether it's cheaper to feed them or shoot them.
  - toastermoster 9y ago
    You make some very solid points. However, most of the civilian guns are owned by people that most here would likely associate with being unable to cost-effectively provide any value to other humans at some point in the future. A large portion of those who are in the military associate with such people. Who is going to be performing said shooting? Just a thought.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Who is going to be performing said shooting? Drones, of course.
- wott 9y ago
  I completely disagree. It has been a while that demand stalls. We can see it by observing that energy (time, investment, ...) doesn't go much any more to production means, but to advertisement, marketing, new forms of distribution, and so on. Production is enough in many domains (and there is no room for newcomers, it contracts rather than develops, you just compete to take shares from someone else, not that much to contribute to a booming market), the current problem and aim of companies are to invent ways to get people to consume more and more stuff.