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No matter how you shake this, we're looking at 60+% additional unemployment for every city. Some fare much worse. And I remember from my history studies that th

No matter how you shake this, we're looking at 60+% additional unemployment for every city. Some fare much worse. And I remember from my history studies that the Great Depression was officially around 33% unemployment. I've listened to the national talking heads and political figures, and nobody publicly is talking about this. Not the Republicans, and not the Democrats. However, the Dems seem to have a better idea by bolstering all sorts of subsidy and welfare programs. Those work well and good for keep individuals out of poverty, but falls short when working with communities of impoverished. These end up counting on, and using tax revenues from well-to-do areas. And these unemployment numbers show that there won't be 'well-to-do' areas. The WPA was one such way out of mass unemployment. But given how effective automation is, I question its use this time around, if the current political atmosphere would even have the stomach to discuss such things. This is one result from capitalism. Accelerate until we hit the wall. And this wall, is that we will no longer need "labor" provided by humans. So, what do we do with the 95% of people that must work? That's the $64,000 question. My personal plan: I'm learning electronics from the ground up. I'm teaching myself control systems theory. I'm learning how things are put together - electronics are very similar to code libraries. You do a function block to do something, and you chain them together. This means that I'm untraining specialities, and learning how to analyse and fix quickly. I guess being a sysad also helps in that. I'm not putting much trust in the national or state level government. I see more done at the local levels, but without tax revenue/money, they're up shit's creek as well.

rubidium 9y ago
60% is unrealistic. It's still very expensive to make anything as reliable as a human being if we're talking about anything other than pick-and-place (and that was really expensive the first time around). For a business to automate, it must invest substantial resources into the automation process and product. It must work in an industry where consistency is the most important quality customers are looking for. Automation already affected most of what it's going to do in manufacturing. Given the capital and talent being deployed, automated driving is on the way. Most other industries are not seeing similar talent and capital being invested into automation. Long-haul trucking is the industry I have the greatest concern for. Most of the others (e.g. short order cooks) will be fine for quite some time.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Tell that to the explosion of automation occurring right now. My local McD's just put in the touchscreen kiosk that'll ultimately replace the entire counter crew. The 'cooks' are already just a few folks running from machine to machine pressing buttons. That can also be entirely replaced (see other timely HN posting about MIT students' robo-cooker).
  - bluedino 9y ago
    I find it odd that McD's went with something as archaic as self-ordering kiosks when you can just order from your phone. Those kiosks are very slow and a bit cumbersome to use, and they put them smack in the middle of the waiting area in the restaurant. Huge waste of space.
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      Exactly my thought. Who doesn't have a phone? But wait - maybe there's a significant demographic there, after all its McD's.
      - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
        I also look at places like Chili's, Applebees, and the low-midgrade sit downs. Whenever you see a tablet on the table, that's their way of automating staff on various levels at a restaurant's level. They sell it as a way to play games tableside and to request server assistance... In reality, its so they can hire even less servers, have push-demand by customers when they wanted waited on, and sell more stuff quicker. It's also a way for management to ascertain actual engagement levels along with sales data. It's another case of short-sighted automation segmenting out under management in low end sit down restaurants. You certainly don't see high end restaurants engaging in these shenanigans... yet. Our (wife and I) decision is we place them face-down off the table. We prefer to engage with humans, not a idiot-box upper management dictates.
        9y ago
bloopernova 9y ago
My anecdotal experience is that people can't wrap their heads around such an enormous, complete, shift in the way labour and capital will work. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair. The few truck drivers I've spoken with all seem to think that autonomous trucks are going to arrive just after they retire. Similar stories come from nurses, fast food workers, and construction folks like drywallers. They all say "oh, that won't arrive for at least another 30 to 40 years!" I don't belabour the point because that just makes people fearful and angry. In the USA there's a huge amount of people in depressed rural areas already. Their fear at being left behind by society has been manipulated into keeping the Republican party in power by various hatemongers. Now imagine the fear and anger they and many more will feel when 95% of the jobs disappear. What sort of person will rise up and lead this vast angry mob? How many of them will claim disability? Imagine 200 million people potentially starving and angry, many of them with firearms? (NB: I make no statement on the ethics of firearms!) I am deeply worried about the era my teenage stepdaughter will live through.
- randomdata 9y ago
  The only thing I cannot wrap my head around is why we won't create new jobs. Are we truly months away from reaching the pinnacle of human achievement? We've quite literally lost 95% of all jobs before. That part is nothing new. However, what we found was that when people were jobless and bored, they found new things to do. Things that nobody ever imagined people doing when they were busying doing other jobs. It is not like human-level robots are anywhere on the horizon. At best we have simple pattern matching machines that can be trained to do certain tasks. But they cannot cross tasks. A self-driving car robot cannot start becoming a self-practicing doctor robot on a whim. A self-practicing doctor requires building an entirely new robot specialized to do medicine. Up to this point, each time we lose jobs, the new jobs people invent have become more and more diverse. At one time, 95% of the workforce all did the same job. Now the largest industry employs something like 5% of the workforce. The numbers are getting smaller. And are trending to be even smaller still. It is not difficult to imagine a time when people will all have distinct jobs, that no other human does. The economies of building a robot to replace a single person starts to diminish quickly.
snarfy 9y ago
We need to own the means of production. Once everything is automated, that means owning stock in those companies automating everything.
- Density 9y ago
  means of production: entry level laser sintering metal 3d printer is 70k. CNC mill is 10k. Marx's dream is available to nearly every single American. Have at it.

rubidium 9y ago

60% is unrealistic. It's still very expensive to make anything as reliable as a human being if we're talking about anything other than pick-and-place (and that was really expensive the first time around). For a business to automate, it must invest substantial resources into the automation process and product. It must work in an industry where consistency is the most important quality customers are looking for. Automation already affected most of what it's going to do in manufacturing. Given the capital and talent being deployed, automated driving is on the way. Most other industries are not seeing similar talent and capital being invested into automation. Long-haul trucking is the industry I have the greatest concern for. Most of the others (e.g. short order cooks) will be fine for quite some time.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Tell that to the explosion of automation occurring right now. My local McD's just put in the touchscreen kiosk that'll ultimately replace the entire counter crew. The 'cooks' are already just a few folks running from machine to machine pressing buttons. That can also be entirely replaced (see other timely HN posting about MIT students' robo-cooker).
- bluedino 9y ago
  I find it odd that McD's went with something as archaic as self-ordering kiosks when you can just order from your phone. Those kiosks are very slow and a bit cumbersome to use, and they put them smack in the middle of the waiting area in the restaurant. Huge waste of space.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Exactly my thought. Who doesn't have a phone? But wait - maybe there's a significant demographic there, after all its McD's.
    - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
      I also look at places like Chili's, Applebees, and the low-midgrade sit downs. Whenever you see a tablet on the table, that's their way of automating staff on various levels at a restaurant's level. They sell it as a way to play games tableside and to request server assistance... In reality, its so they can hire even less servers, have push-demand by customers when they wanted waited on, and sell more stuff quicker. It's also a way for management to ascertain actual engagement levels along with sales data. It's another case of short-sighted automation segmenting out under management in low end sit down restaurants. You certainly don't see high end restaurants engaging in these shenanigans... yet. Our (wife and I) decision is we place them face-down off the table. We prefer to engage with humans, not a idiot-box upper management dictates.
      - 9y ago

bloopernova 9y ago

My anecdotal experience is that people can't wrap their heads around such an enormous, complete, shift in the way labour and capital will work. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair. The few truck drivers I've spoken with all seem to think that autonomous trucks are going to arrive just after they retire. Similar stories come from nurses, fast food workers, and construction folks like drywallers. They all say "oh, that won't arrive for at least another 30 to 40 years!" I don't belabour the point because that just makes people fearful and angry. In the USA there's a huge amount of people in depressed rural areas already. Their fear at being left behind by society has been manipulated into keeping the Republican party in power by various hatemongers. Now imagine the fear and anger they and many more will feel when 95% of the jobs disappear. What sort of person will rise up and lead this vast angry mob? How many of them will claim disability? Imagine 200 million people potentially starving and angry, many of them with firearms? (NB: I make no statement on the ethics of firearms!) I am deeply worried about the era my teenage stepdaughter will live through.

randomdata 9y ago
The only thing I cannot wrap my head around is why we won't create new jobs. Are we truly months away from reaching the pinnacle of human achievement? We've quite literally lost 95% of all jobs before. That part is nothing new. However, what we found was that when people were jobless and bored, they found new things to do. Things that nobody ever imagined people doing when they were busying doing other jobs. It is not like human-level robots are anywhere on the horizon. At best we have simple pattern matching machines that can be trained to do certain tasks. But they cannot cross tasks. A self-driving car robot cannot start becoming a self-practicing doctor robot on a whim. A self-practicing doctor requires building an entirely new robot specialized to do medicine. Up to this point, each time we lose jobs, the new jobs people invent have become more and more diverse. At one time, 95% of the workforce all did the same job. Now the largest industry employs something like 5% of the workforce. The numbers are getting smaller. And are trending to be even smaller still. It is not difficult to imagine a time when people will all have distinct jobs, that no other human does. The economies of building a robot to replace a single person starts to diminish quickly.

snarfy 9y ago

We need to own the means of production. Once everything is automated, that means owning stock in those companies automating everything.

Density 9y ago
means of production: entry level laser sintering metal 3d printer is 70k. CNC mill is 10k. Marx's dream is available to nearly every single American. Have at it.