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Automation was never really a macro-level job killing force anywhere. It both created and destroyed jobs. It was mainly a useful scapegoat. The reality was tha

Automation was never really a macro-level job killing force anywhere. It both created and destroyed jobs. It was mainly a useful scapegoat. The reality was that highly automated factories were more visible (because they were the ones that didn't close and move abroad) and there was no shortage of anecdotes about jobs eliminated. If you're trying to protect profitable trade deals and austerian government budgets, a scapegoat is necessary. The most automated profession in the US has suffered no macro level disemployment effects: https://qz.com/962427/what-its-like-to-be-a-modern-engraver-the-most-automated-job-in-the-united-states/ https://qz.com/962427/what-its-like-to-be-a-modern-engraver-...

maxerickson 8y ago
People not going into the field (because someone else is working 5x faster) sure seems like a macro effect. Or are you explicitly dismissing jobs that are never created?
- crdoconnor 8y ago
  I'm saying that when 90% of all jobs were in farming and those jobs were automated it didn't mean 90% unemployment. New kinds of job appeared to employ those people who would have gone to work in the fields. The whole "oh but this time it's different because AI" argument is a load of bullshit. The disemployment effect is actually about 10x milder than it was when we came in off the fields and new kinds of job are created all the time.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    Laborers left farms for better jobs in factories. They weren't pushed out.
    - crdoconnor 8y ago
      Small landholders were pushed out by the enclosure movement.
xt00 8y ago
Interesting about the scapegoating of automation.. arguing against it makes you sound like a Luddite, so not a bad approach. But yea an interesting thing I’ve noticed in China is that more and more factories are automating plastic molding — except in super cheap cheap factories that don’t want to spend money for automation. I think the party won’t totally be able to stop it, just slow it down. But lots of new govt funded factories are being built to employ quite a small number of people — like high tech stuff like making special parts for electronics especially.

maxerickson 8y ago

People not going into the field (because someone else is working 5x faster) sure seems like a macro effect. Or are you explicitly dismissing jobs that are never created?

crdoconnor 8y ago
I'm saying that when 90% of all jobs were in farming and those jobs were automated it didn't mean 90% unemployment. New kinds of job appeared to employ those people who would have gone to work in the fields. The whole "oh but this time it's different because AI" argument is a load of bullshit. The disemployment effect is actually about 10x milder than it was when we came in off the fields and new kinds of job are created all the time.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  Laborers left farms for better jobs in factories. They weren't pushed out.
  - crdoconnor 8y ago
    Small landholders were pushed out by the enclosure movement.

xt00 8y ago

Interesting about the scapegoating of automation.. arguing against it makes you sound like a Luddite, so not a bad approach. But yea an interesting thing I’ve noticed in China is that more and more factories are automating plastic molding — except in super cheap cheap factories that don’t want to spend money for automation. I think the party won’t totally be able to stop it, just slow it down. But lots of new govt funded factories are being built to employ quite a small number of people — like high tech stuff like making special parts for electronics especially.