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My problem with this take is that people --- including me! --- have been predicting this for decades because the logic just seems so clear, yet unemployment is
by roca 7y ago
My problem with this take is that people --- including me! --- have been predicting this for decades because the logic just seems so clear, yet unemployment is still low and long-term real wages have not declined, in fact around the world and in most wealth bands they have risen dramatically.
I don't think there's some benevolent cosmic law that ensures job creation will always match job destruction, so I can't assume these dire predictions will never come true. But after so many years crying wolf it's hard to take them seriously until macroeconomic indicators show they're happening.
- AstralStorm 7y agoWe're getting some signs of sigmoid in both USA and Norway, already there in Japan. The grand total is being pumped by China, India, Eastern Europe playing catch up, with places like South Korea having almost reached it.
- nostrademons 7y agoPeople usually underestimate the capacity of the population to adapt. The changes described here have been operating for decades. Motivated, mentally-healthy people with strong community support can usually enter a new career in 2-4 years. You get a recession and lots of angsting as people mentally accept the new reality, and then they get jobs within that new reality (which just gets destroyed again in another 10-15 years). When people haven't been able to adapt, results are every bit as tragic as people predicted. Think of the large swaths of Appalachia or the Midwest that are still smarting from our transition away from a coal & steel economy.