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Prior to the industrial revolution something like 80% of the US population was in agriculture and now it's 1.5% and we are still at near full unemployment. I th
by jerkstate 7y ago
Prior to the industrial revolution something like 80% of the US population was in agriculture and now it's 1.5% and we are still at near full unemployment. I think the idea that humans will somehow run out of useful stuff to do once we have robots doing the current set of things is a very fixed-mindset way of thinking. If there is money kicking around, people will find productive stuff to do and build companies to do things that weren't possible before.
- spaced-out 7y agoSure, there will be new work created, but what makes you so sure that new work will go to humans? Why wouldn't the guy doing things that were not possible before just buy robots do those new jobs?
- iguy 7y agoWell, we kind-of define work as being that done by humans. My laptop does more number-crunching than all the human computers of last century every morning, but we don't count this as work taken away from anyone. Humans find new things to do, providing services (or amusements) to each other which were not previously thought necessary. The entire services sector of the economy is things that basically weren't done 100 years ago (or were done on such a tiny scale as not to matter). And we all work hard to afford these new things, by making other such new things (like websites!), partly as a game of keeping up with the neighbors, rather than being content with our great-grandparents' living standards.
- BurningFrog 7y agoYeah, another way to say the same thing is that an unemployed human is an underexploited resource. Capitalism is really good at not letting those go to waste.