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There is a reckoning coming when agricultural robots will overtake manual labor. This is going to lead to a giant calamity of agricultural workers, specifically

There is a reckoning coming when agricultural robots will overtake manual labor. This is going to lead to a giant calamity of agricultural workers, specifically migrant workers, who are suddenly going to be without a job. I love the robots, I think it’s great, but we should be prepared for a human concern that WILL come.

te_chris 6y ago
Nah, you're overdoing it. A lot of farming is already automated, and across the so-called 'Advanced Economies' the replacement rate for workers is too low anyway. We're heading for a demographic crunch with too few workers, especially as all the ageing boomers need care too. for more: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/09/18/the-great-demographic-reversal-and-what-it-means-for-the-economy/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/09/18/the-great-...
jillesvangurp 6y ago
Farming is already heavily industrialized and automated and uses a fraction of the labor it did a century ago. This is more a matter of using non toxic ways of dealing with weeds.
- sumtechguy 6y ago
  The current way is to spray a broadbase weed killer. From a decent sized tractor, usually with some sort of GPS guided map.
hondo77 6y ago
Ag already uses way fewer workers than they did in the past. There are still some migrant workers but not nearly the number that there were 20 - 40 years ago.
imtringued 6y ago
I don't see it, all I see is a labor force that is being freed up to do better things with their time. Of course in our current political environment everyone is extremely selfish and only out for their own gains. Nobody cares about the short term unemployment problems of these people. In theory our economic system has been set up in a way that structural unemployment is impossible in the long term term. Automation increases the excess savings rate by cutting labor costs, the excess money is then invested into more automation which only causes excess savings to grow. The unemployment caused by automation goes hand in hand with deflationary pressure as automation decreases the cost of goods. The Fed will respond to a fall in the inflation rate by lowering the interest rates, which encourages borrowers to invest their money and create more jobs. If borrowers fail to invest and the excess savings keep accumulating the interest rates will drop until they hit 0% at which point people will switch to treasury bonds and if those fall to 0% they will withdraw their money as cash. As treasury yields drop to 0% this forces the US government to increase the total investment rate of the economy on behalf of the buyers of the treasury bonds. If the government doesn't increase its deficit the economy will have to respond by reducing the total savings rate, which effectively means unemployment because someone must consume more than they earn. If all of the above fails, the government can send stimulus checks to its citizens. This will increase the inflation rate which will eat away at uninvested savings. In theory the Fed could the same thing but it would be called helicopter money with the crucial difference that there would be nothing on the Fed's balance sheet to counteract inflation exceeding expectations. Of course all of this is in theory, in practice there is zero political will power. Just look at Trump, he could have done the infrastructure bill, but he didn't. It wouldn't surprise me if Biden fails to push it through and we have to come up with increasingly extreme options that nobody wants. Ideas like Keynesian gold digging only exist because the political environment has "collapsed" to the point where no good ideas are left.

te_chris 6y ago

Nah, you're overdoing it. A lot of farming is already automated, and across the so-called 'Advanced Economies' the replacement rate for workers is too low anyway. We're heading for a demographic crunch with too few workers, especially as all the ageing boomers need care too. for more: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/09/18/the-great-demographic-reversal-and-what-it-means-for-the-economy/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/09/18/the-great-...

jillesvangurp 6y ago

Farming is already heavily industrialized and automated and uses a fraction of the labor it did a century ago. This is more a matter of using non toxic ways of dealing with weeds.

sumtechguy 6y ago
The current way is to spray a broadbase weed killer. From a decent sized tractor, usually with some sort of GPS guided map.

hondo77 6y ago

Ag already uses way fewer workers than they did in the past. There are still some migrant workers but not nearly the number that there were 20 - 40 years ago.

imtringued 6y ago

I don't see it, all I see is a labor force that is being freed up to do better things with their time. Of course in our current political environment everyone is extremely selfish and only out for their own gains. Nobody cares about the short term unemployment problems of these people. In theory our economic system has been set up in a way that structural unemployment is impossible in the long term term. Automation increases the excess savings rate by cutting labor costs, the excess money is then invested into more automation which only causes excess savings to grow. The unemployment caused by automation goes hand in hand with deflationary pressure as automation decreases the cost of goods. The Fed will respond to a fall in the inflation rate by lowering the interest rates, which encourages borrowers to invest their money and create more jobs. If borrowers fail to invest and the excess savings keep accumulating the interest rates will drop until they hit 0% at which point people will switch to treasury bonds and if those fall to 0% they will withdraw their money as cash. As treasury yields drop to 0% this forces the US government to increase the total investment rate of the economy on behalf of the buyers of the treasury bonds. If the government doesn't increase its deficit the economy will have to respond by reducing the total savings rate, which effectively means unemployment because someone must consume more than they earn. If all of the above fails, the government can send stimulus checks to its citizens. This will increase the inflation rate which will eat away at uninvested savings. In theory the Fed could the same thing but it would be called helicopter money with the crucial difference that there would be nothing on the Fed's balance sheet to counteract inflation exceeding expectations. Of course all of this is in theory, in practice there is zero political will power. Just look at Trump, he could have done the infrastructure bill, but he didn't. It wouldn't surprise me if Biden fails to push it through and we have to come up with increasingly extreme options that nobody wants. Ideas like Keynesian gold digging only exist because the political environment has "collapsed" to the point where no good ideas are left.