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Until now it has been the case that you could always sustain yourself via manual labor if you had no education and no assets to support yourself. Automation wil

by vladd 14y ago

Until now it has been the case that you could always sustain yourself via manual labor if you had no education and no assets to support yourself. Automation will change this, we've never encountered this before in our history (see my other comment in this thread).

JoshTriplett 14y ago
Off the top of my head, I can easily name a pile of manual-labor jobs that won't become subject to automation for a very long time; some of these require training or apprenticeships, but none require formal university-style education, and many pay significantly better than minimum wage: Plumber, electrician, woodworker, metalworker, mason, numerous forms of construction-related labor, electronics repair, truck driving, towncar/shuttle/cab driving, most of the hospitality industry, yard maintenance / landscaping, restaurant staff, grocers and other brick-and-mortar stores of all sorts, warehouse labor (only some of this can be automated). I think that list can easily become significantly longer with a bit more thought, but that seems sufficient to make the point. And apart from the handful of crafts on that list that require training or apprenticeship, switching between them does not require significant unproductive time, making them all available as options simultaneously. Try an experiment: imagine you got in a serious accident (a server rack fell on your head), and when you recovered you found that while you still had the ability to think and act resourcefully, you remembered none of your field-specific education (university or equivalent self-study). Your treatment cost precisely all of your savings and assets, so you can't afford to not work immediately. Now, do you really think you couldn't find a job anywhere? Give it a non-trivial amount of thought, and assume that until you come up with an answer you have at least 40 hours a week to think about it.
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  Many/most of the occupations you list are a lot closer to highly skilled labour than they are to manual labour. For example, an electrician's ticket around here requires a grade 12 education, 2 years of college and 4 years of apprenticeship. The first year of college includes math and physics courses that are very similar to those seen in the first year of an engineering course at University. The biggest difference is that the exams are easier and they make it easier to make up failures. In consequence, the failure/dropout rate is lower than the university engineering drop out rate, but is still significant.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    That's an apples to oranges comparison though. What is the minimum level of skill necessary to legally do work running wires and hooking up outlets for residential home construction?
    - JoshTriplett 14y ago
      In particular, to legally do so under the supervision of an expert while training.
  - JoshTriplett 14y ago
    I made a point of listing relatively few of those. And the requirements for those types of positions vary by jurisdiction; in many, the apprenticeship includes and accommodates the requirement for formal education (i.e. allows you to do supervised work while training, and pays enough that you can afford the education). Nonetheless, the list I gave includes many other jobs with no such requirements.

by vladd 14y ago

JoshTriplett 14y ago

Off the top of my head, I can easily name a pile of manual-labor jobs that won't become subject to automation for a very long time; some of these require training or apprenticeships, but none require formal university-style education, and many pay significantly better than minimum wage: Plumber, electrician, woodworker, metalworker, mason, numerous forms of construction-related labor, electronics repair, truck driving, towncar/shuttle/cab driving, most of the hospitality industry, yard maintenance / landscaping, restaurant staff, grocers and other brick-and-mortar stores of all sorts, warehouse labor (only some of this can be automated). I think that list can easily become significantly longer with a bit more thought, but that seems sufficient to make the point. And apart from the handful of crafts on that list that require training or apprenticeship, switching between them does not require significant unproductive time, making them all available as options simultaneously. Try an experiment: imagine you got in a serious accident (a server rack fell on your head), and when you recovered you found that while you still had the ability to think and act resourcefully, you remembered none of your field-specific education (university or equivalent self-study). Your treatment cost precisely all of your savings and assets, so you can't afford to not work immediately. Now, do you really think you couldn't find a job anywhere? Give it a non-trivial amount of thought, and assume that until you come up with an answer you have at least 40 hours a week to think about it.

bryanlarsen 14y ago
Many/most of the occupations you list are a lot closer to highly skilled labour than they are to manual labour. For example, an electrician's ticket around here requires a grade 12 education, 2 years of college and 4 years of apprenticeship. The first year of college includes math and physics courses that are very similar to those seen in the first year of an engineering course at University. The biggest difference is that the exams are easier and they make it easier to make up failures. In consequence, the failure/dropout rate is lower than the university engineering drop out rate, but is still significant.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  That's an apples to oranges comparison though. What is the minimum level of skill necessary to legally do work running wires and hooking up outlets for residential home construction?
  - JoshTriplett 14y ago
    In particular, to legally do so under the supervision of an expert while training.
- JoshTriplett 14y ago
  I made a point of listing relatively few of those. And the requirements for those types of positions vary by jurisdiction; in many, the apprenticeship includes and accommodates the requirement for formal education (i.e. allows you to do supervised work while training, and pays enough that you can afford the education). Nonetheless, the list I gave includes many other jobs with no such requirements.