4 ms·
Value and Job Creation = World Change
- pj 18y agoWhat happens when the product or company you produce puts people /out/ of work? For example, if you allow one person to do the job of 10 and a company purchases the product and lays off 9 people, is it still good? What if only 2 people work at your company?
- pg 18y agoHistory answers this question clearly: it's fine. Somehow, labor-saving technology always seems to create as many job as it eliminates. So after centuries of innovations, the unemployment rate is no worse than it's been in the past.
- ivankirigin 18y agoI agree 100%, but there is disruption though. In the future, thing trend can be broken. I'm a big advocate for robots, as you know. But in a span of 10 years they might advance enough to eliminate, say, 50% of the jobs out there. Think about what would happen if you no longer need 90% of factory workers, drivers, cleaning staff, etc... That's why we should really start to stress the value of retraining for new industries. People should expect to learn new things quickly.
- pg 18y agoTechnological development has always accelerated. So far it hasn't caused dramatic social disruptions. Maybe now happens to be the exact moment that it will. But by default you have to assume your fears are the usual temporal chauvinism.
- ivankirigin 18y agoThere were certainly disruptions associated with past changes. Children working in factories come to mind. But maybe I'm biased because of the evolved social norms that increases in productivity enabled. One reason I might be right is that there is a limit built into humans. We can only change so fast (unless new tech makes us more agile). Workers changes industries on a regular basis. But could they do it yearly? Monthly? Accelerating advances are bound to run into a wall of finite human abilities.
- pg 18y agoChildren working in factories was grim, but are you sure it was a disruption? I.e. are you sure life wasn't worse wherever the factory workers came from? I'm not; factory workers weren't conscripted.
- ivankirigin 18y agoIt's certainly hard for me to know without reading more history. The most common job to compare it to would have to be farming, which was a hard life with different risks and rewards.
- pg 18y agoThe best book I know of on that transition is E. W. Bovill's English Country Life, 1780-1830. http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=bovill&kn=country+life+1780 http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=bovill&... Incidentally, his Golden Trade of the Moors is one of the best history books I've ever read.