4 ms·

How many radiologists, or programmers, or plumbers can the system absorb? What jobs can someone with 85 IQ do in 2021? We're safe for our lifetimes. However,

How many radiologists, or programmers, or plumbers can the system absorb? What jobs can someone with 85 IQ do in 2021? We're safe for our lifetimes. However, we have a whole class of people that we're not going to be able to find work for, at least at livable wages, especially as agriculture is more and more automated.

VMG 14y ago
That is if people who can't educate their offspring keep reproducing rapidly. If those people weren't incentivised to procreate or even disincentivised to have children, this problem could be much much smaller. Edit: see the story about the guy being fired from his job because he wanted to attend the birth of his son which has been mentioned in another comment. This of course is a sad situation, but am I wrong to ask if it is smart to even have children in his position? Edit2: I'm not suggesting eugenics or restricting the freedom to reproduce in any way but an education campaign.
- bebebebe 14y ago
  You're a fucking loon.
- mynameishere 14y ago
  Assuming that the robot predictions are correct, there really won't be any other choice. Welfare will be generous, but will come with Norplant, or won't come at all.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  How do you decide who gets to procreate and who doesn't? I mean, it's difficult to judge someone's skills at parenting until after they've actually parented. Do you let people have one child upto X years old and then go through some objective evaluation with that child to decide if they are allowed to produce more?
Variance 14y ago
Note that we don't have a 75% unemployment rate following the industrial revolution. You are hardly the first person to make this argument--it's been made for centuries. The market mechanism is an amazingly effective thing at providing jobs to those who demand jobs, both in economic theory and in observed reality over the last two hundred years.
- _delirium 14y ago
  When it comes to large-scale employment shifts, I'm not sure we can be particularly confident in predicting the future based on extremely limited past data. Large-scale shifts just haven't happened often in history, so it's hard to generalize from the data points we do have. For most of human history, most human labor was engaged in agriculture. During the industrial revolution, there was a mass shift from agriculture to factory work. This produced considerable social disruption, but did result in a new semi-stable employment system: over a period of some decades, the countrysides were largely depopulated, people congregated in the cities, and the factories were an employment sink for the newly arrived urbanites. Took until probably the mid 20th century to sort out in any kind of reasonable way (the tenement slums of Manhattan were probably initially a net decrease in quality of life for many former farmers, but they were eventually cleaned up). I'd say that's actually the only real example of a completed shift in mass employment at that scale. The key thing that made it work particularly well was that assembly lines needed a large amount of labor, with a nicely arrayed gradation of skill: they could absorb a large amount of essentially undifferentiated unskilled labor fresh from the countryside, which could then "work its way up" by gaining more skills to serve in increasingly more skilled roles. The other example of a shift we have is the currently in-progress one, of moving from industrial employment to service-sector and/or information-sector employment. It's less clear where that's going, what the new mass employment sinks will be (if any), and what the skill ladder will be.
  - Variance 14y ago
    Past data isn't limited at all. We have at least 2 centuries of rapid innovation to draw on when we note that unemployment has not skyrocketed with technological progress. Real GDP per capita has risen almost uninterrupted over the last 200 years [1], and is on the order of 20 times what it was 200 years ago. Yet, unemployment is still exceedingly low by world and historical standards. [1] http://www.acus.org/files/u3/USA-GDP-1810-2010.png http://www.acus.org/files/u3/USA-GDP-1810-2010.png The market works to provide jobs to those who demand jobs. Shifts in technology are not discrete jumps, but continual trends that price mechanisms can smoothly correct for. >assembly lines needed a large amount of labor The reason that assembly lines became so useful was that they needed substantially less labor per product, and could produce products far more cheaply. What you're missing is that the reason that people were still employed at relatively similar levels and GDP per capitas was because consumer demand rose to meet lower prices. These are all matters of supply and demand. > the currently in-progress one, of moving from industrial employment to service-sector and/or information-sector employment This shift is already very much completed. Over 80% of the USA's economy is service-sector at this point, and we haven't observed any unemployment issues that can be attributed to technology growth. What we can predict about the future is what our modern understanding of economics and historical perspectives tell us. As long as there is demand for jobs in a market economy, there will be jobs.
marvin 14y ago
I've been saying this for a long time: It will have to end with heavier taxation on the rich end and a heavily subsidized welfare system. Maybe implemented through negative taxation, where if you earn below a given minimum the government will pay you for doing nothing. Either something like that, or letting the poor starve.

VMG 14y ago

That is if people who can't educate their offspring keep reproducing rapidly. If those people weren't incentivised to procreate or even disincentivised to have children, this problem could be much much smaller. Edit: see the story about the guy being fired from his job because he wanted to attend the birth of his son which has been mentioned in another comment. This of course is a sad situation, but am I wrong to ask if it is smart to even have children in his position? Edit2: I'm not suggesting eugenics or restricting the freedom to reproduce in any way but an education campaign.

bebebebe 14y ago
You're a fucking loon.
mynameishere 14y ago
Assuming that the robot predictions are correct, there really won't be any other choice. Welfare will be generous, but will come with Norplant, or won't come at all.
jiggy2011 14y ago
How do you decide who gets to procreate and who doesn't? I mean, it's difficult to judge someone's skills at parenting until after they've actually parented. Do you let people have one child upto X years old and then go through some objective evaluation with that child to decide if they are allowed to produce more?

Variance 14y ago

Note that we don't have a 75% unemployment rate following the industrial revolution. You are hardly the first person to make this argument--it's been made for centuries. The market mechanism is an amazingly effective thing at providing jobs to those who demand jobs, both in economic theory and in observed reality over the last two hundred years.

_delirium 14y ago
When it comes to large-scale employment shifts, I'm not sure we can be particularly confident in predicting the future based on extremely limited past data. Large-scale shifts just haven't happened often in history, so it's hard to generalize from the data points we do have. For most of human history, most human labor was engaged in agriculture. During the industrial revolution, there was a mass shift from agriculture to factory work. This produced considerable social disruption, but did result in a new semi-stable employment system: over a period of some decades, the countrysides were largely depopulated, people congregated in the cities, and the factories were an employment sink for the newly arrived urbanites. Took until probably the mid 20th century to sort out in any kind of reasonable way (the tenement slums of Manhattan were probably initially a net decrease in quality of life for many former farmers, but they were eventually cleaned up). I'd say that's actually the only real example of a completed shift in mass employment at that scale. The key thing that made it work particularly well was that assembly lines needed a large amount of labor, with a nicely arrayed gradation of skill: they could absorb a large amount of essentially undifferentiated unskilled labor fresh from the countryside, which could then "work its way up" by gaining more skills to serve in increasingly more skilled roles. The other example of a shift we have is the currently in-progress one, of moving from industrial employment to service-sector and/or information-sector employment. It's less clear where that's going, what the new mass employment sinks will be (if any), and what the skill ladder will be.
- Variance 14y ago
  Past data isn't limited at all. We have at least 2 centuries of rapid innovation to draw on when we note that unemployment has not skyrocketed with technological progress. Real GDP per capita has risen almost uninterrupted over the last 200 years [1], and is on the order of 20 times what it was 200 years ago. Yet, unemployment is still exceedingly low by world and historical standards. [1] http://www.acus.org/files/u3/USA-GDP-1810-2010.png http://www.acus.org/files/u3/USA-GDP-1810-2010.png The market works to provide jobs to those who demand jobs. Shifts in technology are not discrete jumps, but continual trends that price mechanisms can smoothly correct for. >assembly lines needed a large amount of labor The reason that assembly lines became so useful was that they needed substantially less labor per product, and could produce products far more cheaply. What you're missing is that the reason that people were still employed at relatively similar levels and GDP per capitas was because consumer demand rose to meet lower prices. These are all matters of supply and demand. > the currently in-progress one, of moving from industrial employment to service-sector and/or information-sector employment This shift is already very much completed. Over 80% of the USA's economy is service-sector at this point, and we haven't observed any unemployment issues that can be attributed to technology growth. What we can predict about the future is what our modern understanding of economics and historical perspectives tell us. As long as there is demand for jobs in a market economy, there will be jobs.

marvin 14y ago

I've been saying this for a long time: It will have to end with heavier taxation on the rich end and a heavily subsidized welfare system. Maybe implemented through negative taxation, where if you earn below a given minimum the government will pay you for doing nothing. Either something like that, or letting the poor starve.