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In the industrial age people argued the same thing about factories and all the factory workers. This is the dawn of the information age, look what we're arguing
by wheaties 13y ago
In the industrial age people argued the same thing about factories and all the factory workers. This is the dawn of the information age, look what we're arguing about and look how history has shown us this isn't the problem we think it is.
- JamesArgo 13y agoDon't draw lines through one data point. We have no idea which features of economic disruptions of this scale are general and which are incidental. What we do know is a large, prosperous middle class is a historical aberration. It also seems that automation has little in common with mechanization, because automation replaces mental labor. It is not obvious that new industries will create more employees than they replace. Perhaps new industries will advance in lock-step with new automation systems. Gregory Clark compares the modern worker not to farmers before the industrial revolution, but to horses before the widespread adoption of the car. The 'wages' of the workhorses fell below subsistence level. Perhaps the wages of people will, too.
- sjs1234 13y agoIn the long run, different people reap the benefits. I don't see his proposed solution as practical, but denying the problem won't make it disappear. My understanding of the thesis is that large groups of people will be left with only obsolete marketable skills in the not distant future: 5-10 years. I think a historical study of what large populations without work does to society does not argue for optimism about that trend. [edited because I should know better than to post from my phone as I'm getting off the bus.]