5 ms·

A certain percentage of the population would stop working entirely since they no longer need to. True. The problem is, as things are now, a certain percentage

A certain percentage of the population would stop working entirely since they no longer need to. True. The problem is, as things are now, a certain percentage of the population will be forced to stop working as they are made obsolete by increasingly efficient globalization and automation. As that percentage increases, eventually either society will collapse or something fundamental will have to change (such as implementing a basic income).

twoodfin 13y ago
What evidence is there of that? Because we've had a slow recovery from the last recession? That couldn't possibly be because of bad policy, no?
- spdy 13y ago
  To give one example the Google Car. If this car works as advertised millions of jobs will get irreplaceable lost. Cab drivers / Car Manufactures / Truck driver etc.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    When the car was invented, millions of horse and buggy operators, manufacturers, and horse dung sweepers lost their jobs. Their jobs were then replaced by used car salesmen, mechanics, the tires industry, etc. etc. But it is a bit presumptuous to believe that all future inventions will destroy jobs. A great example of the reverse is the compiler industry. As compiler technology / programming languages have become easier and easier... smaller and smaller teams of programmers have been able to get more things done. This hasn't destroyed programmers... it has instead increased the demand of programmers.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      > This hasn't destroyed programmers... it has instead increased the demand of programmers. Nor has invention of internal combustion engine decreased the demand for cars. Programming today is far from its full potential, just like transportation was 100 years ago. Software is a very young technology and it is just beginning to take over the world, but keep in mind that developing it is a) high-skill job, and b) mostly aimed toward automating other people out of their jobs.
  - tomjen3 13y ago
    Maybe. But others will be created (or made simpler), to wit: a teenager can now rent a google car (since he isn't driving it won't cost much more than an adult) which will enable him to do things like wash peoples windows (which is neither technically difficult nor especially dangerous) thus driving down the cost per window washing, enabling more people to enjoy this luxury. Or, assuming you are right and delivery men are unemployed in great numbers which I agree is likely, then (as transportation prices plummet) there will be more jobs for packaging. Imagine that instead of having to collect your kids in day care, go shopping and the go home and cook you can instead preorder your groceries, have your Google Car pick up your kids, spend the time talking with them in the car, go to the shop and pick up your package (which will take 10 minutes at most, since you have likely already been charged when you made the order) and then home to cook, which kids you actually get to talk to and who are now a lot less stressed. Even then self-driving cars will also create other oppertunities, because there is no reason the car has to stay in the lot until you get home. It might as well drive to the nearby car cleaner (which can be out-of the way since the time is essentially free, although the gas used is not) for a cleaning. That is more business (and it is low skilled) and better, nicer cars.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      > will enable him to do things like wash peoples windows Until next year a new type of window will come that doesn't have to be washed. > there will be more jobs for packaging There won't. Humans are already being optimized-out of packaging by automated, self-adjusting warehouses and package machines. > you can instead preorder your groceries Being produced, packed and delivered by machines. > It might as well drive to the nearby car cleaner Which has been automated-out of his work years ago because how this job requires any skills cheap machines don't have right now? Rest of the things you write about are things people will be able to do instead of working. The point is, computers are not replacing particular jobs and creating new ones (of similar skill levels). They are replacing whole classes of skills humans have with jobs that have significantly higher requirements and significantly less open positions.
- zxcdw 13y ago
  Automation. Can you imagine the consequences of a driverless car on transportation industry for example? Or automated cashing machines on cashiers? Or cleaner robots for cleaners? You see, simple jobs are going to be replaced in the future. These people will go unemployed, because there will be no simple jobs for them. This is a trend, yes, and it won't happen overnight. But there's one crucial fact -- it doesn't just stop at replacing simple jobs. It will eventually replace even more demanding ones, such as knowledge workers. Infact, only human creativity seems to be the only thing which we can't automate YET, but perhaps eventually will be able to. What this means is that the current capitalistic system has to fail eventually because we lose jobs, and it seems very certain that automation is going to be the beginning of the end. This has been happening in China too -- recently(late last year) there was news about Foxconn replacing over a million jobs with robots in China. What this means is cheaper products which are also accessible to those who don't work. It narrows the purchasing power gap between those who work and those who don't.
  - tomjen3 13y ago
    You point has been argued a lot recently, but if it were true then surely nearly everybody would be unemployed by now? After all how many of you are scribes, weavers, carpenters and farmers (or farmers helpers)? Less than 20%? Then why don't we have 80% unemployment? Because we found other jobs for those people, the economy is much, much bigger, life is much, much better and everybody is better of. And it isn't like that hasn't happened again and again and again through history. So I ask you, what proof do you have that this time it is really different? As opposed to every other time we thought it was different through history?
    - hackinthebochs 13y ago
      I'll tell you why this time is different. Each time we had growth in technology that had the potential to displace a huge number of workers that technology also enabled a massive decrease in the costs of transactions (railroads, motor vehicles, the internet, etc). This allowed a massive growth in the economy which enabled these displaced workers to find new jobs. Also consider that the growth in technology didn't eliminate jobs, but it shifted them. The technology of old still required a mostly proportional human energy input to produce output. New technology decreased that proportion, but it didn't eliminate it. This last point is the difference that this new wave of automation has compared to the waves of past. It is unprecedented in human history to be facing a future where human effort can be multiplied by such enormous multiples that the value of labor approaches zero. This coming automation revolution would have to simultaneously grow the economy to greater proportions that automation reduces the cost of labor. I don't believe this will ever be possible, but definitely not in the time period that a properly developed AI and robotic technology could corner the market in labor (once developed, less than a decade). Society is not prepared for what is coming, and it will be disastrous.
- streptomycin 13y ago
  No, it's basically a tautology based on continual technological progression. Imagine if we could build a robot that was exactly equivalent to a human. If it ran on less energy than a human, then basically no human would be needed for any task. Now imagine a continuum of less sophisticated robots that excel in certain tasks beyond what certain humans can do. Another example I like http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2010/08/08/unemployed-21st-century-draft-horse/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2010/08/08/unemployed-21s... there was a type of employee at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution whose job and livelihood largely vanished in the early twentieth century. This was the horse. The population of working horses actually peaked in England long after the Industrial Revolution, in 1901, when 3.25 million were at work. Though they had been replaced by rail for long-distance haulage and by steam engines for driving machinery, they still plowed fields, hauled wagons and carriages short distances, pulled boats on the canals, toiled in the pits, and carried armies into battle. But the arrival of the internal combustion engine in the late nineteenth century rapidly displaced these workers, so that by 1924 there were fewer than two million. There was always a wage at which all these horses could have remained employed. But that wage was so low that it did not pay for their feed. The arguments people make against this are that humans aren't horses. Humans can learn and adapt much better. But they can't do that infinitely, and some will reach their limits faster than others.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- KaoruAoiShiho 13y ago
  Many people, including me, expect to see unemployment rise from the current 10% to an eventual 100% over the next 50 years.
daraul 13y ago
This is a powerful point to ignore. The Great Recession has shown this trend might be establishing itself already; the percentage of people not participating in the workforce in any fashion spiked, hasn't recovered, and isn't showing promising signs of ever recovering. What a basic income will tend to do however is reduce the need for a minimum wage. Currently the minimum wage exists to solve a problem: People need to survive, and to do that they need to work enough to enable that. The problem is with workforce participation being compulsory, absent a minimum wage the price for labor in unskilled work rapidly drops. Where you can find someone desperate for 7.00 an hour, you'll find someone else equally desperate willing to take 6.90 an hour. There will be yet another person willing to take 6.80, and this trend continues until you reach a point where you're better off scraping whatever you can do to survive. So it's actually preferential for the labor force to shrink some; instead of everyone competing for the tiniest slice of a paycheck just for survival, you'd have a labor force with much more power, ensuring that you don't have to settle for work at 7.50 an hour just to eat. On the contrary: You'll stand on a corner and flip a signboard around in the air for 20 bucks a day only if it's worth your time, and to buy the extra 6-pack or whatever you desire, but don't need to survive.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  On the contrary, I see a falling dollar in the world market which is reinvigorating the US Manufacturing industry. As China's middle class grows, they become impatient with China's loose policy of eradicating their own currency to promote local jobs. The Chinese middle class has begun to rise, and with it, the cost of production in China. In the US, the weaker economy has hurt the US Dollar, making manufacturing cheaper again in the US. So for the first time in over a decade, Apple Computers is building a US Factory.
  - daraul 13y ago
    It's not just a weaker dollar causing manufacturing to return to the US, though (especially relative to China) that is definitely part of the cause. Rising fuel costs threaten global supply chains. Especially in areas that have a less-than-cordial relationship with the US such as China, there is some uncertainty that things will stay as they are. Another powerful trend that is reinvigorating the US manufacturing industry is the re-evaluation of the spoils of offshoring. Companies such as GE are discovering that there are many side benefits to bringing production back to the US: Shorter supply chains from manufacturing to retail, better quality from production, and greater feedback from shop floor to engineering. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom/309166/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-inso... One of the biggest unaccounted costs of offshoring was the effects it had on the lifecycle of a product. That article points out how GE was able to take a $1600 water-heater from China and sell it for a profit $1300, just by manufacturing it from the US. It turns out that in off-shoring the production, they lost most of the feedback in the product's lifecycle that enabled them to refine the design far beyond what they thought was 'final'.

twoodfin 13y ago

What evidence is there of that? Because we've had a slow recovery from the last recession? That couldn't possibly be because of bad policy, no?

spdy 13y ago
To give one example the Google Car. If this car works as advertised millions of jobs will get irreplaceable lost. Cab drivers / Car Manufactures / Truck driver etc.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  When the car was invented, millions of horse and buggy operators, manufacturers, and horse dung sweepers lost their jobs. Their jobs were then replaced by used car salesmen, mechanics, the tires industry, etc. etc. But it is a bit presumptuous to believe that all future inventions will destroy jobs. A great example of the reverse is the compiler industry. As compiler technology / programming languages have become easier and easier... smaller and smaller teams of programmers have been able to get more things done. This hasn't destroyed programmers... it has instead increased the demand of programmers.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    > This hasn't destroyed programmers... it has instead increased the demand of programmers. Nor has invention of internal combustion engine decreased the demand for cars. Programming today is far from its full potential, just like transportation was 100 years ago. Software is a very young technology and it is just beginning to take over the world, but keep in mind that developing it is a) high-skill job, and b) mostly aimed toward automating other people out of their jobs.
- tomjen3 13y ago
  Maybe. But others will be created (or made simpler), to wit: a teenager can now rent a google car (since he isn't driving it won't cost much more than an adult) which will enable him to do things like wash peoples windows (which is neither technically difficult nor especially dangerous) thus driving down the cost per window washing, enabling more people to enjoy this luxury. Or, assuming you are right and delivery men are unemployed in great numbers which I agree is likely, then (as transportation prices plummet) there will be more jobs for packaging. Imagine that instead of having to collect your kids in day care, go shopping and the go home and cook you can instead preorder your groceries, have your Google Car pick up your kids, spend the time talking with them in the car, go to the shop and pick up your package (which will take 10 minutes at most, since you have likely already been charged when you made the order) and then home to cook, which kids you actually get to talk to and who are now a lot less stressed. Even then self-driving cars will also create other oppertunities, because there is no reason the car has to stay in the lot until you get home. It might as well drive to the nearby car cleaner (which can be out-of the way since the time is essentially free, although the gas used is not) for a cleaning. That is more business (and it is low skilled) and better, nicer cars.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    > will enable him to do things like wash peoples windows Until next year a new type of window will come that doesn't have to be washed. > there will be more jobs for packaging There won't. Humans are already being optimized-out of packaging by automated, self-adjusting warehouses and package machines. > you can instead preorder your groceries Being produced, packed and delivered by machines. > It might as well drive to the nearby car cleaner Which has been automated-out of his work years ago because how this job requires any skills cheap machines don't have right now? Rest of the things you write about are things people will be able to do instead of working. The point is, computers are not replacing particular jobs and creating new ones (of similar skill levels). They are replacing whole classes of skills humans have with jobs that have significantly higher requirements and significantly less open positions.
zxcdw 13y ago
Automation. Can you imagine the consequences of a driverless car on transportation industry for example? Or automated cashing machines on cashiers? Or cleaner robots for cleaners? You see, simple jobs are going to be replaced in the future. These people will go unemployed, because there will be no simple jobs for them. This is a trend, yes, and it won't happen overnight. But there's one crucial fact -- it doesn't just stop at replacing simple jobs. It will eventually replace even more demanding ones, such as knowledge workers. Infact, only human creativity seems to be the only thing which we can't automate YET, but perhaps eventually will be able to. What this means is that the current capitalistic system has to fail eventually because we lose jobs, and it seems very certain that automation is going to be the beginning of the end. This has been happening in China too -- recently(late last year) there was news about Foxconn replacing over a million jobs with robots in China. What this means is cheaper products which are also accessible to those who don't work. It narrows the purchasing power gap between those who work and those who don't.
- tomjen3 13y ago
  You point has been argued a lot recently, but if it were true then surely nearly everybody would be unemployed by now? After all how many of you are scribes, weavers, carpenters and farmers (or farmers helpers)? Less than 20%? Then why don't we have 80% unemployment? Because we found other jobs for those people, the economy is much, much bigger, life is much, much better and everybody is better of. And it isn't like that hasn't happened again and again and again through history. So I ask you, what proof do you have that this time it is really different? As opposed to every other time we thought it was different through history?
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago
    I'll tell you why this time is different. Each time we had growth in technology that had the potential to displace a huge number of workers that technology also enabled a massive decrease in the costs of transactions (railroads, motor vehicles, the internet, etc). This allowed a massive growth in the economy which enabled these displaced workers to find new jobs. Also consider that the growth in technology didn't eliminate jobs, but it shifted them. The technology of old still required a mostly proportional human energy input to produce output. New technology decreased that proportion, but it didn't eliminate it. This last point is the difference that this new wave of automation has compared to the waves of past. It is unprecedented in human history to be facing a future where human effort can be multiplied by such enormous multiples that the value of labor approaches zero. This coming automation revolution would have to simultaneously grow the economy to greater proportions that automation reduces the cost of labor. I don't believe this will ever be possible, but definitely not in the time period that a properly developed AI and robotic technology could corner the market in labor (once developed, less than a decade). Society is not prepared for what is coming, and it will be disastrous.
streptomycin 13y ago
No, it's basically a tautology based on continual technological progression. Imagine if we could build a robot that was exactly equivalent to a human. If it ran on less energy than a human, then basically no human would be needed for any task. Now imagine a continuum of less sophisticated robots that excel in certain tasks beyond what certain humans can do. Another example I like http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2010/08/08/unemployed-21st-century-draft-horse/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2010/08/08/unemployed-21s... there was a type of employee at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution whose job and livelihood largely vanished in the early twentieth century. This was the horse. The population of working horses actually peaked in England long after the Industrial Revolution, in 1901, when 3.25 million were at work. Though they had been replaced by rail for long-distance haulage and by steam engines for driving machinery, they still plowed fields, hauled wagons and carriages short distances, pulled boats on the canals, toiled in the pits, and carried armies into battle. But the arrival of the internal combustion engine in the late nineteenth century rapidly displaced these workers, so that by 1924 there were fewer than two million. There was always a wage at which all these horses could have remained employed. But that wage was so low that it did not pay for their feed. The arguments people make against this are that humans aren't horses. Humans can learn and adapt much better. But they can't do that infinitely, and some will reach their limits faster than others.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
KaoruAoiShiho 13y ago
Many people, including me, expect to see unemployment rise from the current 10% to an eventual 100% over the next 50 years.

daraul 13y ago

This is a powerful point to ignore. The Great Recession has shown this trend might be establishing itself already; the percentage of people not participating in the workforce in any fashion spiked, hasn't recovered, and isn't showing promising signs of ever recovering. What a basic income will tend to do however is reduce the need for a minimum wage. Currently the minimum wage exists to solve a problem: People need to survive, and to do that they need to work enough to enable that. The problem is with workforce participation being compulsory, absent a minimum wage the price for labor in unskilled work rapidly drops. Where you can find someone desperate for 7.00 an hour, you'll find someone else equally desperate willing to take 6.90 an hour. There will be yet another person willing to take 6.80, and this trend continues until you reach a point where you're better off scraping whatever you can do to survive. So it's actually preferential for the labor force to shrink some; instead of everyone competing for the tiniest slice of a paycheck just for survival, you'd have a labor force with much more power, ensuring that you don't have to settle for work at 7.50 an hour just to eat. On the contrary: You'll stand on a corner and flip a signboard around in the air for 20 bucks a day only if it's worth your time, and to buy the extra 6-pack or whatever you desire, but don't need to survive.

dragontamer 13y ago
On the contrary, I see a falling dollar in the world market which is reinvigorating the US Manufacturing industry. As China's middle class grows, they become impatient with China's loose policy of eradicating their own currency to promote local jobs. The Chinese middle class has begun to rise, and with it, the cost of production in China. In the US, the weaker economy has hurt the US Dollar, making manufacturing cheaper again in the US. So for the first time in over a decade, Apple Computers is building a US Factory.
- daraul 13y ago
  It's not just a weaker dollar causing manufacturing to return to the US, though (especially relative to China) that is definitely part of the cause. Rising fuel costs threaten global supply chains. Especially in areas that have a less-than-cordial relationship with the US such as China, there is some uncertainty that things will stay as they are. Another powerful trend that is reinvigorating the US manufacturing industry is the re-evaluation of the spoils of offshoring. Companies such as GE are discovering that there are many side benefits to bringing production back to the US: Shorter supply chains from manufacturing to retail, better quality from production, and greater feedback from shop floor to engineering. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom/309166/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-inso... One of the biggest unaccounted costs of offshoring was the effects it had on the lifecycle of a product. That article points out how GE was able to take a $1600 water-heater from China and sell it for a profit $1300, just by manufacturing it from the US. It turns out that in off-shoring the production, they lost most of the feedback in the product's lifecycle that enabled them to refine the design far beyond what they thought was 'final'.