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If we get to the point where machines are so good they replace all human labor, everything we require to live will be incredibly cheap. Which means becoming an
by stretchwithme 13y ago
If we get to the point where machines are so good they replace all human labor, everything we require to live will be incredibly cheap. Which means becoming an entrepreneur will be much easier than it is now, in much the same way that being a web app developer is much easier now than it was a decade ago.
But what if a large number of people can only do the work they are doing today? There's no reason they can't keep producing what they currently do and trade their products and services with each other.
The Amish are doing exactly that and their standard of living is still probably better than it was when being Amish was first invented.
So I don't think it would be a disaster.
But I don't think replacing all human labor is going to happen before we also invent technologies that will radically improve how fast we can learn new skills and change limiting mental patterns.
Either way, such a society will be incredibly wealthy and able to do things like remove all the mercury from the oceans and cover every structure with solar cells.
We'll be able to deal with the issues.
- wavesounds 13y agoHow do you square this with the idea that deflation is bad? That's what I've never understood.
- stretchwithme 13y agoI don't hold that view. Keynesian economics doesn't make much sense to me, as a change in the value of our medium of exchange is not what creates prosperity. Its investment in technology that makes things cheap and makes a country prosperous. Not manipulating the medium of exchange. Austrian economics makes a lot more sense to me, although not everything they say does.
- LogicalBorg 13y agoI think deflation occurs when the economy is in a downturn, therefore economists think it is bad. I myself would refer to "good" or "bad" kinds of deflation. It's OK when prices are falling due to technological advance (the "good kind"); that happens all the time and is not the same as a downturn (the "bad kind" of deflation).
- polymatter 13y agoIt won't matter if super high-tech houses cost $1 if you have no way of earning 50 cents. I share your optimism for the long term, but I fear the transitional period of millions of economically unemployable people. These people will be absolutely committed that they need a job for society to function and frustrated that there are none available to them.
- stretchwithme 13y agoSet aside a dollar now just to be safe.
- stretchwithme 13y agoI don't worry about technology creating unemployment. The vast majority of unemployment is created by government interfering with the price of labor. If left to their own devices, people will trade with each other. They always have, regardless of what people they are not trading with are doing.