Check Out Our Shop
Page 4 of 7 FirstFirst 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 LastLast
Results 76 to 100 of 169

Thread: Workplace Automation

  1. #76
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Posts
    17,751
    Quote Originally Posted by iceman View Post
    The question to me is, what should a relatively smart person do now, to try to prepare for this future that is rushing up on us? What can we do to prepare ourselves and our kids for what is going to amount to a new world in basically the immediate future?
    Buy them iPhones and PS4's. They'll have something to keep their minds and hands engaged while the roboti take care of the mundane things.
    "timberridge is terminally vapid" -- a fortune cookie in Yueyang

  2. #77
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Eburg
    Posts
    13,239
    See my edited post re the industrious of SE Asia workers. The northern latitude work ethic chauvinism is old tired myth. Of course people who lived in cold winter climates had to chop wood, etc. But these days the most industrious laborer is often a matter of who is the hungriest. If you don't believe me, talk to general contractors whether a typical white northerner laborer works as hard as a hungry immigrant laborer from Guatemala.

  3. #78
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    People's Republic of OB
    Posts
    5,238
    Quote Originally Posted by Phildo_Baggins View Post
    When a handful of people/huge corporations own all of the robots, they won't be paying normal citizens with all of the profits they are reaping, and without a major political shift they won't be paying many taxes either.
    Without jobs so people can earn money the corporations with their robots will have few customers to buy their products, and thus smaller profits.

    They would be able to accumulate far greater wealth with a well-paid and prosperous population to sell things to. It's called growth.

    That is what I don't get about republicans. Instead of taking up policies that will raise everyone up, and thereby allow themselves to accumulate more wealth they do the opposite by suppressing wages, ability to access healthcare, and reducing social services. In the bigger picture this will hurt them, too. Nah, I do get it. They are greedy cocksuckers. Maybe they will just circle the wagons and live off their riches while everyone else starves.

  4. #79
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Eburg
    Posts
    13,239
    Yeah, for sure a big middle class tax cut would do much more to stimulate the economy, but we know it's about giving the donor class, e.g., Koch brothers, a big tax cut enabled by the big lie that it's good for the middle class. #trickledownredux

  5. #80
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    The Cone of Uncertainty
    Posts
    49,304
    That seems to be their plan.

  6. #81
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    champlain valley
    Posts
    5,830
    i think I heard the most benefits accrue to the top .2%.

  7. #82
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    The Cone of Uncertainty
    Posts
    49,304
    Quote Originally Posted by DBdude View Post
    i think I heard the most benefits accrue to the top .2%.
    Just grabbing the money while they can and then moving to their bunkers in the desert. Doomsday prep for the super-rich.

  8. #83
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Shadynasty's Jazz Club
    Posts
    10,322
    Quote Originally Posted by glademaster View Post
    I'm 28 years old and pretty damn sure I will never be a breeder. I'm okay with that
    That makes two of us.
    Remind me. We'll send him a red cap and a Speedo.

  9. #84
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    At the beach
    Posts
    20,911
    Never in U.S. history has the public chosen leadership this malevolent. The moral clarity of their decision is crystalline, particularly knowing how Trump will regard his slim margin as a “mandate” to do his worst. We’ve learned something about America that we didn’t know, or perhaps didn’t believe, and it’ll forever color our individual judgments of who and what we are.

  10. #85
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    In Your Wife
    Posts
    8,288
    Quote Originally Posted by bagtagley View Post
    That makes two of us.
    Don't hate me for being astutely pessimistic.

  11. #86
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    panhandle locdog
    Posts
    8,159
    I'm 28 years old and now finally feel like I'm in a place where I can afford to have children. Why the fuck people have kids without thinking about the economic, mental and physical strain it will put on them and their spouse, I do not understand. I got married young but we've had 8 years to play outside and build our relationship and our careers. I can't imagine wanting to add a kid to that mix. Maybe that's why the Tammy Wynette thread is 109 pages.

  12. #87
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Wasatch
    Posts
    6,253
    Quote Originally Posted by WMD View Post
    I have a 10 year old and an 8 year old and I think about this all the time. How do I help prepare them for a world in which everything will be different? What skills will they need? Is teaching the value of hard work important anymore?

    I am trying to teach them that less is more, and nature, relationships, and recreation are more important than accumulating more stuff.

    Climate change and labor upheaval scare me as I think there will be lots of armed conflict.
    Teach them that hard work is important. Oh so important. Encourage them to study math and science and how to write some code, but also philosophy, writing, and a foreign language.

    The jobs of the near future will be much like the jobs of today, and they will be abundantly available. Increased adoption of IT is more similar to the productivity gains we had in the 1950s than what we had during the second agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution. If your kids like to learn and like to work hard, they'll be fine. I mean, you probably don't want to get into long haul truck driving or become an adjunct college prof right now, but that's common sense. If you're a plumber or a lawyer or a financial analyst, you'll be fine. Of course, you'll be more fine if you like to learn new skills and you're tech-savvy, but that has always been the case.

    None of that helps with political instability, armed conflict, or climate change. If and when we finish melting the ice caps or the forward gets us nuked or Nazis complete their takeover of our government, we will be fucked. But you probably can't effectively hedge those risks. Try not to dwell on it (as a parent, that's hard).

  13. #88
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Location
    In a van... down by the river
    Posts
    15,252
    Quote Originally Posted by Leavenworth Skier View Post
    <snip> Why the fuck people have kids without thinking about the economic, mental and physical strain it will put on them and their spouse, I do not understand.
    Because people are dumb and they like to fuck?

  14. #89
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Golden
    Posts
    3,379
    Quote Originally Posted by Timberridge View Post
    Imagine a robot that would serve tea and crumpets everyday at 5PM?
    Damn robot would be FIRED!!! Proper tea time is 3 to 4 pm...heathens.

  15. #90
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    The Cone of Uncertainty
    Posts
    49,304
    Quote Originally Posted by skaredshtles View Post
    Because people are dumb and they like to fuck?
    Liking to fuck makes you dumb? Finally I understand my life.

  16. #91
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Posts
    17,751
    Quote Originally Posted by goldengatestinx View Post
    Damn robot would be FIRED!!! Proper tea time is 3 to 4 pm...heathens.
    My perhaps flawed understanding having lived only in the British colonies for a while is that Afternoon Tea is different than High Tea, the latter being reserved more for the working class who must labor later in the day before enjoying a cup of tea with a spot. I'll defer to Brit on this.
    "timberridge is terminally vapid" -- a fortune cookie in Yueyang

  17. #92
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    panhandle locdog
    Posts
    8,159
    Quote Originally Posted by skaredshtles View Post
    and they like to fuck?
    So do my wife and I but we managed to keep things from happening.

    Because people are dumb
    Oh, right, forgot about that part. I have an overweight dumb than a rock 2nd cousin who went to the hospital 6 months pregnant complaining she had stomach pain. They were like, hey dumbass that's your baby kicking. WTF!!

  18. #93
    Join Date
    Sep 2015
    Location
    OR
    Posts
    74
    Quote Originally Posted by Sirshredalot View Post
    Teach them that hard work is important. Oh so important. Encourage them to study math and science and how to write some code, but also philosophy, writing, and a foreign language.

    The jobs of the near future will be much like the jobs of today, and they will be abundantly available. Increased adoption of IT is more similar to the productivity gains we had in the 1950s than what we had during the second agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution. If your kids like to learn and like to work hard, they'll be fine. I mean, you probably don't want to get into long haul truck driving or become an adjunct college prof right now, but that's common sense. If you're a plumber or a lawyer or a financial analyst, you'll be fine. Of course, you'll be more fine if you like to learn new skills and you're tech-savvy, but that has always been the case.

    None of that helps with political instability, armed conflict, or climate change. If and when we finish melting the ice caps or the forward gets us nuked or Nazis complete their takeover of our government, we will be fucked. But you probably can't effectively hedge those risks. Try not to dwell on it (as a parent, that's hard).
    Well said, it's nice to read something positive.

  19. #94
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Golden
    Posts
    3,379
    Quote Originally Posted by OldSteve View Post
    Historians concur that pre-Columbian PNW coastal native tribes worked less and had more leisure time than any current civilization.

    You theory begs the definition of "industrious." SE Asia sweatshops are full of industrious workers who work harder and more diligently than most Americans and western Europeans.
    What people don't think about is those 'sweat shop' workers went to the cities of their own free will. They typically lived in huts in rural parts of China, working the family farms until they decided to change their lifestyle.

    Their parents and generations before them were perfectly happy to live the rural farmer lifestyle. And are/were likely happier than their kids living in the city working in a factory.

  20. #95
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    The Cone of Uncertainty
    Posts
    49,304
    Quote Originally Posted by Sirshredalot View Post
    The jobs of the near future will be much like the jobs of today, and they will be abundantly available. Increased adoption of IT is more similar to the productivity gains we had in the 1950s than what we had during the second agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution.
    We're not talking about IT though. We're talking about driving, working in factories or fast food, warehouse and delivery work and on and on - essentially everything that maybe a third of the workforce does now. What are those people going to do? And what are "we" (society) gonna do with them? And in turn what will that do to us?

    I think your analysis is essentially correct in the long run, but it's far too sanguine imo, especially in the nearish future. "Don't worry be happy" was a shitty campaign song then and it's worse policy now.

  21. #96
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Eburg
    Posts
    13,239
    Quote Originally Posted by Sirshredalot View Post
    Teach them that hard work is important. Oh so important. Encourage them to study math and science and how to write some code, but also philosophy, writing, and a foreign language.

    The jobs of the near future. . . .
    Teach them all that, and teach them the skills of a small business, e.g., bookkeeping and organization. Whenever I hear the term "jobs" as if working for someone else is the only way to make money, I am reminded of the different world views W-2ers (who make their money working a job) and those of us who haven't gotten a W-2 for years because we make our money via self-employment. As a general trend (subject to many exceptions of course) W-2 compensation has remained stagnant for a few decades, but the new economy has been good for many of those who moved their mindset from "getting a job" to "finding a way to make a living." Don't just teach your kids skills to get a job. Also help them develop the skills to make a living in ways other than working for someone else. I no fan of the term "gig economy," but that's gonna be the future for many, perhaps most, workers. There are drawbacks to it, but there are also advantages, e.g., flex time, more control over your work day, better setting for risk takers.

    Quote Originally Posted by goldengatestinx View Post
    What people don't think about is those 'sweat shop' workers went to the cities of their own free will. They typically lived in huts in rural parts of China, working the family farms until they decided to change their lifestyle.

    Their parents and generations before them were perfectly happy to live the rural farmer lifestyle. And are/were likely happier than their kids living in the city working in a factory.
    Well, actually, many of them were forced into the cities by government edict, automation of farms and extreme poverty. If they were so happy, there would be no need for barbed wire fences and armed guards around the factory dormitories.

  22. #97
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    champlain valley
    Posts
    5,830
    if you don't have a skill set the market needs, you will be a second class citizen. I graduated HS in 1982. Some kids just went to "work". Folks like that now are fucked. In twenty years, people like that will be double fucked.

  23. #98
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    The Cone of Uncertainty
    Posts
    49,304
    Quote Originally Posted by DBdude View Post
    if you don't have a skill set the market needs, you will be a second class citizen. I graduated HS in 1982. Some kids just went to "work". Folks like that now are fucked. In twenty years, people like that will be double fucked.
    And they happen to be the rowdiest least fuck-giving most reckless group of people out there. Here's a good idea, let's take all the jobs away from all the badasses and hope for the best!

  24. #99
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    In Your Wife
    Posts
    8,288
    Quote Originally Posted by iceman View Post
    And they happen to be the rowdiest least fuck-giving most reckless group of people out there. Here's a good idea, let's take all the jobs away from all the badasses and hope for the best!

    Ice is on the right track here, we need to start thinking about how to address this now so we don't end up with rioting in the streets.

  25. #100
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Shuswap Highlands
    Posts
    4,716
    Quote Originally Posted by goldengatestinx View Post
    What people don't think about is those 'sweat shop' workers went to the cities of their own free will. They typically lived in huts in rural parts of China, working the family farms until they decided to change their lifestyle.

    Their parents and generations before them were perfectly happy to live the rural farmer lifestyle. And are/were likely happier than their kids living in the city working in a factory.
    I recommend you further educate yourself on the facts of land ownership in China, and how it has influenced rural to urban migrations.
    http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/1/123/pdf

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •