Workplace Automation

[skaredshtles]

<snip>
I try not to sound like an old man, but I tell my teenagers that when they are my age, the world is going to be a vastly different place

You mean just like your elders did when you were a teenager?

And they were right. As are you.

[DBdude]

I've been wondering why the big Republican donors have been so adamant that now is the time for tax reform and now I think I see it: They think it's the last chance to grab the brass ring before the shit really does hit the fan. Grab the cash and get the fuck out.

regarding republicans and the congressional agenda, republicans know they have a flawed president and a limited time to make some changes

the tax reform bill is packed with all sorts of stuff that have been on the GOP wish list for years and the increase in debt is going to fuck with social services in the future

republicans are remaking the social contract through ridiculous spending and tax reductions for the rich

[iceman]

I think if you study history, you'll see that this actually isn't the case.

So everything was fine the last time a third of the population lost their source of income?

[DBdude]

You mean just like your elders did when you were a teenager?

And they were right. As are you.

yes and no

first my parents never said that.... lol

i don't things are that different from when I was a kid. I think climate change is going to be a bitch in the period 50 - 100 years in the future

the current modeling is scary

[glademaster]

I think if you study history, you'll see that this actually isn't the case.

I'm quite certain that I possess a greater understanding of history than most people who post here, but that's beside the point.

There is going to be major social, political and cultural upheaval in the next half century. It might not be the downfall of civilization, but it will be ugly, violent and prolonged. I'm not saying I know exactly what things will look like, but I am confident that things will get a whole lot worse before we come out the other side with UBI and nobody having to work.

[DBdude]

So everything was fine the last time a third of the population lost their source of income?

i think there is going to be so much more efficiencies in production that there is going to be a degree of nationalization and people will be on the dole till there is a reduction in population from the increase in living standards causing a decrease in birth rates

[skaredshtles]

yes and no

first my parents never said that.... lol

Bullshit. But you were a teenager when they said it, so you didn't hear it.

i don't things are that different from when I was a kid.

Were you a kid 5 years ago or something?

[skaredshtles]

I'm quite certain that I possess a greater understanding of history than most people who post here, but that's beside the point.

There is going to be major social, political and cultural upheaval in the next half century. It might not be the downfall of civilization, but it will be ugly, violent and prolonged. I'm not saying I know exactly what things will look like, but I am confident that things will get a whole lot worse before we come out the other side with UBI and nobody having to work.

Meh. I doubt it. But only time will tell, eh?

[DBdude]

hey it still snows where I grew up and I started fucking around with computers - so, not so different in some ways

[DBdude]

i don't think it is going to snow much in much of snow country in the NE in 50 - 100 years.

[GoldMember]

I think one of the things that needs to happen is work redistribution. Going to a 24 or 32 hour work-week seems likely in order to provide spots for more people. The issue then becomes how work is compensated. If an hour's work is paid at $20, for example, that rate may need to climb to $30 to assure no net loss of income, even if hours are greatly reduced. If that doesn't happen, lifestyles are damaged and that will lead to social revolt and economic collapse.

If people aren't at least evenly compensated, they will reduce consumption and that will hammer the economy. If too many people aren't working, reduced consumption will hammer the economy. In effect, people have to be compensated for the work completed through automation or we'll have economic collapse. The question is how will this ultimately play out.

Somehow the population needs to have money to spend on products or services delivered through automated methods or the purpose of having automated methods will be moot. Somebody has to buy this stuff and if the population doesn't have the money because their jobs were the victims of automation, then automation will have defeated the purpose of automating in the first place.

[DBdude]

it's going to be interesting to see how markets react to this

[Gepeto]

You're over thinking things. Big GOP donors have always said now is the time for tax breaks for the rich veiled as "tax reform."

If I were a young man, I'd be looking at small local service biz, either professional (which defines most of my career) or technical, or artisan niche biz. I'd also stick to my view that #2 key to happiness is low overhead.

tl;dr_all

#2 should be #1

don't wait until you're old to downsize

[GeezerSteve]

Western Europe has been long dealing with the issue of too few jobs, e.g., 5 or 6 week mandatory vacation, Germany industry moving to 4-day workweek. They laugh at how many hours Americans put in at work.

On the bright side, there's a time is more valuable than accumulating stuff you don't need ethic emerging among some young adults.

[GeezerSteve]

#2 should be #1

My keys to happiness: #1 low expectations, #2 low overhead, #3 not caring too much how your favorite sports team does. They've worked well for me.

don't wait until you're old to downsize

I've always lived well below my means, so you're preaching to the choir. Note that when I've suggested on TGR threads that people avoid borrowing money to buy a fancy car or getting out of debt as young as possible, I've gotten attacked.

[Sirshredalot]

Western Europe has been long dealing with the issue of too few jobs, e.g., 5 or 6 week mandatory vacation, Germany industry moving to 4-day workweek. They laugh at how many hours Americans put in at work.

On the bright side, there's a time is more valuable than accumulating stuff you don't need ethic emerging among some young adults.

That's a variation on the lump of labor fallacy. The Euros don't have too few jobs; they have labor market institutions that place more value on people and families. And they're right to do so.

It's hard not to get on the hedonic treadmill and keep up with the Joneses in our society. Props to you for having the self-awareness to try not to play that game.

[XavierD]

Adapt.

Something many people have been and will continue to be unable to do. The last few years have shown us the dangers of leaving those people behind and the potential damage they can do. As much as Adam Smith tells me to let them fall, we can’t afford to do that.
Most of the disaffected didn’t get to vote last time society saw a potentially equal industrial shift and they still razed empires and produced decades of low or even negative economic growth.

Personally, I’d encourage everyone to move themselves as fast as possible into the ownership column.

[skaredshtles]

<snip>
On the bright side, there's a time is more valuable than accumulating stuff you don't need ethic emerging among some young adults.

Some of us have been doing it for decades.

I hate it when Millennials get credit for shit that we Gen-X slackers pioneered.

[XavierD]

That's a variation on the lump of labor fallacy. The Euros don't have too few jobs; they have labor market institutions that place more value on people and families. And they're right to do so.

It's hard not to get on the hedonic treadmill and keep up with the Joneses in our society. Props to you for having the self-awareness to try not to play that game.

Young adult employment numbers in most of Europe indicate they don’t have enough jobs. Growing anti immigration settlements seem to reinforce this notion.

[skaredshtles]

My keys to happiness: #1 low expectations, #2 low overhead, #3 not caring too much how your favorite sports team does. They've worked well for me.

Fixed #3 - not caring about sports, period.

[GeezerSteve]

^ ^ ^ Yup, that'll work

Some of us have been doing it for decades.

True, although many who embraced hippie low-to-the-ground living in the late 1960s and early 1970s subsequently metamorphosed into materialistic yuppies living per The Gospel of Stuff, Stuff and More Stuff. And Emerson and Thoreau wrote about the value of simple living long before that. And long before that Confucius advised that happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

[PNWbrit]

That's a variation on the lump of labor fallacy. The Euros don't have too few jobs; they have labor market institutions that place more value on people and families. And they're right to do so.

^ This. Absolutely.

[Gepeto]

...On the bright side, there's a time is more valuable than accumulating stuff you don't need ethic emerging among some young adults.

and not lost on this old man

[GeezerSteve]

As with many things European, the mandatory vacation laws and diminishing work week are the product of deals cut between labor unions, industry and legislators, all of whom saw value in treating labor as humans rather than a commodity. They have a much better record than the U.S. re getting along the past few decades. White nativist reaction to immigration threatens the end of the era of Euro cooperation. Cf., Brexit

[Supermoon]

The scariest part about this whole thing, is that with enough time and computational power, there will be literally nothing that a robot won't be better at than a human. Sure there will be some things that are harder, like jobs that require empathy, but it's only a matter of time before we are weaker, dumber and slower than all of the robots. They'll build themselves in ways that humans can't fix, run process too complicated for our feeble minds and do every job a human once did.

What that means for us is really the question. If you look at the oil-producing rentier states, they struggle to keep their populations in line, even though they are paying the citizens from government created wealth. 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.

#3 not caring too much how your favorite sports team does.

Blasphemy! In our robot-controlled world, sports is all we'll have left.