What To Do About The Long-Term Implications of Automation

Are you so afraid of opposition that you need to create derogatory labels where there are none?

Is it possible to ask questions or must they be agreeable to your ideology?

Is it possible for the object of my questions to answer for herself or am I too far beneath her to be recognized?

Is this what was meant by having a discussion and debate and changing how this site works?

Do you merely want to be accepted as the only correct solution and followed diligently with efforts to advance your ideology?

 

If you believe the word communist is derogatory, why isn't it filtered?

Would you rather folks don't use it, simply because it has had a very violent and oppressive past associated with it?

 

Do you want capitalism to continue? ...-without profits?

What in hell does that have to do with the subject? Are you hallucinating?

So it's "communist" to distribute water to people's homes? It's "communist" to distribute medical care where it's urgently needed? It's "communist" to distribute mail to recipients or to distribute commodities to stores?

NONE of it is communist ideology. Communist ideology is about seizing the means of production by seizing state power.

Hopefully they will find a brain somewhere and come to their senses.

 

You're being marginally coherent today.

 

I'll vote for banning people who troll, post flamebait, and post personal attacks repeatedly, like yourself. Such participation is very disruptive and contrary to the notion of thoughtful discussion.

 

I'm waiting.

 

I disagree with the term "hire". I think you mean assign. You want folks to be placed in positions that will allow you and those deemed "better" to make decisions for all of us.

Do you disagree?

 

Those studies are overly optimistic and extremely liberal in their analysis, with their projections bordering on fantasy.

As you will discover over the next 10-20 years, their claims will not pan out.​

The Laws of Economics contradicts it.

The US government identifies more than 800 Skill-sets. Your wages/salary are determined largely by the Supply & Demand for a specific Skill-set in a defined Labor Market.

For example, although State minimum wage in Ohio is $8.15/hour, in Cincinnati, fast-food workers receiving starting wages of $9/hour to $11/hour, while warehouse workers are only paid $8.15/hour to $9/hour.

Why?

Because the Supply of fast-food workers is far less than the Supply of warehouse workers in the Cincinnati Labor Market.

There are more than 1,500 Labor Markets in the US, so it is likely the situation is reversed in other Labor Markets: fast-food workers are paid less than warehouse workers.

But those are jobs that don't require any education, so let's look at jobs that do require education.

A part-time collection attorney in Cincinnati is paid $15/hour. That's it. It used to be $45/hour 20 years ago.

What happened?

The Labor Market for part-time collection attorneys expanded tremendously.

Ohio adopted an on-line filing system. Any attorney admitted to the Ohio State Bar Association can file any lawsuit in any of the 88 Ohio counties from any county in Ohio on-line.

So, now, the part-time collection attorney in Hamilton County, Ohio, has to compete with part-time collection attorneys in the other 87 Ohio counties, plus any attorney admitted to the Ohio Bar who lives in Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania or West Virginia which border Ohio.

That means a woman with a law degree and one or two small children who lives in a rural Ohio county with a very low Cost-of-Living and wishes to stay home with her children in her $450/month 2-bedroom apartment or $80,000 3-bedroom home sitting on 20 acres of land can work as a part-time collection attorney from her home and is willing to do that for $15/hour (while her husband works his full-time job).

My cousin worked as a part-time collections attorney for $15/hour from his home until he could build up a sustainable private practice.

The point is that if you're going to send everyone to university, all you'll do is flood the Labor Markets with college-educated employees, who will drive down wages/salaries.

But that doesn't address the real issue, which is that you cannot educate everyone.

When I taught Intro to International Relations, Foreign Policy and Conflict in International Affairs, I had to waste an entire class period teaching the Declaration of Independence as an essay, because students didn't know how to write an essay. I never expected students to provide a preamble (stating their belief system), an hypothesis, supporting evidence, a conclusion and generalizations like the Declaration does for every essay. Just the hypothesis, supporting evidence and a conclusion would suffice.

And still, after all that, there were students who simply could not grasp the concept of a properly written essay.

In the name of "diversity" among things, the university had lowered its admission standards to the point that it was forced to offer remedial English, Math and Science courses, because so many students were unprepared for university.

Why should my State and federal tax dollars be spent on the cost of remedial course-work, and also on the cost of federal Guaranteed Student Loans for students who should never be allowed to set foot on a college campus in the first place?

Only 12% to 15% of the population is really college material, and 20%-25%, which is where the US stands now, is pushing the envelope

The SAT/ACT tests don't lie; they tell the whole story.

If you're going to send people who score 900 on the SAT and 12 on the ACT to college, then you're going to do nothing but waste a lot of money and resources, while simultaneously driving down wages/salaries.

If anything, you need to start withholding federal funding, including Guaranteed Student Loans, from any university that offers remedial courses, in order to restore some dignity to college education.

In any event, this idea of educating the masses simply won't work, and its outcome overall will have a net negative impact.

Which leads to another point. If, as you and your studies claim, there will be massive job losses, then you need to close your borders and adopt an immigration system like Canada and other foreign States have, which means restricting immigration to only the best and brightest that can offer something the US doesn't already have.

 

How is this exploitation of labor different from what you think is wrong with the current "exploitation".

 

Correct. Cheap universally available abortions coupled with free birth control and morning after pills. And throw in a bit of sex education in schools. Or we could just pass a law requiring the Catholic Church to pay the cost of supporting all children born to single parents.

 

Get good at something thats harder for robots to do.

I do flow monitoring in the sewer. Technology is making my job easier (aka- less time consuming, less training required; less hours and lower pay). Nearly all the monitoring equipment is wireless with longer battery life and less susceptibile to malfunction. Some of our meters can be installed and ignored for a year at a time, meaning theres less work for us to do, meaning fewer of us are needed to get it done.
So we branch into related feilds that are less easily automated, like pigging (cleaning) out the lines.

Skilled manual labor is going to be the last to go. Until there are robots that are as dextrous, perceptive and cognitive as humans, theres always gonna be a need for someone to crawl into tight, filthy spaces and fix/clean things that sometimes are only able to be perceived by touch. When robots can do that proficiently, we're all F'd.

 

not everyone likes science, technology, engineering, or math. they want good paying ditch digging jobs or generous welfare.

the President will do this with tariffs and a huge wall, as well as opening oil drilling land for even more good paying jobs to the uneducated.

 

This nation was founded upon "forced change" and as a society it "forced change" during the civil war. Furthermore society has "forced change" when it came to women voting and civil rights albeit in a less violent manner but still forceful.

So yes, society can and does change and when it doesn't do it voluntarily then it makes the changes via force. The revolutions throughout the ages have demonstrated that society does"force change" however it is really bad for business so the smart move for corporations is to be part of the societal change via peaceful means.

 

Corporations are in it for the money....don't fool yourself.

 

Once the farmers go bankrupt due to not being able to export agriculture products thanks to Trump's trade war their will be a lot more competition for those non-existent ditch-digging jobs. Machines dig ditches these days.

 

Okay...let's go back a couple hundred years when things were more simple...unfortunately today is different.

Today if you ask 10 voters a question you will get 11-12 different answers. We are now incapable of consensus IMO because we're so wrapped up in self-serving behavior and/or supporting the political/religious team while ignoring what is in the best interest of the nation...

 

no the President uses lawful government force to protect the American free market.

tariifs are lawful government force, a huge wall is lawful government force, and banning machines for good paying ditch digging jobs to the uneducated is lawful government force.

the force is on our side.

 

that is fear mongering, our President is a successful free market capitalist with many years of experience.

in his 70 odd years he has learned through real estate that a rich middle class makes property owners like himself richer.

the only way the middle class can buy things, is if they are digging ditches for 100 dollars an hour.

 

You must be talking about the president of some other country. The president of France perhaps? The president of the United States is using lawful government force to drive farmers out of business, and although he talks big about supporting the working class, his actions belie his words. Once China and Mexico stop buying our agricultural products, America's Heartland will be a poverty zone.

 

they will grow food for their own, the ditch diggers will buy bread from Americans.

 

What To Do About The Long-Term Implications of Automation

....the same thing people have done about every evolving technology in history - adapt.