What To Do About The Long-Term Implications of Automation

I definitely agree with you in the idea that capitalism in the wake of ongoing automation will eventually implode if left as it is today. Like you said, even if every working-age citizen in the country had the skills and education necessary to do the high-tech jobs of the future, that means very little for our nation as a whole if those jobs don't exist in sufficient numbers to allow for folks to support themselves. Though, with that said, and while I would also agree that the capitalistic free market is not likely to fix the problem on its own, I do not believe that we need to completely rid ourselves of capitalism in order to solve the problem. All we really need to do, is to put in place a few specific measures which can work side-by-side with capitalism to cover for the areas where capitalism falls short.

And ideally...we would wise up and do that before any collapse, because as the populace tends to shift in proportion to how bad things get, as bad as a collapse would be in and of itself, waiting until after such an event very well could lead to an over-correction seen in the full elimination of capitalism...which could be even worse in the long run.

But certainly, as long as capitalism remains, which I believe it should, then what ever system we are left with cannot then as a whole be considered full socialism in the traditional system. Then again...there are some who believe that the very idea of taxation itself automatically equates to a socialist society, and by certain definitions they may not be completely wrong, but the very fact that one categorization can mean such different things to different people is exactly why I don't believe it to be particularly useful in conversation or civil discourse. Instead of worrying so much about how things are categorized, it'd be much more prudent in my opinion for us to only concern ourselves with the specific actions we think need to be taken, and whether or not those actions will benefit us overall. E.g. if we think certain taxation or spending is what's needed, then lets discuss that. If we think certain taxation or regulation is what's contributing to the issue and needs to be changed, then let's discuss that. But over-generalizations will, in general, lead us down a path to nowhere...

For sure, we cannot just sit around and idly wait for new jobs to simply appear out of thin-air, or merely assume that some as of yet non-existent industry will be willed into being by some capitalistic altruist sometime down the line. But I am pleased to say that we may not have quite as much of a dearth of ideas as you might think...

The second post of this thread contains links to a number of pretty good ideas that have been posted here so far.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...cations-of-automation.517121/#post-1068163031

What are your thoughts on the first item from that list? The Four-Phased Approach?

-Meta

 

The way I see things, the important factors to consider when talking about wages is not whether or not one group makes more or less than another. But whether or not those on the bottom rungs are allowed to make enough to provide themselves with some minimum standard of living and also whether or not people in general are afforded equal reasonable and fair opportunities to move around the income spectrum as they desire (provided they're willing to put in the work). Relative earnings should really only be considered insofar as to how much an extreme disparity might restrict the other two factors.

Of course, what ever we decided to do to address those concerns, we would want to ensure that we controlled for inflation in the process. I believe that minimum wage increases can be helpful in some areas, but I agree with you that its not going to be the end all be all. If we raise it up to $50 its likely that we'll eventually run into issues of one sort or another. But do you really believe it to be the case that having a certain portion of our population being on welfare is an inevitability???....

-Meta

 

Exactly! And its not as if we'd need to solve every aspect of the issue all at once.
Even if we were to simply start implementing the few things we could all for the most part
agree would be helpful, that would at least get us on our way...

-Meta

 

Actually, according to the statistics that I've seen,
Americans are actually becoming more educated on average.
The problem though seems to be that, as educated as we are,
our education simply isn't able to keep up with the ever-rising admission requirements of the well-paying jobs. Part of that is due to some of the work being more technically focused, and part of it is simply due to increasing competition for a shrinking number of jobs overall. When thinking about it that way, its really no wonder that so many people lately find themselves saddled with such obscene amounts of debt.

-Meta

 

That sounds like it would be a pretty nice outcome.
What steps would you propose for us to reach it though?

-Meta

 

Hmm, well I appreciate you sharing your viewpoint...
Though, can you give any specific reasons for why things like education, infrastructure spending, and or the Four-Phased Approach wont work? And if so... What are your thoughts on how we should solve the issue of Automation-Induced Job-loss; If none of the previously mentioned ideas are the way to go, then what would your solution be??

How can we make our government...higher quality...such that the problem gets solved without creating new ones??? I know that you've mentioned before a couple things we could do to slow the bleeding; e.g. immigration reform, and cutting off imports from china. But seeing as how neither would matter much as we approached 100% automation, is there then nothing else we could do to completely stop the bleeding and repair the damage? And if we really can't think of any other options...wouldn't it make sense to reconsider the ones that have already been suggested?...

...or would weathering such a recession with our current status quo system be preferable to trying something new?

-Meta

 

Agreed! And it is a shame more folks don't seem to realize that...

-Meta

 

I'm definitely in full agreement with you there! (see sig)

-Meta

 

Yes, I agree with that. As I mentioned in the OP, whilst we move into this more automated future,
it will be imperative for us to adapt appropriately to that change both as individuals and as a society.
The question posed by this thread...is how we should best go about doing that...Any suggestions?
Specifically, what do you think we as a country need to do in order to stave off the prospect of mass automation-induced job-loss?

Yes, and when possible, we should of course seek to extract the benefits of change while avoiding or mitigating as much as possible the negative aspects.

-Meta

 

That's the thing about automation (and technology in general). Even as it may remain relatively expensive on the front end...It gets cheaper by the year as efficiency improvements are made to the processes of installing and or operating old tech and or as that tech becomes more valuable as advancements in its scope of capabilities are made.

And while not for everyone, we must also not forget that many companies over the past few years have been finding themselves with ever-increasing levels of funds coming in, and in such cases the initial price-point, however high, begins to become much less of an issue when longer term profits are on the line.

So where money may have been an issue when considering automation of the past, as the automation becomes more effective, less expensive, and as certain companies begin to rake in more money, automation of today and in the future become much more appealing, and while human beings can try as they may to keep up with the pace of automation and technological advancements, in many fields of work, it is all but inevitable that sooner or latter those pesky human limitations will result in the technology overtaking humans, both in capability as well as in affordability.

Cost of Operating Automated Business Systems Over Time VS Manual:


Cost Forecast of Initial Purchase of an Emerging Automated Feature By Year:


-Meta

 

And that...what you just said there, the bolded underlined part is exactly the problem!
We as a country have been gradually losing jobs over time, and what's more the pace of that decline could be set to accelerate. Though, having said that, the loss of such jobs wouldn't really be all that much of a problem, if it were also the case that they were being replaced in sufficient numbers, with other jobs of equal or better quality. But that isn't the case. While we do get a few highly paid tech jobs hitting the scene, due to their lower number compared to the jobs lost, what we have instead are more folks each year working at places like Walmart and McDonalds at at or near subsistence wages. This trend in the long run is not sustainable...and even if it were, in a nation as great as ours we really ought to aspire to something better...

And pretty much nobody expected the Great Depression or the more recent Great Recession either.
And yet, the Great Depression and the Great Recession still happened. Had we as a society done a better job of strengthening our economy before hand, we could have prevented the worst of those downturns. I fear though that if as human beings we fail to wise up soon to whats happening, events like the Great Depression and the Great Recession will not only begin to occur more frequently, but be more severe as well. We may not ever hit 0 jobs, but it wont take hitting 0 for stuff to hit the fan...Some say that we always eventually bounce back from these sorts of drops, and that's true, though I would counter that the bounce back never seems to happen without a conscious effort to improve things, and besides that, how many people end up suffering (or even dying) in the process, and what is the point of it? If we can take preventative measures in this area, I have yet to see anyone state a logical reason for why we shouldn't...

Of course, and that is what I'm suggesting we do once again.
Adapt, as a society, to these changing times in which automation not only supplements human labor, but in many areas is fully capable of replacing it. Yes, indeed, we must adapt to this as we have adapted to past challenges. But please note that adaptation on such a scale is not going to simply happen on its own...

-Meta