Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

[Ghent12]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

"Remove the safety nets" IS EXACTLY option two. U3 is ~7%. U6 is ~12%. How many millions is that? What jobs would you have them do? The jobs don't exist.

Do you expect those millions to quietly starve to death? Lash out? What?

Yes, hunger is a powerful motivator, but that doesn't make jobs spring into existence. It does make people commit crime, though.

Seriously, I can't find it. Someone translate the U3 and U6 rates to numbers of people so we can decide where to employ them.

Poverty in America is, to some extent, voluntary. People magically find jobs in large numbers after various effective welfare reform measures. You don't need to bother trying to find employment for them--they will do that on their own.

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Let's play a game. You name a market you think is a result of capitalism, and then you can take a turn explaining how that market is not a product of the legal environment it resides in. Look to the laws which establish private property rights and limited liability, and it should become apparent really quickly.

Unfair game is unfair.

No market is truly free and unfettered, but they can be the result of capitalism hindered to various degrees by political restraints. You can trace the origins of many aspects of a market or economy in general to a variety of parameters, just as you can trace virtually every single monopoly directly to government policy.

A robust legal environment is critical for capitalism to succeed. A corrupt legal environment is necessary for monopolies to develop.

[don]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

The Tolkien Factor

If you’re a girl and you’re old and you’re grey and you’re the size of a hobbit, who’s going to get angry at you? If your predecessor had all the qualities anyone could look for in a garden gnome, and his predecessor was known mainly as a forward drooling incoherent oracle, how bad could it get? Think they select Fed heads them on purpose for how well they would fit into the Shire?

[Woodsman]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

It's clear you do not possess an understanding of the role politics plays in the economy, nor do you understand the terms you sling together like noodles and refrigerator surfaces. Do you prefer that politicians run the economy, or that economic gains be distributed politically?

I understand nothing. You understand everything. It's perfectly clear you are the ideal man. Heroic, really.

[sutro]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

A war or epidemic does little to change the picture. More people would mean more workers and more consumption. What changes the picture is the number of people needed to serve the consumption, or the distribution of types of work relative
to the numbers of people available to do them. Both automation and trade affect these things.

But didn't per capita gdp go up in Europe (where most of the death and desruction occured) right after the WWII?

[Shakespear]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

In a move that will rock the job security of night watchmen everywhere, the world’s first commercially available security robot is set for mass production in the US.Designed by Denver-based Gamma 2 Robotics, the robot will now be manufactured entirely in the States, with a process that can be scaled up to full mass production as demand grows.The robot, which is known as the Vigilant MCP (mobile camera platform), features a digital camera and an array of sensors to detect the presence of unauthorised intruders, and will activate the alarm and send out an alert should it find someone where they shouldn’t be.

http://www.factor-tech.com/robots/72...mass-produced/

With a few different decisions in the past (or now, I would guess) from our leaders, we would have tons of jobs. The U.S. government can borrow trillions. Those trillions could be spent to modernize our infrastructure. China has demonstrated that it can be done. There is at least $20 trillion worth of improvements that could be made in the infrastructure in the U.S. After that is done, perhaps we can talk about jobs springing into existence.

China has shown how to pull 100's of millions of people out of poverty, not through hand-outs, but through jobs. I cannot believe the U.S., with all its current resources (including credit), could not make a few tens of millions of jobs. It is laughable.


Lack of leadership. That is all.

We can see very clearly that today's "leadership" is completely devoid of people who think like you, but probable closer to the way Ayn Rand thought.

My first introduction to Ayn Rand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ooKsv_SX4Y

What splendid ideas she birthed into the world,

“the men of the mind, the intellectuals of the world, the originators and innovators in every line of industry go on strike; when the men of creative ability in every profession, in protest against regulation, quit and disappear.”

“I am destroying d’Anconia Copper, consciously, deliberately, by plan and by my own hand. I have to plan it carefully and work as hard as if I were producing a fortune- in order not to let them notice it and stop me, in order not to let them seize the mines until it is too late ... I shall destroy every last bit of it and every last penny of my fortune and every ounce of copper that could feed the looters. I shall not leave it as I found it- I shall leave it as Sebastian d’Anconia found it- then let them try to exist without him or me!”

“We produced the wealth of the world- but we let our enemies write its moral code.”

“We’ll survive without it. They won’t.”

[aaron]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

"Remove the safety nets" IS EXACTLY option two. U3 is ~7%. U6 is ~12%. How many millions is that? What jobs would you have them do? The jobs don't exist.

Do you expect those millions to quietly starve to death? Lash out? What?

Yes, hunger is a powerful motivator, but that doesn't make jobs spring into existence. It does make people commit crime, though.

Seriously, I can't find it. Someone translate the U3 and U6 rates to numbers of people so we can decide where to employ them.

With a few different decisions in the past (or now, I would guess) from our leaders, we would have tons of jobs. The U.S. government can borrow trillions. Those trillions could be spent to modernize our infrastructure. China has demonstrated that it can be done. There is at least $20 trillion worth of improvements that could be made in the infrastructure in the U.S. After that is done, perhaps we can talk about jobs springing into existence.

China has shown how to pull 100's of millions of people out of poverty, not through hand-outs, but through jobs. I cannot believe the U.S., with all its current resources (including credit), could not make a few tens of millions of jobs. It is laughable.


Lack of leadership. That is all.




-----------------------------
Now, if you are talking about reality, where we have no leadership, no talent in government, and the largest bureaucracy in the history of the world, I think you are right. Feed them so they do not eat the rest of us.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Let's play a game. You name a monopoly you think is a result of capitalism, and then you can take a turn explaining how that monopoly is not a product of the legal environment it resides in. Look to the laws which restrict competition and it should become apparent really quickly.

Let's play a game. You name a market you think is a result of capitalism, and then you can take a turn explaining how that market is not a product of the legal environment it resides in. Look to the laws which establish private property rights and limited liability, and it should become apparent really quickly.

Unfair game is unfair.

[Ghent12]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

And then the alarm clock rings and we are overcome by the same depressing realization; just another Ayn Rand wet dream. But it seemed so real, this fevered vision of utopian feudalist capitalism. Oh hit the snooze; just five more minutes ... to dream ... again ... zzz ... zzzz ... zzzzz ...

It's clear you do not possess an understanding of the role politics plays in the economy, nor do you understand the terms you sling together like noodles and refrigerator surfaces. Do you prefer that politicians run the economy, or that economic gains be distributed politically?

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

It's taken centuries for the purest expression of capitalism - the inevitable monopoly stage - to arrive in force. Placed in that time frame socialism as the dominate political economy has hardly begun. Stillborn it may remain. I have more faith in ongoing change, not any future 'perfect, final' system, certainly not an End to History. Of course time being what it is, it may seem like the final stage to all of us. Further concentration, endless stagnation.

Monopoly isn't inevitable or even likely under capitalism. Monopoly requires complete ownership of something unique or complete ownership of all the means to produce and acquire a good or service within an economy of a given size. Monopolies in the United States are almost exclusively government-sponsored, government-supported, or otherwise products of political practices and not capitalist economic ones.

Let's play a game. You name a monopoly you think is a result of capitalism, and then you can take a turn explaining how that monopoly is not a product of the legal environment it resides in. Look to the laws which restrict competition and it should become apparent really quickly.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

We can
1) Force growth. Make us want more stuff.
2) Reduce people. Have large wars. (Also provides short term employment.)
3) Change the work/person ratio. Reduce the work week.
4) Accept that some people are going to be long term unemployed.

I'd prefer 3 or 4. I'm not sure which is more practical.

There are a number of other options. The most obvious being to remove the safety traps (aka safety nets) which allow people to live fairly well while being long-term unemployed.

...

Option 2 is absolutely ludicrous. If you enjoy things like a nice standard of living while not willing to execute the political power necessary to become your own dictator, you need a very large economy or access to one via trade. If you want things like more science, you need more scientists. If you want things like more stuff, you need more people making stuff (and buying stuff, which creates markets for a broader array of stuff).

"Remove the safety nets" IS EXACTLY option two. U3 is ~7%. U6 is ~12%. How many millions is that? What jobs would you have them do? The jobs don't exist.

Do you expect those millions to quietly starve to death? Lash out? What?

Yes, hunger is a powerful motivator, but that doesn't make jobs spring into existence. It does make people commit crime, though.

Seriously, I can't find it. Someone translate the U3 and U6 rates to numbers of people so we can decide where to employ them.

[Polish_Silver]

Maintenance robots

The Bright New Future

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/robots-will...rclass-1460177
You say there will be jobs maintaining the robots? Sure 100 robots taken care by 1 maintenance robot.
Programing? Sure
Building parts and circuits? Suuurrrreeee.

Well we can still flip hamburgers, can't we ? Nope, it appears to be doable by robots as we speak,
http://singularityhub.com/2013/01/22...gers-per-hour/

Is there today, anywhere in the world, a robot performing maintenance on anything without a human guiding it's
every move?

We've been hearing claims of sophisticated computers, robots, etc from the AI community for years.

It's reasonable to expect incremental improvements in robotics, which will certain absorb some routine jobs.

Meanwhile Microsoft can't even come up with an operating system that works properly.

[ddn3f]

Re: Robots vs secretaries

Yea I can see that problem. A qualified pilot will only be needed for for the 10 minutes or so it takes to drop the bomb. The rest of the time, someone just needs to watch the screen for alerts and call a qualified person if there's an alert.

This is where I see a BIG PROBLEM.

Combat drones used by the Air Force and CIA are controlled remotely by a human pilot, often sitting thousands of miles away. The Navy drone is designed to carry out a combat mission controlled almost entirely by a computer.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nation...818-story.html

This type of information just flows like a river today. So not to be aware that trouble is coming is to be blind. But then we are in trouble already.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Interesting analogy, priesthood/Rand/molestation.

Aye. Easy enough to do. Take everything Jesus ever said in the New Testament, and write down the opposite. There. You've got Ayn Rand in a nutshell.

Let's do a quick comparison:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And many that are first, shall be last: and the last shall be first.

One thing is wanting unto thee. Go, sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor: and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me.

Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God?

For the poor you have always with you: and whensoever you will, you may do them good: but me you have not always.

Blessed are ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.'

This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before...The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor.

Do you believe in God, Andrei? No. Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside-down question, you know. What do you mean? Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do—then, I know they don't believe in life. Why? Because, you see, God—whatever anyone chooses to call God—is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.

There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it—it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it—you don't know what right is and you're not a man.

The highest thing in a man is not his god. It's that in him which knows the reverence due a god. I am my highest reverence.

There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic.

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.

The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.

The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind.

You just kind of take whatever the opposite would be, write it down, and there you have it.

Anti-Christiandom.

Mammon's own daughter come-to-earth.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Do you actually believe Alan Greenspan was implementing Rand's ideas through those policies and that saying otherwise is some kind of logical fallacy? Or are you just saying that because you think it scores you some kind of points on the internet?

When a priest molests a child and someone claims that they aren't following the teachings of Jesus Christ, do you scoff and say "Ah, I see. No true Scotsman"?

Anyone who knows Rand's ideas and Greenspan's policies can see they are clearly at odds.

I always figured it was just a long con to discredit the Fed so they think about destroying it.

Greenspan did live with Rand at her cult HQ for years. They co-authored a book together. I don't think he's the equivalent a Priest in your analogy. If Ayn Rand's the god you worship, Greenspan has got to be at least an apostle, or maybe a pope or a cardinal at the furthest stretch.

I'd say if you think Ayn Rand's god, Greenspan's probably her St. Peter, sent to Rome, wouldn't you?

After all, this god didn't come 2,000 years ago. She came down to earth to give us her wisdom only a few decades ago. And we have plenty of pictures of her and her apostles.

Your new god.



Our old God.