Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

[FRED]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

I thought you were appropriately calling out the worst sort of racist comment iTulip has let live in a while. Eric and his support staff should be ashamed they did not call it out before you took the time to do it. Plantations are places of slavery and voterstock or votingstock is a clear reference to domestic animals, to livestock. Don't apologize, demand that this board moderate itself more closely. I could care less how often iTulip is correct economically if this board will allow loathsome bigots to cloak their racial hatred in cheap rhetoric with no official challenge.

We cannot moderate every post on every thread in the public forums nor do we feel that this is good policy. We allow community members to work through differences of opinion and misunderstandings. Unless a post is reported by multiple community members we will not intervene.

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We consider the banning of trolls, the moving of threads that do not adhere to iTulip standards of civility, and otherwise allowing community members to work through differences to be a successful policy to produce lively, varied, thoughtful and civil discussion.

[Techdread]

Re: Maintenance robots

Machines require maintenance, space, and typically power from electricity or some type of fuel. There's no free lunch with machines, just as there's no free lunch with anything.

The fact that the universe exists, renders that over used statement false.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

I thought you were appropriately calling out the worst sort of racist comment iTulip has let live in a while. Eric and his support staff should be ashamed they did not call it out before you took the time to do it. Plantations are places of slavery and voterstock or votingstock is a clear reference to domestic animals, to livestock. Don't apologize, demand that this board moderate itself more closely. I could care less how often iTulip is correct economically if this board will allow loathsome bigots to cloak their racial hatred in cheap rhetoric with no official challenge.

Yeah. That was my initial reaction. I was moving on to offering a bit of benefit of the doubt and assuming the words may have been chosen by some sort of mistake. Maybe I shouldn't have. But either way, there is no justification for sentences like:

Now we find ourselves in a very cynical situation where politicians (mostly Democrats) own whole plantations of voterstock

If you mean those words earnestly, you are being completely inappropriate, and we need to strive for better.

[santafe2]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

I'm not calling you racist. I'm not calling you anything. Don't take it personally.

I just think you could choose your words better.

When you talk about Democrats "owning" "plantations worth" of "voting-stock," you do realize it sounds like a bad old reference to slavery, don't you? You have the word "plantation" right in there with the word "own" and you're implying something maybe you didn't mean. But you're it's certainly not what Michael Dawson is talking about in "Behind the Mule."

You could choose your words more carefully if you don't want people thinking you mean anything nefarious about race.

Otherwise, you might sound like you were criticizing an entire race of people for being unthinking morons who are hoodwinked into voting against their own personal interests and incapable of independent critical thought.

And if that's not what you meant, then there had to be a better way to have expressed what you actually did mean.

I thought you were appropriately calling out the worst sort of racist comment iTulip has let live in a while. Eric and his support staff should be ashamed they did not call it out before you took the time to do it. Plantations are places of slavery and voterstock or votingstock is a clear reference to domestic animals, to livestock. Don't apologize, demand that this board moderate itself more closely. I could care less how often iTulip is correct economically if this board will allow loathsome bigots to cloak their racial hatred in cheap rhetoric with no official challenge.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

I'm not calling you racist. I'm not calling you anything. Don't take it personally.

I just think you could choose your words better.

When you talk about Democrats "owning" "plantations worth" of "voting-stock," you do realize it sounds like a bad old reference to slavery, don't you? You have the word "plantation" right in there with the word "own" and you're implying something maybe you didn't mean. But you're it's certainly not what Michael Dawson is talking about in "Behind the Mule."

You could choose your words more carefully if you don't want people thinking you mean anything nefarious about race.

Otherwise, you might sound like you were criticizing an entire race of people for being unthinking morons who are hoodwinked into voting against their own personal interests and incapable of independent critical thought.

And if that's not what you meant, then there had to be a better way to have expressed what you actually did mean.

[lektrode]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

....racist or otherwise preoccupied with race. It is largely the Democrats who claim to champion the poor, but really they corral the poor and treat them as a farmer would livestock--they cultivate and harvest them, but never let them leave the ranch. If you think the word "plantation" is racist, you're wrong. If you think some people aren't considered to be purely reliable votes, then you're equally wrong....

exactly right and its the BIGGEST BS STORY EVER TOLD (mostly by the lamerstream media op/ed depts)
maybe back in the days of FDR and MAYBE up thru LBJ - but after that....???

and believe it or not - theres a whole bunch of people (mostly not around anymore) who happen to think they were lucky to have lived on plantations... hell, they're tourist attractions these daze...

but of course there are some - mostly on the same team that keeps the poor enslaved - who'll do anything to maintain the illusion that their people are "the only ones who stand up for the poor" because its 'the right thing to do' - mostly because it keeps them and the 'social welfare advocacy industry' - and its industrial-complex - employed at mostly .gov jobs that pay WAAAAAAY MORE than the 'typical' working stiff will EVER see - and they keep BS'n em into voting the same way, decade-in and decade-out

all the while the lamerstream media allows THE REAL ROBBER-BARRON-CLASS to pick their pockets, along with The Rest of US - by ignoring anything that isnt flattering to their own team's interests...

like i said, its THE BIGGEST BS STORY EVER TOLD....

[vinoveri]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

I don't understand your point. What does a person's skin color have to do with anything? Are you a racist?

unfortunately racism is now officially institutionalized in our culture as a matter of law - e.g., routine questions on applications for employment, credit, etc. request individuals to identify their race (oh yeah, and we're sexist too)

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Now we find ourselves in a very cynical situation where politicians (mostly Republicans) own whole cohorts of senior white males.

I don't understand your point. What does a person's skin color have to do with anything? Are you a racist?

[Ghent12]

Re: Maintenance robots

The human welder gets $30-$40/hour ? I'm guessing the machine pays for itself in 3 years, and is essentially free welding after that.

But human welders will not quickly be replaced, due to the need for thinking and versatility in non-repetitive tasks. It is only the repetitive ones that will be done by machine. I'd be surprised if most auto factory welding has not been done by machine since 1980.

Machines require maintenance, space, and typically power from electricity or some type of fuel. There's no free lunch with machines, just as there's no free lunch with anything.

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Really? Really? It's 2014. Those types of references to black folk were already wholly inappropriate 100 years ago.

I made no reference to black folk. You are making a racist inference, and I can only assume this is so because you are a racist or otherwise preoccupied with race. It is largely the Democrats who claim to champion the poor, but really they corral the poor and treat them as a farmer would livestock--they cultivate and harvest them, but never let them leave the ranch. If you think the word "plantation" is racist, you're wrong. If you think some people aren't considered to be purely reliable votes, then you're equally wrong.

Regularly on iTulip the members refer to "the people" as "the sheeple" and nobody bats an eye. But refer to poor people as voterstock on a politician's plantation and everyone loses their freaking minds!

My example used a black family, but that was only to enhance its realism (since youth unemployment among blacks is substantially higher than other demographics). Take any example of poor people in this country, and you will likely find them assaulted and insulted by politicians who spout how those poor poor people have the whole world against them, and the only solution to your plight in poverty is to get everyone to pay their "fair share," and I'm going to make those greedy bastards pay their fair share, and then finally somehow magically you poor poor people will be okay, because I'm a champion of the poor and I'm on your side.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Robots vs secretaries

MIT says Google cars still way more fantasy than reality.

Would you buy a self-driving car that couldn’t drive itself in 99 percent of the country? Or that knew nearly nothing about parking, couldn’t be taken out in snow or heavy rain, and would drive straight over a gaping pothole?If your answer is yes, then check out the Google Self-Driving Car, model year 2014.

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Maintenance robots

Was talking to a customer yesterday about his company. Seems they use automatic welders. Set up a track and the welding machine just runs about doing it's business in fuel storage tanks, buildings, etc. Pretty amazing what tech there is out there today. He said they are not that much quicker than humans after set up time is considered, but more precise, can work longer hours, and don't get sick or lay out of work.

The human welder gets $30-$40/hour ? I'm guessing the machine pays for itself in 3 years, and is essentially free welding after that.

But human welders will not quickly be replaced, due to the need for thinking and versatility in non-repetitive tasks. It is only the repetitive ones that will be done by machine. I'd be surprised if most auto factory welding has not been done by machine since 1980.

[don]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Now we find ourselves in a very cynical situation where politicians (mostly Republicans) own whole cohorts of senior white males.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Now we find ourselves in a very cynical situation where politicians (mostly Democrats) own whole plantations of voterstock

Really? Really? It's 2014. Those types of references to black folk were already wholly inappropriate 100 years ago.

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Thank you for not rising to my pokes and keeping things civil. I apologize for my tone.

But, respectfully, some of the things you posted sound to me more like hardcore belief in an ideology than thoughtful solutions. Yes, people often find a way to survive during true hardship. But other people die. And people are softer, more numerous and less cooperative than they were in, say, the Great Depression era.

Removing the safety nets would encourage some fraction of the unemployed to take any job for any wage. But I don't see how hungry workers and lower wages creates 10's of millions of jobs for unskilled workers. DOING WHAT???

The only job growth I see in this scenario is private security and prison guards.

It is very hard to see what isn't current reality. Technically it's impossible, of course, but with enough consideration we can visualize what might be likely to happen.

Let's start off with the case of the unskilled worker. To clarify, no such entity exists by real definitions because in order to be a worker you must apply some labor skill, so let's call people who might normally be called unskilled workers a more accurate term: very low-skilled workers. These people have very distinct advantages in the labor market of the United States, and the threat they pose to higher-skilled workers in established markets is the reason why it is illegal for very low-skilled workers to be employed at wage rates generally commensurate with their skill level. The term "skills" is very broad, so it can be useful to list some examples of skills such as: the ability to be punctual, the ability to speak English and to what degree (or any other language), the ability to do any of the myriad levels of physical labor to include bending over to pick up a dropped pen all the way to lifting heavy crates and relocating them, the ability to follow instructions to any degree of exactness, and so forth. Things you might not normally think of as skills are actually lacking in a number of people which is why the term "unskilled worker" is even in your parlance.

As an example of the threat posed to highly-skilled workers by low-skilled ones, if you need a good-sized hole dug then you can hire a highly-skilled machine operator who is licensed, bonded, insured, and pays his dues to the local union chapter. Alternatively, if we were to scrap the laws originally designed to keep black and Polish people out of the labor market (namely the minimum wage laws), you could hire a dozen very low-skilled workers with shovels for probably less than half the price.

Now you might wonder how people would be able to survive on such a low amount of income as would be earned by wages commensurate with a very low skill level, but that is a problem best solved by the people in that situation. Various techniques are universally utilized, such as minimizing living space (i.e. stuffing a dozen or more people into a dwelling "meant" for a single family), carpooling, and so forth. These techniques are used by most teenagers if they are capable of finding work because they may seek an income while benefitting from their parents' transportation and living situation. The huge benefit to people who are able to work, even in jobs requiring very little skill, is that all of these jobs will impart additional skills and "resumé bullets" to those who work on them. The ability to "live efficiently" (a rather cynical but accurate description of, for example, immigrant family situations) required during periods where one is only able to command the wages of a very low-skilled worker can actually impart some valuable skills on these individuals as well.

Of course it would be a great Kumbaya moment if everyone could simply get a paycheck and live well no matter what they do for a living, no matter how well they do it, and no matter what their skill level is. However, that cannot be a sustainable reality (except in absolute poverty like in hunter-gatherer days). If you want to improve the quality of life of human beings, you must have incentives for each individual to improve their own lot in life. Poor people in America aren't poor because they don't have money, and they don't stay poor because they lack income or skills. The poor in America are that way either from "bad luck" circumstances out of their control or through decisions of their own making, and those who stay in poverty almost always remain in that state because they lack the willpower to live differently. The preceding might not be a complete description of the situation, but those statements are absolutely true given that the contrapositives are invariably true.

The worst enemies of the poor in this country are those who drone on about how bad the poor have it, how the game is rigged against them, and how the poor need help. Is that something you would do to your child? "Give up, your efforts are useless, I'll provide for you your entire life." If you're going to tell the truth to poor people, like that the game actually is rigged against them, then you need to tell them the whole truth, meaning that you need to add that there is a way out through their own effort.

The following is edited for clarity:
Now we find ourselves in a very cynical situation where politicians (mostly Democrats) poison the well and have created a self-licking ice cream cone for the votes of large numbers of "the downtrodden," and the people who find themselves on a steady diet of this cynicism about their life and situation are trapped socially, economically, and politically by, respectively, those who tell them they shouldn't bother, those policies of welfare which disincentivize efforts to escape poverty, and those politicians who pander and reinforce both aspects of the poverty trap.

As a more concrete example, ask yourself what a poor black family of four (a mother and three children ages 5, 15, and 17) could do with an extra $2200 (pre-tax) a year. That's how much is being kept from them purely and exclusively by minimum wage and child labor laws when their 15-year-old and 17-year-old can't find work for 10 weeks during the summer earning $5 and $6 an hour, respectively, for 20 hours a week. That's a slightly bigger apartment, a second (quite used) car, a tutor, a babysitter for the youngest, healthier food, or any number of other things which that family (or more likely the mother) decides might improve their lot in life.

The reason for that example is that it is illustrative of the situation faced by innumerable poor families and, frankly, more likely among black families with a female head of household. Youth unemployment is high, and black youth unemployment is higher still. The old racists who passed the minimum wage laws would be so proud of the Democrats and the Occupy Wall Street crowd today, not to mention a lot of Republicans.