Huge fan Robert! I wish you were still Secretary of Labor.
I think one thing that everyone seems to be missing is the role that automation is playing in the re-shaping of the workforce. The incredible productivity gains that industrialized countries have experienced in the last 20-30 years seem, to me, to be almost entirely the result of automation and advancement of technology. The first round of automation was largely blue collar... replacing welders and such. This time, it's going white collar. And it seems to be accelerating.
Building a website used to cost at least $5,000 & require deep skill. People can now throw the same thing up, by themselves in a weekend. The Navy is looking to bring on a fully-automated bomber (X-47B). Google is in the midst of testing their "driverless cars" in Nevada. Foxconn (Chinese makers of all things iApple) announced they want to automate 1 million jobs within a year. Robots comprise 2% of deployed "soldier" count in Iraq... the list goes on and on and on.
And a downward economy just accelerates things. The worse the economy gets, the more companies want to squeeze costs, letting people go, making economy worse, rinse, repeat.
And if an industry or a product goes automated, it doesn't just affect that single job. For instance, when (not if) we do start getting driverless cars, they should crash less, right? Then we'll need fewer police, insurance agents, auto body repair shops, etc.
I'm of the belief that we just don't need that many people to work any more. And that trend will only accelerate. The old capitalist equation of "I have to work or my life sucks/I may die" seems to be breaking down.
Instead of trying to embrace this and build a utopia where we can somehow automate away the need for humans to be the cogs in a machine, we all seem intent on fighting to "get our jobs back".
Two questions:
1) How come no one (including yourself) is talking about this as the core cause of our high unemployment?
2) Is any agency in the government looking at this and trying to plan appropriately?
9volt47 karma
Huge fan Robert! I wish you were still Secretary of Labor.
I think one thing that everyone seems to be missing is the role that automation is playing in the re-shaping of the workforce. The incredible productivity gains that industrialized countries have experienced in the last 20-30 years seem, to me, to be almost entirely the result of automation and advancement of technology. The first round of automation was largely blue collar... replacing welders and such. This time, it's going white collar. And it seems to be accelerating.
Building a website used to cost at least $5,000 & require deep skill. People can now throw the same thing up, by themselves in a weekend. The Navy is looking to bring on a fully-automated bomber (X-47B). Google is in the midst of testing their "driverless cars" in Nevada. Foxconn (Chinese makers of all things iApple) announced they want to automate 1 million jobs within a year. Robots comprise 2% of deployed "soldier" count in Iraq... the list goes on and on and on.
And a downward economy just accelerates things. The worse the economy gets, the more companies want to squeeze costs, letting people go, making economy worse, rinse, repeat.
And if an industry or a product goes automated, it doesn't just affect that single job. For instance, when (not if) we do start getting driverless cars, they should crash less, right? Then we'll need fewer police, insurance agents, auto body repair shops, etc.
I'm of the belief that we just don't need that many people to work any more. And that trend will only accelerate. The old capitalist equation of "I have to work or my life sucks/I may die" seems to be breaking down.
Instead of trying to embrace this and build a utopia where we can somehow automate away the need for humans to be the cogs in a machine, we all seem intent on fighting to "get our jobs back".
Two questions: 1) How come no one (including yourself) is talking about this as the core cause of our high unemployment? 2) Is any agency in the government looking at this and trying to plan appropriately?
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