101–110 of 310 posts
Honest question: Is it not widely accepted that 1) Eventually, and probably pretty soon (within 100years), that there obviously won't be jobs for everyone. Automation, progress(efficiency gains) and increasing population makes it inevitable. 2) That a general "goal" of society is do away with jobs. In any traditional sense. To me we've been approaching that ever since agriculture provided ability to support specialis…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, we simply wait out the next few centuries. Reproduction rates in many developed countries have dipped below replacement. Maybe the total world population will decrease in our time.
While it is true that the fertility rate goes down with increasing wealth, this may only be true up to some point. With wealth increasing even further the fertility rate seems to start rising again. Whether it crosses the replacement rate again is up for debate. See the chart on the Wikipedia article for income and fertility [1] for an illustration. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
As it stands now the EU has more deaths than births every year for the foreseeable future. When birthrates have been below replacement level for over 30 years it would take a massive baby boom to right the pyramid, but what good would that do? We don't need the population we used to and those babies wouldn't be productive for at least 20 years and as it stands now many of them would be as much of a drain on the state as the retired
Not an economist but my thoughts on the topic are that society can make changes to accommodate this. This isn't a catastrophe, we just need to prepare. I think this needs to/will happen: * labour will change from people having only one main skill to having multiple skills ("jack of all trades, master of none" will become "jack of all trades, master of fewer") * this will be made possible by the fact that technology m…
Automation works well through economies of scale to fulfill large, steady amounts of demand. A.I. works well when there is a lot of existing data or logged activity to train on. For new, variable, or niche demand markets, Humans will be unique in that they can fill the demand faster than A.I. or robotics.
For anyone who has a theory that involves making new jobs and retraining people, consider these cases: A) 50 something factory worker whos job along with the other 100 folks he works with, have been eliminated by automation or some other sort of efficiency. B) 30 something software engineer who's field (except for research) has been eliminated by AI. "A" is something most of us have the luxury of had waving away with…
Well if AI can replace software engineers then it can probably obviate many other jobs as well, meaning there would have to be greater societal restructuring than just some out of work engineers finding new careers. If you are 30 and you're worried your job will be automated away before you retire (but before universal income), perhaps you should get a head start by learning new skills that are harder to automate. I…
Yes, funded by a tax on automation revenues.
First, there are plenty of jobs, but not enough people that have decided to develop themselves enough to have the skills to do them. For example (a real life one, unfortunately for me): I need a biopsy of a mass near my heart, but the current waiting time for this procedure here in Seattle (at both major hospitals) is two months. What we do have is plenty of regulations that constrain the supply of physicians, servic…
That's like saying there's plenty of room for musicians if you're Mozart. The amount of investment required to develop yourself for a target field has grown astronomically, but that's been coupled with a push down in wages. I know lawyers who spent a fortune for their degree, passed the Bar, and make barely more than minimum wage. Regulation isn't causing this; automation is causing this.
But here I wait, while people capable of doing this (or at least capable of learning how to do it - and that's a lot of people) also wait. That's regulation.
For anyone who has a theory that involves making new jobs and retraining people, consider these cases: A) 50 something factory worker whos job along with the other 100 folks he works with, have been eliminated by automation or some other sort of efficiency. B) 30 something software engineer who's field (except for research) has been eliminated by AI. "A" is something most of us have the luxury of had waving away with…
Nitpicking I know.
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But not the money to pay for these jobs....But in most countries they receive social welfare while out of work. See the contradiction here? We could put these people to work engaging in labor that is valuable, but not as valuable as the cost of their welfare. I.e. pay them $7.25/hour to do $5/hour worth of labor (net cost to society = $2.25/hour). Yet we don't. Instead we pay them to play video games (net cost to soc…
So you would like government to compete in private markets with tax payers money?
Honest question: Is it not widely accepted that 1) Eventually, and probably pretty soon (within 100years), that there obviously won't be jobs for everyone. Automation, progress(efficiency gains) and increasing population makes it inevitable. 2) That a general "goal" of society is do away with jobs. In any traditional sense. To me we've been approaching that ever since agriculture provided ability to support specialis…
2) I wouldn't say this is widely accepted. On any topic about Universal Basic Income, one of the common refrains against it is "the dignity of work", and that labor gives purpose in life. I don't agree with that necessarily, but it seems to be a view held by a sizable segment of the population. You'll also see it come up in situations where welfare is mentioned.
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> Allocating labor on the basis of whether or not traders and stock owners can profit in the short to medium term turns out to be an unintelligent way to strategise an economy. And yet, this turns out to be the most succesful strategy civilization has used so far.
Well... we don't have a real long track record and past performance isn't indicative of future gains. I agree with you, but we are kind of speeding into the unknown. Which like any adventure is risky. Hunter gatherers were real stable for a long long time. One person, or even a fairly large group of people couldn't cause much trouble. We're moving much faster, which again i think is cool, but it's much riskier. An ob…
This is what I find interesting about the Amish. They are not, as I understand things, truly anti-technology, they are anti-adopting every new thing as soon as it's available.
I wonder if they're the ones who are going to have the last laugh if/when this house of cards tumbles (although in all likelihood it'll probably be the Sentinelese).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But not the money to pay for these jobs....But in most countries they receive social welfare while out of work. See the contradiction here? We could put these people to work engaging in labor that is valuable, but not as valuable as the cost of their welfare. I.e. pay them $7.25/hour to do $5/hour worth of labor (net cost to society = $2.25/hour). Yet we don't. Instead we pay them to play video games (net cost to soc…
So you would like government to compete in private markets with tax payers money?
I'd also like to replace as many (currently overpaid) government workers with welfare types as possible. Why pay $50k/year to a unionized govt janitor when you can just order someone currently on welfare to do the same job for no extra money?