31–40 of 66 posts
I am always reminded of what John Smart said in one of his lectures some years back. America lost 2 million jobs to the Chinese. But guess who the Chinese lost 15 million jobs to... the robots.
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Redistribute some wealth from those profiting from automation to the unemployed.
Why?
The other argument is as follows: if there are enough of them and they get poor and desperate enough, they will burn down our houses, rape and murder our loved ones, and smash all of our things to bits. If things get bad enough, there will be a revolution and they will kill us all. That is not in our best interest.
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The jobs available in the post-robotic-revolution world and the necessary skills haven't yet been thought of. Once upon a time, most people were illiterate.
Most people were illiterate in the past because they didn't go to school. I don't think it makes sense to assume that some magical force will make people useful for non-automatable tasks in the future. Unless we achieve major breakthroughs in education, a large portion of society will be less capable than cheaper robots, and will therefore be unemployable.
What I can't believe is this company won't ship anything to Alaska or Hawaii. I don't understand how companies think that is acceptable.
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Cloth diapers are worse for the environment compared to disposable, no matter how you get it. (Disposable uses landfill space of which we have unlimited quantities, but cloth uses water which is in short supply. Also cloth uses more energy.) But it's easy to tell if this method is better or worse for the environment: You have to pay for jet fuel, or truck fuel, or whatever. All forms of energy cost about the same. If…
Do you have some more information on this? Our first will arrive within the next 2 weeks and this sounds really interesting.
Wikipedia is probably as good an introduction as any: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloth_diaper#Debate
Also, cloth diapers cause more rashes. (Unless there is an allergy to the disposable one, in which case it causes more.)
What I can't believe is this company won't ship anything to Alaska or Hawaii. I don't understand how companies think that is acceptable.
It's significantly less reliable, more expensive, and of extremely limited benefit to ship things to relatively unpopulated states in the middle of the ocean, or across two international borders into the Arctic. People are of course free to live in those places, but they're not free to demand the rest of the world to accommodate their decision.
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It's only because of our crazy and short-term way of looking at things that this is even considered a problem. People losing their jobs because robots replace menial warehouse jobs is a good thing. They can move onto doing more worthwhile tasks.
What happens when robots can do more worthwhile tasks than a wide swath of humanity? This point doesn't seem very far away. There are tons of jobs that don't require creativity, and those don't seem long for this world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only because of our crazy and short-term way of looking at things that this is even considered a problem. People losing their jobs because robots replace menial warehouse jobs is a good thing. They can move onto doing more worthwhile tasks.
What happens when robots can do more worthwhile tasks than a wide swath of humanity? This point doesn't seem very far away. There are tons of jobs that don't require creativity, and those don't seem long for this world.
Wait, they fly airplanes full of diapers to the West Coast!? I wonder what quantity of jet fuel exhaust gets spewed into the atmosphere, just so you can get diapers the next day . Even with the increased per-worker efficiency, is the overall environmental impact worse or better than cloth systems, or simply getting them from the corner store?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happens when robots can do more worthwhile tasks than a wide swath of humanity? This point doesn't seem very far away. There are tons of jobs that don't require creativity, and those don't seem long for this world.
Presumably if robots ever become that productive there will be no need for most people to work, since the robots will produce plenty of goods for everyone. Jobs are not an end unto themselves. Work is required to consume only because of scarcity. In the world you're imagining, that won't exist for most of the things people need to live. So it will be provided for free.