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Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

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Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

#21

Post by Detrus »

hugh3 wrote: post #16

The problem as I see it (and I've probably said this before) is that not all jobs are equal... or rather that not all people are equal. Increasing technology doesn't take away jobs, it increases the amount of wealth you can create with the same amount of labour, at least up to a certain point. But it also makes the jobs that do exist harder (intellectually speaking), because as the jobs switch from "assembly line wor…

Mine them for data after making them share as much about their life as possible.

More seriously, those three-digit IQ jobs will turn to two-digit IQ jobs as technology makes them easier. There's a predictable cycle for technological progress, until a certain point at least.

Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

#22

Post by kiba »

hugh3 wrote: post #16

The problem as I see it (and I've probably said this before) is that not all jobs are equal... or rather that not all people are equal. Increasing technology doesn't take away jobs, it increases the amount of wealth you can create with the same amount of labour, at least up to a certain point. But it also makes the jobs that do exist harder (intellectually speaking), because as the jobs switch from "assembly line wor…

People are also more intelligent simply because their environment becomes more complex.

Remember, the average level of IQ back then would be considered retarded today.

Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

#23

Post by hackinthebochs »

hugh3 wrote: post #16

The problem as I see it (and I've probably said this before) is that not all jobs are equal... or rather that not all people are equal. Increasing technology doesn't take away jobs, it increases the amount of wealth you can create with the same amount of labour, at least up to a certain point. But it also makes the jobs that do exist harder (intellectually speaking), because as the jobs switch from "assembly line wor…

>it increases the amount of wealth you can create with the same amount of labour,

The end result of this is that there are fewer jobs. There is a certain amount of "production" (for lack of a better word) needed to maintain the same quality of life. As production becomes more efficient, it takes less and less labor for the same output. This inevitably reduces the amount of jobs available.

Knowledge work can't fill the gap, partially because most people just aren't capable, and partially because it takes an order of magnitude fewer knowledge workers than manual laborers for a given amount of output.

>What, then, do we do with the world's stupid people?

The answer is that we're going to have to change our attitudes towards "redistribution of wealth" for society not to fall apart.

Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

#24

Post by rubiety »

hugh3 wrote: post #16

The problem as I see it (and I've probably said this before) is that not all jobs are equal... or rather that not all people are equal. Increasing technology doesn't take away jobs, it increases the amount of wealth you can create with the same amount of labour, at least up to a certain point. But it also makes the jobs that do exist harder (intellectually speaking), because as the jobs switch from "assembly line wor…

I think what you're trying to say is that technological progress brings highly increasing returns to intelligence such that one person has the capability to produce an extremely high amount of value relative to their peers (increase in income inequality, perhaps).

And I agree, this is most likely the case. But inequality as a side-effect is something that can be dealt with via relatively inefficient policies that do not distort too heavily the division of labor as it exists.

In other words, we should let this grand increase in efficiency happen, but correct perhaps for inequality resulting therefrom in a relatively efficient way as we need too.

Far too many people use the inequality argument to prove too much (that we should attempt to slow specialization of flat-ouf efficiency at its source), and this argument is deeply flawed IMO. In other words, don't shoot the messenger. Intelligent people are creating enormous amounts of value, but their income/price is just a messenger of this information.

Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

#25

Post by CJefferson »

rubiety wrote: post #17
chailatte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reply was regarding efficiency. My reply has to do with free. Let me put it in an example. Electric cars are more efficient than gas vehicles. So consumers switch to electric cars. Those workers whose jobs were rendered useless transitioned into higher knowledge jobs in the electric cars industry. There might be more jobs in the new industry. And customers will likely pay the same amount for the new electric car…

I'm not even sure where to begin on your confusion here. 1. Firstly, efficiency concerns the ability to more with less. Zero is less, and there's no reason why zero is substantively different than paying $0.01 per car - it's on a continuity that affords the same analysis. So saying you reply "has to do with free" speaks absolutely nothing about my initial arguments focused on efficiency. 2. Money is a veil. Like the…

2. If money doesn't matter, can I have all of yours, because I've found I don't have enough recently.

3. No, buggy whips were never free. People stopped wanting them. The problem now is that the things in highest demand, and which people want more of, and the same things which are free.

Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

#26

Post by chailatte »

rubiety wrote: post #17
chailatte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reply was regarding efficiency. My reply has to do with free. Let me put it in an example. Electric cars are more efficient than gas vehicles. So consumers switch to electric cars. Those workers whose jobs were rendered useless transitioned into higher knowledge jobs in the electric cars industry. There might be more jobs in the new industry. And customers will likely pay the same amount for the new electric car…

I'm not even sure where to begin on your confusion here. 1. Firstly, efficiency concerns the ability to more with less. Zero is less, and there's no reason why zero is substantively different than paying $0.01 per car - it's on a continuity that affords the same analysis. So saying you reply "has to do with free" speaks absolutely nothing about my initial arguments focused on efficiency. 2. Money is a veil. Like the…

1.) No, you're confused on the very basic demand/supply. Efficiency = provides cheaper supply for a demand. Essentially shifting the supply line down. Free = wiping out demand altogether (market no longer needed). Two different thing.

2.) No. No. No. Money is a store of value. Only governments and economist believes otherwise (and prints money and reduces the value of them. That's why people buy gold/silver). "What matters for prosperity is the quantity of goods and services being produced in an economy" You're kidding me. So empty cities in Spain and China is prosperous? Walmart full of Chinese items is prosperous? Then why are we not prosperous now, instead of 44M Americans on food stamps.

3.) Buggy whip is not a substantial market. Therefore nobody cared about it. If a major market like software/music/movie/tv/website, worth hundreds of billions, is threatened by free, people care.

4.) Until we have a perfect world where everything is free, then we can talk about it. Otherwise we still need jobs for money to fight for food/clean energy/materials/infrastructure.

5.) free is $0. Company receives $0. Has to shut down. Lay off everyone.

6.) if we keep losing jobs to free, the net effect is negative. Not hard to figure it out.

Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

#27

Post by sedachv »

FlowerPower wrote: post #14

Its good technology is taking away jobs, if it is not, that means we are all doing something really really wrong. Who in their right minds would like to do things just to do more things? People always come up with new things so they can stop doing what they are doing. Lazy programmers are the best, the ones that dont want to do things when a computer can do it for them. People should stop working. We have enough tech…

Not only do we need to reduce working hours, we need to provide a basic income guarantee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee). This is what the promise of technological progress is about, and is one of the tenets of Marxian communism. Ironically, the basic income guarantee is also something that is advocated by many liberal and libertarian economists.

These two factors are IMO key to further accelerating the rate of technological innovation. They enable anyone who is interested in science and technology to freely pursue these interests, whereas today many people are driven away from science by huge disincentives (massive student loans and poor career prospects).

Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

#28

Post by rubiety »

chailatte wrote: post #26
rubiety wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure where to begin on your confusion here. 1. Firstly, efficiency concerns the ability to more with less. Zero is less, and there's no reason why zero is substantively different than paying $0.01 per car - it's on a continuity that affords the same analysis. So saying you reply "has to do with free" speaks absolutely nothing about my initial arguments focused on efficiency. 2. Money is a veil. Like the…

1.) No, you're confused on the very basic demand/supply. Efficiency = provides cheaper supply for a demand. Essentially shifting the supply line down. Free = wiping out demand altogether (market no longer needed). Two different thing. 2.) No. No. No. Money is a store of value. Only governments and economist believes otherwise (and prints money and reduces the value of them. That's why people buy gold/silver). "What m…

1. "provides cheaper supply for a demand" - Nice ;-). I'm not disagreeing with you that if it's free there is no market. But that's an entirely different question from asking whether or not the value of goods and services produced is a net increase or decrease, and this is the relevant question. You're also treading very close to confusing "supply" with "quantity supplied", which is ironic as you simultaneously accuse me of misunderstanding supply and demand: http://econperspectives.blogspot.com/2008/05/supply-vs-quant...

2. Huh? Of course money is a store of value, and it's a medium of exchange. And I'm totally with you on skepticism of the Fed/printing money. All of that is completely tangential to my original argument. Your comments on Spain and China could deserve another ten paragraphs of explanation concerning comparative advantage and the benefits of unilateral free trade. It would not be a worthwhile debate.

3. The size of the market doesn't have anything to do with the economics I'm explaining to you. This is another common fallacy where people confuse magnitudes of the parameters in reasoning with the reasoning itself. We're talking at the margin.

4. Once again, a total evasion of any substance. Not even worth it.

5. Sure. Clearly the there is not a net benefit to that particular company and its employees. And? Does analysis of net economic costs and benefits befall one particular company or the economy as a whole? You haven't thought past stage 1, nor does what you said address my (5) whatsoever.

6. Still no argument here, as you completely evade accounting for all costs and benefits over the costs and benefits which are either 1) very visible to you and everyone else, or 2) extreme for one particular group of (special interest) people.

You might enjoy this article: http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html

"There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen."

Re: Technology Is Taking Jobs Away, But Here’s How It Might Give Them Back

#29

Post by rubiety »

CJefferson wrote: post #25
rubiety wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure where to begin on your confusion here. 1. Firstly, efficiency concerns the ability to more with less. Zero is less, and there's no reason why zero is substantively different than paying $0.01 per car - it's on a continuity that affords the same analysis. So saying you reply "has to do with free" speaks absolutely nothing about my initial arguments focused on efficiency. 2. Money is a veil. Like the…

2. If money doesn't matter, can I have all of yours, because I've found I don't have enough recently. 3. No, buggy whips were never free. People stopped wanting them. The problem now is that the things in highest demand, and which people want more of, and the same things which are free.

2. I claimed "money is a veil", not "money doesn't matter". People focus too much on money when discussing macroeconomics and the effects of complex changes in the economy, and not on the true measure of prosperity. As a simple example, if the Fed started printing even more obscene amounts of money than it does not, our GDP next might be twice what it is in 2011. Wow, 100% growth! What an easy way to prosperity!

3. In the economic analysis I made, I've pointed out that the effects that he is so worried about are identical, in much the same way that the effect of increasing trade patterns and specialization is very similar to the effect of increasing technological efficiency. Sure people stopped wanting them instead of them literally being free, but that doesn't change the analysis regarding the effects.

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