How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
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Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
#12The only way to stay ahead of the curve is by constant self-improvement. I feel in todays world many people are slow to realize that they need to get more technical. It's not like there isn't "jobs" or "work" that needs to be done, it's just smarter, more technical work, with no clear-cut answers due to the ever increasing amounts of data we can collect and process. Think about it like this: "Programming skills in 20…
In other words, people of average and below-average intelligence are screwed.
Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
#13The problem is not technology.
The problem is that technology is being centralized by a few owners. A computer in every pocket, 3d printers and CNC machines are very near to us.
Companies grow bigger and bigger, not because they are more efficient, on the contrary, but because they could black mail society to sustain it. Too big too fail became the motto of the new era, banks and industry companies so inefficient with huge losses that nobody could touch it without breaking society itself.
Those companies had done well, who needs to make cars when you can take $50 billion by the government to speculate in the stock market? A stock market that is fueled by printing dollars by a central bank(inflating and raising taxes of millions people).
Don't make me started with software patents in order for a few to own all ideas. Society is collapsing to sustain unproductive parasites.
It will have to get worse before it gets better.
Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
#14The only way to stay ahead of the curve is by constant self-improvement. I feel in todays world many people are slow to realize that they need to get more technical. It's not like there isn't "jobs" or "work" that needs to be done, it's just smarter, more technical work, with no clear-cut answers due to the ever increasing amounts of data we can collect and process. Think about it like this: "Programming skills in 20…
that's not an answer for the majority of population, when the pace of good job destruction is faster than good job creation.
no doubt, there's now plenty of opportunity for tech-workers, who will profit from the process (at least as long as their jobs don't get automated away, too). but the wages are already stagnant also in this sector - when the entry of new workers will undercut current engineers' negotiating position (and it will, as engineering becomes the only safe-heaven on the labour market), they will gradually face similar fate as the rest of the workers. the real winners of automation are the owners of capital.
Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
One problem is that we have trained people to do (and are still training people to do) jobs which are being replaced by computers and technologists who can do the same job more productively. This is beginning to have a significant impact upon all industries. The economy is doing great, productivity is doing great, but there are increasing numbers of people with obsolete skills who can't find work and are struggling t…
The replacement of muscle by automation was 20th century. In the current wave, we see a replacement of office workers with a mix of more productive office workers outsourced, online or in house.
I think we are seeing a restructure of skilled work generally as technology becomes able to do portions of skilled work. For example, look at education.
Interestingly, muscle jobs are more-or-less immune as they have already been automated as much as is reasonable.
Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
#16The only way to stay ahead of the curve is by constant self-improvement. I feel in todays world many people are slow to realize that they need to get more technical. It's not like there isn't "jobs" or "work" that needs to be done, it's just smarter, more technical work, with no clear-cut answers due to the ever increasing amounts of data we can collect and process. Think about it like this: "Programming skills in 20…
that's not an answer for the majority of population, when the pace of good job destruction is faster than good job creation. no doubt, there's now plenty of opportunity for tech-workers, who will profit from the process (at least as long as their jobs don't get automated away, too). but the wages are already stagnant also in this sector - when the entry of new workers will undercut current engineers' negotiating posi…
Until AI that's comparable to a human brain is invented (which I don't see coming in the next 100 years), there will be an ever increasing number of problems to be solved by humans, and as a result, an ever increasing number of opportunities for humans in all sorts of industries.
Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
#17The only way to stay ahead of the curve is by constant self-improvement. I feel in todays world many people are slow to realize that they need to get more technical. It's not like there isn't "jobs" or "work" that needs to be done, it's just smarter, more technical work, with no clear-cut answers due to the ever increasing amounts of data we can collect and process. Think about it like this: "Programming skills in 20…
In other words, people of average and below-average intelligence are screwed.
Everyone can choose the path of self-improvement and self-education which is becoming more and more widely accessible due to cheap technology and Internet access. Viewing people as "below average" or "above average" is a very pre-deterministic way of evaluating any person's potential :).
Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
#18«In our own time, the development of technology and the growth of cities has brought man's alienation from nature to a breaking point. Western man finds himself confined to a largely synthetic urban enviroment, far removed physically from the land, his relationship to the natural world mediated by machines. Not only does he lack familiarity with how most of his goods are produced, but his foods bear only the faintest resemblence to the animals and plants from which they were derived. Boxed into a sanitized urban milieu (almost institutional in form and appearance), modern man is denied even a spectatorial role in the agricultural and industrial systems that satisfy his material needs. He is a pure consumer, an insensate receptacle. It would be cruel to say that he is disrespectful toward his natural; the fact is that he scarcely knows what ecology means or what his enviroment requires to remain in balance.»
— "Towards a Liberatory Technology", Lewis Herber [Murray Bookchin]
Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
#19What's the problem exactly? Job growth has been stagnant for 5 years? Productivity is the ratio of units of output per unit of input, where you can abstract input as being either capital or labor. Indeed, productivity continues to grow as a consequence of technological advances. When mankind started using oxes to plough fields, landworkers' productivity rose significantly. As we develop more tools to aid us in daily…
The problem is the very real human suffering caused by these economic dislocations. It is totally unnecessary and a failure of politics and morals. Our social "safety net" is anemic at best. We could use some of the profits from increased automation and efficiency to improve the social safety net, but instead we have allowed the vast majority of it to flow to the already wealthy owners of capital.
Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
#20The answer to a complex system like the economy is never so simple. Technology, the shift from a productive to a finance, insurance and real estate economy, artificial interest rates, stock bubble, housing bubble, credit crises....
There are a lot of factors that contribute to fewer jobs. When it comes to technology, yes, technology destroys jobs. But never on a net bases. 100 years ago 40% of our economy worked in agriculture. Today it's less than 2%. Yet people aren't longing for the days of farming. Technology alone is not the culprit.