Are jobs obsolete?
cnn.com
Are jobs obsolete?
1–10 of 331 posts
Re: Are jobs obsolete?
#2My introduction to Rushkoff was Cyberia [1].
He's much more temperate now than he was in Cyberia. He has a great point, though. Restated, it's as follows: If we have abundance, why are we working for more, instead of sending the abundance to those who need it?
He seems to fall down in the mechanisms of distribution though in this article and hand-wave through it.
[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cyberia_(book...
Re: Are jobs obsolete?
#3We like to believe that the appropriate response is to train humans for higher level work. Instead of collecting tolls, the trained worker will fix and program toll-collecting robots. But it never really works out that way, since not as many people are needed to make the robots as the robots replace.
And, more to the point, a toll collector isn't necessarily bright enough to be a toll robot technician. Sometimes progress flows the other way; now the supermarket checker doesn't have to calculate your bill anymore or even know how to make change, so he can be completely innumerate. But for the most part, we're replacing less skilled jobs with more skilled jobs. We have not enough engineers and too many workers without useful skills, or in many cases the ability to gain them.
Re: Are jobs obsolete?
#4My introduction to Rushkoff was Cyberia [1]. He's much more temperate now than he was in Cyberia. He has a great point, though. Restated, it's as follows: If we have abundance, why are we working for more, instead of sending the abundance to those who need it? He seems to fall down in the mechanisms of distribution though in this article and hand-wave through it. [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cyb…
Yeah, I like the premise of the article and feel that technological innovation does kill jobs (and it's not a bad thing).
That being said, I feel like I got a big build up to a solution and it's like "share and make things and distribute online" uhhhh ok? Etsy is the solution?
Provocative thinking though...
Re: Are jobs obsolete?
#5It's very interesting to think about cases where digital darlings have "killed jobs."
Before: Thousands of jobs all over the country working for the classified section of a newspaper. Marginally profitable business.
After: Craigslist destroys that whole market. Tons of jobs lost and the revenues shift to one company. Hugely profitable business, but probably a smaller total market than used to exist with just newspapers.
Should we feel bad about it? Hell no. Are we marginally worse off? Maybe?
Re: Are jobs obsolete?
#6At first I thought this was going to be a conservative 'the modern world is killing everything good', but I was pleased to the argument come down to "computers are killing jobs, and this is a good thing".
Though I don't believe it's accurate to say that Europe thrived under the feudal system. Many people did the same meaningless jobs all the time. The author also claims that the Industrial Age & Corporations were some massive scam to get the rich more.
Re: Are jobs obsolete?
#7Metapoint: Headlines phrased as a question are almost always best answered "no."
Try it!
Re: Are jobs obsolete?
#8It's very interesting to think about cases where digital darlings have "killed jobs." Before: Thousands of jobs all over the country working for the classified section of a newspaper. Marginally profitable business. After: Craigslist destroys that whole market. Tons of jobs lost and the revenues shift to one company. Hugely profitable business, but probably a smaller total market than used to exist with just newspape…
The revenue didn't shift to CL - for most categories CL is still free, the users of it are the ones who got to keep the money.
Re: Are jobs obsolete?
#9It's very interesting to think about cases where digital darlings have "killed jobs." Before: Thousands of jobs all over the country working for the classified section of a newspaper. Marginally profitable business. After: Craigslist destroys that whole market. Tons of jobs lost and the revenues shift to one company. Hugely profitable business, but probably a smaller total market than used to exist with just newspape…
You're not considering the second order effects. Multiple competitors appear to compete with craigslist (either head to head or picking off the most attractive niches). Market grows, profits fall.
Are we better off? Just look at the service. Before we had tiny little text ads in the back pages of newspapers, now we have pictures, directions, the ability to search and sort, etc... clearly the service is better.
And I think once you take into account the second order effects, and the fact that there's significantly less friction around transactions, you end up with a larger total market, and probably close to a comparable number of jobs.
Re: Are jobs obsolete?
#10It's very interesting to think about cases where digital darlings have "killed jobs." Before: Thousands of jobs all over the country working for the classified section of a newspaper. Marginally profitable business. After: Craigslist destroys that whole market. Tons of jobs lost and the revenues shift to one company. Hugely profitable business, but probably a smaller total market than used to exist with just newspape…
Are we marginally worse off?
No. We now have access to cheaper and superior classified advertisements and the people who used to work at newspapers are now free to continue on to other jobs.