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What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

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Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#11

Post by sten »

nine_k wrote: post #7
VLM wrote: post #3

The "you" in the article only applies to the likely extremely small percentage of the population still in the middle class and employed. The vast majority of the population will be unemployed, living in cardboard boxes down by the river, at least in between wars and revolutions requiring cannon fodder. And a very small "end of the roman republic" style class will own absolutely everything so its not going to be "your…

> The vast majority of the population will be unemployed, living in cardboard boxes down by the river Who is going to consume all the goods that the machines produce? Who is going to buy these, and how? However much you might not like factory owners, they are not likely to deliberately shoot themselves in the foot.

No, not collectively, but acting as individuals they can attempt to take a first mover advantage. Make their money, and then they can retire; fuck you, got mine. We already see it with off shoring.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#12

Post by dothething »

It must be much more fascinating to imagine machines managing everyday life than to imagine the societal complications that will result. I've seen like 3-4 of these machines do it all posts and nothing to examine what people will do.

It's a bit silly to imagine everyone suddenly becoming creative and entrepreneurial - of the people I know and the people I see they are such a small minority.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#13

Post by jjoonathan »

oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

It is a lie and it is insulting to expect that it will slip past most people (it's a "some of the people all of the time" lie). I agree with everything except your last sentence. Some alternatives to socialism:

* basic income

* putting teeth back in overtime laws and shortening the workweek

* "Communes" that arise naturally as the rising cost of rent-seeking exceeds the falling inefficiency of small-scale production. Still capitalism, just with an inverted structure.

All three of these address the fundamental labor supply/demand imbalance without the need for socialism. That said, I tend to agree that the prospects of socialism are underestimated -- the internet almost certainly improved the viability of social economic systems by a factor of 10 or so -- but I am skeptical of the ability to impose one without tearing society apart first. Revolution sucks enough to make the other alternatives look attractive by comparison.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#14

Post by kokey »

The fantasy future presented in the introduction is different from mine. I don't think you will hear the car start. I think a car will be on its way to pick you up at home, and it will probably have electric motors so you are unlikely to hear it start before your journey.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#15

Post by oliveira12345 »

nine_k wrote: post #7
VLM wrote: post #3

The "you" in the article only applies to the likely extremely small percentage of the population still in the middle class and employed. The vast majority of the population will be unemployed, living in cardboard boxes down by the river, at least in between wars and revolutions requiring cannon fodder. And a very small "end of the roman republic" style class will own absolutely everything so its not going to be "your…

> The vast majority of the population will be unemployed, living in cardboard boxes down by the river Who is going to consume all the goods that the machines produce? Who is going to buy these, and how? However much you might not like factory owners, they are not likely to deliberately shoot themselves in the foot.

> they are not likely to deliberately shoot themselves in the foot

Like polluting the planet beyond unsustainable levels?

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#16

Post by dragonwriter »

jjoonathan wrote: post #13
oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

It is a lie and it is insulting to expect that it will slip past most people (it's a "some of the people all of the time" lie). I agree with everything except your last sentence. Some alternatives to socialism: * basic income * putting teeth back in overtime laws and shortening the workweek * "Communes" that arise naturally as the rising cost of rent-seeking exceeds the falling inefficiency of small-scale production.…

From another point of view, all three are forms of socialism; BI, particularly, is very easy to see as a form of the public as a whole owning the means of production in society and receiving rents from them, and the naturally-arising communes are the doubleton of bottom-up approaches to socialism.

For that matter, the whole modern mixed economy which has pretty much entirely replaced the 19th century system that socialist critics named "capitalism" is nothing but the result of progressive introduction of socialist elements into the preexisting capitalist system. A big socialist evolution -- punctuated, to be sure, and not without upheaval at some points -- in most developed countries rather than a socialist revolution. I should not be surprised to see it continue.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#17

Post by phkahler »

oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

The best way I've found to explain the lie is this: The business owner is not stupid. He knows that TCO (total cost of ownership) of automated production systems is cheaper than manual labor. This means that the total cost of paying for design, installation, operation, and maintenance is lower than manual production labor. Got that? It costs less to pay the "high skilled" workers than the lower skilled ones - because it takes so many fewer of them.

Yes, it is a lie even if you could retrain all the displaced low-skill workers to be high-skilled, there wouldn't be enough jobs for them after the transition.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#18

Post by steamy »

oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

Yeah they're definitely capitalist propaganda and buckloads of utopian fantasies

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#19

Post by kokey »

oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

I am starting enjoy imagining what would happen. Without much thinking people worry first about people losing their mundane jobs to machines, and the machine owners making bigger profits. The variables to consider run much wider than that, for example this will allow manufacturers to make the cost of their goods much lower, and undercutting that of other manufacturers. Socially owned factories will have limited value if the margins keep shrinking. Automation can also bring the cost of entry to the manufacturing market down, or reduce the need to create entire assembly lines, so more people could enter this market independently. The manufactured goods will also need buyers, there's no end game where someone replaces all the workers with machines and then try to sell the output to... machines? Buyers and sellers will still need to find each other, people will also still like to interact with other people. People will still experiment with new ways to use the machines, or improve on the machines.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#20

Post by phkahler »

jjoonathan wrote: post #13
oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

It is a lie and it is insulting to expect that it will slip past most people (it's a "some of the people all of the time" lie). I agree with everything except your last sentence. Some alternatives to socialism: * basic income * putting teeth back in overtime laws and shortening the workweek * "Communes" that arise naturally as the rising cost of rent-seeking exceeds the falling inefficiency of small-scale production.…

How about Less People. Most of the worlds problems would be reduced with fewer people. This is only a partial solution if you think about it.
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