We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

Post by euroclydon » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 11:55 AM UTC

bermanoid wrote: post #193

dxbydt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But why now, when it hasn't in the past? One might well ask, why not now ? Given a(t) t, where a(t) = rate of new jobs created per year -b(t) t, where -b(t) = jobs lost due to technology per year Problem is, the function a(t) is stable and predictable over time, because human populations are generally sigmoids ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_growth ) Whereas the function b(t) feeds on itself ( http://en.wiki…

The corollary here is quite interesting: if we imagine this extending quite a ways into the future, we might ask what sort of society we'd like to live in far in the future, where more and more jobs are lost because technology makes them pointless for humans to do. Say only 10% of humans had any skill whatsoever that would provide value that could not be more cheaply obtained by deploying technology. Say it got furth…

Post by jcslzr » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 1:34 PM UTC

Post by rpwilcox » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 2:00 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #40

ikarous wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to the long term, but you make a good point. Asimov posited that increased automation would temporarily increase unemployment but that the net benefit would always be positive. He thought that automation would allow human beings to focus on more interesting and rewarding jobs. The unspoken assumption is that these more interesting jobs are plentiful enough to support the displaced workers assuming tha…

Ok, cool, seems like we're thinking along similar lines :-) The problem I see, however, is perhaps different to the one you pose. As distasteful as this sounds, I suggest that perhaps the "average" person is ill equipped to deal with those more interesting and rewarding jobs, given that they're likely to require significant technical or creative skills. Can we bring "the masses", as it were, up to the levels of talen…

Post by Duff » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 2:04 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #24

"Our new economy is shrinking because technology leads to efficiency over growth." Anyone who wants to make the claim that technology is net killing jobs has to be prepared to answer the question: why now? Technology has been killing (but not net killing) jobs for centuries. It's possible that technology could start to net kill jobs. But why now, when it hasn't in the past?

Post by bulletsvshumans » Sat, Aug 06, 2011, 2:08 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #102

msluyter wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One answer, and I don't know if this is the right answer, is that unlike in previous revolutions, a new class of jobs has not been created to (fully) replace the jobs that are being displaced. In the industrial revolution, farmers could move to the city and get a job in the factory. In the (first) information revolution, factory workers could become telephone operators. But as Tyler Cowen notes in "The Great Stagnati…

In the industrial revolution, farmers could move to the city and get a job in the factory. Not true. The Industrial Revolution was preceded (in England) by an Agricultural Revolution that displaced peasants in large numbers to cities where they didn't have nearly enough work. (Many emigrated to the New World.) Thus the later economic boom was preceded by economic hard times.