Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPOs, and VCs) • Hacker News Board

Re: Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPOs, and VCs)

#41

Post by dstorrs » Fri, Jul 16, 2010, 9:57 AM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #21

cjy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing but real manufacturing output has actually been steadily increasing over the last 50 years.

Very true, but still not a great place to be. Whether the boogeymen are robots or chinese workers, not having a market for manufacturing labor is a bad position for an economy.

Serious question: why?

I understand an economy that does not produce any of its own goods is in a jam -- it's an external critical dependency that can be wielded like a club against you. But if you have adequate internal production, what does it matter if it's done by humans, robots, or hyperintelligent cyborg orangutans? It may take a generation or so, but the people who would have been manufacturing labor will be absorbed into other markets -- or should be, as I understand it.

Re: Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPOs, and VCs)

#42

Post by c1sc0 » Fri, Jul 16, 2010, 1:25 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #21

cjy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing but real manufacturing output has actually been steadily increasing over the last 50 years.

Very true, but still not a great place to be. Whether the boogeymen are robots or chinese workers, not having a market for manufacturing labor is a bad position for an economy.

I'm not sure how that affects the economy, but it certainly is a bad thing for a country. Not everyone can be a white-collar button-pusher; if no labor-based jobs exist anymore you'll make a significant portion of your citizens very unhappy

Re: Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPOs, and VCs)

#43

Post by zandorg » Fri, Jul 16, 2010, 10:48 PM UTC

kaib wrote: post #26

http-kid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's water management?

In general it seems to refer to the fact that drinking and irrigation water is becoming more scarce in parts of the world and we need both technological and social systems for managing this resource. Aside from pure diminishing of water stock a practical example could be one country building a dam upriver from some other country.

We need the gadget from Waterworld that turns urine into clean water, but somehow doesn't turn sea water into the same...

Re: Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPOs, and VCs)

#44

Post by jbooth » Sun, Jul 18, 2010, 6:29 PM UTC

dstorrs wrote: post #41

jbooth wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true, but still not a great place to be. Whether the boogeymen are robots or chinese workers, not having a market for manufacturing labor is a bad position for an economy.

Serious question: why? I understand an economy that does not produce any of its own goods is in a jam -- it's an external critical dependency that can be wielded like a club against you. But if you have adequate internal production, what does it matter if it's done by humans, robots, or hyperintelligent cyborg orangutans? It may take a generation or so, but the people who would have been manufacturing labor will be a…

Should be? Why?

If "absorbed into other markets" means "wal-mart greeter", then that's bad. I'm all about efficiency and won't advocate make-work jobs, but if you don't have a base of demand in the form of a healthy middle class, it's hard to find people to buy the goods that you do manufacture.