Posted on 02/13/2017 10:04:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
This opened up a new skillset, namely process managers. People who claim that they can figure out how to make coders on the other side of the world perform as well as local ones. Personally - my experience has been that managing people who literally sit outside your office is incredibly difficult. Can't imagine what it's like to manage those on the other side of the world. But I digress. Needless to say, there are a whole lot less process manglers than there were line workers.
However.... it's ALSO been my experience that the way to avoid the outsourcing game is to "get small". It's not financially feasible to outsource IT for a 5 or 10 man shop. Working in a small environment - while far more challenging than a corporate silo - has worked pretty well for me.
I think that automation will result in job creation, but not in commonly thought of ways. I'm figuring on an explosion - particularly with Trump's removal of regs - in small business. Lots of smart people needing to come up with a new income stream makes for interesting innovation.
For instance, the offshoring of coding may have shut doors for corporate coders. However, I have a friend who's made a fortune over the last 20 years doing "remedial coding"....approximately, companies outsource overseas, bottom dollar coders botch the job, and my friend comes in and straightens out the problems for a weighty fee. Last time I saw him, he said that he had enough work to last for years.
Half the population with IQ’s under 100 will never adapt. They will have to be housed, fed and entertained like cattle. The 10% of those that are deemed “attractive” will be allowed to breed.
Job loses due to offshoring and job loses due to automation are not related and totally different economic phenomenon.. But we’ve explained that to you many, many times.
You have made that point before. Not sure about the numbers and percentages but your point is probably true and quite sobering. It will take some time for the full effect to occur.
What I have said before is also scary. I believe if one takes these trends to their logical conclusion you get communism.
I agree with you.
The economy does adjust to make use of the unemployed resource. But that adjustment takes time. It take a large drop in wages. And there are no guarantees.
Automation has the potential to eliminate entire job categories from the economy just as fast as they can make the machines.
We do need to think about social programs and what would be necessary if large scale labor dislocations occur.
The first step is what Trump is doing. Bring the jobs home. Better to automate here and own both the process and the automation that let it be foreign controlled.
At some point, a smart human will game the machines by acting non-human.
“NO we cannot all be robot repairmen. “
It’s worse than that. I’m working on a materials process that could replace many plastics. Thorium reactors are in the future. My point is that there are a lot of industries due for upheaval/downsizing.
I think Trump is a necessary step in our journey to the future.
First, we off-shored a lot of jobs, and I think people now realize that this did not lead to American prosperity.
Now, Trump is bringing jobs back. I support that 100%. But I am not sure if that is a real long-term solution that will truly lead to American prosperity.
If automation comes and if the jobs we bring home just evaporate, then what do we do?
Well, it’s like a logic puzzle or a science experiment — look at the things that didn’t work and then try something new:
Sending jobs to Mexico? Fail.
Importing Indian/Chinese/Mexican workers? Fail.
Bringing jobs from Mexico and employing US citizens? Success? Fail?
If that doesn’t work, What’s next?
It’s not clear to me that a nation of 350 million people will find a marketplace for their labor. Employers offering jobs, and sending out paychecks? If the future doesn’t look like that, what does it look like?
I think Hobby Farms may be a big deal. We may have a lot of automation, we may have a Post-Scarcity society with a lot of “stuff” being produced — and maybe a lot of people will live on 5 acres of land and grow vegetables because it’s not an unpleasant life to lead. What else do you do if there are no jobs?
That’s a serious question: What else do you do if there are no jobs?
In the book “1984” constant war was required to keep the system going. Maybe we will need to have a constant war. Like the cold war but longer, forever.
We are in a constant war. We haven had a single day without troops in harm’s way since the Cold War began. Doesn’t seem to be helping.
An automated factory still needs maintenance, energy, transportation and a slew of other things. The factory still produces jobs, even automated.
Sounds like you and I were in parallel universes in the late-90’s through 2000’s! I was with a tech company that was automating those trading processes for the buy-side - particularly the trading network from them to their sell-side counterparts. It was obvious (to me) that this was all going to be automated, but the sell-side players squealed like stuck pigs. They just couldn’t imagine being displaced by computers. They were absolutely convinced that they added so much value to the process that they could never be replaced.
Some sell-side firms lived in denial, and died off. Some immediately embraced automation - and the good ones got bought up by the big Wall St. firms (like Goldman). It was a wild time!
I think you may be correct with the “Global Reset” after the crash (if we have one, which I believe we will). If only I knew the timing, I would purchase land and farms 2 weeks prior to the collapse and finance the whole thing.
Yes. And I was in Germany when the DTB put in computerized futures trading with a terminal on every trader’s desk at the big banks. Compared to the open-outcry system at the LIFFE it was beautiful. The LIFFE floor boys were basically thieves. The computer on the other hand showed you a clear offer and a clear bid, and you could do what you wished. It was obviously superior, and once people realized it, the LIFFE volumes dried up instantly.
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