Posted on 05/28/2015 7:46:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The elephants in the room lumber about, undisturbed by politicians or people of vision.
The hard issues of the economy are well known.
Politicians, bureaucracies, CEOs and trade union leaders have dealt the the issues of productivity, unemployment, competition from east and west, the collapse of industries through the decades of the 20th, and now the 21st, centuries. Yet these are harder now. Intelligent systems, robotic manufacturing, driverless vehicles, online services, all carve deep into established trades.
In the post-war decades, every time a new technology came along, the feared bonfire of jobs didnt happen or only briefly and not everywhere. Its different this time. The jobs massacre that super-intelligent machines and systems presage, doesnt for now seem to leave many large areas of human work.
My son settled, in his mid-teens, on the trade of an actor as his lifes work: and in his mid-twenties, became one. I was glad, yet felt obliged to issue the warning that this was a trade renowned for unemployment, and frustrated hopes.
But acting is not yet a candidate for automation. Maybe he was wiser than his co-evals who studied law, engineering and business studies. Maybe, if automation relieves us of much physical and mental toil, the old utopian dream of leisure and cultivation of the mind and body could be realized, and actors will be in short supply and highly rewarded.
Maybe: but what a massacre of jobs to get there! And as that comes closer, the political world has to simultaneously come to terms with a possibility rapidly becoming a fact. That is, the likely end to Western Europes long period of peace.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
Note to self. Don’t tap ukranian sexbot’s shoulders.
Butlerian Jihad.
“Are you bucking for the position of Kwisatz Haderach?”
No, not for me.
Real or purported Jewish messiahs cause a lot of complications, especially if he arrives on the scene earlier than predicted.
;-)
There is no DIRECT business reason to “hire more people”.
Ah, but I think, in your example, you are looking at things backwards (the market forces aren’t giving an incentive to hire more, but rather not to fire everyone), and also, you are looking at an example on the micro level that doesn’t necessarily translate to the macro level.
Even so, you cut off your example right before it would obviously have the same result I predicted, because this:
“So, eventually, Business B will go under, and Business A will capture a portion of whatever customer base B had remaining.”
...is not a sustainable situation that would result in a new equilibrium. The only reason Business A can hope to capture more of a dwindling customer base is because Business B hired more workers to keep the customer base viable. Since Business B has shut down, those workers can’t be counted in the customer base anymore, so there isn’t much for Business A to capture, and therefore Business A will also have to close its doors shortly as well.
“1. How do people obtain a living in a world with a severe shortage of jobs?”
Take out a mortgage on your organs. If you can’t pay it back when the loan comes due, we take your liver :)
“2. Will most of us be dependent on government handouts?”
Well, with no tax revenue, the government will be broke too, so not likely.
“3. Will robot owners have to be taxed at levels currently thought excessive to provide for the masses?”
Even taxing them 100% won’t be enough to provide for the masses, just as we couldn’t function today by taxing only the rich. Without the middle class to take up the slack, we’ll still fall short.
“4. How will international trade be affected when countries have unequal levels of automation?”
I don’t know, but I’m sure liberals will do plenty of complaining about it.
“5. Do the less automated countries allow the more automated countries to put their people out of work, and indebt the country?”
What choice do they have in the matter? It’s not likely they could go to war over such things, since they couldn’t compete with an automated military either, and closing your economy off to the outside is only a viable option for a small minority of countries.
Business A would see labor as an expense. Two companies A and B exist there must be some market for widgets. Company A will continue to exist. Company A can easily adjust operating cost.
“Two companies A and B exist there must be some market for widgets.”
Bad assumption. Demand is not inelastic. My whole point is that once the jobs are gone, the demand disappears as well. People can’t demand something they can’t pay for.
“Company A can easily adjust operating cost.”
Adjusting operating costs doesn’t help you if you have no income.
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