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This is the biggest and most important issue of our time, and absolutely nobody is talking about it.

Automation results in greatly increased productivity, and historically this has allowed people to move out of drudge or manual labor jobs and up into those requiring greater skill and that receive higher pay.

Those who, IMO, live in the past assume that modern automation and future will always have the same effect.

Unfortunately, many of those displaced by this latest wave of automation are not mentally capable of performing the higher-order skills that remain in demand.

What this means is that more and more people are literally falling out the bottom in our society. There is no economic demand for their services, in any meaningful sense. As such, they are and can only be a net drag on the economy. In other words, if they all disappeared tomorrow, the economy would only be improved in the long run.

As automation continues and accelerates, a larger number of people each year will fall out the bottom. Eventually the only real economic demand will be for very high skill levels, which only a small percentage of the population is capable of performing.

In such a condition, it seems clear to me, that at some point free market principles, which have had a fantastic 400+ year run, start losing their applicability. At least if your goal is the good of society as a whole, and not just the top few percent.

This whole issue is discussed at length in The Bell Curve, which is looking more and more prescient every year.

This is the biggest and most important issue of our time, and absolutely nobody is talking about it.

I agree and am really excited about the future now. It feels like the period before personal computers saved the 1980s.

All we need is the busybodies in politics to back off and let the personal sector do what it does best... create new opportunities.

Unfortunately, many of those displaced by this latest wave of automation are not mentally capable of performing the higher-order skills that remain in demand.

I disagree with this statement. I believe there is always resistance to new ideas and new skills.

If the government stop extending the unemployment benefits and thus "enabling" workers with outmoded skills to do nothing... the desire and willingness to learn new skills for higher paying jobs will be there.

We are capable of doing amazing things... because we are Americans.

Very good insight. I'd also suggest that the timing of this "robotic revolution" may end up being its downfall. This actually relates to a discussion we've had on another thread posted earlier this morning. The simple truth is that this world -- regardless of whether we use robots or human labor -- has the capacity to produce far more "stuff" than the human race is capable of consuming. A number of posters on the other thread suggested that much of the U.S. economic decline can be traced to a basic decline in consumption related to a recognition that we don't need all the crap we've grown accustomed to purchasing.

That is one of the biggest and most important issues of our time, in my opinion. What does a person do for a living when nobody needs his labor anymore?

Some good news here is that I see a massive growth in an underground economy where government is seen as an impediment at worst, or inconsequential at best. We may end up in a socio-economic climate where we have a "frontier within the nation," as more and more people seek to live their lives outside of any government oversight.

Meanwhile the leftist company Progressive Insurance runs a commercial in which the repeating character Flo, sabotages and disables a robot that is doing her job better than she.

When such an attitude is publicly displayed...... it is ok to destroy robots, America is in trouble. Progressive Insurance has become an American enemy.

Flo needs to be lynched

One more thought.

There is a Freeper friend who recently got a job in a brand new factory running a CNC machine. She has a machining back ground and is very computer literate. The CNC machine is a robot of sorts in that it performs several repetitive tasks to perfection and turns out a completed part requiring multiple tools in multiple operations but still needs a skilled person to supervise.

Robots used judiciously can create manufacturing jobs. In her case that is precisely what happened. The company is new, a startup, a manufacturing company making new to the market parts

Technology and innovation 'destroy' jobs. Manufactures have become so efficient, they have reduced jobs but production has skyrocketed.

That is on of the ongoing developments in the economy, I don't we will ever see bubble type unemployment rates again.

High 'unemployment' will be the norm. Not everyone can code and be a engineer. Enjoy the wage arbitrage!