Posted on 06/22/2014 10:56:15 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
JUST over 50 years ago, the cover of Life magazine breathlessly declared the “point of no return for everybody.” Above that stark warning, a smaller headline proclaimed, “Automation’s really here; jobs go scarce.”
As events unfolded, it was Life that was nearing the point of no return — the magazine suspended weekly publication in 1972. For the rest of America, jobs boomed; in the following decade, 21 million Americans were added to the employment rolls.
Throughout history, aspiring Cassandras have regularly proclaimed that new waves of technological innovation would render huge numbers of workers idle, leading to all manner of economic, social and political disruption.
As early as 1589, Queen Elizabeth I refused a patent on a knitting machine for fear it would put “my poor subjects” out of work.
In the 1930s, the great John Maynard Keynes predicted widespread job losses “due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.”
So far, of course, they’ve all been wrong. But that has not prevented a cascade of shrill new proclamations that — notwithstanding centuries of history — “this time is different”: The technology revolution will impair the livelihoods of millions of Americans.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
3D printing for the masses is in its infancy, about where personal computers were in the late 1970s. It's going to be a really big deal in the next few years as it displaces workers. I have one. I just made replacement parts for my planter boxes that had rotted, parts for a friends custom towel holder and tool components. Formerly, I could not easily make them by hand in my workshop. These robots are going to be everywhere in a few years cranking out products that people used to make by hand. You're right, the next wave is upon us.
Get enough robots to do the work of unskilled humans (and maybe skilled ones too) and the culling of humanity can take our numbers down to 500,000,000.
Isn’t that what the eco-kooks and other hard core progressives want?
More likely, our inventions in technology will likely kill us once there is an intelligence explosion in AI (AGI --> ASI). If you have the time, read Our Final Invention
It's a chilling read into what could very well come to pass.
BTW, the most disturbing thing in the book is the far reaching look at an ASI that has access to nanotechnology in the next century or so. We might become sacks of atoms for the ASI to re-assemble for its energy needs.
All anybody needs to look at is how MP3s and streaming have hit physical media sales. Same thing is just revving up with those small Ace Hardware type odds and ends with the printers. When 3D printers can make clothes reality will change very dramatically. Most of the retail world will just end then, no longer necessary.
The word "great" being a relative thing in the case of Keynes. This is reason number 1,000,000,000,000 why Keynes was an idiot.
I work for a manufacturing company in central PA. We are not highly automated at least not in terms of using robotics. But we have trouble finding qualified machine operators and especially lathe operators and we pay very well, offer excellent benefits and are non-union.
Thx much for that description.
After all you experienced, you remain an optimist. Only one reason I am an optimist, I believe in Jesus Christ and God’s sovereignty. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28
Automation has to be designed, built, repaired, programmed etc. Lotta’ jobs there.
Yep. That’s what folks forget. Much work to do.
Short form: They are not being trained. The U.S. education system is broken and at the mercy of “educators” and unions like the AFT and NEA. Americans, born and raised here, are being victimized by an education system that produces an unusable product.
The answer is NOT to import tons of illiterate third world peasants (and their kids) to provide slave labor for U.S. corporations. The Big Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and WSJ solution of increasing third world immigration makes things exponentially worse and not better.
My advice would be for a person wanting such a job to first obtain an electrician's journeyman's license. Next take a bunch of Rockwell software courses at a local distributor. They will only do this for employees of their established accounts, so that means just taking a journeyman's job as a light fixture dope, motor changer, etc....
A person who is proven efficient at E&I (Electronics and Instrumentation makes about $30 to $45 per hour. With overtime and weekend phone coverage, if you're not pulling in $120K per year you're an idiot. All that with a high school education.
Very few engineers will be visible when it's time to prove their work. That's when the E& I guys start debugging and fixing it to make it run.
Hope that helps.
Once the rack was filled, the hi-lo drive would take it over to the assembly area where two guys would then load the stamped out panel into the first of the final assembly process.
In the first scenario, today, two guys would load the steel sheet into the draw die and the robotics would take care of the rest. A robotic arm taking the panel out of the draw die and inserting it into the stamping press, etc, etc........And two guys at the end of the line taking the part and loading it into the rack........
This example is over simplified in a stamping plant and doesn't even come close to what goes on in the auto assembly plants........
We have a great little tech school in my town and not only is it filled to the brim with happy students, it's grads are doing great (and making good money) in all the stuff college students don't want to do.
And the college grads have massive debt with little job opportunity. Of course there isn't much calling for degrees in gender studies, African American history, medieval music and literature, etc.;-)
Tech colleges seem to be doing a good job where the U.S. education system is falling down.
The problem is not everyone is able to do the high tech jobs and never will be. Blacks and poor whites in the south used to work the fields every Spring, Summer and Fall. I was one of them. It’s what we depended on.
Over the years farming has become more mechanized and computerized. Now a machine can pick 16 rows of cotton at one time. And a lot faster than 16 people. With chemicals there are no weeds to chop. Over time those people started getting government checks and that’s what they depend on.
Some were capable of learning to do other jobs. Many moved to the factories. Now those jobs are gone. But the checks just keep coming.
This is a good thing. I applaud those students that have chosen this route. I wonder if the vocational-tech schools have to do a lot of remedial education before they start training these kids? Current four year schools are running six to 18 months to get just graduated high school kids to the level where they can do college level work.
I have wondered the same thing.
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