Hatred of Robots Is Hatred of Workers

Real Clear Markets ^ | December 15, 2016 | Allan Golombek

[IC Ken]

You can hate a robot all you want. It doesn’t care.

[rktman]

Depends on what “gender” classification it gets assigned.

[\/\/ayne]

[blueunicorn6]

Work in my field is picking up.

I’m a Blade Runner.

I “retire” robots.

[trisham]

Jobs, on the other hand, are simply tasks that need to be performed. Eliminate a job, and you free up people to perform other tasks. Fewer welders and shippers equals more potential computer coders and aerobics instructors. Rather than cling to jobs we no longer require, we should shed them, freeing up people to perform other tasks.

********************

This works if people all have the same intelligence, talent and ability. In fact, it's clear that they don't. What about the bell curve?

[freedumb2003]

>>You can hate a robot all you want. It doesn’t care.<<

This generation, anyway.

[bioqubit]

I’ve thought the same thoughts, but you are just shooting off your mouth. No real analysis.

Trump’s image of the “Forgotten Man” is absolutely accurate. the excising of 70,000 factories is truly destructive to this country to the extent that the Dept. of Labor has to be refining their methodological lies about unemployment repeatedly in order to arrive at their phony picture of full employment. Sorry, when you are approach 1/3rd of the nation not in the workforce, something is clearly, seriously wrong; more wrong than picking on automation and robots can do.

A society has its own natural evolution of innovation and technological advancement. America’s has been accelerating at a considerable pace. But at the same time government regulation has clearly throttled much innovation in order to preserve the existing order of markets and major corporations. — Their concern, other than protecting the 1% is that allowing any given markets technology to evolve without regulation will inevitably be a dive to the bottom where market forces ultimately savage wages and produce truly impoverished workers.

[bioqubit]

I’ve thought the same thoughts, but you are just shooting off your mouth. No real analysis.

Trump’s image of the “Forgotten Man” is absolutely accurate. the excising of 70,000 factories is truly destructive to this country to the extent that the Dept. of Labor has to be refining their methodological lies about unemployment repeatedly in order to arrive at their phony picture of full employment. Sorry, when you are approach 1/3rd of the nation not in the workforce, something is clearly, seriously wrong; more wrong than picking on automation and robots can do.

A society has its own natural evolution of innovation and technological advancement. America’s has been accelerating at a considerable pace. But at the same time government regulation has clearly throttled much innovation in order to preserve the existing order of markets and major corporations. — Their concern, other than protecting the 1% is that allowing any given markets technology to evolve without regulation will inevitably be a dive to the bottom where market forces ultimately savage wages and produce truly impoverished workers.

[bioqubit]

I’ve thought the same thoughts, but you are just shooting off your mouth. No real analysis.

Trump’s image of the “Forgotten Man” is absolutely accurate. the excising of 70,000 factories is truly destructive to this country to the extent that the Dept. of Labor has to be refining their methodological lies about unemployment repeatedly in order to arrive at their phony picture of full employment. Sorry, when you are approach 1/3rd of the nation not in the workforce, something is clearly, seriously wrong; more wrong than picking on automation and robots can do.

A society has its own natural evolution of innovation and technological advancement. America’s has been accelerating at a considerable pace. But at the same time government regulation has clearly throttled much innovation in order to preserve the existing order of markets and major corporations. — Their concern, other than protecting the 1% is that allowing any given markets technology to evolve without regulation will inevitably be a dive to the bottom where market forces ultimately savage wages and produce truly impoverished workers.

[bioqubit]

I’ve thought the same thoughts, but you are just shooting off your mouth. No real analysis.

Trump’s image of the “Forgotten Man” is absolutely accurate. the excising of 70,000 factories is truly destructive to this country to the extent that the Dept. of Labor has to be refining their methodological lies about unemployment repeatedly in order to arrive at their phony picture of full employment. Sorry, when you are approach 1/3rd of the nation not in the workforce, something is clearly, seriously wrong; more wrong than picking on automation and robots can do.

A society has its own natural evolution of innovation and technological advancement. America’s has been accelerating at a considerable pace. But at the same time government regulation has clearly throttled much innovation in order to preserve the existing order of markets and major corporations. — Their concern, other than protecting the 1% is that allowing any given markets technology to evolve without regulation will inevitably be a dive to the bottom where market forces ultimately savage wages and produce truly impoverished workers.

[Spruce]

I don't know, man. This bot looks pretty bummed out

[DannyTN]

if we refuse to shed existing jobs, we won't have enough people to perform new ones.

Author is an idiot.

• Only 60% of our working age people have jobs. There are plenty of people to fill new jobs.
• Many people are employed in marginal low payed jobs that should go away as wages rise.
• Real wages have stagnated for 30 years. If you don't decrease the supply of labor relative to the demand for labor, you will never get a real wage increase.
• Automation is coming, and the more jobs we have here in America, the more cushion our economy has against mass labor dislocations.
• Conversely, if we don't bring the jobs back to America, it will be China that is automating those jobs and we will forever become slaves to China.

[Pelham]

Something tells me that the author wouldn’t believe his own manure if he was among the long term unemployed.

[MNDude]

Now we have to worry about robots’ feelings?

[Pelham]

“Those who oppose outsourcing work to other countries — or to robots - usually justify their opposition as a desire to protect Americans.”

Allan Golombek was once accused of patriotism but charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.

[tomkat]

War is Peace
Lies are Truth
Weakness is Strength
et al

[marron]

The writer is conflating automation with off-shoring. Its actually a rather dishonest piece.

Automation is a natural progression, and will continue, and should continue.

Offshoring happens when the legal, regulatory, and tax climate drives companies offshore. Trump has promised to resolve those issues, to make companies want to stay. His talk about tariffs is shorthand, but if you listen to the fine print, the real story is his intent to put a bridle on EPA, and the other endless reams of new regulations that make it impossible to start any new enterprise here.

Companies should want to locate here, and if they don’t, there is your problem. Fix that.

And the labor surpluses caused by automation? They will be absorbed by other enterprises... somewhere. If the economic and regulatory climate make it possible to invest in other enterprises *here* in the US, it will happen here.

[FBRhawk]

The problem with this analysis is that not all jobs and people are interchangeable. A farm hand may become a factory worker, but it is unlikely that a laid off factory worker will become a Database administrator. 1/2 of the population has below average IQ. They cannot move up to more value added knowledge work when their jobs are shipped overseas or replaced by automation.

[tbw2]

Then part of the solution is exporting all the illegal immigrants and ending legal immigration so that there are more jobs for native born Americans.