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Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'
Hey, Just back from vacation and getting caught up on things.
I'm not sure if anyone has hit on this angle, but as it turns out I just went through this whole "Robots destroying jobs" thought argument the other day while watching Wall-E. Its social commentary about sloth and consumerism aside, it does raise this question at the logical extreme. If robots did everything so all goods and services are free, why would you need a job anyways?
Now, of course goods can never be produced for free, however, massive automation can produce goods and services very cheaply. So again, What is wrong with cheap goods? Yes it means less manual labor jobs, but when all goods and services are very cheap, how much of a job do you need?
The fact is, you don't. If the cost of living is reduced to $5,000 a year or less, you can work a part time job and have the rest of the time for leisure. This was premiss for the whole "work 3 days a week future" they envisioned back in the 50s and 60s.
However all the automation and mechanization we have today has not brought us that future. Why? Because all of this is EXTREMELY deflationary. And Deflation is unacceptable in today's world of Central bank controlled economy. So our daily reality of the average person working harder and affording less despite productivity at unprecedented levels in human history is because, the FED is forcing inflation down our throats in a naturally deflationary point of human social and technological history.
The end result is while we and our robots work harder, Inflation devalues the increase in productivity so we have to work more to afford less.
If we had a 0% inflation policy with true economic statistics (ie a defacto gold standard without having to deal with gold) then you would see that robots and productivity improvements area a good thing.
But that also means governments have to accept their insolvency and TPTB will have to accept less power; and that will never happen. And so robots will become our imprisoning masters and not our liberating servants.
Hey, Just back from vacation and getting caught up on things.
I'm not sure if anyone has hit on this angle, but as it turns out I just went through this whole "Robots destroying jobs" thought argument the other day while watching Wall-E. Its social commentary about sloth and consumerism aside, it does raise this question at the logical extreme. If robots did everything so all goods and services are free, why would you need a job anyways?
Now, of course goods can never be produced for free, however, massive automation can produce goods and services very cheaply. So again, What is wrong with cheap goods? Yes it means less manual labor jobs, but when all goods and services are very cheap, how much of a job do you need?
The fact is, you don't. If the cost of living is reduced to $5,000 a year or less, you can work a part time job and have the rest of the time for leisure. This was premiss for the whole "work 3 days a week future" they envisioned back in the 50s and 60s.
However all the automation and mechanization we have today has not brought us that future. Why? Because all of this is EXTREMELY deflationary. And Deflation is unacceptable in today's world of Central bank controlled economy. So our daily reality of the average person working harder and affording less despite productivity at unprecedented levels in human history is because, the FED is forcing inflation down our throats in a naturally deflationary point of human social and technological history.
The end result is while we and our robots work harder, Inflation devalues the increase in productivity so we have to work more to afford less.
If we had a 0% inflation policy with true economic statistics (ie a defacto gold standard without having to deal with gold) then you would see that robots and productivity improvements area a good thing.
But that also means governments have to accept their insolvency and TPTB will have to accept less power; and that will never happen. And so robots will become our imprisoning masters and not our liberating servants.
etc get jobs that didn't exist before.
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