Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

[Polish_Silver]

Maintenance robots

The Bright New Future

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/robots-will...rclass-1460177
You say there will be jobs maintaining the robots? Sure 100 robots taken care by 1 maintenance robot.
Programing? Sure
Building parts and circuits? Suuurrrreeee.

Well we can still flip hamburgers, can't we ? Nope, it appears to be doable by robots as we speak,
http://singularityhub.com/2013/01/22...gers-per-hour/

Is there today, anywhere in the world, a robot performing maintenance on anything without a human guiding it's
every move?

We've been hearing claims of sophisticated computers, robots, etc from the AI community for years.

It's reasonable to expect incremental improvements in robotics, which will certain absorb some routine jobs.

Meanwhile Microsoft can't even come up with an operating system that works properly.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

We can
1) Force growth. Make us want more stuff.
2) Reduce people. Have large wars. (Also provides short term employment.)
3) Change the work/person ratio. Reduce the work week.
4) Accept that some people are going to be long term unemployed.

I'd prefer 3 or 4. I'm not sure which is more practical.

There are a number of other options. The most obvious being to remove the safety traps (aka safety nets) which allow people to live fairly well while being long-term unemployed.

...

Option 2 is absolutely ludicrous. If you enjoy things like a nice standard of living while not willing to execute the political power necessary to become your own dictator, you need a very large economy or access to one via trade. If you want things like more science, you need more scientists. If you want things like more stuff, you need more people making stuff (and buying stuff, which creates markets for a broader array of stuff).

"Remove the safety nets" IS EXACTLY option two. U3 is ~7%. U6 is ~12%. How many millions is that? What jobs would you have them do? The jobs don't exist.

Do you expect those millions to quietly starve to death? Lash out? What?

Yes, hunger is a powerful motivator, but that doesn't make jobs spring into existence. It does make people commit crime, though.

Seriously, I can't find it. Someone translate the U3 and U6 rates to numbers of people so we can decide where to employ them.

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

It's taken centuries for the purest expression of capitalism - the inevitable monopoly stage - to arrive in force. Placed in that time frame socialism as the dominate political economy has hardly begun. Stillborn it may remain. I have more faith in ongoing change, not any future 'perfect, final' system, certainly not an End to History. Of course time being what it is, it may seem like the final stage to all of us. Further concentration, endless stagnation.

Monopoly isn't inevitable or even likely under capitalism. Monopoly requires complete ownership of something unique or complete ownership of all the means to produce and acquire a good or service within an economy of a given size. Monopolies in the United States are almost exclusively government-sponsored, government-supported, or otherwise products of political practices and not capitalist economic ones.

Let's play a game. You name a monopoly you think is a result of capitalism, and then you can take a turn explaining how that monopoly is not a product of the legal environment it resides in. Look to the laws which restrict competition and it should become apparent really quickly.

[Ghent12]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

And then the alarm clock rings and we are overcome by the same depressing realization; just another Ayn Rand wet dream. But it seemed so real, this fevered vision of utopian feudalist capitalism. Oh hit the snooze; just five more minutes ... to dream ... again ... zzz ... zzzz ... zzzzz ...

It's clear you do not possess an understanding of the role politics plays in the economy, nor do you understand the terms you sling together like noodles and refrigerator surfaces. Do you prefer that politicians run the economy, or that economic gains be distributed politically?

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Let's play a game. You name a monopoly you think is a result of capitalism, and then you can take a turn explaining how that monopoly is not a product of the legal environment it resides in. Look to the laws which restrict competition and it should become apparent really quickly.

Let's play a game. You name a market you think is a result of capitalism, and then you can take a turn explaining how that market is not a product of the legal environment it resides in. Look to the laws which establish private property rights and limited liability, and it should become apparent really quickly.

Unfair game is unfair.

[aaron]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

"Remove the safety nets" IS EXACTLY option two. U3 is ~7%. U6 is ~12%. How many millions is that? What jobs would you have them do? The jobs don't exist.

Do you expect those millions to quietly starve to death? Lash out? What?

Yes, hunger is a powerful motivator, but that doesn't make jobs spring into existence. It does make people commit crime, though.

Seriously, I can't find it. Someone translate the U3 and U6 rates to numbers of people so we can decide where to employ them.

With a few different decisions in the past (or now, I would guess) from our leaders, we would have tons of jobs. The U.S. government can borrow trillions. Those trillions could be spent to modernize our infrastructure. China has demonstrated that it can be done. There is at least $20 trillion worth of improvements that could be made in the infrastructure in the U.S. After that is done, perhaps we can talk about jobs springing into existence.

China has shown how to pull 100's of millions of people out of poverty, not through hand-outs, but through jobs. I cannot believe the U.S., with all its current resources (including credit), could not make a few tens of millions of jobs. It is laughable.


Lack of leadership. That is all.




-----------------------------
Now, if you are talking about reality, where we have no leadership, no talent in government, and the largest bureaucracy in the history of the world, I think you are right. Feed them so they do not eat the rest of us.

[Shakespear]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

In a move that will rock the job security of night watchmen everywhere, the world’s first commercially available security robot is set for mass production in the US.Designed by Denver-based Gamma 2 Robotics, the robot will now be manufactured entirely in the States, with a process that can be scaled up to full mass production as demand grows.The robot, which is known as the Vigilant MCP (mobile camera platform), features a digital camera and an array of sensors to detect the presence of unauthorised intruders, and will activate the alarm and send out an alert should it find someone where they shouldn’t be.

http://www.factor-tech.com/robots/72...mass-produced/

With a few different decisions in the past (or now, I would guess) from our leaders, we would have tons of jobs. The U.S. government can borrow trillions. Those trillions could be spent to modernize our infrastructure. China has demonstrated that it can be done. There is at least $20 trillion worth of improvements that could be made in the infrastructure in the U.S. After that is done, perhaps we can talk about jobs springing into existence.

China has shown how to pull 100's of millions of people out of poverty, not through hand-outs, but through jobs. I cannot believe the U.S., with all its current resources (including credit), could not make a few tens of millions of jobs. It is laughable.


Lack of leadership. That is all.

We can see very clearly that today's "leadership" is completely devoid of people who think like you, but probable closer to the way Ayn Rand thought.

My first introduction to Ayn Rand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ooKsv_SX4Y

What splendid ideas she birthed into the world,

“the men of the mind, the intellectuals of the world, the originators and innovators in every line of industry go on strike; when the men of creative ability in every profession, in protest against regulation, quit and disappear.”

“I am destroying d’Anconia Copper, consciously, deliberately, by plan and by my own hand. I have to plan it carefully and work as hard as if I were producing a fortune- in order not to let them notice it and stop me, in order not to let them seize the mines until it is too late ... I shall destroy every last bit of it and every last penny of my fortune and every ounce of copper that could feed the looters. I shall not leave it as I found it- I shall leave it as Sebastian d’Anconia found it- then let them try to exist without him or me!”

“We produced the wealth of the world- but we let our enemies write its moral code.”

“We’ll survive without it. They won’t.”

[sutro]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

A war or epidemic does little to change the picture. More people would mean more workers and more consumption. What changes the picture is the number of people needed to serve the consumption, or the distribution of types of work relative
to the numbers of people available to do them. Both automation and trade affect these things.

But didn't per capita gdp go up in Europe (where most of the death and desruction occured) right after the WWII?

[Woodsman]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

It's clear you do not possess an understanding of the role politics plays in the economy, nor do you understand the terms you sling together like noodles and refrigerator surfaces. Do you prefer that politicians run the economy, or that economic gains be distributed politically?

I understand nothing. You understand everything. It's perfectly clear you are the ideal man. Heroic, really.

[don]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

The Tolkien Factor

If you’re a girl and you’re old and you’re grey and you’re the size of a hobbit, who’s going to get angry at you? If your predecessor had all the qualities anyone could look for in a garden gnome, and his predecessor was known mainly as a forward drooling incoherent oracle, how bad could it get? Think they select Fed heads them on purpose for how well they would fit into the Shire?

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Let's play a game. You name a market you think is a result of capitalism, and then you can take a turn explaining how that market is not a product of the legal environment it resides in. Look to the laws which establish private property rights and limited liability, and it should become apparent really quickly.

Unfair game is unfair.

No market is truly free and unfettered, but they can be the result of capitalism hindered to various degrees by political restraints. You can trace the origins of many aspects of a market or economy in general to a variety of parameters, just as you can trace virtually every single monopoly directly to government policy.

A robust legal environment is critical for capitalism to succeed. A corrupt legal environment is necessary for monopolies to develop.

[Ghent12]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

"Remove the safety nets" IS EXACTLY option two. U3 is ~7%. U6 is ~12%. How many millions is that? What jobs would you have them do? The jobs don't exist.

Do you expect those millions to quietly starve to death? Lash out? What?

Yes, hunger is a powerful motivator, but that doesn't make jobs spring into existence. It does make people commit crime, though.

Seriously, I can't find it. Someone translate the U3 and U6 rates to numbers of people so we can decide where to employ them.

Poverty in America is, to some extent, voluntary. People magically find jobs in large numbers after various effective welfare reform measures. You don't need to bother trying to find employment for them--they will do that on their own.

[Ghent12]

Re: Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

I understand nothing. You understand everything. It's perfectly clear you are the ideal man. Heroic, really.

You should change your handle to Strawsman. I am sure you understand a great many things, just not the details of the intersection of politics and economics.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

No market is truly free and unfettered, but they can be the result of capitalism hindered to various degrees by political restraints. You can trace the origins of many aspects of a market or economy in general to a variety of parameters, just as you can trace virtually every single monopoly directly to government policy.

A robust legal environment is critical for capitalism to succeed. A corrupt legal environment is necessary for monopolies to develop.

Define robust. Define corrupt. I don't remember my old college econ text books saying "it's always the gubermint's fault when there's a monopoly."

How did the US government make Microsoft Windows a monopoly with 97% market share until it got busted up by the European Commission? How did the the US government force the NFL and MLB to be monopolies in their respective sports? How did the government make Standard Oil Rockefeller's own personal monopoly, and what will it do after Exxon-Mobil and Chevron merge and the humpty dumpty's back together again? How did Google become a monopoly in search? Did the government just start shooting Yahoo!s in the head? Did they kick down the doors at Duck-Duck-Go and fine it with regulatory non-compliance? Did they send Seal Team 6 into Digital and shut down Altavista for insider trading? Or did Google just get ahead, find a natural space for a monopoly and buy up any start-up that could possibly threaten it early on?

I mean, mergers and acquisitions and buyouts happen just fine on their own. Private equity makes sure of that. How long until an AT&T-Verizon-Comcast-Time Warner merger reassembles the new Ma Bell? It's not like they're not trying it as we speak.

Seriously. They are.

And you can retort with, "Well, doesn't the government regulate natural monopolies for cable?" And sure it does. It doesn't mean they weren't forming anyways in history before they were regulated. Nobody is setting up a redundant second set of telephone poles with a separate set of wires just to compete. And the poles are all owned by Verizon and AT&T.

Regardless, there's no equivalent in cell phones, and we're down to Verizon and AT&T holding 70% of the market share anyways. How is it that the companies who own just about all the telephone poles in the US just happen to also be the only two standing who own just about all of the cell phone contracts and are still huge cable and landline players too?

It seems to me the textbooks might be right.

It seems to me that Plato might have illustrated the example of Thales buying options on every olive press to get rich quickly via monopoly just fine in The Republic a couple thousand years ago.

Turns out when you can corner a market, there's a lot of profit potential in it. And businessmen like profit.

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Robust means that the playing field is level. It means harm is recognized, and therefore laws against theft, physical violence, and fraud are enacted and enforced.

Corrupt means the government serves the interests of specific groups of people or industries. License and burdensome regulation are the tools most often used to stifle competition to preserve the existing firms in the market.

Microsoft enjoyed its status for so long not because of the principles of a "natural monopoly" but rather because of intellectual property laws. Supporters of IP laws unknowingly often support monopolies and retarding of scientific and technological progress--see the Wright brothers for another example.

As for cable companies, they are among the most obvious examples of government-sponsored monopolies. Look to the cables themselves. In these cases, it's local governments which are the corrupt agents of the large corporations.

An opinion piece, but you will not find evidence to contradict it:
http://tbo.com/list/news-opinion-com...lies-20140305/

To my knowledge, Standard Oil was a major success story in America by bringing oil to customers at ridiculously low prices. Besides, that was a monopoly that didn't engage in much monopoly pricing until after Rockefeller's departure. Government support of this monopoly was far less than in the other examples you mentioned, so this is an example which mostly works in your favor. However, the story of Standard Oil is very convoluted and while government support of the firm/trust wasn't as overt, it still certainly existed in critical periphery industries which drastically influenced Standard Oil and the kerosene industry. You seem to know the standard textbook case against Standard Oil, so you might try this link for a more complete perspective on the subject:
http://www.masterresource.org/2011/0...tandard-oil-i/

If you think the cell phone industry is an example of monopoly, you are utilizing pointless definitions. A single firm having 90% market share is an acceptable case of a monopoly. Two firms at 70% (your claim for the cellular industry), with a dozen or more filling the rest of the market, is hardly acceptable.