Distribution of Wealth in a Robot-Driven World

An anonymous reader sent another piece by Marshall Brain. He continues his examination of a society where most manual labor is performed by machines, idling a large fraction of the current workforce. See his previous piece for background.

Comments

Re:We are the world

[Trurl's Machine]

Remember when Michael Jackson didn't have an ugly nose? Yes, I am talking about the eighties. I think we ought to shutter ourselves from the greed grab that is the 2000's corporate culture for a moment every day to meditate, reflect, or just simply relax

Yeah, back in the eighties at least trolls had some integrity. Are you trying to say that the decade of porsche-driving-yuppies, reaganomics, Wall Street boom and nascence of Bill Gates empire was less greedy that the 2000's? Just because of *one* song? If you want to capture the spirit of the 1980's, read the "American Psycho" and watch the "Wall Street" (or even better the Brit TV-series "Capital City", the most shamelessly pro-yuppie manifesto I ever saw).

In the beginning there was man, and for a time...

[Myriad]

In the beginning there was man, and for a time it was good.
But humanity's so called civil societies soon fell victim to vanity and corruption.
Then man made the machine in his own likeness. Thus did man become the architect of his own demise...

Ha! I knew I'd seen this before!

Blockwars: multiplayer and it's free!

We already dont need all the people

[HanzoSan]

Which is why we have poverty, prisons, welfare, and the republican party.

Is it just me...

[EverDense]

By freeing up human capital from making cars and clothing and other labor intensive tasks,
financial services, creative services, IT itself could be spawned.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find the term "human capital" offensive?
If you are talking about the plebs, I much prefer the term "human cattle". ;-)

And then...

[TexVex]

Within 50 years in the likely case, and without question within 100 years, robots will perform every task essential to human survival. Robots will grow, package, transport and sell all of the food we eat. Robots will build all of the housing we live in. Robots will make, transport and sell all of the clothes we wear. Robots will manufacture all consumer products, put them on the shelves and take the money that we pay for them.

And then they'll install us in a virtual reality that keeps us pacified while they harvest thermal energy from our imprisoned bodies!

Re:Almost insightful..

[hackwrench]

Hello, The government PRINTS money and is the sole printer of money. Government doesn't need to seize money they can just print more of it.

Re:What's with the damn sci-fi books?

[hmorgan]

Sorry to be off topic to the thread, mods, but shut the hell up, Anon Coward. Your posts become more and more incoherent with each click.

Re:Almost insightful..

[Cyno]

Don't you just love thinking about currency. Adding it up and subtracting it over and over again. Until the day you die.

That's what life was all about.

Re:Ever tried eating $1M worth of bread a year? ;-

[An Onerous Coward]

If someone sends me $1M worth of cheap booze, I promise never to post to Slashdot again.

-1: Redundant ;)

[oPless]

I for one welcome our new robotic masters

Re:My job replacement

[kfg]

That would fit nicely into something human to do.

Reason.

KFG

Goals?

[schnitzi]

Goal #1 - For the strongest possible economy, we need to create the largest possible pool of consumers, and those consumers need to have money to spend.

I thought the first goal was not to injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.