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Job Automation and the Minimum Wage Debate
An anonymous reader writes "An article at FiveThirtyEight looks at the likelihood of various occupations being replaced by automation. It mentions President Obama's proposed increase to the federal minimum wage, saying big leaps in automation could reshape that debate. '[The wage increase] from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour could make it worthwhile for employers to adopt emerging technologies to do the work of their low-wage workers. But can a robot really do a janitor's job? Can software fully replace a fast-food worker? Economists have long considered these low-skilled, non-routine jobs as less vulnerable to technological replacement, but until now, quantitative estimates of a job's vulnerability have been missing from the debate.' Many minimum-wage jobs are reportedly at high risk, including restaurant workers, cashiers, and telemarketers. A study rated the probability of computerization within 20 years (PDF): 92% for retail salespeople, 97% for cashiers, and 94% for waitstaff. There are other jobs with a high likelihood, but they employ fewer people and generally have a higher pay rate: tax preparers (99%), freight workers (99%), and legal secretaries (98%)."
Gonna be a long while till robots will be able to do all the shitty things nomadic, entry-level employees do.
The PDF link is 72 pages long and in acrobat... you're welcome.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The higher the minimum wage, the more incentive there will be to automate those minimum-wage jobs. If it'd average out to $11/hr to have a robot do some cleaning, and the minimum wage is $10/hr, then a janitor willing to work for $10/hr will have a job. If the minimum wage goes to $12/hr, the robot will take the job instead.
I read somewhere an essay written around the time the minimum wage was being increased a few decades ago. This was during a time when there were still elevator operators. The author predicted that after the increase, elevator operators would get phased out in favor of automated elevators. That probably would've happened anyway, but raising the minimum wage probably helped speed up that process.
If it gets really bad there will be pressure to illegalize automation of certain classes of jobs.
well, no.....but, close enough so that there a far fewer "fully" employed.
Can software fully replace a fast-food worker?
This robot makes up to 340 burgers/hour.
Can a robot really do a janitor's job?
iRobot has a robotic mop as well as a vacuum.
Once again, I say we should determine prices by the human effort required to make a product. Once it becomes automated the price should be damn near zero.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So where do I get a job building seed-planting/irrigation robots? Bring it.
Spent All My Mod Points
Many minimum-wage jobs are reportedly at high risk, including restaurant workers, cashiers, and telemarketers. A study rated the probability of computerization within 20 years: 92% for retail salespeople, 97% for cashiers, and 94% for waitstaff...
A few other jobs that were lost to technology:
The knocker-up was a person whose responsibility was to go out to people's houses and wake them up so they could get to work on time. Alarm clocks eliminated the need for them.
Acoustic locators were people who listened to acoustic mirrors to detect incoming aircraft before radar was invented.
And sure, we can talk about buggy whips. The point is, quite a few jobs and entire industries no longer exist as a result of automation. We can start throwing our shoes at the machines like during the industrial revolution, or we can enjoy the benefits they bring us, accept the growing pains, and adapt to the new world. Personally I don't want to have to pay some guy to come knock at my window every morning so I can go to work. I hope I live long enough to talk to the younguns about all the ridiculous jobs that used to exist when I was their age.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Robotics technology is following the same price/performance curve as any other technology. Eventually it will become sophisticated and cheap enough to replace most human manual functions.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
While the inevitable loss of more "menial" jobs (take no offense; I've had many myself) will suck for those affected, at some point we're going to end up with a civilization like in Star Trek TNG where people choose to work, as the provision of the basic necessities of life will have become largely automated. Of course, something "really bad" could happen before then (nuclear holocaust, plague, asteroid strike, supervolcano, gamma ray burst, etc.), but I hope someday we reach the point where robots handle the ugly bits and we all get to do whatever the hell we please without fear.
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With the vehement anti-socialist thread that weaves throughout the American culture, the US will be one of the hardest hit by the coming automation age.
More socialist countries will have a chance of moving to the age of leisure, while America, god bless her, will move to the age of the gutter.
I live in a country where the minimum wage is roughly $15USD. More crucially though, I live in an area with low unemployment so the practical minimum wage is considerably higher.
What we have seen is changes like such as smaller retailers only have a single staff member on during the week. This means that when the staff member goes to the bathroom or gets lunch, the shop closes briefly. For larger retailers there is an ongoing shift towards self-checkouts, but as they are constantly pushing their costs this seems independent of wage levels.
Other fields have seen similar pressure. Restaurants try and make do with less staff, warehouses focus more on minimising idle time and companies may consider how often they really need the bins empty.
All of these are fundamentally positive changes.
Humans are bad at conceptualizing the very large and small, and the very slow and fast. We are pattern recognizers, but just like we have optical illusions that fool our biological eyes, there are mental situations that fool our inner circuitry.
The tech is advancing faster than moore's law, and we haven't even started using all the new meta-materials and graphene, nanotubes and all the rest.
People like to be the straight man, they like to be no-nonsense - they find comfort in being the reasonable one and enjoy a nice philosophically cul-de-sac where if history proves them correct then they reaffirm their own beliefs and if they are wrong then they still get all the benefits of the tech arriving for mass consumption. They are pleasantly surprised, if you asked anyone about the self driving cars and cellphones in the 1980s they would have said its more than 100 years away - and yet we have them now.
The problem is, with all the naysayers and luddites, their combined negative outlook slows everything down instead of speeding it up by poisoning popular sentiment which is why it takes an Elon Musk to make electric cars and space companies. It's not that Ford could not have done it, it's that Ford and similar companies are staffed by people terrified to make a decision and try anything new unless it's 100% obvious that the time for a thing has come, which is usually when a competitor starts doing it.
We need access to space, AI, roboticized labor, and the endless energy the sun is currently wasting as it goes out into space largely untapped - and everything that makes those things come faster are good things.
The ultimate form of humanity is not toiling away for 40 arbitrary hours a week just because we had to up until now.
Thinking of some 1:1 replacement of a human with a human-shaped machine is too simple. The replacement will be of outdated, job-heavy business models with self-service models.
You know it's time for the next revolution when your rulers' names end with roman numerals.
...were on to something. Not that mechanization is evil - it is progress. But what we're seeing now that we have not faced in the past is technology and automation advancing faster than society's capacity to restructure the economy so that everyone has an opportunity for some basic livelihood. Extremes of poverty and desperation are not a good alternative.
"at some point we're going to end up with a civilization like in Star Trek TNG"
First --- I wish, that would be an incredible and ideal future.
But society is based on power and control, both in government and private industry.
Government and private industry simply isn't going to say "Dear commoners, robots will do everything and you don't need to work and you get a free ride" --- will never happen!
And --- even if it did, look at what people with too much time on hands do to this world: crime, gangs, terrorists, cults, drug users --- most of societies ills are AVOIDED by making these people have jobs so they don't have free time.
I'd love to get to a Star Trek TNG future, but the vast majority of the populace isn't going to start creating and researching or coding solutions to the world's problems in their spare time, which is why it won't work. And the power and authority would never support a free ride of "their creations" or their use of their power.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
The telemarketers question needs to be rephrased: likeliness of robots not being replaced by humans in the next 20 years.
I also think the knock-her-up angle is ripe for exploitation, but that witch who listened to mirrors wound up pwned by Snow White.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
We're not allowed to talk about the negative impacts of minimum wage laws, or automation:
Evidence that increases in the minimum wage increase unemployment:
... the increases and decreases in the real minimum wage closely align with the increases and decreases in the gap between the unemployment rates of white and black youth. As the real min. wage increases the more unemployed black workers there are relative to white workers. This chart, while not completely ceteris paribus, is still more informative since both white workers and black workers were facing the same macroeconomic conditions i.e. recessions, expansions, etc. and yet on average the black unemployment rate increased more than the white unemployment rate when the real min. wage increased and vice versa.
Just to repeat, this is not a statistical, causal analysis. But it does provide evidence for a very sound theory that when wages are increased workers who cannot produce enough to justify the higher wage are left without employment. ...
So, who are the real RAAACISTS?
A terrafoam house is probably nicer than what most poor people have today.
Historically, some have speculated that with automation comes more and more leisure time, people not having to work because all of their needs have been fulfilled. What ends up happening in reality however (as we see now) is that productivity gains do end up with fewer people working but instead of more people working fewer hours, there are fewer people working more hours. What happens when there are not enough jobs to go around at all?
People won't have enough money to pay for goods. Will labor be parcelled out so more people work less? Will there be a perceived "non-need" for so many unemployed people? What happens then? I can't imagine it will be a pretty sight.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
This doesn't take into account the one thing that most futurists never take into account. Maybe I'm not the only one who wouldn't enjoy going to a restaurant and not being served. Maybe I'd see that as a low-quality dive, and wouldn't be interested in a steak from a conveyor belt. Maybe the reason that I often go out to restaurants is specifically to be served by someone else. Maybe that's half the value.
What about the impending failure of capitalism? The writing's on the wall, and it will fail for the same reason communism failed: Greed.
Get a handful of selfish sociopaths who rise to the top, change the rules, plunder everything, and ruin the system for everyone else. The only thing that keeps power in check is fear that they will be held accountable for their actions. This is why you see an agenda in the media and in government institutions to groom the public for control. The message is very clear:
Don't question authority.
Conform.
Give up your means of defense and do not attempt to defend yourself against anyone, even if your life is at stake.
Look to the State to find out what you are allowed to do and say.
Corporations and profit are more important than the individual. You exist to serve them.
Possibly sooner than you think; Facebook buying Oculus comes to mind...
It makes more sense to reduce the work week in the face of increasing job automation.
That's great though, who the fuck wants to deal with salesmen? I specifically order all my clothes and music gear online because I don't want to deal with either snotty clerks or shady salesmen. Hell, I'd pay MORE to shop without human interaction. The fact that I can get better prices online is just an added bonus.
What about the impending failure of capitalism?
You're confused. Capitalism is doing fine. It's government that's failing.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Simple fair solution for the day that very few employees are "required" for anything. Pay everyone a base income stipend. Call it technological socialism. But to be fair you have to pay EVERYONE, just like distributing oil profits in Alaska. Everyone gets $50K a year. Enough to get by, but maybe not comfortably. Any paying work is bonus money. If you don't want to work, I'm sure there will be some enterprising people that will build apartment complexes that will guarantee a bed + 3 squares for 49,999 a year.
Well, maybe if they get to kill another hundred million people or so it will finally work!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well, maybe if they get to kill another hundred million people or so it will finally work!
-jcr
Communism just doesn't work. Just look at the shape that the former East Germany was in.
How can you take a nation full of diligent Germans, and manage to make a poor country out of it . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Go to any checkout line in the country with the automated registers. There's still a cashier! There are 4 registers, one's permanently out of order... The one next to it is flashing red because the old lady in front of you tried paying with Canadian pennies and when you finally get to one of the two that do work it wont register the box of Kleenex you just bought because it's too lite. The cashiers trying to make her way to you but those damned Canadian pennies are a bitch to get out of the slot.
Communism would work if we turned control over to our automated masters.
Redbox is a perfect example of this. Entire brick and mortar establishments replaced by a single automated box. Granted, a Redbox doesn't have the selection an entire video store did, but it could if they wanted it to make it bigger, but the market and real estate simply isn't there to justify a larger selection
Better known as 318230.
What about the impending failure of capitalism?
You're confused. Capitalism is doing fine. It's government that's failing.
-jcr
Pure capitalism is letting the market decide which leads to the monopolization of industries. This leads to a dearth of choice for consumers. Some government interference is required to keep markets open. The reason why government is failing is because it has been bought by corporations and financial institutions.
Corporations and profit are more important than the individual. You exist to serve them.
I'd say it's more analogous to the bacteria in your gut and intestines. They don't exist to serve you, but in serving themselves they benefit you.
That's what you call a symbiotic relationship, and to be honest I don't have a problem with it. Capitalism isn't failing any time soon.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
The same government that was bought and paid for by corporate interests, and now only serves corporate interests.
A broken system works just fine in the eyes of the few that it serves.
Never heard of RealDolls, eh?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
George Orwell does a great job of discussing the ideas of the depression era with respect to the consequences of increased mechanization of labor. In many respects not much has changed. Highly recommended reading:
http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/11.html
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
If only there was a country to the North with which to compare. Minimum wage in Canada is north (heh :) of $10 everywhere except in Alberta where it is $9.95. I can assure you we do not have robot janitors and our coffee and fast food is served by humans. The economies and purchasing power of the two countries are similar enough it's a valid comparison. While there clearly must be a point at which labour costs outweigh purchase + operating costs of automated solutions, for the types of jobs being discussed here, the break point is not $10/hour.
Funny, it seems that government interference is closing the markets by making it more and more difficult for new companies to enter markets.
Is it not government interference that keeps new ISPs from entering many markets?
Ford and the other makers of ICE cars realize that they stand to make a bigger profit with ICE-based cars than with electric cars because maintenance cost of the ICEs is higher
But that just gives electric car makers more headroom to increase the sticker price of their own products by playing up total cost of ownership in their advertising. "The average small family car costs xx thousand. But factor in fuel and maintenance over the first ten years and it shoots up to zz thousand. Or you could buy a Contoso C Class, pay yy thousand, and use what you save to buy something special for someone special."
just as I am not allowed to "demand" you purchase any particular good or servi... oh wait. I forgot we passed the ACA.
Public indecency laws, which mandate purchase of clothing, predate the Affordable Care Act by decades.
FYI, that is referred to as a "Barrier to Entry". Starting an insurance company these days is basically impossible due to such (for said industry the requirements can vary widely by state, and screw New York).
Another example of a "Barrier to Entry" is the pains the ride-sharing sites are experiencing (by state/local, livery is very regulated and fee-d).
Those past the Barrier have a lot of regulations, but they don't have to worry about the barrier itself.
BlameBillCosby.com
Russia? China? They didn't even get close to communism. They were fascists dictatorships and kleptocracies that happen to use Karl Marx's writings for propaganda.
European socialism got pretty close, and they seem to be doing just fine except when they start acting like Americans and deregulating their banks.
Seriously, I know you're trolling, but there's a chance someone out there is taking your seriously...
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Dunno. Ask Merkel, she should know.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Last time I checked, the category you're thinking of was called "Escort".
it's the incredibly high cost of entry (burying lines, running copper) combined the the fact that you pretty much need a gov't mandate in order to get everyone to allow you to bury/run all those lines on their property (otherwise sooner or later somebody either holds the whole thing up because he's crazy, wants infinite money or some combination of the two).
But hey, never let a little thing like facts and reality get in the way of a good right wing rant I always say. How's the joke go? Fact have a liberal bias...
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or Socialism. Or anything other than a fascists dictatorship that just happened to use Karl Marx's writtings for propaganda. They had about as much to do with Communism as North Korea, but for some reason we sorta forget all that. Also, Russia was a _lot_ worse off from WWII than anyone really remembers. They used mules to drag their tanks back home for lack of fuel for God's sake.
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...it's a matter of cost.
And I suspect that, when it happens, it'll happen quickly in a cascade. Economics will justify it, people will suddenly realize that hey, I actually get MORE consistent service from a robot than a bored human drone, and then it will be a tidal wave.
We've known about the Bakken Shale for nearly 100 years, and its rich trove of sweet light oil just lurking there for the price to justify the cost of retrieval. It is, and it's set off an energy renaissance in the US - something the mainstream public and I'd guess even experts didn't suspect the impact of when we were sitting in gas lines in the 70s.
Can a robot replace a janitor? Not completely, but most of them? Yes.
You still would have a skeleton crew of janitors, but increased automation will mean that Charley isn't slow-walking behind a floor-polisher for 3 hours at night, he's actually doing something a human needs to do because the floor will be polished by the robo-buffer.
Can software replace a fast food worker today? No. But considering that the process of fast-food cooking and delivery is almost without human thought today already (ie "cook fries in oil that is precisely X degrees for Y time; after Z uses refresh oil") it wouldn't take a great deal of design implementation at build time to automate MUCH of the process.
So no, automation can't replace ALL of the jobs...but it can and will surely take most of them.
-Styopa
Funny, it seems that government interference is closing the markets by making it more and more difficult for new companies to enter markets.
Is it not government interference that keeps new ISPs from entering many markets?
"Sokath, his eyes opened"
Yeah, pretty much the case. You see, the problem with Capitalism or any other ism, is that unless protected from itself, will lead to one stop ruling.
Because when any group comes into power, it seeks to preserve that power. If a purely capitalistic society were formed, eventually th eindustries that were "best" would grow th elargets, and at that point would shif their goals to consolidation of their power, to use their power to crush the opposition. Predatory pricing, buying competitors simply to shut them down, murder, mayhem, lots of tricks.
This tactic will fail some times, but often will not until the capbloat becsomes so large that it chokes itself.
Certainly at this point, we are on the cusp of a problem, as the economic equation, which needs to be balanced, is dangerously tilted.
This isn't to say that any of the others are better, at least in their pure form. They will all fail
We have to have balance.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
they just put someone in front of the self checkouts. When people feel their being watched they're much less likely to steal, and one minimum wage employee can watch 4 lanes. He's not really watching, but the people trying to steal don't know that.
:(.
Also, they put scanners on the shopping carts now. It's not everywhere yet, but it's coming. You scan everything while you shop except the produce. That gets weighted and you get a tag for it. The computer keeps track of the total weight of your order and you weigh it again when you bag up. It spreads the work of scanning out over all your shopping and makes it feel quicker even though it's the same amount of time.
Once we have automatic driving cars you'll see the end of retail as everything is delivered. A few high end goods might still have salesmen (Mercedes Benzes and whatnot), but you won't really have any options. You'll have the stuff delivered because it's quicker and you'll be working 60 hours a week to make enough money at your low pay job to buy food/shelter
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Would an abundance of goods with no requirement for people to work their butts off making them would be considered a problem. What is wrong with just letting people enjoy fruit of the modern civilization without considering our collective wealth a downside? Plenty of people will still find a way to work in order to afford more exclusive stuff line posh houses, luxury vacations or whatever. Lots more would find something productive to do just out of boredom. For everyone else, we should just encourage responsible birth control in the sense that if you can not even find your own place in society you are not in the position to teach your children to do the same.
That's sorta the argument you'll hear. I saw an interview on Fox News years ago where they brought on an economist who explained he would combat automation by taxing the rich and redistributing the wealth. The host said, "But that's socialism" and he replied "that's right, I'm a socialist". The whole rest of the interview was the Host just trying to come to grips with the fact that the man just admitted he was a socialist. I think if he said he skinned babies for a living he'd have gotten less of a reaction.
After 70 years of being told that Communism == Socialism == Hitler == bad it's just ingrained in American Society. It's really the only answer to automation. There just aren't enough jobs. The world _doesn't_ need ditch diggers, and we only need so many scientists even if everyone was the next Albert Eisenstein. But the notion that a job, any job, is better than no job is heavily ingrained in America.
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I predict the oldest profession will be the last one to be automated.
Spoken like a man. What part of "vibrator" don't you understand?
Usually? When has communism ever worked amazingly well?
Shortage of continents where you can kill all the native populations to make capitalism work now. The hundred million deaths estimate might also be a bit high and then might not when you consider the other countries that were exploited to make capitalism succeed. Recently heard a program about how America pressured Haiti to keep the minimum wage at $3 a day instead of raising it to $5. How many deaths will result from that? At least underwear will be cheap and very profitable and the CEO of Haynes earned his $17,000 an hour job (based on 40 hour work week).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
"Capitalism" does not mean "free from government interference". In fact, it thrives (and maybe depends on) on certain kinds of heavy government interference: IP laws, a solid banking system, corporate charters, and limited liability spring to mind.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Huh what?
Why not a tax...
If you replace a burger flipper with an automated machine, there is a replacement tax. Every device that eliminates a job is taxed. Eventually, maybe robots will replace all the jobs, but if they do - and eventually they probably will - all those taxes fund the utopia Star Trek state.
The problem is we never implemented a replacement tax. If a machine does the job of 10 workers, surely a small added tax that is equivalent to 5%-10% of the labor saved. Goes to fund society. Then this way eventually humanity can relegate itself to the arts and pursuit of knowledge.
(until we get into the war with the machines, blot out the sky, and get turned into coppertops)
Exclusivity agreements from local governments come about because it would be foolish to have multiple competing companies digging up the roads to lay their own lines, creating constant traffic issues and massive, unnecessary overhead costs.
The solution to this is to have only private roads. If a privately owned utility company wants to run cables in the right-of-way or a privately owned road company then the two entities can negotiate the appropriate compensation. If they authorize too many of these projects and congestion increases as a result then drivers who use the road can negotiate with another road company that has faster roads more to their liking. Of course if only one road company services their property then they will need to sell their property and buy some elsewhere that is serviced by another road company. Hopefully they weren't stupid when they bought their property and have a contract with the road company to allow them to remove their belongings using the road company's road. If the road company tries to deny access to the moving trucks then they can simply seek compensation in a privately owned court. Or they can avoid all that by using helicopters to move their stuff, although first they will have to negotiate with the owners of the airspace between their old home and their new one.
You can't spell "oneiromancy" without "roman".
Many families operate communistically, rather than fascistly, though fascistly is the American default.
Learn to love Alaska
I see a lot of government-encouraged monopolies. Small players are trying to enter the transportation market by setting up bus services, and are getting hounded out of the market by the government. Uber and the like are fighting against the taxi cartels. New players in telecom are having to fight against old government-established monopolies.
Small players are doing just fine in many markets. There are small credit unions all over the place. I lived for years in Tucson on groceries bought from a local chain (which tended to stock either fresh produce or canned goods prepared by someone other than the big players), plus fruit sold by an old guy and his wife out of a rickety stand and a truck. I bought computer parts from a one-off shop, outdoor equipment from a one-off shop, got auto glasswork done by a garage run by Mexican immigrants (who were professional as hell), etc.
Some things are more efficiently done by big players. There are about seven companies in the world that make cameras (Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Pentax, plus some boutique players like Leica and Hasselblad), because the engineering required is specialized and the equipment expensive. Not that many people make CPU's, because it's so hard to do. But even in the virtual duopoly of computer chips (AMD/Intel), I can pay about $100 for a fast-enough quad core CPU with an integrated GPU that performs very well. We live in a world where if you want something, someone will make it for you for a pretty fair price.
Consider that a middle-class person (wage $20/hour or $40k/year) can, by working ten hours, buy a handheld computer, and with three hours per month of labor, pay for a cellular connection that will let her access essentially any information known to humanity, or communicate with nearly anyone on the planet in realtime. It wasn't that long ago that my father only called his father on Sundays when long-distance rates were cheaper. Now I can have a video call in 720p with someone in Japan or Germany at the drop of a hat. We are doing pretty well.
The market system, overall, does a very good job at enriching folks -- and not just wealthy folks. Mexico has made huge gains in the last few decades by making stuff and selling it to folks who want it. Brazil was once a third-world country; now they make airplanes.
Do people sometimes game the system and get things through ways other than mutually beneficial trades? Sure. But that doesn't mean the system's broken.
The thing I never see mentioned in all this discussion is that minimum wage CANNOT be a living wage, or else you start to displace all of the teenagers who do not need to live on what they earn - they just need experience in a job to get some money for spending.
I guess you could make a higher minimum wage apply only to workers over 25 but I'm pretty sure that would lead to a Logan's Run type scenario that would hurt older workers more than it would hep them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
remove health care from jobs at least the ACA does try to fix some stuff.
Like under the old system there where people who did not want more hours as that will take them out of disability, Medicaid but put in an job with a shit mini med plan or no plan at all.
and there are some people who use the jail / prison system for stuff that the ER does not cover.
make full time 32 hours with no more salaried bypass of ot pay or say an min pay of $100K+ COL to have no OT pay.
I can't wait to get my fried chicken from a vending machine. but that's just me.
communism hasn't been tried, we tried socialism, but communism needs a prosperous period of capitalism to occour first (splitting up a rich country betweeen the people, is much better than splitting up a poor country). If a rich society tried communism they would have a much better chance of success; If they used robots to do the jobs people don't want to, i think they have an excellent chance. I heard a chineese empror tried to get the moon and i didn't work, then the US failed multiple times, but that dosn't mean it wasn't possible.
Rocket Surgeon.
Easy. Start with a poor country ravaged by war, backed by another poor country also ravaged by war.
Rocket Surgeon.
Your question has the answer you are looking for.
First define "standards of living".
The standard of living - even for the lower class - in most of the developed world, and for a decent percent of the developing world is already good. The advances in health care, communication, and transportation has made sure what was available to the upper class or 1% of the early 1900's is now available to the rest. That is indeed progress.
So, the next level of mechanization and automation is not going to push the "standard of living" higher by a greater margin. Here is a car analogy - what matters is you have a car to go from point A to B, you still reach B whether you travel in a 2000$ beat up old car or a new costly luxury version. Another analogy - there was a huge difference between VHS and DVD, but there is no such difference between DVD and BluRay. Good content can be equally enjoyed on both, and both the discs are equally durable.
Tat Tvam Asi
Greed
I'd rather have millions of corporate overlords than 1 government overlord.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Minimum wage has nothing to do with computer/robot automation. The connection is so weak it is not worth discussing. It's a gimmick to provoke a discussion of which there will only be one paragraph of the two topics intersecting.
There are not enough jobs and not enough resources to even theoretically support the jobs required to cover everybody. Robots only intersect as far as the increasing shortage of jobs.
Minimum wage needs to be linked to inflation so this isn't a never ending waste of debate time. History has decided upon minimum wage. Not raising it is to ignore a settled matter.
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Communism has never been tried on a large scale. Only typically fascist systems of capitalism masquerading as communism have been given a go.
You are mistaken. They didn't start as fascist dictatorships. A dictatorship is just the inevitable result.
There is little incentive to prevent 0.1% of your labor going to some would-be dictator, meanwhile there is lots of incentive to set it up so that you as a would-be dictator get 0.1% from every single person. Nobody has any incentive to stop you until you are, in fact, dictator.
Thats why communism has always turned into a dictatorship and always will.
"His name was James Damore."
Any sane parent will make sure all the children get a minimum amount before the others can try to have 2nds and 3rds. I'm not sure I'm for minimum wage if we simply provide every human being some sort of MRE, basic shelter, and basic healthcare (free sterilization.) Anything after that can be for those who are willing to work for it; but the workers must subsidize the minimum support system. Now if too many people have children then the burden will become too massive and the evenly distributed portions will shrink as well. Communist? No. It's merely a replacement for the minimum wage which REQUIRES enough jobs when the population rises and the job market shrinks.
You won't have trouble finding people to work in the support system and it'll get more automated making it cheaper and cheaper.
THE JETSONS. almost nobody needs to work. the jobs are largely excuses to employ people (and actually exist as a story device because it would be pretty dull if everybody just did whatever they wished in a futuristic utopia for children. Brave New World... more realistic but not for a children's cartoon.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Really? Here in Australia the big supermarkets have self-serve and I can get through those at a time/item rate almost double the "trained cashiers". The only exception is when you have a lot (I am talking a full trolley full) of items, and this is only because self-serve has less space to work in.
On that note people who take a full trolley through self-serve and bog the system down are a pet hate of mine.
Pure capitalism is letting the market decide which leads to the monopolization of industries.
Nope.
Nobody's ever succeeded in establishing a coercive monopoly without government backing. In a free market, monopoly is a non-issue. For example, when Alcoa was the only vendor of Aluminum in the United States, the pricing of aluminum fell continuously.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Communism has never been tried on a large scale.
Bullshit. It's been tried many times, and its body count is pushing a hundred million.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Note that the prime weapon against any populace is secrecy. Secrecy yields ignorance. Slaves were not allowed to read. Employees are forbidden from informing others of their earnings -- WTF? The governments all now have secret agencies. Actions can be dismissed as necessary for some other secret cause. Corruption requires power and secrecy, for without the secrecy the power soon fades.
Thus, those with power should be forbade secrecy of action when they wield it. Accountability depends on awareness and is inherently anti-secrecy. We should be able to prove our rulers are not working against us. Education is key in this regard and that of dealing with automation.
Let's face it: The more dangerous menial jobs are wasting entire human brains worth of potential. Eliminating the drudgery need not result in joblessness. Someone will be needed to design and maintain the automatons. Even simply expressing your humanity is rewarded by society in the arts. Teams of researchers will be needed to run experiments -- The problem is in underpaying researchers for their research. It takes the same effort to produce a success as to rule something out as a failure, and many discoveries have come by accident from mostly unrelated research.
The copyright and patent system are futures markets for ideas. Instead of marketing that which is scarce -- the effort to crafting and testing ideas -- these systems leverage artificial scarcity against humanity and the creators themselves. Corporations are thus able to cherry pick the individual products of creators to reward them. This is the Information Age! Your are on The Internet! Where is the Wikipedia of freely accessible Scientific Studies that the web was created explicitly to facilitate?! Hidden behind paywalls of Journals, and duplication forbidden to create scarcity of otherwise infinitively reproducible bits.
Instead of hobbling ourselves with artificial scarcity, we should market what is scarce and simply require the capitalists to pay the price that our efforts are truly worth. Enough secrecy in our salaries and governments; Enough artificial scarcity. As a cyberneticist I see secrecy and artificial scarcity as two sides of the same coin: Evil is Information Disparity.
Dave, would you like a pill that makes her pod bay doors feel tighter?
Table-ized A.I.
Delusional balderdash. There will be a correlation between the amount of the increase and the effect on jobs, of course. I don't think going to $10 will be the end of the world, $12 would be pretty bad, and anything over $15 very bad. $20? Lol.. right.
So I hate to pull this because it's misused, but sadly your lot never actually answers it. Why not a $30/hr minimum wage? And note than scoffing and saying "don't be ridiculous" is not a meaningful reply.
The answer, of course, is that raising the minimum wage too high (for some value of 'too high') will _of fucking course_ cost jobs. The question is where is that red line?
Imagine how many people will be replaced with automation when that happens!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
When robots do all the work, the human race will be able to have more leisure time! That's what they told us in the 60s right?
Twinstiq, game news
McDonald's actually have already done this. At my local Macs, there's a number of machines that will let you do exactly that. As an added benefit there's a special queue for people who use the machine which is much faster than the old school queue.
Consider also that hourly minimum wage (well, it isn't legally mandated) is around 20 CHF here.
"Salary"/"Exempt" workers have become a huge scam. I am consistantly amazed at the number of people I know who accept the idea that they are "Salaried" employees because they don't get overtime, but don't blink an eye at the fact that they get docked pay if they go home early one day.
The term Communism is a widely overloaded term. Especially in the USA. In general Communism is a economical concept where all resources are owned by those who work there. In some contexts this is translated to owned by the state, but it is not a necessity. Furthermore, the theory requires a democratic political system, because otherwise the control of the public over the production resources is not guaranteed. The eastern European countries where all dictatorships and were therefore never able to fulfill the requirements for a communistic society. Furthermore, they never ever used a proper management cycle in their businesses. Even in Communism you have to do. What they did was defining a goal for the company, defining the means to implement it and then they started. They never checked if the goals where really met. Or if the goals match with reality, because they did not have the necessary information. And they could not get it because that would have meant for workers or farmers to speak up. So they failed. They also failed because they believed that computers are evil and are only used to reduce labor force.
The whole starting impulse for industrialization (focal point UK) was the expensive labor due to labor shortage in the UK. This made mechanization an option to lower production prices. True this results in fewer jobs if production is not extended or in a larger production. In the UK it resulted in the larger production and in better worker conditions. Subsequently, it also resulted in a job shortage decades later.
Nowadays we are in a difficult situation. There is, depending on the local economy, a minimal income requirement for a person, so that this person can live and can participate in society. The income must be high enough for food, housing, medical care, education, cultural participation, etc. On that basis you can calculate a minimal income. Also it has been determined that is not very healthy to work more than 40 hours a week (average). Also we know how income taxes are calculated. Based on theses values you can determine the minimal income of a person.
If that person is part of a family and that family comprises of one parent and one child, which is not working, then the income must be high enough to finance both.
To fulfill these income requirements you have two options. A) You implement a social benefit system which supports people who earn too less or B) you implement minimal wage. The first option will rise state-based spending, which requires higher taxes. The second option will result in some job reduction, however, only in areas where machines can do the job. These areas, however, will be automated anyway even if you do not rise the minimum wage, as technology for their automation becomes cheaper. The third solution is a combination of both, which is practiced in many European countries to some extend.
Yeah, what about it?
I have grown up in a socialist country and I was told that the capitalism will fail anytime (though it did not stop people from trying to escape there from our socialist utopia to the hell of capitalism, even though they could be (and many of them were) shot dead on the border). And here I am, thirty years later, and the doom of capitalism is still impending while "the only way forward"-communist has failed spectacularly.
So please, lecture me on how communism is the only way forward.
.
Real life is overrated.
See, the thing is that this is NOT a bad thing. 10,000 years ago, we could only travel at about 15km per hour. Now there are astronauts that go around earth and they travel that distance in less than 2 seconds. Technology allows us to either travel 7800 km in an hour, or 16 km in 2 seconds. In that sense when automation replaces jobs, it allows us to get the same work done in less time, or more work done during the same time. So in 50 years, lets say, we could do the same work that we do per person working just 1 hour per day, or do 8 times more work in 8 hours per day.
In that sense, technology and automation do not destroy jobs at all. The problem is how we organize society, not technology, we could still all be employed for 40h/week with 2% unemployment rate in 2100 if we, as society, choose to do more work during the same workshift. Or we could just work for half an hour per day and get the same level of comfort and work done than today. Of course in either case all jobs would shift towards higher level tasks, towards tasks that cannot be automated yet.
If productivity increases but average work per person does not, and at the same time we maintain a standard of 40 working hours per week, that is when unemployment rises. But as I have explained, those are a lot of ifs and it is just one possible path for society. Technology is not and will not rise unemployment, society's political decisions will.
The notion that something like baxter could replace a waiter is ridiculous. When I actually go to a diner, a starbucks or something simular and pay super-premium to be waited (up to 20x the price it would cost to make the same quality drink myself (time not counted)), I wan't a cute, smart, charming but servile hot chica to be kind and friendly to me and make me feel accepted, loved, respected, welcome and, yes, problably also a little more manly. And bring me my latte just as I ordered it. That would be 4,90 Euros, thank you.
Same goes for the ladies I know. They want a well-groomed polite and charming hippster to serve them their latte.
No way are those jobs being replaced by robots.
My webworker coding job I'm doing right now on the other hand - that could go away in an instant. The Flash stuff I've been doing in the 2000+s f.e. has completely vanished. Heck, if they'd let me or any other respectable geek set a usefull standard for web-like services I'd be out of a job in no time. And would probalby be happier for it. I could do visual design and software OOAD all day. ... All while being served by the sweet baristas mentioned above.
Conclusion:
Waiting and service in a post scarcity economy rapidly becomes all about human interaction and little else. No way is that going to be done by robots. Those are for cleaning floors and assembly tablet computers. Or acutally making the latte that the cutey brings me.
Sidenote to that: Miele just came up with their first vacuum robot btw., and since they are the BMW of household appliances, I count this as an indicator that vacuum robots are finally up to the task.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Predatory pricing, buying competitors simply to shut them down, murder
One of these things are not like the others.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
Yeah, we'll just end up being shady carpet or furniture salesmen. Some stuff is always going to be difficult to automate.
Another data point, to prove that right-wingers simply aren't very bright people. They forget that consumer demand is what drives the economy -- maybe the greedy shits deserve to learn this lesson the hard way.
Profiting and rent seeking are not the same thing, and it is the conflation of the two, as you do and as our government and business leaders do, that will kill this system of ours.
CommubwahahahAHAHAHAHAHA!
Why dont we just go back to being tribal and trading skins and beads?
Dumbass
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
In some MacDonald i was there was a terminal you could put your bank card and order stuff, you would get a slip with a number you can present. The local worker made me very clear that if I order from that terminal, I will be the *last* served, they will ignore the machine telling them to fulfill my order until they felt like it. My conclusion :
1) The cashier are intelligent enough to understand their job is on the line with those machines
2) they are dumb enough to tell me I will not get food quickly and will intentionally make it slow
3) I'll never go again to that macDonald.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The problem is, our democratic and capitalist system promote more easily people with less empathy, or even far more sociopath to the top. You do not see any harm in the above and see harm when people go hungry. The problem is that those at the top are far more likely different. See for example how some republican decry food aid.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I agree somewhat with janitors and even fast food. But the idea that waitstaff are vulnerable to automation is a bit ridiculous. The whole reason people go out to a restaurant with waitstaff has little to do with the food and everything to do with the experience of being waited on. Having some kind of robot you place orders on turns that restaurant into yet another fast food joint.
I can only have one road connecting to my house meaning an instant monopoly. A private company should never be in the position of having a monopoly.
False equivalency. You WILL need healthcare at some point, this is a fact of being a fleshy meatbag. Forcing you to actually pay for it instead of pushing all your medical debts as had been done before is more responsible and fiscally conservative. Ya'll are just upset because the Democrats passed a Republican plan.
Americans live in an oligarchy, not a dictatorship.
Any time someone says it's time for a new tax, I pucker.
There is no need for a new tax.
What's needed is for a lot less exceptions in the tax code. If we eliminated a lot of exceptions for corporations then there'd be plenty of money in the general fund, and there'd be some number less yachts purchased which these days is equating to less and less jobs overall in any case. Wages would go down by whatever the COLA was across the board, but you wouldn't need a minimum wage because everyone would have their survival covered, and then a truly free labor market could evolve where people could sell their services for any price they liked, including zero.
Obviously there's lots of room for abuse there, but there's no more room than there is with the system we have now. However, one of the biggest problems with the system we have now (especially the tax system, but let's call it the overall monetary system) is that it is unnecessarily complicated. There's no need for it to be so. And you want to make it moreso.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Now why are the 2 best responses to this pretentious copy/paste job being modded down, or Troll?
If ever a Slashdot post existed that deserved a +6 mod, I think this is the one.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
A lot of Made in America clothing was actually made in the Northern Mariana Islands which is a US Commonwealth like Puerto Rico. The minimum wage from 1997 to 2007 was $3.05 making it cost effective to produce clothing there. The minimum wage was raised in 2007 and is currently $5.05 with plans to make it equal with the US federal minimum wage by 2015. Unfortunately when the minimum wage was raised, the Northern Marianas were no longer able to complete with China and by 2009 the island's garment industry went caput.
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
I think you're saying the same thing. Government is interfering in the wrong ways because it has been overly influenced by corporations and financial institutions. Due to this it is not acting in the best interest of the general populace but those few that have enough cash to game the system.
What you say sounds good, but the reality is, not everyone is cut out for anything other than 'menial labor'. When the low wage (think: menial) jobs are replaced by robotics, where do those people go?
I have a number of friends who work in the trucking industry as drivers. Surely, their jobs are in jeopardy as robotized trucking is right around the corner (so to speak). These are guys who love what they do, and really have no skill in anything else.
Maybe the next generation will have a greater chance at higher skilled work, but I believe that not everyone will be cut out for it, and then... What then?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
The unskilled will just watch TV and eat....
The truth of the matter is that more and more skilled labor is more aptly replaced by machine. Computers replaced a crap load of skilled labor already. How much manufacturing that was once "skilled" is now done by machine?
How much menial labor is easily replaced by technology?
How much skilled and professional labor can be replaced by machine? As computers and programming advance, how much is supplemented. We can eliminate 97% of the teachers through technology. How many CPAs have been replaced by TurboTax? Cars will soon drive themselves....there goes your cab driver. How long until police brutality calls for demands of robot-cops? how much automation has reduced the crew of modern naval vessels and aircraft? how long until doctors are largely replaced by machines. I wager soon that computers will provide far more accurate diagnosis. And some surgeries are already done by robotic machines.
So I ask you, what "skilled competents" do you see existing in an automated future? Because there are not many that I see which cannot be replaced by computer and machine.
- artist
- knowledge seeker
- psychologist
- politicians
Why? It's a waste of human effort to be working for $10 an hour.
$10/hour is a lot of money in much of the world. Stop thinking about life from your comfy first world perspective.
Sure someone with no skills is willing to do it, but I think it makes more sense as a society to have only jobs that pay $20/hr, have all the other jobs done by robots, and have all those people learning new skills or just watching TV or something.
Your argument is absurdly full of flaws.
First off, there simply are not and will not be robots available to replace most jobs any time soon. I work with factory automation and robotics and as impressive as some of them are, the state of the art is being vastly overstated. Furthermore even if the technology was feasible (it isn't) the near term economics of robotics don't make sense. Replace waitstaff in a restaurant being paid $4/hour+tips with a robot? Not going to happen in my lifetime.
Second, you are forgetting the very important point that wages are relative. There are places where $10/hour will let you live like a king and places where $10/hour will barely allow you to survive. The US is relatively wealthy but there is no assurance it will remain so. What's important is the relative amount $10 lets you buy.
Third, $10/hour for many jobs simply is a competitive requirement. My company competes against firms across the globe. Automation is NOT an option for what we make and in the volumes we make it and automation it isn't going to be an option anytime soon. It either doesn't exist or when it does exist it doesn't make economic sense until you get to much larger production volumes. A lot of our labor gets paid $11/hour and we are barely competitive at that rate because our competition in Mexico, China and elsewhere pays far less. Sometimes as little as $1-2/hour. If we are forced to pay $20/hour we would be immediately out of business because the production would immediately shift elsewhere.
Finally, NOBODY benefits by people sitting on their ass watching TV. Your argument that they are better off being couch potatoes than making $10/hour is complete BS. All that means is that someone else has to support them.
What about the impending failure of capitalism? The writing's on the wall, and it will fail for the same reason communism failed: Greed.
Get a handful of selfish sociopaths who rise to the top, change the rules, plunder everything, and ruin the system for everyone else. The only thing that keeps power in check is fear that they will be held accountable for their actions. This is why you see an agenda in the media and in government institutions to groom the public for control. The message is very clear:
Don't question authority. Conform. Give up your means of defense and do not attempt to defend yourself against anyone, even if your life is at stake. Look to the State to find out what you are allowed to do and say. Corporations and profit are more important than the individual. You exist to serve them.
You've hit the nail on the head. The issue is not so much what system we have. The issue is people's greed and lust for power.
The US government is famously set up with checks and balances. The framers were aware of governmental power and tried to set the government against itself, figuring each branch would protect its own power. That may have worked for a while, but we can see now that dynamic breaking down. I don't know if we can design a system that isn't vulnerable to determined actors looking to subvert it. That's why it seems to come back to greed and power to me. We need to keep those types out of government. How to do that? I don't really know. We would need to be better bout selecting and evaluating our candidates, of course. But beyond that it's hard to ensure that public servants are really that.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Thank you for exposing some of the ridiculousness of pure Libertarianism.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
A few years ago when the supermarkets in my area began replacing cashiers with self checkout machines, there was no minimum wage debate going on.
Will not automation happen regardless?
Even if the cost of an employee is about the same as a machine wouldn't employers rather not have employees as machines are more under their control?
You're confused. Capitalism no longer works if the workers can be replaced by machines. We'll have to shift to a more socialist system of we don't want a dystopia where a very few hold all the wealth.
Automation is threatening lots of low skilled jobs.
Every industry has some "fluff" in my opinion, things that are needed, but that happen to make money. Example, Inuit fighting tax code simplification so people will want to buy their software.
Is the elephant in the room that there are too many people to give quality jobs too, or any job? That productivity is so high that it isn't necessary to have everyone working to give everyone what they need?
Is the current paradign out of date?
If very few people have jobs, then there are less people to buy things, keep other people employed and give profits to owners.
Do people sometimes game the system and get things through ways other than mutually beneficial trades? Sure. But that doesn't mean the system's broken.
Good post, you make many good points. The only thing I would counter is that when Wall Street investment houses can blow up the world economy and their own companies, get bailed out, still get their stupid-large bonuses and have no one go to jail, the system is broken. Power does what power wants for the most part. I suppose it has always been thus. But I'd like to see society recognize this as a problem and actually do something about it. I think that would help us move in the right direction.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
It looks increasingly like a benevolent dictatorship is the only way to work, with the constant and prevalent threat of assassination for poor-performers.
Maybe that's it. Like George Carlin said, I have the right to do anything I want and you have the right to kill me. I can't think if a fairer deal than that!
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
People's greed and lust for power is as much a part of us as our sex drive, and trying to 'keep it out' of anything is a waste of time. We should focus instead on structures which are resistant to it and which can function even in the presence of greed and lust for power - which is incidentally why checks and balances works, and why capitalism has been more successful than other things.
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
- It won't ever ask for a raise, and likewise raising the minimum wage rate doesn't affect it.
The person who programs and/or manages the robot might ask for a raise though. The company that made the robot isn't going to give it to you for free or service it for free either.
- It isn't subject to OSHA.
The people that handle it are. There is a lot of expense in safety equipment when you have robots around people. Very very few factories are so-called "lights out" factories.
- It doesn't ever call in sick.
But it can (and probably will) break down.
Capitalism isn't failing any time soon.
What would you say are the conditions that would qualify capitalism as having failed? Keep in mind I will compare them to what qualified various communist states as failed.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Partially correct, but IMO, not the whole picture.....
A job really is only created when an employer decides to offer it.
Even if someone has more people wanting to use his/her service than he can handle, he has other options besides creating a new job to hire extra help. I see this every day.... Many people decide that thanks to all the government "red tape", it's not desirable to grow the business larger than the sole proprietorship level it's at. (As soon as you hire that first employee, you're mired in a mess of payroll taxes, questions about health insurance and benefits, worker's comp, etc. etc. You're practically committing to hiring at least TWO people, right off the bat, because you need an accountant to make sure all of that is done properly!)
You also see this all the time in the restaurant industry. Someone will be perfectly happy running a restaurant that gets so crowded, people have to wait 60 minutes or more just to get seated, and people who didn't call ahead with reservations are turned away. Whenever you witness that, you see potential additional jobs right there not being realized. This place is losing business right before your eyes, yet they're not trying to change it by hiring more waitstaff, leasing a larger place, hiring extra chefs, etc.
You're correct that nobody creates a new job out of purely altruistic motivations. But neither are they ever "forced" to do it, just because their business is a success. If you're earning enough money so you're content, and business is steady enough so you're not overly worried about income randomly dropping off -- you don't really have a reason to hire more people at all. You *might* do it, if greed is a motivator for you and you're always looking for ways to make MORE money. But then we bad-mouth and crucify those types when they go after that motivation and build a huge corporation, hiring MANY people, and finally get themselves those huge salaries.
There will come a time when the profits made by the corporations will start to be affected by the unemployment created by automation and robotics. It's inevitable.
How will the corporations and governments deal with mass unemployment?
That is as important a question as any of the other major crises that are headed our way.
Will we end up "living" in the "Foam Cubes", guarded and monitored by a Robot Police Force?
Will we end up like the people in "Surrogates"?
It is fascinating that no one wants to really take a hard long look at what is coming, isn't it?
Yes, we could live the utopian dream Marshall Brain presents in "Manna", but how likely is that to occur?
It is obvious with the manipulation that the 1% is marshaling, they are not going to let that happen under any circumstances...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Or the hurdles Tesla is facing trying to sell their cars without conventional 'dealerships' in several states...
Ken
....needing socialism!
The problem the U.S. has is *corporatism"; meaning a situation where the biggest businesses managed to buy influence into government and co-mingle with it.
We've become a government by the corporation, for the corporation (which still tosses around the "By the people, for the people!" paperwork as propaganda to keep the citizenry content).
As I've pointed out to people before, the Star Trek: TNG universe really only works because of the imaginary technologies in the series which make real-world constraints vanish. You've got the replicator which eliminates the entire "supply and demand" concept for goods. Anything someone might wish for is just "ordered up" and assembled instantly out of atoms floating around in space. You've also got the teleporter and the warp drive technologies, which bypass the constraints people have in the real world of limitations on travel. (EG. I would see advantages X, Y and Z if I was able to be over there right now instead of here, but that's realistically impossible due to the time required to travel, not to mention the cost of said travel!) And interestingly, even in the Star Trek universe, there still seems to be central government of sorts (Starfleet Command) which isn't appreciated by all inhabitants of said universe. That would seem to be tied to the one constraint left; limited availability of energy. The Dilithium crystals are supposedly rare and only found on certain planets, meaning whoever controls those planets controls the energy source practically all the starships rely on. (I guess in the Star Trek IV movie, Spock supposedly found a way to synthesize these, but only by using extinct fission reactor technology from the 20th. century. Still doesn't sound like a reliable and unlimited energy source for them.)
Many forms of government are "good" and "workable" in theory..... It's usually the constraints of the real world we live in which make most of them fall flat.
I'd be surprised if those guys don't have hobbies or knowledge that could benefit others. From running a youth sports team, to gardening or habitat renewal. Their are all sorts of things people will do if you remove the financial incentives.
But, go ahead, toss that human on the trash heap...
Cheap storage VM.
Greed
I'd rather have millions of corporate overlords than 1 government overlord.
Yeah, but those aren't really your options, are they?
The choice you actually get to make it whether you'd prefer a couple number of corporate overlords, each a master of their domain (oil, telecomm, etc) or a small number of government overlords (the military, Federal Justice department, etc).
94% of waiters will be replaced with automation? Ah, they didn't even do that in the old Horn and Hardart Automats. Do you *really* want all your meals out to be buffet style? Or is that all of them are prepacked and they nuke it for you? In that case, why go out?
Or, for that matter, would you trust a completely automated fast food joint? Wait until the first lawsuits over someone getting sick, or dying, becuase some sensor went off.
Reatil salespeople? You mean, like in the supermarkets with self-check? Those folks who come over to deal with when it goes off - they're not people?
And, for that matter, if you raise the minimum wage - and do NOT try to claim that most folks working minimum wage are teenagers living at home; that's an outright and provable lie - some of those folks might be able to go down to one or two jobs, instead of two or three. Or, if you raise it to a living wage, as some cities have done, or are doing, even more can go down to holding down one job.
But so many of you are stupid fools who think that working 80 hour weeks means you're Important, rather than that your manager sees you have no life whatever of your own, and that they own you.
mark
--
"There's a sucker born every minute" - PT Barnum
How about 6 corporate overlords, as practically everything is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a handful of companies?
At the government overlord has to sort of pretend what they're doing is for your benefit. There are no such illusions with the corporation.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Better yet, where's our open source, online, free as in speech and beer method of self-governance? The Internet has done an amazing job at eliminating middlemen, and politicians are the ultimate middlemen. Why are we bothering to pay attention to these clowns any longer? Why can't we have a wikipedia/sourceforge for laws? Write better laws than exist in your city/county/state/country and vote on them?
Is it a perfect system? Of course not, but have you seen what we've got now?!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
That's the best argument against communism I've ever heard. If a bunch of Germans can't make it work, how can anybody?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
All of those interesting, niche, "hobby" jobs are more than saturated by people who excel at them. If I could get by on my hobby YouTube channel I would but there are already 100 others out there who have filled the market, extract more revenue and can devote more time to it.
Doing electrical maintenance on automated lines I see a lot of people who are only cut out for braindead labour, when they get replaced by new equipment they don't get offered a new job doing something more "human" they go to the next factory and pack boxes, or load materials into other equipment. Without some serious education changes there is a BIG demographic of people who can not do anything but the most basic of jobs. It will be a problem sooner than later.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Maybe. But I have yet to encounter a system that cannot be subverted by determined people. You say checks and balances work, but I see a government out of the control of the people it's supposed to serve, and in the control of wealthy special interests. I see a justice system in which money and skin color matter more than guilt or innocence. I see an executive branch hell bent on spying on everyone and a congress and judiciary that don't seem to mind too much. I see an economic system that concentrates money and power at the top and leaves most of the rest behind.
I guess you could say that our system works. But there are many levels of working. A body riddled with cancer still works, technically speaking. But it is so sub-optimal that we say it is sick. So while our system works, I'd also characterize it as sick and in need of healing.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The point is that this is a natural state that capitalism devolves to.
So you think there is only room for one river guide, one fisherman, one coach? You don't have to be the best at everything. There is plenty of room for mediocre in a talent based economy. Mediocre might just be the starting point that people can't get past when they devote most of their time to a day job.
I've also seen plenty of "braindead" laborers. Their brains aren't always dead when they are off the job and they all have something interesting about them if you take the time.
People don't start out as "braindead", I would like to work toward a time when we don't make them "braindead".
Cheap storage VM.
How about 6 corporate overlords, as practically everything is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a handful of companies?
That's hyperbole. Just take the Fortune 500 for example; as a rule it excludes "U.S. companies owned or controlled by other companies, domestic or foreign, that file with a government agency."
There are no such illusions with the corporation
Who wants an illusion?
Anyway, just so I'm clear: I don't want to get rid of the government. It has its role. At the very least, it is beneficial by keeping check on corporate monopolies (in theory at least... if we could reduce or eliminate corporate lobbying, maybe it wouldn't just be theory).
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I largely agree, however we must keep in mind that we really don't have any better alternatives at the moment. We're still too young as a species.
One thing we do know is that some systems are harder to subvert than others. IMHO, that's what we should be researching, that's what we should be implementing: systems which, while not perfect, are the ones that are hardest to subvert, the ones that work the best when the inputs are dysfunctional, greedy, short sighted people.
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
A really, REALLY big war. That gets rid of all the stupid people, a lot of not-so-stupid people, a bunch of smart people, and a whole lotta infrastructure that probably needed to go anyway. Then, big economic boom for the entire world afterward. Simple!
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I'm starting to think roman_mir is a novelty account mocking himself.
Pure capitalism is letting the market decide which leads to the monopolization of industries.
Nope.
Nobody's ever succeeded in establishing a coercive monopoly without government backing. In a free market, monopoly is a non-issue. For example, when Alcoa was the only vendor of Aluminum in the United States, the pricing of aluminum fell continuously.
-jcr
Standard Oil and Bell says otherwise, in different ways.
The first one is just a matter of "are you big enough, ruthless enough and no rules stop you, you can get rid of competition that way".
The second one - Bell - is interesting. For some services, like telephony, if you don't have government regulation you will get a natural monopoly. The phone companies would earn more money if they merged - no need to ever compete on price, or duplicate infrastructure. The price would be based on the value to consumers, not on the marginal cost of providing it as in a perfect market. And competition would be hard to come by - refuse to receive and make calls to this network. Knowing this, a competetive network would never appear in the first place.
Don't forget antitrust, which is absolutely essential.
people don't need incentive to go above and beyond for anything that matters. Einstein was paid like shit his whole life, but his mathematics changed everything. OTOH we pay guys millions to run micro-Transaction fueled investment firms that skim off the top of all society like a bloated tick.
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Price has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with (perceived) supply / demand.
The supply curve is in part determined by marginal cost.
just as I am not allowed to "demand" you purchase any particular good or servi... oh wait. I forgot we passed the ACA.
One is required to buy or rent shelter. State and local laws criminalizing sleeping in public places predate the Affordable Care Act by decades.
"The Goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play" ... 100% agreed.
We are in front of a perfectly renewable and balanced dinner table/house (our planet), everything is there , for free, for everyone. Why we do allow some of us to have more and to create unbalance ? why is someone allowed to keep more than what he can enjoy fully?
This is the ruin and culprit of all.
Amen
The Government’s Appalling Campaign Against Small Bus Companies
Everyone is allowed to be a fool.
If you keep the minimum wage at 7.25, then a couple without kids, both of whom are on minimum wage, can barely get by. $15.50 for two, with medical insurance, taxes, food, lodging, car expense have no net net money, and thus, can't buy the goods or services they need.
Too low a minimum wage kills the economy. They also cannot put anything away for retirement.
In Quebec, and most Canadian provinces, we have the minimum wage at 11.25, allowing a couple to bring in at least $20/hr. At 800/week, they can afford to live quite reasonably, but not luxuriously, and even put a few pennies away for retirement.
They would even have money to cover a dental bill, or some other needs, besides clothing.
It is not correct for a person (a discount store, or restaurent worker) to have to beg money to get help for a dental bill, or to repair a car that has not been in an accident. Why, the price of Gasoline per gallon is almost at the minimum wage in NY for waiter and waitress workers.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
If you own a car
The Republicans' logic is that one is not forced to own a car. I, for one, happen to use the city bus and a Schwinn bicycle.
the law requires one to obtain either paper tax forms [...] These require leaving home, and state indecency laws regulate the manner in which one may leave home.
The forms are free at the Post Office.
Because of state and local indecent exposure laws, travel to the Post Office requires clothes.
What is up, by the way, with your fixation on nudity?
Because clothes happen to be something that at least some level of government requires all residents to own. This makes it a counterexample to some people's claim that ACA is the only U.S. law that requires anyone to purchase a particular class of product or service from the private sector.
Replace the president with an automaton... Oh wait...
That certainly is a pathology, and I'm not going to defend it one bit. You do something risky with someone else's money that they gave you? You lose your money, and if you deceived them about what you were going to do, you go to jail for fraud.
I don't see why the hell we bailed out the banks -- there's no shortage of people who'd like to earn interest making loans. If Bank of America went bust someone else more responsible would take its place.
This has nothing to do with minimum wage, but everything to do with the interaction of politics and economics, and the tradeoff between labor-saving devices and labor. It's a supposedly true story.
Milton Friedman was being given a tour by a government official of some public works project in Asia, perhaps a canal.
He asked, "Why are they using shovels instead of bulldozers? It would be much less expensive to do it that way."
The official replied that it was not just a public works project, but also a jobs program. Using shovels instead of bulldozers provided employment, and would boost the economy.
Without missing a beat, Friedman replied, "Oh. Why are they using shovels, instead of teaspoons?"
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.