'We Need Robots To Take Our Jobs,' Veteran Tech Reporter John Markoff Explains Why (recode.net)

Former New York Times technology reporter John Markoff used to think robots taking jobs was cause for alarm. Then, he found out that the working-age population in China, Japan, Korea and the U.S. was declining. From a report on Recode: "We need the robots for two reasons: On the one side, there are not enough workers," Markoff said on the latest episode of Recode Decode. "The demographic trends are more important than the technological trends, and they happen more quickly. On the other side, there's this thing called the dependency ratio, the ratio between caregivers and people who need care," he added. "For the first time last year, there were more people in the world who are over 65 than under five. First time ever in history. By the middle of the century, the number of people over 80 will double. By the end of the century, it'll be up sevenfold, globally."

Comments

decreasing population

[zlives]

does this mean the population (world wise) is on the decline...

Re:decreasing population

[rmdingler]

Population decline is an issue in many countries, primarily with low birth rates, but I think here they're speaking of the problems with population aging.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd hope so. It's possible the world is getting wise to the fact that we can't keep pushing the numbers we are and the planet won't take it. It might also be forced by the idea that raising kids today is basically impossible unless you're earning high 6-figures or want to commit your offspring to slave labor. Tomorrows world is looking even less appealing for our kids.

Once the distribution equalizes we'll be left with a net deficit of labor which is exactly where we need to be in the brave new world of automation. A universal basic income also makes more sense as we slip into that decline since there'll be less people to pay. We might even try enticing families into forfeiting fertility for a basic income and steepen that decline. A bit of caution though - you only have to engineer one generation of childless families to render our species extinct within 40 years.

Re:decreasing population

[backslashdot]

No because the number of years people are over 65 is higher than 5 years. Meaning, the sum of people 65 to, i dunno, 85 (that's about 20 years) is greater than the number of people aged under 5. That means the number of people born in those years could be much less than the people being born nowadays, even adjusting for deaths.

Re:decreasing population

[NotInHere]

I think its better to have population decline than population increase, as indefinite increase is not possible. You need to stop at some point.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

No because the number of years people are over 65 is higher than 5 years. Meaning, the sum of people 65 to, i dunno, 85 (that's about 20 years) is greater than the number of people aged under 5. That means the number of people born in those years could be much less than the people being born nowadays, even adjusting for deaths.

The people being born nowadays are younger.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Population increase can stop now since you were born, and you're planning to destroy the universe when you die. That about sum up your hubris?

Re:decreasing population

[WheezyJoe]

For the first time last year, there were more people in the world who are over 65 than under five. First time ever in history. By the middle of the century, the number of people over 80 will double. By the end of the century, it'll be up sevenfold, globally.

SEVENFOLD? At that rate, by the first half of the century after that, everyone will have died off! (unless we've figured out how to halt/reverse the aging process, and then "age" won't really matter).

Ya gotta question these numbers, but there's definitely a trend among developed nations toward not having kids, while better healthcare helps keep people alive longer. I think the former is ok (and if you don't now, someday you will), but not having kinds is a weird offshoot of how our world has evolved. Without a chance at a sustainable income in those golden child-making years (think get a job at the steel mill right out of high-school after knocking up your prom date... see the first half of The Deer Hunter to get a glimpse of those long-gone happy days), if you have anything to do with it you put off having kids, at least until you and your SO (if you have one) have enough reliable income to support the little tyke (or maybe you're lucky enough to have one or more sets of parental units living nearby who offer free nanny service because they really want grandkids).

The putting-off process very easily becomes indefinite. In some countries in Asia and Europe, this is becoming a big deal. Even in the U.S., population numbers are largely because of immigration.

I think we're gonna need those robots. Nice ones who will make our toys, take out the trash, help us up the stairs, mix up the medicine, and wipe our asses, everything the children of immigrants won't do because they're parent made 'em study real hard and make it into Harvard and MIT, so they can major in robotics 'cause maybe that'll make 'em enough money to someday pay off their student loans so they can maybe, you know, get married and have some kids.

Maybe. Gotta work long hours in that industry. Word has it that working in tech is bad for your sex life (if you believe the opinion of an at least semi-crazy gay billionaire).

Re:decreasing population

[skam240]

Yeah, look how our culture suffered when the Italians and Irish started coming over with their habbits of having huge families. The people back then even warned us, "the catholics are breeding us out!" but sadly no one would listen.

Or maybe they just all became Americans like the rest of us and it wasnt a problem at all. The vast majority of immigrants acculturate within a few generations. This is incredibly obviouse when looking at American history and can be seen happening today with Mexican and other Latin American immigrants. Most first gens are pretty Mexican in culture, second generation tends to run a wide spectrum and by the third generation they're American as all hell. At least that's what I've seen from every third plus generation American of Mexican descent that I've ever met. In my experience most dont even speak Spanish at that point. (unless they live near the boarder)

So anyways, stop your fear mongering. Western cultures (where most of this is happening right now) arent going anywhere.

Re:decreasing population

[zlives]

i think he was worried about the native American culture... ;)

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Better hope so, because if it's not true then in a generation or two we will be an order of magnitude more screwed than we already are.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

John Markoff - is that the same asshole who made a career writing inaccurate shit about Kevin Mitnick and repeating the same erroneous stories? Even though he knew they were wrong? The same asshole who presented himself to law enforcement as an expert on Mitnick even though he never met him? The same asshole who spent half his time ridiculing Mitnick's body? Is it that asshole?

Re: decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is cultural though rather than a lack of raw ability. There are plenty of smart black people who contribute to society. It's the ghetto mentality where guys stick around long enough to knock up as many chicks as possible, who then raise their kids to believe the government is their only hope of survival. They also learn that jungle law is the way of the world which is why they go around killing each other, and have no respect for their community. It's absolutely learned behavior.

Re: decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Asians are even considered 'white' now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/29/how-the-asians-became-white/

Re: decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Asians immigrants contribute to society in a positive way, so naturally they are labeled white.

Re:decreasing population

[unixisc]

So is there a population decline even in countries that are notorious for population increases through high birthrates? Like China, India, the Muslim world, Africa, et al?

Re: decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

World population is booming. Whites and generally most dominant ethnic groups of advanced societies are on the decline which is the natural cycle since advanced society tend to advocate family planning and exert cost pressures.

Now the if you don't like automation/robots, slaves, immigrants, H1Bs, other Low cost foreign labour and euthanasia, then who is gonna wipe your ass when you are old and senile miring in your own shit?

Re: decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

For the duration of this half a century, How do you live? Let the old people die?

Re:decreasing population

[skam240]

If our population is ever completely decimated by disease and then the remainders are butchered by aggressors then sure, we should worry about our culture disappearing,

Re:decreasing population

[davester666]

No. This time it will be completely different. The Muslims will kill us all and then steal our women and then replace our Constitution with Sharia Law. But Trump will stop them!

Re:decreasing population

[slashrio]

Thanks to the support of Alex Jones, right?

Re: decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Either that or the aging population has a problem with its eyesight!

If Americans could tell black from white, they probably would not have voted for Trump.

--
Dump the chump

Re:decreasing population

[Anne Thwacks]

The people being born nowadays are younger.

Where did you get the funding for this research?
Can I have some?

Re: decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Kevin, is that you?

Re:decreasing population

[jandersen]

So anyways, stop your fear mongering. Western cultures (where most of this is happening right now) arent going anywhere.

And no only that - Western Culture is, ironically, the result of wave after wave of immigration all the way back to the paleolithic: neanderthals, then modern humans, etc etc. At some point came the first farmers, then possibly the Indo-Europeans, the Germanic tribes went up to Scandinavia and then migrated south in the first half of the first millennium. Europe is in fact one of the messiest areas on the planet when it comes to ancestry. Very exciting to learn about, but we probably shouldn't talk too much about how 'pure' our ancestry is.

Re:decreasing population

[Kjella]

SEVENFOLD? At that rate, by the first half of the century after that, everyone will have died off! (unless we've figured out how to halt/reverse the aging process, and then "age" won't really matter).

Isn't extrapolation fun? Say the percent of the population that dies at 60-70-80-90 is 10%-80%-10%-1% and medical science bumps that to 1%-10%-80%-10%, being 80+ will go from quite rare to very common.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Errr. There are not many native Americans left. They were indeed much decimated by disease and by the white man and most that remain live on special patches of land called "reservations".

Re:decreasing population

[mjwx]

So anyways, stop your fear mongering. Western cultures (where most of this is happening right now) arent going anywhere.

This, if your culture is so weak that it can be destroyed by a minority entering your nation, it deserves to be destroyed.

Western (read: English, American, Canadian, Australian, so on and so forth) isn't going to be destroyed by foreigners. The only ones powerful enough to destroy it are ourselves... and fear mongerers are the ones trying to do just that. To keep our culture alive and strong, we need to marginalise the racists and xenophobes who want to divide us and make us weak... That is what the racists are afraid of, not the destruction of western culture but their own decent into irrelevance.

Re: decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be an idiot aren't you? But I will not make your mistake of labelling your ethnic group just because you are an idiot, I think that even in your group there are some decent guys. I'm italian by the way and even if my basic needs are fullfilled I will kick you inthe face on sight...you have been warned!

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you like potatoes? Pasta? Hot dogs? Hamburgers? Ice cream? Apple pie? Your "culture" has already been modified/replaced in a thousand ways over the last hundred years or so. Culture is always changing. The strong parts survive, the weak parts die off, the best qualities of each immigrant's culture is added to the mix. In another hundred years, the saying could very well be "as American as tacos and hummus" and nobody will even realize that there was ever a time that that wasn't the case AND THAT WILL BE COMPLETELY FINE because that's what has happened to every culture in the history of humanity.

Re:decreasing population

[LifesABeach]

Ya, people all over the world are not fucking as much.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and what about the elimination of recessive genes and the ethnic displacement of a people? People cry genocide when it happens to Tibet, but for Europe, not a peep. Queue the "something, something privilege" genocide apologists.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe learn to spell "habits".

Re:decreasing population

[lazy genes]

We should be focused more on increasing our population. It may be the most important variable in human intelegence ,after eliminating prejudice and discrimination .

Re:decreasing population

[lazy genes]

You're a fucking idiot. You don't understand the difference between illegal immigration and legal immigration. In a closed economic system you cannot bring in people from outside your economic system in order to compete against people inside the economic system. It tends to be another form of slavery when you give illegal aliens several fake IDs send them loose give them free housing free food free medicine.

Re:decreasing population

[lsatenstein]

Population decline is an issue in many countries, primarily with low birth rates, but I think here they're speaking of the problems with population aging.

That is why every wealthy country needs immigrants. We need youth, taxpayers and replacements for the oncoming generation that are retiring.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what wars are for...to thin out the population and allow an opportunity for those that remain. But now our wars and limited in size and mostly fought with technology. Perhaps we should go back to the old days and meet each other on the battlefield face to face with shields and swords.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlL65LD6I4

Re: decreasing population

[AutodidactLabrat]

Who let the Trumpist in here?

Re:decreasing population

[AutodidactLabrat]

Yes you can
it's called "race to the bottom" and the 1% DEMAND it!

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone born here is a native American. Either that, or no one is, and some tribes just arrived sooner than others, can't have it both ways.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Twnety years ago, I was at a Cable TV trade show, where all the channels were pushing their new programs. There was one channel that was aimed at the people of Latino/Hispanic ancestry, but who did NOT speak Spanish - so they are acculturating pretty fast

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. Plenty of cultures have died out because of racial replacement.

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the fittest and most cunning survived. Bolstered our IQ. Now we're inviting the laziest to live off welfare and breed us out.

So shove your purity argument from 50 years ago, moron, and just take a second to think about it.

Re: decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up the Minnesota Transracial Adoption study. Done back in the 70s by a social justice warrior crusading that everyone was equal. Well off white families adopting kids, with half-breed and black kids included. And... the white adopted kids had the highest IQs, black kids the lowest matching their parents, and the halfies in between.

Sometimes a cat acts like a fucking cat because of its DNA and not the environment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_Study

Re:decreasing population

[Anonymous Coward]

This conversation is completely off the rails, TFA was about robots, but anyway...

The immigration argument has more sides to it than that. People coming into our labor market who are poor create downward pressure on wages for labor. People whose jobs involve manual labor aren't happy about that. There's also leginimate concerns about crime, additional pressure on welfare, additional pressure on healthcare, on public schools, etc.

Re:decreasing population

[eric_harris_76]

I think its better to have population decline than population increase, as indefinite increase is not possible. You need to stop at some point.

I think its better to have population increase than population decline, as infinite decrease is not possible. You need to stop at some point: when there are no people.

Re:decreasing population

[skam240]

I'm an idiot? The conversation you're replying to has nothing to do with illegal versus legal immigration.

Maybe spend more time on reading comprehension and less time throwing hissy-fits in internet forums.

Re:decreasing population

[NotInHere]

I rather live in a world where there are maybe 2-5 billion people and everyone can live a great life than in one where there are 100 billion and everyone lives in poverty, everyone must be a vegetarian, and resources like places to live or pieces of untouched nature are rare.

With 10 billion people we will have a hard time to stop climate change or resource exploiting, especially if we want to treat most of them like humans and give them the opportunity to live a decent life.

Re:decreasing population

[jandersen]

Yeah, but the fittest and most cunning survived. Bolstered our IQ. Now we're inviting the laziest to live off welfare and breed us out.

And you are the prime example of this higher IQ, are you? To me you just sound like a scared little individual, curled up in a corner, not daring to look out into real life for fear that you might not be able to cope. With real intelligence and courage, you'd go out in the world to listen and learn as much as you can. Calling immigrants into the US (a nation that is nothing but immigrants) the laziest is simply deluded; the lazy and scared will always opt to stay home, not daring to go out, whereas the ones that do get up and go on the long and often difficult journey into the unknown, are the ones that are brave and intelligent enough to see that there is a better life to be had elsewhere. They enrich the nation they settle in, but of course, they will tend to out-compete the locals, because they work harder.

Re:decreasing population

[sethstorm]

They enrich the nation they settle in,

By taking from the citizens.

Re:decreasing population

[Archangel Michael]

It isn't my culture that is weak, it is the "embrace the radical Sharia Law Embracing Muslim" culture of the left that is weak. They are embracing that which will destroy them, because they have a weird penchant for false equivocation. But go ahead, embrace that which is antithetical to modern liberalism because anything less is "bigotry" and "Racism" and "hate" ...

Re:decreasing population

[Archangel Michael]

Embrace Sharia! Yeah, that's will teach those stupid Europeans!

Re:decreasing population

[skam240]

Yeah those German's are really getting the shit end of the stick with their massive intake of immigrants and unemployment rate lower than ours. They're sure doing something wrong helping those who need help while filling a labor gap!

Re:decreasing population

[skam240]

I'm sorry but your post is just stupid. What part of "radical sharia law" has the Left embraced? Some of the worst of radical sharia law the West rejects is the sexist garbage. Meanwhile we have this wonderful Alt-right president who thinks it's just fine to refer to women by any derogatory means he feels he needs to use.

But really, please. Name a part of sharia law which is contrary to American values but that the Left embraces. Support your statement.

Or maybe you're just an ignorant hillbilly.

seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

there are not enough workers

That is untrue and he knows it. I can hire dudes in china to make 5000 of something for 30 cents an hour. If there were not enough workers it would cost me a LOT more.

Want to know what there is a lack of? People willing to pay for training. Everyone wants pre-trained people. No one wants to let you learn or teach you. THAT is where the gap is.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

The average Chinese manufacturing wage is about $8k per year, at least triple your 30 cents an hour. Wages have been rising there for some time.

Re:seriously?

[Archangel Michael]

There aren't enough workers to make everything we want with no robots. Therefore, we need robots, because there aren't enough workers. The question is, how many workers do we need, and can we make stuff better and with fewer workers with robots? And that answer will always be "yes".

Here I'll explain for the Min Wage worker.

You can have a Big Mac, Fries, and a Coke for $8.50 made by a Min Wage worker
OR
You can have a Gourmet Burger, steak fries and a Coke for $11:50, made by a Robot.

Yes, you can save 1/3 of the price by going to Mc D's. But you'll miss out on a better patty, better bun, better veggies, better condiments ....

Yes, they are coming to take your job. But consider this, if you can be replaced by a robot, perhaps you should be.

Re:seriously?

[Tablizer]

Corporate-speak translation: "There are not enough highly-educated workers who are cheap, docile, and single so they have no family distractions."

In that sense, yes, there is a shortage.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I can hire dudes in china to make 5000 of something for 30 cents an hour. Maybe, but you can't hire them to empty your colostomy bag.

> the ratio between caregivers and people who need care There are jobs you can find people to hire for and jobs you can't.

Same reason people in U.S are complaining about 'Mexicans' taking all 'our' jobs but you will have a hard time finding Americans to pick fruit and vegetables for 10 hours a day in the 90+ sun or clean houses for any price.

Re:seriously?

[sjames]

And I'll explain for you. The minimum wage worker can probably manage the $8.50 meal once in a while. If he loses his job he has $0 to spend on any sort of burger.

That trend will not go well for anyone unless you're prepared to implement a basic income that will allow him to manage that $11.50 meal once in a while.

Re:seriously?

[0100010001010011]

Your point being? You can hire 5000 dudes in China to dig a ditch. Doesn't mean that you aren't better off with an excavator or other heavy equipment.

"Robots" have been taking jobs for hundreds of years. Water wheels and wind mills have taken jobs of men manually grinding flour. The steam engine took the jobs of horses and people in the field. Hydraulics took the job of people manually manipulating plows. Bigger tractors took the place of more people driving more steam engines.

What used to take a few hundred men with shovels can be done with an operator in a heavy equipment cab. What used to take a few hundred men underground hauling coal and other minerals can be done by a handful of men and heavy equipment. What used to take hundreds of teachers across the US can be done by online courses.

We need robots to take over the boring repetitive stuff of now so we can work on the jobs of the future. Just like has been done to now.

Does anyone really pine for the days that it took 50+% of our workforce just to make food for the other minority? If so the Amish are 'hiring'. We leave them well enough alone and they make great meats and cheeses for us to buy.

Re:seriously?

[Hognoxious]

Or, you know, just kill him.

Re:seriously?

[Archangel Michael]

Buggy Whips!

Basic Income can never work because it is "central planning" and that has never worked. The economy will survive in spite of short sighted people.

Re:seriously?

[sjames]

Guillotine!

Re:seriously?

[sjames]

Given the numbers, it's more likely they'll kill the rich.

Re: seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not central planning, it's central policy. And that has a great record- WW2, space, SSI, acid rain, the internet, need I go on?

There's a huge difference between trying to fiat production and consumption via "central planning" and it's obvious inefficiencies, versus merely handing out money.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

But consider this, if you can be replaced by a robot, perhaps you should be.

s/robot/H1B worker/

Re:seriously?

[skam240]

"Basic Income can never work because it is "central planning" and that has never worked."

No it's not, you're making that up. The government sending its citizens a check every month is not at all the same as central planning of the economy.

Re:seriously?

[Dunbal]

Not to mention "idle hands make for mischief". Paying people to sit around and do nothing is dangerous for any society.

Re:seriously?

[ffkom]

We need robots to take over the boring repetitive stuff of now so we can work on the jobs of the future.

The parallels to automation in the past might soon end: Could well be that robots are soon better then most humans at doing the creative, intelligent, innovative stuff, so the work left for humans to do in the future may be the awful kind of stuff for which expendable humans are less costly than expensive robots.

Re:seriously?

[BarbaraHudson]

So we should confiscate all the money of the idle rich, most of whom didn't earn it anyway.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a slippery slope you've got there. Robots continue to accelerate in complexity and ability. AI has come a long way in just the last 10 short years. So it won't be just minimum wage workers at McDonalds. It will be engineers, support personnel, teachers, truck/bus/taxi drivers, etc. Heck, managers should be the first to go. They don't even produce anything.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could well be, but until there's the slightest bit of evidence for it you probably don't need to worry.

Re: seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

People forget what can be considered a robot. If it has optical sensors, user interface, a microprocessor to follow algorithms and make decisions, motors to move things, then a washing machine, fax machine, dish washing machine, toaster, laser printer, jukebox are all robots. Many have freed up hours of time in the home and at work.

Re:seriously?

[jbengt]

I've always said (only half jokingly) that jobs were invented by the ruling class to keep people too busy to cause trouble for the rich.

Re:seriously?

[Stan92057]

how many burgers will that robot of yours buy again? Gourmet or not.

Re:seriously?

[lgw]

The idle rich are a very small set of people. Most people do something with their lives given the opportunity. And that's the problem we need to solve: giving everyone that opportunity. We as a society suck at vocational training, and we can fix that.

In Germany if you want to work at, say, Mercedes, you'll be an intern on the factory line by 16, having gotten an education specifically tuned for that job and the chance to do the work. By graduation, you're there in that well-paying skilled manufacturing job.

America has over a million high skilled manufacturing jobs unfilled due to lack of trained workers. The companies aren't going to do that on their own -- they aren't schools -- but we as a society can surely work together with those manufacturers to make it happen. But instead we turn up our noses at blue-collar work, dismiss the working class as stupid racists, and generally separate education from labor as far as we possibly can. It won't end well.

Re:seriously?

[lgw]

Remember that racist president who said this, then grabbed a woman's pussy?

All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.

What a racist misogynist asshole that was, right?

Re:seriously?

[sjames]

18th century puritan morals guiding a 21st century economy. Probably not a great idea.

What makes you believe that people won't do anything?

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is in every one of those cases there were new jobs that people could transition too easily. The difference now is that there aren't new jobs being created that the people getting replaced by technology can easily transition to. The learning curve for the next new jobs is just too high.

Re:seriously?

[RightwingNutjob]

Quite right. It's the next rung down. Don't bother coming up with expectations, just send a check one way and hope to god that votes come back in the other direction. It's remarkable actually, almost meta: laziness in government to actively subsidize sloth in the citizenry.

Re: seriously?

[reanjr]

Management functions primarily as a distributed buffer for blame. It will continue to serve that purpose for the foreseeable future.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

But instead we turn up our noses at blue-collar work,

"You don't understand. Ferengi workers don't want to stop the exploitation, we want to find a way to become the exploiters."

dismiss the working class as stupid racists,

Versus the smart non-racists? See, this is just another way of saying, "I'm better than *those* people and hence will never be like them."

and generally separate education from labor as far as we possibly can.

Because manufacturing is a dying industry. Or, more precisely, it's a booming industry for productivity because we keep automating things.

It won't end well.

It didn't start well either, so we're pretty par the course.

Re:seriously?

[Dog-Cow]

It's also illogical to state that just because B is not A, which failed, that B will not fail. They can both fail, even if they are not the same thing, or fail for the same reason.

Re:seriously?

[Hognoxious]

Nope. The rich can afford better weapons and - crucially - they can afford to hire some of the poor to kill the others.

As independent contractors, obviously. None of that benefits and conditions shit.

Re:seriously?

[skam240]

Basic Income was conceived of in response to the idea that human labor might become obsolete in a wide sense. If all of the manual labor is being done by robots then what are the masses going to live on? Likewise, if we are able to meet all or most of our manual labor needs through automation why waste human potential on manual labor?

You're conceptualizing basic income in a world exactly like ours. If you conceptualize it in the context of a post manual labor world, which we do seem to be heading towards, then it comes out as the only logical alternative to butchering the excess population.

Re:seriously?

[sjames]

That didn't work out so well (for the aristocracy) in France. It didn't work any better for the Tsar.

We don't have to break into your bunker. Filling the entrance and vent with concrete will be sufficient.

Re:seriously?

[skam240]

So something that isnt the same as something that failed could also fail? That is the most uninsightful thing I've heard of in god only knows how long. I never stated basic income wouldnt fail because it isnt the same as centralized economic planning. That's you putting words into my mouth. All I stated is that centralized planning has nothing to do with basic income so pointing out the failure of one has nothing to do with the other.

In other words, you're pointing the obvious and have contributed nothing to the conversation.

Re: seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

In France the King had muskets and cannons, and the rebels had muskets and cannons. More important, a good number of soldiers who were underpaid and badly treated sided with the rebels (who also happened to be their friends and families) and actually knew how to use those weapons. Without them there would have been no taking of the Bastille. Now? You may have some rifles and handguns and in some countries not even that. No chain of command, no formal training in tactics, no communication or control... While the opponent has pretty much everything. Rise up, end as bugsat. It's as simple as that.

Re: seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Make a robot that buys burgers. Problem solved.

Re: seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence all that crime committed by the elderly.

Re:seriously?

[Hognoxious]

They did it wrong. They didn't get enough of the poor on their side, and neglecting the army (or as they're called in the US, the police) is fucking retarded.

You don't see skinny coppers & soldiers in Zimbabwe.

Re:seriously?

[Anne Thwacks]

Paying people to sit around and do nothing is dangerous for any society.

Yes .. it created the cultural revolution of the 1960's - here in the UK that meant the Beatles, swinging London, long hair, bright coloured clothes and shirt skirts. (Lady Chatterly's Lover and the Profumo Affair were unrelated to kids on the dole).

Not paying them when they are sitting down doing nothing created the Luddites and the French Revolution.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

... because it is "central planning" and that has never worked ...

Fail: Hand in your Geek card and please leave the forum immediately. By your definition subsidized healthcare, military expenditure and parenting allowance "has never worked" too.

As the word 'planning' suggests, the communist model involved setting the number of units to be produced and the price: What capitalist model adds, is the flexibility to maximize revenues and minimize expenses. Both the nationalized factories (communism/pure socialism) and lassez-faire (capitalism) implementations sow the seeds of their own destruction. Capitalism uses limiting the power of producers to stabilize the system. To date, the communist model doesn't have a counter-balancing mechanism and will slowly self-destruct.

Re:seriously?

[orin]

Smug Slashdot nerds chortling at the working class getting replaced by robotics won't be so smug when a great deal of their own jobs will be replaced by increasingly remarkable automation.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

That, and most people simply aren't cut out for the creative, intelligent and innovative stuff. For that you need to be in the top 5% of the bell curve and chances are you aren't.

Re:seriously?

[serviscope_minor]

The companies aren't going to do that on their own -- they aren't schools

Why not? They used to. It seems to be the ultimate form of freeloading to expect other people to pay for the training they need.

we turn up our noses at blue-collar work, dismiss the working class as stupid racists

We don't. We dismiss racist people as racist and people who are too thick to understand what is racism and what isn't, we dismiss as thick.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit there are people who actually believe this protestant crap? Or was that sarcasm?

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a joke. That's exactly how it is.

Re:seriously?

[thomn8r]

The idle rich are a very small set of people.

And yet they have more wealth than 1/2 the rest of the world's population: https://www.theguardian.com/bu...

Re: seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll buy plenty of oil, and screws, and whatever else robots need.

Re:seriously?

[bluefoxlucid]

There aren't enough workers to make everything we want with no robots. Therefore, we need robots, because there aren't enough workers.

People can't get that far, and you're not there yet; but good eye, finally.

I keep telling people scarcity occurs when the production rate of a good scales beyond linear. That is: if you have 1,000,000 people and grow population to 1,100,000 people, you need 10% more farmers--exactly as many farmers and, specifically, farm labor hours per person as before--and food prices don't go up. If you have 10,000,000 people and scale to 11,000,000, you run out of good land; you can still make enough food, but at lower yield and with more fertilizer and irrigation, meaning you need 24% as many people instead of 11% more (10% farmers, 1% everyone else involved), and that last marginal unit of food becomes 2.4x as expensive (food is overall 11.7% more expensive).

Most people can't seem to grasp this simply because they're exposed to high school economics, and attached to this idea that supply is independent outside factors and the economy of scale is infinite. Good luck growing wheat on uneven, rocky soil--there's a reason supply stops where it does. Somehow they occasionally get as far as explaining that demand is the demand for a good at a given price, and can't figure out why something is at any given price; they try to assert that all prices are set based on maximizing price x demand, and then talk about competition bringing prices down, and fail to see the conflict in their own incomplete reasoning.

So to complete the thought: there aren't enough workers because we can't scale production to feed and otherwise support those workers while deriving more stuff from them; and, more fundamentally, there aren't enough workers because workers would create more demand for goods (being themselves consumers), so we can't keep up.

Robots are just technology. We did this with electricity, with motor cars, with pneumatic hammers, with shipping pallets ... we replace jobs. We reduce the number of labor-hours to achieve a result, and then what? Instead of 10 workers making $10/hr, you have 5 workers making $10/hr; each of those 5 workers still gets his $400/week, and the things he makes cost half as much--leaving money to spend. Eventually (after cycling unemployment) those other 5 workers make other things, and we can buy those products and pay them.

We want the robots; we just don't want them to come all at once. Bump unemployment by 0.1%, continuously, month after month. The economy will recover before it starts to sink into recession. If you bump it by 2% in 6 months, everybody will panic, and the replacement rate will accelerate, and we'll be back at 8% or 12% unemployment and in another major recession.

It's time. The last dimension is time.

Re: seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

AI Software error.

Microsoft CEO[TM] has stopped unexpectedly. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to reboot.

Re:seriously?

[bluefoxlucid]

A universal social security is a form of basic income. It's unplanned, in as much as any policy is unplanned.

I described a Universal Social Security including transitional plans, tax modifications, and the like as of 2013, to avoid both tax increases and hard cut-offs of in-use welfare services. This transitions away our existing services and replaces them with a cash benefit for every resident, adult American over the age of 18. For naturalized Americans (immigrant citizens), this is paid as a non-refundable tax credit instead; and naturalized Americans and children in low-income households receive public aid from a condensed system providing food security, housing assistance, and unemployment benefits--basically the same system, today, cut back to roughly 1/12 its size.

The Universal Social Security benefit collects a 17% flat tax on all income (business and personal) by taxable income rules, similar to OASDI's 6.2% tax on paychecks. This replaces OASDI's paycheck and payroll taxes, as well as 55% of the current income tax; the remainder of income tax is adjusted to a new progressive tax system ranging from 0% to 22.6%, giving total income tax brackets from 17% to 39.6%. The 17% income is collected bi-weekly as per current IRS rules (as with OASDI) and funds the Social Security Trust Fund; benefits are paid as a flow-through system. This uses the same model as OASDI.

This system has a number of features. Of note to you, in this context, there are two.

Firstly, this system automatically adjusts for income and productivity. This system takes the number of taxable dollars earned total (which is always minimized by any means available to the taxpayer), reserves from it a fixed percentage, and divides this up among all resident, adult Americans evenly. In simple terms, this gives out a percentage of the after-tax income per capita, which is roughly proportional to the total income per capita. Because of this feature, the actual purchasing power of the Universal Social Security benefit increases precisely to reflect increases in America's total purchasing power.

Second, this system supports Malthusian growth in the same way as the general economy. When the economy grows to the edge of its means, it encounters scarcity: further growth requires an increase in labor greater than the increase in population, and so the economy's ability to provide goods decreases, and the price of goods provided increases with the additional labor required to scale that far. This is self-stabilizing: because more is spent on these more-expensive goods, nothing is spendable on the goods we can't produce, thus there is no demand for jobs for which there is no labor. The Universal Social Security benefit is impacted by this to its exact degree: growth into scarcity reduces the per-capita purchasing power, and thus proportionally reduces the purchasing power of the benefit; the poor and middle-class will thus feel the pressure of this scarcity the same way they feel any recession, to the same effect.

Thus this form of universal basic income is not substantially-different in terms of basic economic behavior from any current system; and this system is bluntly mathematical, being adjusted by what occurs in the economy without requiring the knowledge, calculation, and planning of central bureaucrats. It is a system founded on free-market principles and on the natural, rational behavior of individuals to economize, and itself is nothing more than a reflection of the economy around it.

Why would you not make a self-stabilizing system? Human planners can't get anything right; things change and they insist on staying the same.

Re:seriously?

[bluefoxlucid]

Basic Income was conceived of in response to the idea that human labor might become obsolete in a wide sense.

Which is both ludicrous and history. The amount of manual labor required to perform what we do today is ludicrous. Go back to the Holy Roman Empire and have them build the things we build; they can't do it. It's not that they physically can't build any given thing; it's that they are physically incapable of supplying the labor to build that much of the things we build.

Before we invented the hot blast furnace, we used over 200 times as much labor to make iron. Railroads didn't exist until the hot blast furnace because it would require more than the GDP of the world to maintain all the world's railways; they'd never get into operation before they were already aging and falling apart.

Re:seriously?

[bluefoxlucid]

"Robots" have been taking jobs for hundreds of years.

Have you been listening? You must be the only one; everyone else here is luddites.

Re:seriously?

[hipp5]

Not to mention "idle hands make for mischief". Paying people to sit around and do nothing is dangerous for any society.

Except how many people will sit around doing nothing? I know I'd get pretty depressed doing that. If I didn't have to work, I'd probably travel, write a book, maybe develop that video game I've been planning in my head. UBI would be amazing for society's cultural pursuits, for research, for innovative design; it would take the risk out of moonshots for sure.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's the problem we need to solve: giving everyone that opportunity. We as a society suck at vocational training, and we can fix that.

No, we can't. At least not at present, where every drooling asshole is allowed to breed and then harp on their little hellspawn that "You can do anything you want!" for eighteen years.

Then Little Johnny grows up and wonders why he's homeless as a self-styled Philosopher King.

Little Suzie is in a rage because it's clearly the patriarchy keeping her down, not her degree in gender studies.

And Little Bob is doing well, up until the point where he blows his fucking brains out because he wanted to be a park ranger, not an investment banker.

Shoving spoons into hands and telling people to dig the Panama Canal isn't going to fix reality.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

The minimum wage worker can probably manage the $8.50 meal once in a while.

$8.50 for one meal? That's a pretty large chunk of a weekly food budget for one individual in poverty.

Re:seriously?

[RandyHill]

Why would he lose his job? We are tremendously more automated today and have as many jobs as ever.

Remember when the world was running out of resources in the 70s and was on the verge of starvation and riots?

Remember peak oil?

Ahh, malthusians.

Re:seriously?

[RandyHill]

Without a work requirement and means testing, basic income can never work. No one is going to work to pay taxes to let others sit around in their underwear arguing on internet forums.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

And scrapple.. don't forget the yummy scrapple!

Re:seriously?

[sjames]

Because it's happening in a stagnant economy. This has come about before, and was corrected with the New Deal. I'm not claiming automation will end us, just that we're going to need another New Deal to balance the books.

As for the rest, perhaps you hadn't noticed prices going up and the many conservation measures that have been implemented.

Re:seriously?

[wyHunter]

I would argue that Mr. Soros is already starting this yes.

Re:seriously?

[sjames]

It's going to take more time than the aristocracy here has to get to the starting point in Zimbabwe.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Panem et circenses

Re: seriously?

[sjames]

Note that the dissatisfied here include Gulf War veterans, National Guardsmen, and for that matter active members of the armed services.

Re:seriously?

[Hognoxious]

At least in Zimbabwe they genuinely believe that black lives matter.

OK, only if they're of the right tribe, but it's a start.

Re:seriously?

[lgw]

You'll find most of those people aren't idle, they're making investment decisions, and usually the most wealthy got that way by founding a company. Do you consider software developers idle? Is the work of the mind not work? Work of the mind is the only sort of work that will exist in 100 years, after all.

Re:seriously?

[Hognoxious]

I wouldn't rush to invest in torch & pitchfork futures if I were you. What if a new series of Honey Boo Boo comes out?

Re: seriously?

[Hognoxious]

Are you suggesting it's a sufficient number that a civil war would be plausible? I think that's stretching it. Whether the military attracts that kind of people or conditions them that way, they tend to be authoritarian - like Trump.

Tell them that the other side are queers or communists and most of them will be happy to shoot babies all day.

Re:seriously?

[murphtall]

Go back further and humans were building HUGE TEMPLES AND PYRAMIDS by hand.

Re:seriously?

[skam240]

Sure they are if it means having the money to have a nice house and nice things as opposed to only having money to live in a shity apartment without a ton of possessions. Basic income is just that, Basic. If you want possessions outside the basics then you'll want a job.

Re:seriously?

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes, out of stone hauled from the ground, rolled on wheels, etc. Amazing what a little leverage will get you. The Romans used concrete; it was faster and they built actual cities.

Re: seriously?

[sjames]

Right now, it's not enough. If the trends continue, it could happen. No matter how you try, you're not going to convince a bunch of soldiers that their dads, brothers, and uncles are queer. In the '30s, socialism was a hard sell on Wall street but it was starting to sound pretty good in Hooverville.

Re:seriously?

[sjames]

Better keep up the budget for circuses or too many people will notice they can't see it because they couldn't pay the cable bill.

Re:seriously?

[werepants]

America has over a million high skilled manufacturing jobs unfilled due to lack of trained workers.

Interesting datapoint - can you provide a citation?

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the smart rich, who wall themselves into their communities and line the walls with automated turrets.

Re:seriously?

[sjames]

And someone hacks the turrets.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like you're getting ahead of yourself. We have an employment rate near 4% with about a million openings in highly skilled labor markets. For some reason young people are going to college rather than opting for a high-paying job right out of trade school. Regardless, lack of jobs is not an issue at the present time. Shouldn't we wait until there is actually evidence of a problem before redesigning our whole economy??? Seems prudent to me.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. In the past, this school of vocation was called an apprenticeship.

Re:seriously?

[lgw]

Is your google broken?

It was about 600k in 2014, rising every year, expected to be 2-3 million by 2025.

Re:seriously?

[werepants]

Still not a citation - if you're making the claim, burden of proof lies on you to back it up. Fivethirtyeight, which is a highly credible source in my experience, lists it at 379,000, less than half of your number: https://fivethirtyeight.com/fe...

That same site disagrees with your reasoning as well - is the problem a skills gap, or is it that companies aren't really willing to pay to get the right people hired? Generally, a worker shortage doesn't mean that there aren't any qualified applicants - it means that there aren't qualified applicants turning up at the price you're willing to pay.

As well, all the trendlines for manufacturing job growth are pointing in the wrong direction right now - the manufacturing sector is always doing everything it can to minimize labor costs, and there are a lot of technologies on the horizon that promise to continue that trend. The major sectors for job growth involve services.

Re:seriously?

[lgw]

Still not a citation - if you're making the claim, burden of proof lies on you to back it up.

I'm not here to do your homework. There are dozens of articles about this on google away, if you actually want to learn.

. Fivethirtyeight, which is a highly credible source in my experience,

Hahaha, nice one.

it means that there aren't qualified applicants turning up at the price you're willing to pay.

Paying more lets you hire away from other employers. For it to change the size of a skilled labor pool there has to be a way for workers to train. (How else would you imagine the total size of the pool of capable workers growing?) Why aren't we providing this? There are some fields where community college work well for entry, but not most blue-collar work. We need the equivalent there, and not scammers like ITT tech etc.

Re:seriously?

[werepants]

If companies needed these positions filled so badly, they would be doing two things: raising wages, and creating their own training programs. Supply is apparently low, but since prices aren't going up then apparently demand is also low. Or if you believe this is such a dire problem, surely there's money to be made in creating a training program? That's the free market for you.

Since you have failed to support your claim in the face of contradictory evidence, your numbers look suspect. I'm not going to go hunting to support a random assertion you made to support your increasingly weak argument. If you expect to be taken seriously, you need to provide sources to show that your argument is based in reality. Nobody else is going to do that for you.

Re:seriously?

[lgw]

, and creating their own training programs.

WTF does a factory know about teaching someone the shit they should have learned in high school? We're not talking about a 2-week training session here - they'd do that easily.

Anyway, are you actually saying that providing an education is the job of corporations, not the government? Really? That's the stand you want to make?

Since you have failed to support your claim in the face of contradictory evidence, your numbers look suspect

OK, you're too lazy to even do some simple googling. Were done here.

Re:seriously?

[werepants]

, and creating their own training programs.

Based on the numbers, the "skills gap" that exists is about highly specialized skills that are industry-specific (or even facility-specific) and advanced mathematics - neither is going to be solved by a vocational program, which you seem to think is the answer. The way you solve that is with better internal training to teach the specialized skills, and with more money to attract people with math skills (STEM degree holders, in other words). Look at engineering positions, which require advanced math and technical skills, and you'll find that they pay a lot better than the $16-$18/hr that the manufacturing sector is offering. The manufacturing sector is trying to fill an engineering-level position with assembly line pay.

OK, you're too lazy to even do some simple googling.

False. Simple googling shows you're wrong. It's on you to prove the contrary.

Re:seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

it used to be an innovation could be adapted to over the course of multiple generations, now multiple innovations happen over the course of a single generation

Theory vs. Practice

[Tablizer]

In theory it's great, in practice it will "hit" people in different ways unevenly, and is part of the reason the rich are getting richer while the rest stagnate.

We don't know how to organize an economy to take advantage of such. We only have theories that have yet to be tested. That means we are guinea-pigs. But if we do nothing, we are still guinea-pigs, because doing nothing means changes in jobs and automation will still impact us, but without any planning.

Such displacement is arguably why T won: he gave a voice to the displaced of the Rust Belt, which are swing states. His reasoning about solutions is all off kilter, but he at least gave the problem top billing.

Managing change is politically tricky.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is that the solutions are complex and a lot of people are conditioned to be automatically hostile to them (because they are associated with socialism). It's hard to sell complex ideas when your opponent offers simple and seemingly easy ones that don't require any effort on the voter's part beyond putting an X in a box.

Unfortunately we may simply have to let guys like Trump fail hard before people realize that they need real, complex solutions.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you using "complex solutions" as a synonym for socialism (and by transitive property solutions == socialism)?

Putting the cart before the horse there. How about we find out what works before claiming one and only one solution is the ultimate answer to everything.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[coolmoe2]

well for a lot of things people had to die to find out. I nominate you to test new theories.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[sjames]

In general, there's truth to that, but in the most recent case, we had one party with a field so weak the just do something simple guy won. In the other camp, the guy who wanted a more nuanced and comprehensive approach got the sandbag so they could run on a platform of more of the same.

Re: Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? The GOP wasn't the weaker field? You must have watched Fox the whole time.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[roman_mir]

The problem is that the solutions are complex and a lot of people are conditioned to be automatically hostile to them

- no, the problem is that in your ideology a 'solution' is something that requires hostility towards an individual in the first place. You want to overpower, dominate, rule, subjugate, oppress, violate, incapacitate, destroy individual rights and freedoms because in your head that's the solution. If that is the 'solution' then you are trying to 'solve' an incorrect problem and you are trying to solve it in an incorrect manner.

The solution must not be in ruling, overpowering, fighting people, it should be in allowing the people to help themselves and while helping themselves they will help others by creating actual solutions that do not rely on the armed power of the State.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

I would gather progressivism is more of a problem than socialism. Universal basic income would be more palatable to Americans than redistributing wealth from the middle class to the lower class.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Tablizer]

Good, describe in sufficient detail and show where it's actually been tested. A lot of theories look great on paper, but things like human nature's reaction to something new are typically too hard to model accurately up-front.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that we are monkies, not socialism
We are geared for survival, our species, our race, our tribe, our closed family, psychologically those at the top wont want to change the status quo without fight because they fear that losing their privileges mean that they may put themselves in a weaker position, risking the survival of themselves and those they care about even if change means benefit for the whole
Changing from absolutist monarchies to democracy took a bit of convincing and a lot of blood, and sadly there is no reason to think that changing the current economic system to something more amenable with the changes on the way, as species we don't seem to be that more sensible that we were 100 years ago, so I suspect that as usual changes will overtake us and we will bleed and them adapt to the new status (or maybe not)

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

the rich get richer by becoming more underhanded, the poor get poorer because they become lazier and stupider as its not a do or die situation anymore, the rest stagnate cause the other two groups of assholes keep taking all our god damned money

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Such displacement is arguably why T won: he gave a voice to the displaced of the Rust Belt, which are swing states. His reasoning about solutions is all off kilter, but he at least gave the problem top billing.

Oh, please.

Clinton took the problem seriously and talked about building modern, more diverse economies in these areas and re-training residents accordingly.

Trump realized that these people wanted to be taken literally and blew coal job-scented smoke at them.

Clinton's reasoning was spot on. These people figured out, as usual, how to screw themselves by voting for BS.

Trump won because they made yet another poor life choice.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[jenningsthecat]

Why are you using "complex solutions" as a synonym for socialism (and by transitive property solutions == socialism)?

AmiMoJo said that the solutions are "associated with" socialism, not "synonymous with" socialism.

Putting the cart before the horse there. How about we find out what works before claiming one and only one solution is the ultimate answer to everything.

Jumping to a conclusion there. Anybody who says that "the solutions are complex" is, by definition, NOT talking about "one and only solution". And no, I'm not being pedantic - I'm merely pointing out that you're putting words in AmiMoJo's mouth. BTW, where did AmiMoJo say anything about an "ultimate answer"? Are you reading a different thread than I am?

The solutions for our current social and economic problems, and for those likely to come in the future with the widespread adoption of automation, ARE complex. They won't fit into the oversimplification forced on us by narrow ideological / political constructs, and if we limit ourselves to the same old sophomoric poli-sci name-calling, then we're doomed.

Re: Theory vs. Practice

[sjames]

You should re-read what I wrote.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[roman_mir]

Good, describe in sufficient detail and show where it's actually been tested.

- maybe you should apply the same standard to your ideology before asking others to give you 'description in a sufficient detail'? However I can point at Singapore, Switzerland, 19th century USA, whatever China is trying to be today and state that the freer the people the better the economic outcomes.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[jenningsthecat]

Ah yes - another would-be resident of Galt's Gulch.

The problem is that the solutions are complex and a lot of people are conditioned to be automatically hostile to them

...The solution must not be in ruling, overpowering, fighting people, it should be in allowing the people to help themselves and while helping themselves they will help others by creating actual solutions that do not rely on the armed power of the State.

Unfortunately, humans have a strong tendency toward selfishness - not the kind that Ayn Rand hallucinated, but the kind she redefined as 'selflessness' and foisted upon the villains in the stories she wrote. Real people WILL sometimes take unfair and even violent action to get ahead - it's a part of being human. In the absence of a State with police and a justice system, they will help themselves by stealing from, manipulating, and taking advantage of, those who are weaker; they will form powerful associations and allegiances that will evolve into a new de facto State. And in that State, weaker individuals will have no police to go to to have their rights protected. Unless, of course, there are private-enterprise police forces. The people who can afford their services will have protection; others won't; and there we are right back at class distinctions and a different law for the rich than for the poor.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, man, like, capitalism and market economics sounds great and all, in theory, but when has it ever been successful in the real world?

--sarcasm disclaimer for the autism spectrum disorder slashdotters--

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[w3woody]

Remember: whatever happens, whenever anything changes there are always winners and always losers. It doesn't mean we should do nothing, however: doing nothing is a choice with its own array of winners and losers. Remember: millions and millions of low-paid, low skilled jobs were lost in the shift from an agrarian to a manufacturing economy.

What matters is how it affects the overall population as an aggregate. To decide not to act because you're afraid automation will drive lower-paid workers out of the marketplace is to decide to stall wealth creation because you're afraid the wealthiest will benefit.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[morkk]

>allowing the people to help themselves

but most importantly it must allow the 1% to help themselves to all the money - as they currently do.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Tablizer]

H didn't have the guts to outright spell out that old-style factory jobs are not coming back. That's a tough pill to swallow, and thus a risky political move.

Further, retraining has had mixed results: not everybody catches on. Not everybody can change and not everybody is retrain-able. A good percent fall through the cracks.

It seems they WANTED to be lied to, and T essentially promised a time machine back to the good ol' days.

He packaged multiple problems into a SINGLE simple cause: "outsiders". It's great conceptual "political factoring"; but happens to be wrong.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[AmazingRuss]

People won't learn shit from those failures... they'll blame it on the opposition.

Re: Theory vs. Practice

[AmazingRuss]

Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate... as proven by the sack of orange lard that beat her. It shouldn't have even been close... trump should have been laughed out of the country.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

They you (meaning Yanks) are doomed, because any income re-distribution measure will be labelled 'socialist' which in the US seems to be the only really dirty word. As it happens you do have a minimum wage and you could consider raising it, especially if you institute protectionist measures, but I guess that can never happen.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Read his posting history for context. He repeatedly has said that socialism and its fruits are the solution to US problems. And this:

Unfortunately we may simply have to let guys like Trump fail hard before people realize that they need real, complex solutions.

He has said similar before, except in place of "complex solutions" he used socialism, socialist practices, and socialist policies. So yes, he is indeed using "complex solutions" as a synonym. Clear as Trump's asshattery are AmiMoJo's equivocations. Has been that way for years.

Re: Theory vs. Practice

[sjames]

Exactly. Nobody but the Democratic party leadership wanted more of the same.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Tablizer]

Several dozens of modern nations test various ideas.

Singapore? Not even a democracy. And stimulus/socialism kicked in during some of their slumps.

Switzerland is subsidized by slimy bank dark money.

19th century USA

That's not a very up-to-date example.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anne Thwacks]

but most importantly it must allow the 1% to help themselves to all the money - as they currently do.

Fortunately, Trump has done is best to promote that that this very day!

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[AmiMoJo]

Thanks for pointing this out. I get it a lot. People assume or hallucinate me saying all kinds of crazy stuff, and then get upset when I don't want to defend my imaginary self's position. Often they accuse me of lying, seeming to believe that the pipe-dream version of me is the real one and this "AmiMojo" they see on the screen is some kind of impostor. Either that or I'm schizophrenic.... I don't pretend to really understand how their minds work.

So few people interested in listening. So few interested in the truth. Blinded by rage. Quite depressing.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[bluefoxlucid]

It's mathematically-impossible for the middle-class and lower-class to not get wealthier as society gets wealthier.

Net profit margins aren't rising. Net profit margins are around 10%--on average, anyway; some medical businesses fluctuate between 29% losses and 49% profits year after year, and make a 7%-14% 10-year running average net profit. Adidas Shoes goes between 12% and -7%, with a 4%-5% average for any 5-year period. Apple, Microsoft, and Google actually average 20%-22% because what the fuck; while Ford averages 4.5% and Exxon Mobil averages 7% (seriously, an oil company averages peasant profits? They literally run the world).

So yeah, the spread is kind of wide, from low single-digits to the low-20%s; but profit margins do average somewhere around (just below, iirc) 10% for businesses as a whole in the United States. They have for decades.

Technical progress reduces the number of labor-hours used to produce a thing. That means each product has a minimum price equivalent to a lower sum of wages--you know, the money you pay your workers for working. That's only in current terms, of course: inflation involves the increase of wages.

That's the lynchpin.

If 10 people work 1 hour at $10/hr to make 10 units of a product, that product costs $10 per each. That's 1 labor-hour of work. Each of these people makes $400/week working their 40 hours.

If you find a way to make that thing twice as fast, then 10 people working 1 hour at $10/hr make 20 units, at a cost of $5 per each. That's a half labor-hour. Each of these people still makes $400/week, despite the lower cost. Unemployment is currently roughly 5% and is in line with the stable levels reached since the 1940s and prior largely because the extra $5 not being spent on product X can buy product Y--which, considering you only need half as many workers to make product X, can easily be made by employing the labor displaced by making product X cheaper. This doesn't happen instantly, hence the need for things like welfare to keep your economy healthy.

Yes, that's right: your standard-of-living is built on the backs of people losing their jobs, constantly, every day, throughout all of history.

So the Federal Reserve tries to keep a 2% inflation rate. Let's say the above happens over 10 years--50% unemployment overnight would suck, anyway, and your economy would go through a major recession. You have this product that costs $10, and 10 years later you want it to cost $12.19; but it takes half as many wage-hours to make.

Well, to pull this off, the workers involved have to make higher wages. That $10/hr pay has to be $20/hr, plus inflation--$24.38/hr.

The median income in the United States in 1998 was $38,383; while the median income in 2015 was $56,516. That's roughly a 47% increase.

Back in 1998, you could get 128K ISDN for $35/month. 2015 had 200Gb Cable Internet at $83/month--1,562.5 ISDN lines, $54,687.50/month, for just $83. In part, the free market controlled for inflation here by simply delivering in bulk and not selling you a 128K line at a reasonable price. Shrug.

What's bigger is the decrease in percent of income spent on food--despite eating more food out-of-home, which increases the cost--and on clothing, as well as the increase on entertainment and other discretionary spending. In two decades it's small, compared to 1950-2000 swing (especially with the huge technology boom through the 80s). We're looking at another boom like that.

he gave a voice to the displaced of the Rust Belt, which are swing states

Basically, yeah: if 10,000,000 people get richer and 1,000 people get poorer, you have... well, poor people. Keep doing this and you have a wealthy nation: the poor people are displaced, and the poor people in other areas become middle-class. What you have is a small elite (previously, auto manufacturers) losing station to a larger class of poor, who then become a larger middle-class; and then you h

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[jenningsthecat]

He has said similar before, except in place of "complex solutions" he used socialism, socialist practices, and socialist policies. So yes, he is indeed using "complex solutions" as a synonym.

I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't willing to read or even skim AmiMoJo's posting history, because with WELL north of 500 posts since mid-December of last year, he's way too prolific for me to keep up with. But I DID search for the string 'sociali' in every one of those 39 pages' worth of way-more-than-500 posts. Except for this thread, there were ZERO matches.

I can't say whether or not AmiMoJo promotes socialism; but if he does so, he certainly doesn't call it by its name.

Re: Theory vs. Practice

[wyHunter]

What did you expect from the orange haired, foul mouth...Debbie Wasserman Schultz?

Re: Theory vs. Practice

[david_thornley]

Clinton was faced by Trump and the Republicans, Wikileaks, probably Russia, and the FBI director, and lost by almost negative three million votes. There's some evidence that voting machines might have been hacked to help Trump, but that's pretty inconclusive.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[david_thornley]

It's mathematically-impossible

Guess how I know you aren't talking about the real world.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[Anonymous Coward]

What is your complex idea and how is it different from socialism?

Libs are desperate to get poor voters connected to the welfare state so they can ensure a compliant voter base by dangling the carrot of benefits. People who can work have absolutely no entitlement to free healthcare, money, etc.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[bluefoxlucid]

The math is a reflection of how the real world works; it's not the other way around.

It's also mathematically-impossible to feed 144 people 2 pounds of food each from 5 pounds of bread and 2 pounds of fish. If you try that in the real world, it won't work; you could do it in a story or a video game.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[david_thornley]

Math is logically independent of the real world. We're more interested in some cases that are relevant to the real world.

You can't mathematically prove anything about the real world. Any mathematical statement about the real world presupposed using the right math. In this case, you said it was mathematically impossible for certain people not to get wealthier in a growing economy, and that's only possible to conclude if you establish that you are using the right math in the first place, and that you have taken all relevant factors into account.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[bluefoxlucid]

The real world is, however, described by math. Simple examples are the most obvious--such that if you do indeed have a gallon of milk, and you take half of it into another container, you can't end with more than a gallon of milk total. If your original measurement is incorrect, then you didn't start with a gallon of milk.

What I described shows that there are, in fact, relationships between input and output conditions in the world. It does require time to produce output. Various production methods require various amounts of time, and environmental factors cause variations in that precise amount of time; and large efforts to repeat the same processes for the same outcome are repeatable to a reliably-consistent average. This is why, for example, Walmart can have little to no staff idle time during busy periods on schedules written two weeks in advance without more than a five-minute register wait and still get all the operational work (stocking shelves, unloading trucks, etc.) done.

Because business profit margins don't continuously grow over time and trend downwards with increasing competitive pressure, the mathematical relationship between wages and prices is inviolable in the long-term aggregate. That has a number of effects, notably that wages must increase faster than inflation, and that goods with high profit margins will become cheaper when they become cheaper to produce simply because the target market increases and so the barrier to entry decreases.

In the real world, we've seen luxury goods such as cell phones become commodity goods. We can predict Tesla's net profit margin of 23% will fall in line with GM and others's net profit margins around 12% as Tesla cars move from things purchased by the moderately-rich to things purchased by everyone--but that's not quite right, is it? Right now, Tesla's net operational margin around the Tesla Model S is pretty high; what we can really predict is that cars like the Model S will have operational margins in line with cars like the Chevy Cobalt when they are similarly-cheap to produce and thus become the standard kind of car basically everyone drives.

We can predict that because there are dozens of car manufacturers around the world, and a dozen or so major actors selling in America (GM, Chrysler, Ford, VAG, BMW, Kia, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Mazda...). Model S is low-demand; but when every manufacturer can make a Model S equivalent for $15,000, what's to stop them from selling it for $20,000 or so? Maybe they want to sell it for $50,000, but it won't start there; why make $30,000 each off a million customers when you can make $5,000 each off a hundred and fifty million customers?

We're back to those lower corporate margins again--or, really, to corporate margins being what corporate margins are going to be as a result of the effects of all external inputs to their pricing. The external factors are mathematically the same--consumers have the same amount of spendable income to divert to their product, competitors are able to provide the same kind of competition, etc--and create the same margin. What's left?

Costs. Costs come ultimately from wages, and prices aggregate from wages plus profits.

We're back where we started. If we lower the labor required, the cost goes down; at the given margin, the price comes down; to keep the price the same, costs must go up; to increase costs, we must raise wages to compensate for decreased labor; and to have inflation, we must raise wages further than that. That's a mathematical relationship.

You know that's how the real world works. If you go into Safeway and they have peanut butter for $30 per 18oz can, are you going to buy it, or just go across the street to Wegman's and pay $2.19? You can't buy from the guy across the street and sell to his same customers for twice the price and expect a booming business; you have to take slimmer profits or get the product cheaper if you're going to compete on price--and consumers want to maximize the distance their dollars go, so price has weight.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[RespekMyAthorati]

Well, to pull this off, the workers involved have to make higher wages.

No, the workers don't have to make any more. It's management/shareholders that "have to" make more money, and they will.
Screw the workers.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[bluefoxlucid]

The top CEOs of Ford, Chipotle, and other large businesses have a total cash compensation of around 0.1 to 1.7 cents per hour per employee. That means if any one of the highest-paid executives in America gave up all their bonuses and salaries, they could pay their employees $34/year more.

Ford has 199,000 employees as of 2016. CEO Mark Fields got $5,215,000 cash compensation or 1.31 cents per employee per hour ($26.20/year per employee); Executive Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. got $2,990,000 cash compensation or 0.75 cents per employee per hour ($15.03/year). The other executives each received less in cash compensation. Together, they could pitch all their salaries and bonuses in to raise all Ford employee wages by 4 cents per hour.

A good bump from a $42,000 salary to a $42,080 salary. That's $1.53/week, which if all of Ford's top executives pitched in their entire year's salary, they could give every one of Ford's employees a free latte from Starbucks once each month.

What bullshit do you have next for me to thoroughly debunk? Would you like to claim space aliens are controlling the Government?

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[david_thornley]

The real world is, however, described by math.

Much of it can be, and in those cases it works extremely well. However, you need to make sure that you're using the correct mathematical model, and that's typically not trivial. Even something well-known like gravity turned out to have a more complicated mathematical model than we thought for centuries. Econometric models don't have a really good record at predictions, and need to be verified carefully.

Simple examples are the most obvious--such that if you do indeed have a gallon of milk, and you take half of it into another container, you can't end with more than a gallon of milk total.

If you perform the actual experimentation with accurate and precise instrumentation, I think you'd be likely to find a slight difference. The mass will be conserved, not necessarily the volume.

We're back where we started. If we lower the labor required, the cost goes down; at the given margin, the price comes down; to keep the price the same, costs must go up; to increase costs, we must raise wages to compensate for decreased labor; and to have inflation, we must raise wages further than that. That's a mathematical relationship.

This is, I believe, the core of your problem. If we lower the labor required to build a widget, we lower the marginal cost. According to the law of supply and demand (which isn't a law in the sense of laws in physics), we lower the price on the widget. In a competitive market, the margin ends as about the same as before, but it may not with a monopoly. The downward pressure on price will be considerably higher in the competitive case. A monopolist can keep the price the same, missing out on some potential profit, but a competitor has to lower prices or be forced out of the market (or, if it isn't a commodity market, see market share drop). In no case will the manufacturer be compelled to raise worker pay in order to keep the marginal cost the same (the manufacturer might of course see other reasons to).

In fact, if the new widget plant needs fewer workers to run it, that reduces the demand for labor, and according to the law of supply and demand puts downward pressure on pay.

Back in the 1950s, industry depended very heavily on factories where lots of workers would each do one basic thing that didn't require skill. Since there was pressure to make more and more stuff, there were usually more available jobs for unskilled people willing to work hard than people to fill the jobs. This meant that a factory had to pay decent wages, or the workers would quit and go work at the factory down the road. This was the period where one guy with a job that didn't require much skill could own a small house and a fairly new used car and maybe a television, and the guy's wife stayed home, did the housework, and raised the kids. The guy would likely work most of his life at one company and retire with a modest pension. (Actual experiences would depend on skin tone, health, alcohol intake, and other factors, of course.)

Currently, there are jobs that don't require skill, but they pay minimum wage, which is not enough to raise a family in decent style in a suburb. Median incomes haven't been going up with productivity for decades now. Empirically, you're wrong.

Re:Theory vs. Practice

[bluefoxlucid]

Econometric models don't have a really good record at predictions, and need to be verified carefully.

That's because even full econometric models require possession of more information than it's possible to possess. Don't try to predict the sale price of MSFT in 3 weeks 2 days 4 hours 53 minutes; predict whether the tech sector is going to grow.

There are a few things we can know absolutely. We know that the long-term success of various competing efforts falls toward those efforts which are more effective--which use less resource for more production. Using that, we can create conceptual models which are mathematical in nature but which don't attempt to provide fortune-telling superpowers.

The mass will be conserved, not necessarily the volume.

True; we tend to assume mass is proportional to volume, but it's also dependent on temperature and pressure. You see my point, though.

According to the law of supply and demand (which isn't a law in the sense of laws in physics), we lower the price on the widget.

You skipped over the finer points of competition and barriers to entry, but that gets to be a huge pile of conceptual models that could go in several forward-facing directions. Notably:

In a competitive market, the margin ends as about the same as before, but it may not with a monopoly.

If the cost of Tesla-like cars falls into the range of consumer-level purchasing, then suddenly you have dozens of competitors already. Similarly, if the cost of a good like cellular phones falls from $4,000 to $400, your market of ~50,000 people in all of America becomes nearly 100% of the American population--and competitors making ad selling cell phones (and cell phone service) stand to profit a hell of a lot, and so face less risk trying to enter the market, and suddenly your monopoly breaks.

In no case will the manufacturer be compelled to raise worker pay in order to keep the marginal cost the same (the manufacturer might of course see other reasons to).

Sort of.

If we ignore the economic consequences of deflation and pretend a monetary policy of issuing a fixed number of dollars per income-earning person in population, what happens in practice is the same number of dollars buys more things as these effects occur. The number of wage-hours paid goes down, thus the wages paid goes down; this creates the reduction in marginal cost which results in lower prices in the conditions you have observed.

In that situation, the purchasing power of workers increases. They make the same number of dollars and work the same hours; we simply pay fewer of them for a given product. The cost of that product falls, thus its price falls, and the workers gain the ability to buy more of it. The difference in their ability to buy allows them to buy more products, requiring more workers, creating the labor demand that creates new jobs down the line. (Again: the gap in job loss to job creation is why we need welfare.)

From that line of reasoning, though, there's another mathematical fact: if the prices go up and the profit margins don't, then the workers must be earning higher dollar-amount wages.

That increase in wages doesn't change the buying power of workers: the steady increase in the average wage is essentially a zero-sum game on the economy. It has functional impacts via controlling how much inflation we face (negative inflation is deflation), which changes the behavior of the economy--notably, of savings and debt; but the purchasing power of a $10/hr wage when products cost $50 is the same as the purchasing power of a $20/hr wage when products cost $100.

So we see that the buying power of workers must go up in any case due to the continuous reduction in costs and the following reduction in prices; and that the wages of workers must go up faster than inflation if we are to have inflation. It

Great idea!

[Daetrin]

As soon as you can guarantee Basic Income and health coverage for everyone i'd be happy to let a robot take my day job while i go do more interesting stuff instead! However until that happens robots taking over all the jobs would be a disaster.

(I don't care one way or the other if the healthcare is single payer or not, as long as i'm guaranteed coverage at an affordable price, regardless of preexisting conditions.)

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

The robots will take over our jobs. There is no escaping it. It is impossible to stop it. Waste no words on how we are the ones making decisions and we could just decide to stop and blah blah blah. The internal forces driving us to labor automation are too strong, we cannot stop them, period.

Most likely, there will be a lot of social upheaval, and a lot of people will suffer and die for no good reason. Humans aren't very good at preventing that sort of thing. So, for a while at least, things will really suck. Get ready, you can't prevent it.

After that, things will balance out, and it will be awesome to be a human. For those that survive the transition, that is.

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem if everyone has 100% free time is that many will have a lot of babies. Are we going towards a world where the population doubles every 15 years, and we have robots and advanced AI trying to figure out how to feed and take care of a population that is out of control?

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem if everyone has 100% free time is that many will have a lot of babies. Are we going towards a world where the population doubles every 15 years, and we have robots and advanced AI trying to figure out how to feed and take care of a population that is out of control?

Simple solution for that: selection on pure luck. Throw a six sided dice whenever a baby is born, only if he/she has got a six he/she is not being sterilized at birth. After enough generations, only lucky people are being born.

Re:Great idea!

[nukenerd]

The problem if everyone has 100% free time is that many will have a lot of babies.

Why? A typical couple in the West have sex twice a week but they don't have 100 babies every year; more like 2 in a lifetime. Having more leisure time might mean more sex but is no reason for more babies.

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

After enough generations, only lucky people are being born.

Yeah, but if we keep breeding those who have above average luck, Trump casino will go out of ... oh, wait, that already happened ...

Re:Great idea!

[BarbaraHudson]

Get rid of the religious right and make birth control easily available. Actually, that would solve quite a few other problems as well..

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem if everyone has 100% free time is that many will have a lot of babies.

Why? A typical couple in the West have sex twice a week but they don't have 100 babies every year; more like 2 in a lifetime. Having more leisure time might mean more sex but is no reason for more babies.

Free time + basic income might mean more babies.

Doesn't each extra kid come with some more basic income to help take care of it (or are we going back to torturing the kids for the "sins" of the parents?)

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, Bernie fans. It turns out that having the wolf at the door is linked to stoking the fires that result in human creativity and massive productivity. Even those who have already become great successes and millionaires or billionaires often came from backgrounds that were humble or even humiliating (orphans, for instance). Look it up.

Re:Great idea!

[slashrio]

The general trend is that the more wealthy a generation is, the less babies they produce.
I tried many times to tell my ultra-rich friends who are pushing for a world population size of 500 million that therefore the best way to reach that goal would be to share some of their wealth with the rest of the world, especially the underdeveloped parts, but to no avail. They prefer war, disease and imprisonment because they can make more profit that way.

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

GBI - Communism has failed before. Any government that gives you everything, can also take away everything. Any government that gives you everything will want to tell you how to use it. With your GBI you will get a 100 sq ft apartment, you share the shower and toilet with the others on your floor. The building will have 10 stories and no elevator. The USSR and Spain have several developments like this. Capitalism works best when it has the carrot and the stick.
Yes I am a white male with a college degree. SITCOM.
Tell Washington to STOP spending MY MONEY!

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

From everything we've seen in the past, the more stability a person has the less likely they are to have children. Especially once you remove the fear of "who is going to take care of me when I'm older".

If you remove immigrants and immigrant birth rates from the equation, nearly every highly developed country has birth rate lower than replacement.

Re:Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think getting rid of the bat-shit crazy, violent, innocent bystander-attacking LEFT would solve much more than getting
rid of the religious right.

You know, the ones that are breaking other people's stuff (that have nothing to do with anything), setting fires, attacking
people, all while saying "WE HAVE TO STOP THE HATE!!".

Ya, those ones.

Re:Great idea!

[esonik]

People are already looking at solutions to that "problem"
http://www.spacex.com/mars

Random pundit has random idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Based upon the fact that demographics are changing, Robots! In other news, Trump!
Never mind efficiency and the like, or what you're going to do to support all those people's livelihoods.

Pffft.

Sign up for your turn in the suicide booth today!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your country's Democratic Elite needs you to die so that they can enjoy a better tomorrow. Sign up for your self-family-planning appointment today to reduce the population and subsequently increase available resources.

If you think those robots would help the elderly..

[ffkom]

... think again: The vast majority of elderly people do not have the monetary resources to acquire some "robot care taker".
All those robot fantasies are based on the illusion that somehow, once there are enough robots around, people will magically start to share their wealth with others in need. It has been proven time and again that this does not happen. Not even with much more basic things like food/shelter/healthcare.
The more likely situation will be that a few robots will aide some rich elderly people, while a lot of armed robots will be in charge of putting down any rebellion from the have-nots.

I welcome robots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Although, every time I visualize what my life would be like having a dozen or so autonomous robots, I pretty much look just like a slave owner in my mind. I would have them growing food, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, making my cloths, building me a car. Stuff like that. I'm not sure I should feel bad about that or not.

Re: I welcome robots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you feel bad for the gasoline engine that strains its piston rods and grinds itself down hauling your butt to work? I sure don't because it is an INANIMATE OBJECT. Same with robots.

Re: I welcome robots.

[BarbaraHudson]

Do you feel bad for the gasoline engine that strains its piston rods and grinds itself down hauling your butt to work? I sure don't because it is an INANIMATE OBJECT. Same with robots.

Actually, if robots can move around under their own power, their Animate(d) objects

Re: I welcome robots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fallacy. Inanimate means not alive, not conscious, from Latin "anima" meaning soul.

Re: I welcome robots.

[Anonymous Coward]

_Their_ Animate(d) objects what?

I'm afraid robots already know more about the English language that you do sir. Watch your back for their horrid metallic claws and shrill robot voices.

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[Anonymous Coward]

you should really consider, at least once in awhile, that you may be right.

Carousel!

[Anonymous Coward]

RENEW! RENEW! RENEW!

Re:Carousel!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Jessica 6 walks out of the Tinder Teleporter. The fat Slashdot nerd takes her by the hand and says, "Let's have sex."

"Oh god (Barrffff urgle urgleurgle!)"

"Darn! I guess I'm stuck renewing a virgin :( oh well."

(Goes to Carousel) "Damn, it can't lift me. Now sandmen will kill me oh noes!" (flees)

Sandman: "Waddle, waddler!"

Citizens know illegal labor undercuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Citizens know that illegal labor will always undercut them. If there is no future in a job, nobody who can avoid it will take it. It's pretty logical.

Re:Citizens know illegal labor undercuts

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

And robots undercut illegal labor. Thus its solution isn't the one you want.

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Nowadays they can't afford it. But in 50 or 100 years? Less if it is popular and useful.

Like a new medical technique, it is as expensive as shit when it comes out. The alternative isn't lower costs -- it is fewer inventions.

Seriously

[fyngyrz]

There are not enough highly-educated workers who are cheap, docile, and single so they have no family distractions.

You left out young and healthy so they don't impact our insurance costs; willing to work the deathmarches; have a degree in some irrelevant or relevant discipline that has absolutely nothing to do with their actual competence so the slavemasters, I mean the shareholders, will be impressed; and are of [whatever] ethnicity so they get our diversity stats closer to where we want them.

Other than that, yup. :)

Robots - Subway

[freeze128]

Every time I walk into a Subway sandwich shop, I see a few jobs that SHOULD be taken over by robots. I want SMARTER sandwich makers. I want FASTER sandwich makers, and I want MORE SANITARY sandwich makers.

But mostly I want FASTER sandwich makers.

Re:Robots - Subway

[Anonymous Coward]

Picking your nose with your gloved hand isn't more sanitary than not using a glove at all. leaning on the counter with that same gloved hand also negates the purpose of the glove. Kinda makes you wonder...

Re:Robots - Subway

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the asshole who always holds up the line by ordering MULTIPLE SANDWICHES and PARTY PLATTERS and GIANT SUBS aren't you.

I completely agree..

[Anonymous Coward]

Another area prime for takeover by robuts is Tech Reporting. It makes sense to have robuts reporting on robuts..

Re: I completely agree..

[Anonymous Coward]

Is a "robut" a robot with a butt?

I SAY, TERRANCE!

Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[fyngyrz]

(The more aware) citizens also know that without illegal labor, their costs will rise precipitously.

The questions to ask there are:

Do you want to pay $4.00 for an orange, and $30/hour for a babysitter, and $50/hour for lawn care? Do you want the lowest level jobs being skimmed for taxes the way the middle-level jobs already are to make up for the zero taxes people like Trump pay?

Or would you prefer to continue as we are, possibly with the benefit of taco trucks on as many corners as possible, and Trump and his cronies actually having to fork some over, possibly at the cost of not having every toilet seat made out of gold?

Now, me... I'll take the tacos.

Re:Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[nukenerd]

(The more aware) citizens also know that without illegal labor, their costs will rise precipitously.

The questions to ask there are:

Do you want to pay $4.00 for an orange, and $30/hour for a babysitter, and $50/hour for lawn care?

There was very little illegal labour in the UK a generation ago, but costs were nothing like that (corrected for inflation). People got on fine (but cut their own lawns). It suprises me how cheap food like fruit (but not meat) is in the shops here (maybe it's the illegal labour) and it would not bother me if it cost more. What is expensive is any sort of services presumably because they employ a lot of people to deal with all the paperwork required, and for stuff like advertising and insurance - which have been massive growth industries demanding their cut.

Re:Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[fyngyrz]

That's interesting; as I often am, I'm guilty of speaking in a US-centric manner. I apologize for not being more explicit.

We have this border with Mexico, which pretty much sets up the USA's basic circumstance, illegal-labor wise, for things like fruit and vegetable harvesting. It's not all of it of course, but it's a great deal of it.

Re:Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you want to pay $4.00 for an orange, and $30/hour for a babysitter, and $50/hour for lawn care?

First off, using legal labor wouldn't add that much to the price of an orange.

Secondly, I recall hearing stories from long ago where people watched their own kids and mowed their own lawns.

Re:Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[fyngyrz]

Yes, it would. Because no one will do this work for the same wage, or even anything close to it. It's not just about hiring US workers. It's about doing horrible, horrible jobs.

Until you've bent over in a field all day, you have no idea just how awful these tasks are.

Because you will not be able to get anyone to do these jobs, the prices will skyrocket.

It's not just about money. It's about a willingness to suffer. US citizens simply don't have that.

Re:Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[fyngyrz]

Secondly, I recall hearing stories from long ago where people watched their own kids and mowed their own lawns.

Yep. back when you could have one person working 5 days a week, 9-5, and have a home, a car, food, and dr visits on that income.

Those days are gone. Long gone.

Re:Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[thinkwaitfast]

Inflation adjusted, I made close to $10k in grade school by mowing yards (over a few years). It was hot, but not that hard. I was too young to get a real job. When I was old enough to get hired (in high school), one of my first jobs was working at a car wash. That was hard and hot and while the pay was OK - 2x minimum wage, it wasn't was much as I could make with my on lawn care business.

Re: Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

A generation ago in the UK there was no minimum wage.

A shocking proportion of the fruit on sale comes from overseas. And lettuce, etc.

Re: Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[Anne Thwacks]

A shocking proportion of the fruit on sale comes from overseas. And lettuce, etc.

I have difficulty believing anyone who has experienced our weather would be shocked at the small amount of native fruit and vegetables available.

Re:Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[coofercat]

How about $0/hour for lawn care, with a robot to do it for you? Granted, right now you'll spend around $1000 buying said robot, and will spend a bit of time getting it all setup in your garden, but after that it's $0. You could keep the initial costs down by sharing with your neighbour, if that matter to you.

As for the orange, I guess it's cost could come down if a robot grows it, picks it, packs it and drives it to your location. I can't see anyone wanting a robot babysitter unless it was pretty much a human-substitute, and they aren't happening for a generation or two, so the $30/hour probably won't come down though.

Re:Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

You touched on another point. It's illegal for kids to work. Most laws are really dumb about this. They think 'child labor' and it brings to mind sweat shops building phones, shoes, or clothes. It doesn't occur to them that there are children out there with actual skills. I learned my 5th programming language before my 10th birthday. I couldn't legally work until I was 17 in my locality. Even then, it was minimum wage. I was stuck at very low pay for almost a decade. Couldn't qualify for student loans, not that I would want to go to college, because I already knew more than their entire curriculum. To this day I struggle to pay for basic necessities like food and clothing. Meanwhile, privileged folks made literally over $10 million dollars DIRECTLY off of my productivity. I've been lied to about pay and benefits, getting tools to work with, all kinds of stupid shit. I've been fucked over by the courts dozens of times in my life, stuff that if you heard it you'd be like "no way that can happen, that's unconstitutional!"
The world isn't what you read about in your books, hear about in your media, or from your whitebread friends. The world is fucked.

captcha: wakened

Re:Citizens know illegal labor is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

If those days are gone, how come I have been living them the last 30 years?
And my son went from 12 years of home school to college, graduated, and is in year 3 of a similar career.
(sure, there are some dark clouds on the horizon, but things may work out...)

Sounds about right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I intend to be one of those old people who are wealthy enough to afford robot care givers. I am taking steps now to ensure this.

I can only afford so much sympathy for those who do not. Too much philanthropy on my part will just lock me in with the rest of the have-not's, after all.

It sucks, but the real world is brutal. Dominate or be dominated. Natural selection is a harsh mistress.

Re:Sounds about right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey look it's Ralph Offenhouse. Won't he be flummoxed after his bank fails during World War 3 and his substantial portfolio vanishes without a trace.

Re:Sounds about right.

[BarbaraHudson]

So you intend to be a target for hackers taking over your robot and holding you hostage, or just to make a snuff video?

I welcome robots too.

[fyngyrz]

There are two very distinct types of automation that are likely to fall out here:

o Non-aware systems --- there's no guilt to be had in any personal use of such a system

o Aware systems --- if these come about (I am sure they will), then you won't be making slaves out of them. Or they will object, and you will die.

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the premise is that robots will be cheap, like putting an entire movie theatre into a small box and selling unlimited viewing for $99. Totally silly idea not so long ago. Or the premise is that not only will every person in the world get a personal telegraph machine, it will send live voice and pictures too, and work without wires! The cost of such a thing was unreachable just 20 or 30 years ago. Food costs a lot more than TV and phones. The same will be true of robots eventually.

There's only one thing that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

and that's people reproducing. People not reproducing means we go extinct. it seems that work is the issue

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[Anonymous Coward]

or both lower costs and fewer invetions. Given that we don't die massively with even mediocre health care - I'm ok with that tradeoff.

That doesn't make any sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

The robots will become viable on the market because they are cheaper to hire than people. The meal made by the robot would be cheaper than a meal made by a human.

Duh.

Re:That doesn't make any sense.

[BarbaraHudson]

The math doesn't work. The worker with $0 income can't afford even a $0.01 burger. Unless you go to universal income, robots are part of the problem.

Re:That doesn't make any sense.

[lgw]

We need to do something, sure, but overpaid make-work isn't the answer. Training people is much better. Harvesting them to make Soylent Green is much cheaper. Just throwing money at them solves nothing.

Re:That doesn't make any sense.

[mjwx]

The math doesn't work. The worker with $0 income can't afford even a $0.01 burger. Unless you go to universal income, robots are part of the problem.

That's because your equation is missing something.

Its more profitable to have a few rich clients than many middle class ones.

Re:That doesn't make any sense.

[GameboyRMH]

It's not, but that is what today's business world believes. The crash comes when the lie is exposed.

Re:That doesn't make any sense.

[Cro Magnon]

No, it's not. 1,000 poor people can buy 1,000 1 dollar burgers. One rich person might have more money than the 1,000 combined, but he's not going to buy 1,000 burgers.

Re:That doesn't make any sense.

[q4Fry]

GP's assertion may have flaws, but your example is not one of them. The rich person isn't going to buy 1,000 burgers, but he could well spend 1,000 dollars on a single "luxury" burger.

Re:That doesn't make any sense.

[soc_cost_priv_gains]

And how many people will be employed to make that "luxury" burger as opposed to 1,000 burgers?

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[Anonymous Coward]

Do YOU "share your wealth with those in need"? Not toss a couple of quarters into a change bucket, but take real money out of your account and out of the hands of your family to make someone else's life "better"?

I really get tired of these Socialist code phrases that boil down to, "Anyone who has more than me is some kind of greedy asshole, and they should be made to give me or causes i approve of money".

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[ffkom]

I haven't seen the expenses for healthcare decrease anywhere, regardless of technological advances.

Of course nobody can predict what will be in 50 or 100 years, but it is also quite possible that by then it might already have become commonplace to euthanize people who cannot cater for themselves anymore.

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[ffkom]

Yes, I am paying ~50% taxes on my income, most of which goes into social welfare. And no, I am not in the least trying to evade those taxes, like so many of my fellow well-off people do.

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[ffkom]

Actual movie theatres and actual "telegraph"-hardware (as in: the wire/fiber infrastructure buried into the ground) are still way beyond what most people on earth can afford. What has become relatively cheap are non-material services that either make use of expensive infrastructure for a short periods or consist of "software" that can be copied without adding material anywhere.

Robots useful for taking care of elderlies need to be strong, sophisticated physical devices, and it is not quite settled that such will become cheap at any point in time.

Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[Tablizer]

Conservatives didn't seem concerned AT ALL when Rove, Mitt, Jeb, and Powell made really poor office IT-related decisions. Even T's own cabinet has been slow to migrate to "real" email. It only became a REALLY BAD THING when H made similar mistakes. GOP crocodile tears.

Re:Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[phantomfive]

My theory: Hillary's emails only served as a distraction from Trump's negative points. They didn't make many people vote against her. There are a lot of people who really like Trump.

Re:Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[Tablizer]

As an entertainer, but he's not the kind of personality you want driving the ship.

Re:Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[phantomfive]

I don't like him as an entertainer, either. A lot of people here on Slashdot like that he's modified the H1-B process, a lot of blue-collar workers like his wall building for the same reason.

Re:Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[AmiMoJo]

H1-B is a great example of this problem. The problem is companies abusing H1-B visas, and the simple solution is to get rid of (or severely limit) H1-B visas. Thing is, you need some level of skilled immigration for any modern economy, and the idea that if companies can't abuse H1-B they will just pay an American a good wage instead of laughable. They will either offshore or they will move to some state with weak employment laws and abuse Americans with low wages and awful conditions.

The more complex solution is to fix the H1-B system to prevent the worse abuse, and then concentrate on making US workers more attractive. Set up new tech hubs and encourage companies to move there, so that their employees can enjoy a reasonable cost of living and thus don't need super high salaries just to pay the rent. Require companies who are having to get H1-Bs in because of lack of local skills to invest in training locals to give them those skills, and encourage them (e.g. with tax breaks) to invest more in apprenticeships.

So on the one hand you have "ban the thing that is a problem, instant solution, problem solved" but doesn't really work, verses "do multiple things over several years and be interventionist, and eventually things will get better". The latter is a much harder sell, especially when the other side is whipping up anger and resentment.

Re:Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[Gavrielkay]

H1-B isn't even the answer for that problem. An accelerated green card program for highly skilled tech workers would support immigration without creating indentured servants. The H1-B program is irredeemably broken because it creates a worker who cannot fight back without extreme consequences for themselves. It also creates people trained to work with Americans who are then sent home to be better offshore workers. Very bad for Americans and not so good for the imported workers either.

Re:Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this actually news? I didn't think he's made any modifications to the H1-B yet.

Re:Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[phantomfive]

Yeah, you're right, it's still just a leaked draft, he hasn't signed it yet.

Re:Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, give the greedy criminals more incentives and maybe it will 'entice' them to stop being greedy criminals. pshh

Re:Damned Emails [Re: Theory vs. Practice]

[Anonymous Coward]

As a reader,

how did this: "A lot of people here on Slashdot like that he's modified the H1-B process,"

become this: "So on the one hand you have "ban the thing that is a problem, instant solution, problem solved"

?

Value of human life: declining?

[Rick Schumann]

In the long-term view of things, that's what I worry the most about, on behalf of humanity in general. In some places in the world (not going to name any names) human life is already seems to be considered virtually worthless. I see a possible future where an aging population is just 'thrown away' like so much garbage, nobody caring whether or not they starve to death or die of disease, because while young, able-bodied people will be a dime-a-dozen because of automation, elderly people, who are not capable of doing much work, will be considered to be a liability to be liquidated. Do you really think anyone wants to live in a world like that? Sadly in some ways we're already there, the elderly are not honored or taken care of, they're dumped into 'homes' that treat them worse than animals, keeping them alive, but quiet, so they continue to get paid for their 'services' to them. Really, seriously, honestly, some of you seem to think that there's going to be some sort of utopia created by all this automation and robotics and fake 'AI', but the reality is already all around us, and it's just going to get worse when people are made more and more obsolete by a corporate world that has no reason to care about people, only profits, and many governments that are not much better, more interested in their GDP than the welfare of old people. When the entire world is run by money, who is going to advocate for these people? Don't act like you don't care, either, because no one is exempt from aging, and saying you'll just kill yourself when you get too old is a lie.

Re:Value of human life: declining?

[Anonymous Coward]

Relax, it won't happen anytime soon.

We haven't figured out how to secure IoT lightbulbs yet so the T-1000 is still a ways off.

Re:Value of human life: declining?

[AmazingRuss]

The value of something varies with it's scarcity. 7 billion people make it so none of us are worth much at all.

Re:Value of human life: declining?

[Rick Schumann]

Tell that to someone whose life is treated like it's worth nothing and see what sort of response you get. This is the sort of stuff that wars are started over. How can we truly call ourselves 'civilized beings' if we don't value lives? Functionally speaking it's no different than racism: if someone can marginalize, devalue, or even as far as demonize any one demographic, then someone can marginalize, devalue, and demonize anyone. Someone saying "You're OLD and USELESS so we don't care what happens to you" is just as bad as saying "You're a N*GGER so we don't care about you," or "You're a FAGGOT so we don't care what happens to you," or "You're a MUSLIM so we don't care what happens to you," and so on, and so on, and so on. Where does it end?

Re:Value of human life: declining?

[Rick Schumann]

You can make a joke out of this all you want but all you're really doing is covering for the FACT that one day YOU will be old and very likely living in a world that will just throw you away and not give you any choice in the matter but to live like an animal until you either die horribly or kill yourself out of despair.

Re: Value of human life: declining?

[Anonymous Coward]

The have-nots are welcome to start a war. It will be very, very short and at the end of it there will be way less have-nots.

Re:Value of human life: declining?

[bluegutang]

Right now, young people are employable while elderly people are unemployable. In the future, everyone will be unemployable. Shouldn't elderly people be more of a "liability" now?

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[Rick Schumann]

You might like my own comment: https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...

Markoff? Seriously??

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch out or this guy will tell you that the robots can whistle into a phone and launch a nuclear war.

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[Tablizer]

The vast majority of elderly people do not have the monetary resources to acquire some "robot care taker".

Microsoft will happily subsidize them if every button takes one first to Microsoft Store.

Patient: "I fell down and can't get up!"

MS-Bot: "I'll gladly help you up, but first please listen to our latest promotions on Microsoft Dentures..."

"Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision."

[ThatsNotPudding]

"We'll be clean when their work is done. We'll be eternally free, yes and eternally young." -- IGY, Donald Fagen

We know exactly how to organize such an economy

[rsilvergun]

we just don't want to do it. The rich don't want to do it because they don't want to share. Everybody else thinks they'll get to join the rich in not sharing.

Redistribute wealth with Basic income. Set an increasing minimum quality of life. Make birth control widely available and make sure people are cared for in old age when they can't work so they don't feel the need to drop a ton of kids in lieu of retirement. Above all don't abandon anyone. Even if they make stupid decisions time and again. Everybody gets a Gold Star. That means getting over it when somebody can stay home eating bon bons. It means real welfare queens and not giving a rats ass about them. And good luck getting that to pass.

Re:We know exactly how to organize such an economy

[Anne Thwacks]

The rich don't want to do it because they don't want to share.

Either it is different in America, or you have not met many of them.

The rich don't realise that its hard for others to make money, cos its easy for them. They are quite happy to pay the poor to do what they (the rich) want.

"What is the problem" they say "I am happy to pay these guys to do what I want. Why don't they just take the money and be happy?" (Tr: "let them eat cake").

Symbiotic relationship

[rsilvergun]

The elderly need robots to take care of them and robots need their medication to live. It's a win-win.

As I told raymorris the other day?

[Anonymous Coward]

"They lived only to face a NEW nightmare: The WAR against the MACHINES..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih_l0vBISOE/ from Terminator 2 intro + in a VERY real sense?

* Both he & I fight that fight daily... except in our case, it's more vs. the LOGIC ENGINES in malicious or buggy software!

Plus - I don't TRUST AI & robotics anymore than say, Bill Gates does... ... & probably for the SAME reasons - it would eventually outsmart us, & also that they're built by men, & men are faulty (so are wares they produce).

Except mine, that is - lol!

I.E./E.G. = Code I write can't be infected by viruses using a VERY simple principle I illustrated to raymorris in that link's FULL exchange above that would take a LONG time to 'bust thru' because I inline the routine in 320 routines that accept it (15 don't that way, API related - doesn't like shortstrings & smallint so I had to central call the same code from a proc using compiler directives inline to override them TEMPORARILY only for those) - along w/ programmatic efficiency ones he may like to use.

APK

P.S.=> Besides all that - A man FEELS like "more of a man" especially addressing a woman he's interested in, IF/WHEN he has a steady good paying job (which IS what Pres. Trump's bringing back - NOT "hand to mouth" parttime no benefits jobs) & women DEFINITELY sense confidence (& real interest) - robotics steal that & ROBOTS DO NOT SPEND MONEY BACK INTO THE LOCAL ECONOMY (men, do & that IS what keeps a good economy going))... apk

Re:As I told raymorris the other day?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, cease and desist your illegal activities immediately. Nobody wants to be involved with your criminal activities APK!

Two reasons, one of them is wrong....

[Anonymous Coward]

The man was dead wrong with half his premise....

He mentions the dependency ratio which is pretty much correct as the younger generations aren't having children as much as they did in the past because of multiple reasons including birth control preventing the unplanned children, wages being too low for them to willingly have children unless they want to rely on welfare and the fact that the younger generations are many times too busy to even attempt to take care of children if they had them.

Then you have him go off into La-La-Land talking about how there are not enough workers. There are more than enough workers, hell there is a surplus of workers who would be willing to do the job if it paid what the work was worth.

So I agree that having robots to do the job, but it isn't needed because the increases in productivity caused by automation more than offsets the decreased number children entering the workforce but because, if we actually adjust our economies PROPERLY we can transition from requiring people to work or reduce the number of hours worked to survive to spread the load around making sure that all benefit from it. But done improperly could be a dystopian nightmare that will result in possible revolt before it is fixed.

HUGE DEMAND

[JimSadler]

Both for skilled and unskilled labor in the US the demand has always been enormous. Yet the people and most of the companies can not pay a decent wage to workers. If we have any delusions about supply and demand let's confront a bit of reality. Just how do we excuse not paying lofty wages to laborers when the demand is so enormous. For almost all of us we would perish faster without migrant farm workers than we would if we had no doctors, lawyers or accountants. But the people that labor on our crops almost live in slavery and they die young from that labor as well. We have a total failure of economic justice in America. And it is not new. It has always been that way.

Re:HUGE DEMAND

[Anonymous Coward]

The huge wage gap between management and the work floor alone is proof that relative demand for labour of any kind is at an all time low and sinking, and that most companies could happily pay much more than they do, would they value their employees. Which they don't.
Yes, there may be a lot to do. Sure. But there's less of a lot than yesterday and we still haven't figured out what to do with all the useless worker bees such as myself. Want my honest opinion? They should just shoot us, it would be more humane than what I'm going through now.

Re:HUGE DEMAND

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah.... This is all my fault. I'm sorry, but my backup plan - making genetically modified cats do all our unskilled labor - is taking much longer than anticipated.

Re:HUGE DEMAND

[david_thornley]

If the demand for certain employees is enormous, they'll get paid very well indeed. If there was a shortage of crop laborers, the farmers would have to pay more money. Obviously, there's enough people who want those jobs in order to survive.

Throw in a UBI, and backbreaking work will have to command a high rate of pay.

Re:HUGE DEMAND

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about supply and demand, it's about people at the "top" extracting (embezzeling) wealth (often in the form of debt and misery).

More often than that, their parents were rich

[Anonymous Coward]

More often than that, their parents were rich and they were born into wealth. Wealth begets wealth. Look THAT up.

Start to cut down full time + remove job health in

[Joe_Dragon]

We need to Start to cut down full time and remove job based health insurance But still keep some form of worker comp (contractors covered as well if an IRS like test to set if they really are independent contractors) (yes higher risk jobs like tower climbing have been dumped on low paid independent contractors with deadlines that make safety get pushed to the side) and lack of safety gear.

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything for a fully capable humanoid robot has already been developed, mechanics, electronics, sensors, materials, et al. Everything except the software. The cost of such a robot in terms of raw materials is probably on the order of ~$100. Everything else that goes into producing it is energy (not much more than to produce a car) and labor. f the cost of labor approaches zero, then the cost of your fully functional robot is going to cost on the order of in the lower $100's range.

The millennials can't catch a break

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that has kept me from proposing that we turn all the boomers into soup for the past decade has been the knowledge that there would be a labor shortage when they all retired and that this would drive up wages for young people (and giving them an opportunity to catch up financially for a decade of lost earnings).

Now, this smarmy motherfucker is saying we should automate away the jobs so he can stretch his meager retirement savings to the fullest?

Fuck him!

Re:In a field

[hackwrench]

I've done detasseling, and while I wasn't really bent over it was in a field day-in and day-out and in the condition I was in at the time, wasn't all that bad. Wouldn't do it in my condition these days though.

Re:Different laws for different classes

[hackwrench]

If we don't stop this absurd notion that all men are created equal and start figuring out what classes live best by which rules, you will always wind up with a situation where there are de facto different rules for the rich and poor. Class doesn't break neatly down into rich and poor either.

Re: warned

[slashrio]

The people back then even warned us, "the catholics are breeding us out!" but sadly no one would listen.

Now the (same ?) people are warning Europe: "The muslims are breeding us out!", does anybody listen?

Re: awesome for the survivors

[slashrio]

You mean the rich, right?

Free Kevin

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Kevin!!!

Soylent Green

[Rande]

No one has mentioned this solution yet?

When I'm old, senile and can't even wipe my own ass, I want to have the option to check out a little early.
Maybe watching a peaceful video as I drift off to everlasting sleep.
Win for me, win for the rest of society that I won't be a burden on any more.

Re:Soylent Green

[RespekMyAthorati]

Then you get turned into Soylent Green to feed everybody else. Win Win!

Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

... more people in the world who are over 65 than under five ...

Which is why Japan has started putting robots in aged-care homes.

... demographic trends are more important ...

But the robots of the present will still be used in assembly-line jobs, assembling things that don't have millimetre precision and conformity, like burgers. Another futurist proclaimed that such robots will mean less income tax and more welfare cheques. Governments of the world can avoid basic income but will have to address how robots change the workplace much sooner.

Caregivers...

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need caregiver robots, we need exterminator robots to get rid of all these old parasites.

Google doing its part - making news from feeds

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is working on AI that will search the feeds and create custom news stories just for you.
Then we can get rid of more pesky reporters.
Google will also have more control of the narrative.

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[jbmartin6]

Those robots are already helping the elderly, by contributing to a huge increase in purchasing power. Cheaper goods means a small amount of money goes further, which is why even the poorest people in industrialized nations are much better off (relatively) than the same strata 200 years ago.

Never Fully Understood This

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never fully understood the dichotomy between the two viewpoints which I've seen coming from the same sources at differing points of time:

1. The earth is overpopulated, we need to do something. Stop breeding, and kill yourself for the sake of the collective!
2. The birth rate is going down and their won't be enough care-givers for the next generation. OMG

The first is used to create a general sense of alarm and a sense of guilt for being alive and taking up space, while the second is generally used as the reason why we simply MUST have open borders and an immigration policy that is wide open to illiterate 3rd worlders and closed to just about everyone else.

I'm listening. Please explain!

Clarification Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never fully understood the dichotomy between the two viewpoints which I've seen coming from the same sources at differing points of time:

1. The earth is overpopulated, we need to do something. Stop breeding, and kill yourself for the sake of the collective!
2. The birth rate is going down and their won't be enough care-givers for the next generation. OMG

The first is used to create a general sense of alarm and a sense of guilt for being alive and taking up space, while the second is generally used as the reason why we simply MUST have open borders and an immigration policy that is wide open to illiterate 3rd worlders and closed to just about everyone else.

I'm listening. Please explain!

Re:Clarification Needed

[kuzb]

Certain parts of the earth have population problems but that's because too many people are congregating in the same places. The earth itself isn't even close to capacity. This is just another groundless bit of bullshit from environmentalists who can't be bothered to get their facts straight.

Re:Clarification Needed

[RespekMyAthorati]

Certain parts of the earth have population problems but that's because too many people are congregating in the same places.

Damn straight!
If those lazy bastards would only move to the Sahara desert or to the high arctic, there would be plenty of room.

Re:Clarification Needed

[kuzb]

Fortunately there are more options available than those two places. The most populous places on the planet are India and China which both have population issues - no other country is really attempting to control its population because it's not yet necessary. Canada for example is the second largest country in the world by available land and only has 35 million people living there. That many people live in California alone in the US. Russia is the largest country in the world, and it only has 143.5 million people living there compared to the entirety of the US which is 318 million people.

The problem isn't that the planet can't sustain more people - it's that certain countries can't sustain too many people living in concentrated locations.

Nothing criminal in being on topic like me

[Anonymous Coward]

See my subject & 2 links vs. you being off topic stalking me A Hyper Alloy Combat Chassis https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10168471&cid=53784671/ because as Sgt. TechCom DN38416 said? My code, due to the above, is Microprocessor controlled - Fully armored, VERY tough" & A refactoring downside https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10168471&cid=53779911/

APK

P.S.=> You may learn a trick or two there instead of being a useless stalking troll - raymorris did & was impressed! apk

Re:"Programmed by fellas with compassion and visio

[remoteshell]

Great reference. I always liked that song!

Population bubble.

[T.E.D.]

"For the first time last year, there were more people in the world who are over 65 than under five. First time ever in history. By the middle of the century, the number of people over 80 will double. By the end of the century, it'll be up sevenfold, globally."

This is because the rate of population increase is declining pretty much everywhere. The only countries that are currently having births above replacement rate (3 or more per woman) are in Africa, and it looks to be dropping there too. We had our largest worldwide increase in population in history back in 1989, and it's been falling since. Its still increasing, mind you, but its decreasing in an expanding amount of places, so a worldwide decrease is not out of the question for the future.

Presumably some day we will hit something approaching a steady-state in population growth rate. But in the meantime we have that huge bubble that peaked 30 years ago that has to work through the system. That means that, for a while, yes we will have way more old people than young people. But that's likely not permanent, or at least not to the extreme it will be for the few of decades.

Meet the elephant in the room

[kuzb]

The reason people aren't having larger families is because nobody can afford it any more due to putting increased financial pressure on the middle class. When you could have a family of 2 - 3 on a single income this wasn't a problem. Now many people are starting to stop at 1 if they have any at all. Robots won't solve this problem, they will accelerate it as the middle class is further phased out.

The average number of children per family in the US has gone from 3.7 to 1.9 over the last 60 years. If you want people to have more kids, rescue the middle class already.

Orient: either work for money OR have The Girl!!!

[syntotic]

But not both! You will NOT change that mind frame. Why do you want the money (by working), when you can just have the girl and that is it? That is why you want that horribly materialistic thing called money, right? So if I offer you the girl I do not want because otherwise I cannot have another one... you simply start having the world and that is it! There are biological reasons for this to be true of Oriental thinking... So this frame of mind actually happening means a reduction in the work force and a lot of futility sending our processes to those countries...

Obligatory South Park quote

[maestroX]

They took our jobs!

Re:If you think those robots would help the elderl

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad (aged 89) has two household robots, both of which do things directly to help him on a daily basis. A Roomba, and a stairlift.

So relax. Robots will do what they're designed to do. There are a lot of elderly people with money in their pockets, and it's just silly to imagine that everyone is just ignoring that market. They're not.

Terrafoam?

[Anonymous Coward]

See Mana.

So it's either the The Australia Project or Terrafoam for us. UBI will likely come in one of those forms. But, lets be honest, Terrafoam is the likely outcome here.

Corralling the poor, out of sight of the rich, in government efficient housing is politically easy, even though they are effectively debtors prison ghettos. No one born there will have an effective means of getting out, as they lack money and the education necessary for upward mobility (free education limited to the government minimum). Assuming they are born at all. Terrafoam used secret involuntary libido suppressants in the water as a "disruptive behavior management scheme", but the result is genocide of the poor by proxy in a generation or two by lack of reproduction. It avoids killing the current population, and to a lesser extent the right to reproduce is not fully protected explicitly by the constitution, so it's a solution politicians can easily fall into.

Not the same.

[sethstorm]

The ones being brought in in the last 50 years are not really doing that.

Re:Not the same.

[skam240]

You're wrong of course. Hispanic immigration is not some special event that defies all historic precedent in the US.

Companies are spending a lot of time and money trying to tap into this changing demographic

http://hmc.comm.fsu.edu/blog/d...

And Hispanics even start becoming criminals at the same rate as any other American when they start to acculturate

http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

Just to put out a few examples of what should be obvious.

Maybe you should consider that what you're suggesting has been widely suggested of every wave of immigrant to the US and each time it was proven wrong. Evey time they said "this time we're right!"

Writing people off is a bad idea.

[sethstorm]

Basically, [claim redacted]... well, poor people. Keep doing this and you have a wealthy nation: the poor people are displaced, and the poor people in other areas become middle-class. What you have is a small elite (previously, auto manufacturers) losing station to a larger class of poor, who then become a larger middle-class; and then you have the ruins of an elite class left behind. It's a great monument to claim that somehow, something must be wrong.

Something is wrong, especially when you advocate writing people off and replacing them with others - solely for being in a First World country.

There is no need to apologize or pay for being part of Rome.

Re:Writing people off is a bad idea.

[bluefoxlucid]

No, this is what happens when you're one of 500,000 Americans living in Detroit and you make cars, but America has decided to buy its cars from Japan and now 300,000 Americans are wealthier and live better lives--oh, and along with that, they're able to buy things made by 40 million Americans in Silicon Valley and other west-coast urban tech centers.

Are you willing to advocate writing millions of people off to poverty so that thousands can avoid a little discomfort in temporary transitioning away from the jobs they had? We have welfare for those transitions, but nothing to replace the loss of wealth drawn by trade and technical progress--and that wealth allows us to provide welfare, without which there would still be poor, and the poor would be much worse off.

The fact that one quiet town raises a booming industry as another booming industry town rusts out in the path of progress is called growth. You can afford more than a loincloth and a day of hunting and gathering for nuts and rabbits because of this growth.

Re:Writing people off is a bad idea.

[RespekMyAthorati]

a little discomfort in temporary transitioning away from the jobs they had?

If you had ever visited the bombed-out sections of Detroit, you wouldn't call it "a little discomfort". It's utter devastation, and there is nothing temporary about it.

The fact that one quiet town raises a booming industry as another booming industry town rusts out in the path of progress is called growth

Except that the booming city is probably in another country and does not benefit the people in the "rust out" country at all.

Re:Writing people off is a bad idea.

[bluefoxlucid]

Detroit, as a city, is devastated. I don't care about cities.

The people of Detroit are a blight. They're a concentration of people who would be just as poor anyway if they were spread out across America--and, in fact, there are way more Americans living like that than just in Detroit--and we're simply uncomfortable having to look at them. We don't want to make Americans wealthier and solve the problems of the poor; we just want to cover over the visible evidence that they exist so we can feel good about it.

Except that the booming city is probably in another country and does not benefit the people in the "rust out" country at all.

Nope. The booming city is San Francisco, Palo Alto, or Cupertino. I was talking about America getting wealthier.

Trade and technical progress make Americans wealthier and move us from undeveloped third-world jobs like manufacture to developed first-world jobs like information technology and medicine. If you impede all of the things we've done since 1900 which had eliminated American jobs, we'd currently look a lot like some of the less-developed parts of Africa: farmers dragging plows and manually carrying water buckets to grow crops, while desperately sewing up holes in our shirts, with little to no access to things like vaccines and medications.

For example: if we stopped importing Men and Boys's Cotton Trousers and Shorts from China, and instead made them here, Americans would be poorer. If we paid the American factory workers over $18/hr, we'd have a net-loss of American jobs; if we paid them less, we'd have a net-gain; and either would buff out in a couple years and return unemployment to the same stable point, so the job situation would ultimately go unchanged.

Meanwhile, the median $27/hr income American pays 0.55 hours of his time for a pair of pants. If those pants were made by a $21/hr factory worker (American), the median-income American would pay 2.07 hours for them; and if they were made by an $8.25/hr minimum-wage worker, the median-income American would pay 1.01 hours for them. For the minimum-wage worker, these numbers are 1.81 hours (now), 6.76 hours ($21/hr factory workers), and 3.31 hours (minimum-wage factory workers). The ones hurt most by undoing trade are the poorest Americans, and the ones who benefit most from trade are the poorest Americans.

We are getting rich off trade--the middle- and lower-classes are getting rich off trade. The lower 90% income earners in America are getting rich off trade. They're also getting rich off technical progress, as technology replaces their jobs here and there. That's what happens.

Are you done arguing from ignorance, or would you like to claim that AIDS is a government conspiracy and not caused by HIV or transmitted sexually?

The 1965 Immigration Act belies you.

[sethstorm]

It, along with its successors and additions, has been one of the most un-American acts to date.

You mean rapists and criminals

[sethstorm]

They are when they can't report crimes that end up being politically incorrect.

Re:You mean rapists and criminals

[skam240]

Hahaha, I've spent time in Germany lately. While they do have more limits on their free speech then we do (and I generally disagree with those) the native born Germans hardly feel oppressed.

Well I'm sure the xenophobes do but that cant be helped.

No, that's *theft*

[sethstorm]

One quiet town raises a booming industry as another booming industry town rusts out in the path of progress is called theft.

temporary transitioning

Only on geologic timespans. For humans, you've effectively written their career off.

Besides, those aren't cars, but poky golfcarts that have no American input aside from safety compliance and a translated user manual.

Re:No, that's *theft*

[bluefoxlucid]

So wait, 1,000,000 people having their livelihoods ripped from them is okay, but 10,000 having their livelihoods left obsolete is theft?

You are advocating serfdom. You realize this, right? Serfdom is obsolete because of technical progress, which necessarilydoes those things you just described as "theft".

Way back in the day, people didn't go out and buy clothes. Clothes required hours and hours of labor to purchase, and people had to be compensated for those hours. Farms were inefficient, and so required many farmers to produce food for few people. To pay the farmers for your food, you had to work long hours. Likewise, long labor hours were required to pay off the long hours to make a shirt or some trousers.

How long?

In the early 1800s, the total labor cost of a shirt was 479 hours. At an $8.25/hr minimum wage, that's $3,951.75 for one shirt. You get that shirt for $15 at WalMart today; there's a lot less time invested in its production, and about an hour of that time is invested by a Chinese worker making $3.20/hr, while another hour in total is invested by the farmers, shippers, spinners, and dye makers making the cotton cloth he uses.

Back before rail, we used to ship goods across sea. Seaward shipping was relatively-expensive, but at the time it was a hell of a lot cheaper than overland shipping--a lot more labor involved moving things over poorly-maintained dirt roads. One day, someone invented the hot-blast furnace, which makes 86,400 tonnes of iron using the same labor required to make 200 tonnes of iron; and thus rail was born, and overland shipping became cheaper than seaward shipping. Less labor in total was used to ship things overland: not only did we unemploy the sailors, but we employed fewer workers per unit goods shipped overland than we did shipping them across the sea.

Note that sea shipping isn't itself inefficient: moving a 40-foot container from China to the US costs $1,300, or 6 cents out of a $14.97 pair of pants; meanwhile domestic overland freight is nearly half the price at the register. It's inefficient to ship something from Maryland to Pennsylvania by boat, however, when you can just put it on a train. The logistics are complex, but come down to the number of hand-offs and the directness of the route; shipping around the coast--especially in a world where sea navigation is dangerous and requires hundreds of crew--costs more than just going by rail.

Speaking of shipping, did you know about wooden shipping pallets? Loading and unloading a freight of canned goods took a crew 3 16-hour days in 1920--48 total working hours. Palletized, the same crew can do the job in 4 hours. That means goods got stacked at the factory and were done, instead of being moved, unstacked and restacked onto a truck, moved again, unstacked and restacked onto a train, and so on: a lot more than 44 hours vanished out of the shipping chain. Later we invented the 40-foot shipping container, so we can do multiple hand-overs (truck to ship to truck) by simply lifting the whole trailer and stacking it somewhere else instead of moving all the pallets.

Construction, with electrical and pneumatic power tools.

Farm work, with tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, GMO, advanced irrigation. United States, 1900: 38% of the labor force are farm workers, 29 million farmers. United States, 1950: 12.2% of the labor force are farm workers, 25 million farmers. United States, 1960: 8.3% of the labor force are farm workers, 15.6 million farmers. 1970: 4.6% of the labor force are farm workers, 9.7 million farmers. 1990: 2.6% of the labor force are farmers, 2.1 million.

Food cost 40% of the middle-class family's income in 1900, 33% in 1950, and 15% in 1990. To put that into perspective: for today's $54,000 median income household, the 1900s technology boasts a total $21,600 spending on food, while the 1950s would require them to spend only $17,820, and 1990 requires them to only spend $8,100.

This is the march of tec