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Job Evaporation

 
 
 
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Jimmy Higgins

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I'm not an industrial guy, so when I went to a metal plant to look over a potential project, I was a bit surprised and saw what was happening to jobs in America. And it isn't exactly a surprise, as many people bring it up all the time.

While some jobs are being displaced in industry to other areas, plenty of jobs are evaporating through automation. The entire plant was being run by a handful of people. Those jobs aren't coming back, computers replaced them.
 
From Uber/cab drivers to truckers and bus drivers, a few million other jobs are headed towards the horse shoeing industrial dustbin... Society really needs to be thinking about the impact sooner than later, but hey the NFL kneeling thingy is much more fun...
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/29/self-driving-beer-truck-world-record/
On Thursday, the arbiters of future trivia questions awarded the 132-mile road trip as the “Longest continuous journey by a driverless and autonomous lorry.” To all you non-Brits, that means a tractor-trailer.
For the record books, the trip in a tricked-out vehicle from tech company Otto, hauled 51,744 cans of Budweiser beer from Fort Collins, through downtown Denver and onward to Colorado Springs on October 20, 2016.
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I want to point out that this is not a new thing special to computers - doing the same work with less labor is the entire point of technology. Computers aren't doing anything that steam power (and plenty of other tech) didn't do way worse. Those jobs never come back.
 
Jobs have always "evaporated" - that is a consequence of technological and social evolution. It is an important indicator that resources are being directed to those uses that are most highly valued in the market. However, that does not deal with nor help with the social issues associated with job evaporation - effects on people and households and communities of sources that generate psychological well-being beyond the satisfaction of material wants and needs. The potential loss in self-esteem and perceived self worth, and the stress associated with finding a new job or career can be devastating.
 
laughing dog said:
Jobs have always "evaporated" - that is a consequence of technological and social evolution. It is an important indicator that resources are being directed to those uses that are most highly valued in the market. However, that does not deal with nor help with the social issues associated with job evaporation - effects on people and households and communities of sources that generate psychological well-being beyond the satisfaction of material wants and needs. The potential loss in self-esteem and perceived self worth, and the stress associated with finding a new job or career can be devastating.
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Yes. Technical change is inevitable. Social strife being caused by technical change is also inevitable. Government should have some built in mechanisms to deal with this change.
 
rousseau said:
laughing dog said:
Jobs have always "evaporated" - that is a consequence of technological and social evolution. It is an important indicator that resources are being directed to those uses that are most highly valued in the market. However, that does not deal with nor help with the social issues associated with job evaporation - effects on people and households and communities of sources that generate psychological well-being beyond the satisfaction of material wants and needs. The potential loss in self-esteem and perceived self worth, and the stress associated with finding a new job or career can be devastating.
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Yes. Technical change is inevitable. Social strife being caused by technical change is also inevitable. Government should have some built in mechanisms to deal with this change.
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Not as long as the unemployed are utilized as price controls. And that won't change until the public figures out what's going on - if ever.
 
Automation should be about saving time, resorces, and employees in wasteful positions, to free these up for newer, more complicated projects, which at the moment, can not be efficiently automated.
 
I'm not an industrial guy, so when I went to a metal plant to look over a potential project, I was a bit surprised and saw what was happening to jobs in America. And it isn't exactly a surprise, as many people bring it up all the time.

While some jobs are being displaced in industry to other areas, plenty of jobs are evaporating through automation. The entire plant was being run by a handful of people. Those jobs aren't coming back, computers machines replaced them.
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- said some guy in the 1800's
 
Horatio Parker said:
rousseau said:
Yes. Technical change is inevitable. Social strife being caused by technical change is also inevitable. Government should have some built in mechanisms to deal with this change.
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Not as long as the unemployed are utilized as price controls. And that won't change until the public figures out what's going on - if ever.
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Can you elaborate on this a bit?
 
Unemployment is low but I'm not seeing the expected wage pressure. There is an abundance of low paying jobs with low cost goods and services. A self-sustaining walmart-class where two or more toil away, surviving and supporting this cheap end of the economy.
 
funinspace said:
From Uber/cab drivers to truckers and bus drivers, a few million other jobs are headed towards the horse shoeing industrial dustbin...
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My farrier makes well into the six digits...
Just sayin'.
 
Elixir said:
funinspace said:
From Uber/cab drivers to truckers and bus drivers, a few million other jobs are headed towards the horse shoeing industrial dustbin...
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My farrier makes well into the six digits...
Just sayin'.
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Well, obviously you're not using your asymmetrical power as a greedy capitalist appropriately.

That aside, what's a woman's studies major supposed to do when automation produces a robot woman's studies professor, wiping out all possible woman's studies jobs?
 
dismal said:
Elixir said:
My farrier makes well into the six digits...
Just sayin'.
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Well, obviously you're not using your asymmetrical power as a greedy capitalist appropriately.

That aside, what's a woman's studies major supposed to do when automation produces a robot woman's studies professor, wiping out all possible woman's studies jobs?
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I assume she'll blame the patriarchy.
 
dismal said:
Smash the looms!
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What do you do for a living? If you can believe some of the smartest people today (Musk and Hawkinson) ) AI will greatly surpass human intelligence and your job will be outsourced. If AI is vastly superior to what you can do, your skills will be as valuable as what my pet cat can do for society.

At which time again begs the question, what will you do for a living? You may not want to smash any looms but you're going to have a big problem just like the rest of us anyway.

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sharon45 said:
Automation should be about saving time, resorces, and employees in wasteful positions, to free these up for newer, more complicated projects, which at the moment, can not be efficiently automated.
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+1 Agree
 
sharon45 said:
Automation should be about saving time, resorces, and employees in wasteful positions, to free these up for newer, more complicated projects, which at the moment, can not be efficiently automated.
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It already is. The problem is that the employees in the wasteful positions aren't necessarily the same employees who work on the newer, more complicated projects.
 
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