Re: "The Hoarding of the American Dream"
Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2017 12:55 pm
Here is a good exchange.
And the rebuttleHow do you disagree? What jobs will people do if they’re replaced. I’m not uninformed. This was the entire focus of my degree, it’s what I do for a living. I recruited for Goodyear for a year and they have just finished their first test factory that replaces all people. 82% of GY plant employees are assembly workers. The new plant will have 1/4 the managers, no floor workers and a small team of engineers to keep the plant running. That’s a downsize of something like 90%. This test factory is the model for what they want to propagate to all their factories around the world. What magical jobs will people do when —as I pointed out— not just jobs but entire labor sectors have been automated?
People keep parroting the facile mantra, “Technology in the past made more jobs.” Yes. We know that, because technology was used by individuals or teams of individuals to increase their reach. In this case, we’re not extending reach, we’re replacing the human labor pool entirely.
The US has tracked labor sectors for about two centuries. Those labor sectors are:
Farming/Fishing
Loading/Shipping
Manufacturing/Repair
Government
Service/Hospitality
Mining
Construction
Technology/Medicine
Each of these are being disrupted. Some won’t be disrupted if ever (intellectual roles) but the US cannot have an intellectual role based economy. Farming, Manufacturing, Loading, Shipping, Mining and Construction are all eminently automate-able. These aren’t dullards - Half of American jobs are at risk from automation, new study suggests
And the factories who made those automated robotics/ computers and software - those are also created by completely automated robots too? Is it turtles all the way down?The new plant will have 1/4 the managers, no floor workers and a small team of engineers to keep the plant running. That’s a downsize of something like 90%.
Sure it will reduce the number of jobs within that floor of that factory- but it creates huge numbers of jobs outside, of all kinds.
Besides that point: all this is to make humans more efficient, and the more efficient you make humans, the more we output - not less.
The more you automate farming processes, the more we farm - NOT less.
We wiped out a complete job role once when we created ATMs. Bank Tellers became totally redundant - the ATM did their job completely for them. We don’t have zero human bank tellers - we have twice as many. The more efficient you make the banking industry, the wider its reach and capability and creativity and vision becomes.
Humans are NEVER satisfied. The job is never done. It’s not “Oh well no human tellers any more great you can all go home” - it’s “Great, this is an opportunity to expand and do more” and that is precisely what we’ve seen.
Bank tellers do a slightly different job now - but I repeat, we have twice as many of them - not none. Because ATMs made banking more productive as a whole, not less. The human potential for creating opportunities is boundless.
As for the US economy specifically, well I’m European so not really my area.