This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Insight on Automation
A Sloper sent me an email, which I liked so much that I asked if I could make a post out of it; he kindly agreed to this, so here you are:
I read your post Pity the Sub Genius and agreed with a lot of what you wrote. However you missed what I think is the biggest killer of middle class jobs, and that is technological innovation. For sure many companies moved production overseas for the cheaper labor but I do not believe that to be the biggest reason for job loss. I can remember all through the 90's up until today that one of the main drivers of corporate profits was the steady, incremental increases in productivity. Many interpreted that to mean employees were working harder or faster or becoming more efficient. What it really meant was that employees were being displaced by technology and that made the work flow more efficient while bringing costs down.
I will use as an example Briggs and Stratton headquartered in Milwaukee, WI. In 1980 they employed 20,000 workers in their factories making small engines. Today that number is down to 5000. And the reality is that they moved no jobs out of Milwaukee and are manufacturing more product than they did in 1980. And many of the 5000 now employed are skilled technicians that service the mechanized assembly operations.
The same is true in the automotive industry and pretty much every other manufacturing segment of the economy. And it is not just the factory floor. Computers have slimmed the size of office staffs, phone answering systems have replaced call receptionists and so on. Computers have not only trimmed workforces but eliminated entire manufacturing companies as their products became obsolete.
And the future does not look any brighter for the middle class. The shrinkage of available jobs due to technology is a trend that will never abate. The economy will never be able to grow out of this predicament. Small companies can now buy robots like Baxter for about 20 grand that can do many repetitious tasks performed by human employees. He can work 24/7 if necessary, requires no health care or benefits, and robots are going to be the next big thing. There are mechanized processing lines developed that will eventually replace many low paid fast food workers as well.
Individuals with the mental aptitude to train and adapt to work within the technology and medical fields will do fine, but those without that aptitude will continue to struggle. Just where the increasing numbers of displaced workers will find meaningful employment that will provide a comfortable existence for them and their family's is ever harder to predict. The large influx off immigrants that are mostly filling manual labor and menial jobs suggest the middle class is not going to step backwards to fill those types of positions even if it is an available source of jobs.
This not at all a good prospect for the sub genius. Maybe it is the reality and bleakness of the situation that the role of technology is rarely mentioned when economists and politicians express concern over the growing wage disparity that is happening not only in this country, but other developed countries everywhere in the world. It is not a causation that has a solution as far as I can tell.
Being as in tune as you are with markets and technology I would love to read your thoughts on this issue, whether you agree with my position or not.
- advertisements -
Another great example of technology killing jobs is in the aircraft industry.
Once the stampings for the skins were done will only little precision. Boeing had to hire several hundred workers to actually hand fit the panels to the structure of the plane, using metal shims to get the perfect alignment before final attachment. Precise cutting of structural pieces and panels eliminated the jobs and reduced the plane weight by several thousand pounds as no shims were required. Cheaper and better planes with fewer workers.
All the more reason for US workers to cut their wage, regulatory and tax burdons because they are now competing against machines as well as cheap foreign labor.
The future will always belong to the low cost producer of physical products. When the US loses all the Fed-related income advantages such as the petrodollar and global trade dollar, Americans are going to be shocked by the fierce global competition for jobs.
Healthy low-cost workers are going to always be in demand. I'm not certain America is up to the challenge to be lean, independent and competitive. Half the population will resist economic reform and we may have to wait till we get a mass die off of these sick, high maintenance obstacles to cost cutting. You know who they are.
Not valid for the US given its military backing. That alone will be the backstop keeping your situation from happening.
what happens in the animal kingdom when there is a surplus of animals? that's right. what do you think will happen to all those uneccessary humans? that's right.
Yes efficencies in automation is and continues to be the biggest driver of corporate profits, what industry hasnt information technology penetrated, however its genuinely awesome to witness the pace of global economic and social change due to advances in computing and communications.
Politically driven? I dont believe politicians had a clue about how to manage the downside of corporate outsourcing and offshoring in the 90s/00s and only got the point when it was too late so now its same old same old, governments knee jerk to create ..jobs.. this time with helicopter money but now the game has changed and technology is sweeping away vast numbers of private/public sector jobs with a much reduced technologist workforce
So whats the big political plan for a massive highly educated, technologically aware global workforce... with diminishing work prospects?
Can any mainstream politician give me a hint? Yep as i thought..
The question is how many lower wage workers can we successfully wipe off the face of the workforce before our economy goes with it. Yes corporations are making more money today because these lower classes are being kept above water to buy their stuff with goverment welfare. But, how far can this go?
Also, does anybody have the complete inside on how many phony account rule exceptions are still in place allowing these corporations to rake in these massive profits? These "financial crises rule exceptions" have got to be driving a good portion of the P in current P/Es. So, once back, if ever, to reality accounting do these outsize P/Es go with it?
I agree that there is nor was any clue in the political world as to how much impact technology advances would have on the workforce. And given that, we are nowhere near prepared for it. Just put it on Uncle Sams credit card for now and let our kids pay for it.
"Just put it on Uncle Sams credit card for now and let our kids pay for it.".. They cant even pay their student loans so how will that work? sorry but lets give then a chance to avoid our (babyboomers, have it all) mess and just let them default
Sorry, I meant that to be sarcastic. You are exactly correct. We are kicking the can and shoving a massive amount of outright debt and unfunded liablities onto our already indebted kids, their kids and their kids kids. Not only that, we are also destroying the middle class that upward mobility used to enable, so the breadwinner jobs to pay back that debt will be fewer and further between. The argument is that technology is destroying these jobs and it is. However, the financialization of our casino markets is also creating an environment that skews incomes toward the ownership class with no trickle down, as much as Big Ben or Jan Yeller professed it or wished it would. Dollars of debt don't just disappear. As defaults are allowed, those dollars are losses to other entities flowing back to reductions in income and employment by those entities. However, what one can say is that the banker class has made out much too well in this latest economic "recovery". Our current White House administration made sure of that as they stood between the banker class and the needed pitchforks of reform.
agreed; there seems to be however, greater utility for the next generations in purging a lifetime of debt than denying ageing investor returns. Yes the accounts wont tally and investors will use whatever devices to make claim their bounty, although i take your well worn point of increased losses exacerbating unemployment but it gives way to the massive burden placed on the shoulders of our income marginalised and socially immobile kids. As you say, its an impossible situation to resolve without major reform not only to protect future generations but also to prepare for a future large non-working class with high health, education and income expectations.
I work in data mining/analytics/whatever
it's true that things are advancing at a breakneck pace but it still has a ways to go.
I will say this though, machine learning is a "quiet revolution" as many of these algorithms are being incorporated into business processes and behind technologys we use everyday..like search engines for example.
"The truth is, America's politicians are sycophants guided exclusively by selfish motives -- they bootlick the lobbyists in order to stay in office. When the American people lost the Congress to the lobbyists, they lost representative government."
If it were that simple. Newtons law. For each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The left says take the money out of politics. What do you wind up with then? Venezuela.
Selfish motives- one of the democrat criticisms toward common people voting republican is, "why would you vote against your own self interest"? The politicians have selfish interests, the voters have selfish interests. Corporate owners have selfish interests. How do we balance everyones interests, instead of crushing one group in favor of another?
Until recent decades the majority of Americans had a common interest, a culture, which although it would benefit them was not selfish; there was a common agreement that if we stuck together it would be good for all, including ones neighbor.
The agreement was that a nation of people working together creates progress and justice.
Self-interest is different from selfish. Americans, in general, were not selfish.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence were not impractical men. They wanted the opportunities they had found in a new land permanently guaranteed to themselves and their descendants. They wanted the right to regulate their own affairs so that they might assure the greatest good to the greatest number. They wanted a voice in their own government.
All that ended in 1913 with the establishment of a central bank privately owned by wealthy international bankers with no loyalty to America , her people or her liberties – the Federal Reserve System with its accompanying federal income tax laws.
And now there sits on the United States Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan who is an example of what happens when foreign interests take precedent in law over American interests.
Who better to symbolize the broken spirit of America’s leaders than Elena Kagan and her steadfast insistence that the Declaration of Independence does not have a bearing on Supreme Court evaluations of the Constitution?
Who better, after denying the Declaration of Independence as a “founding document,” than Elena Kagan in her approval by the Congress of the United States -those despicable cowards, hardly representatives of a free people?
When you lose representation, and you can’t get anything across to your government that you are being hurt, you tend to look out for yourself. You no longer have a bond with your government.
Our Founders abhorred mob rule. They emphasized representation based on responsible citizenship, in the beginning, citizenship voting by property owners. With each step of the way, elections and voting were pushed away from that principle. Now, with open borders and illegal aliens participating in current U.S. elections, citizenship became compromised to the point whereby dual citizenship was allowed primarily in the case of Israel and, now, Mexico and other areas, meaning an American citizen’s loyalty may not be primarily to America.
When the U.S. Congress allowed non-property owners, many without citizenship, to vote themselves the property owned by its own citizens, it rang the death knoll for our Founders’ America.
Speaking of the Fed... Is the only reason we had the financial crisis market plunge in 2008 because there was no backer for the Wall Street Casino? So, now that the Fed had decided to officially put themselves in place as the official casino backer, stocks can fly to the moon forever and ever? Are there truly no consequences in backing the largest ponzi scheme in the history of mankind?
The plan:
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/08/the-dominant-elite-ready-to-b...
So, one question. Can the 1% ownership class walk away with the stock market in hand and leave the 99% to whither in the dust? Or does the market need a middle class to maintain it's astronomical height? It appears as if we are heading toward a society with the 1% owners and the working class slaves living mostly off of government subsidies. The only question in the 1%'s mind is how little can they get away with subsidizing those folks down there while keeping them alive and buying just enough of our shit to keep us rolling in it. We'll agree to pay that many taxes, but no more. We don't want those guys down there getting any ideas.
There's been talk lately that the American middle class was a fluke of history. Well to that I'd say maybe the dominance of the US economy might have also been a similar fluke built on the backs of those same middle class. With the demise of the class that built the economy, does the economy follow a similar path, and with it the 1%'s beloved stock market? Or, can they sell enough of their shit overseas to another countries with similarly dimishing middle classes? Just wondering. Can the 1% have their cake and eat it too, along with the cake of the middle class? Not sure there's enough cake to go around.
I would also look to history. Unless our current "democracy" with one person, one vote is legally eliminated. I would say the 1% might need to start building a little higher fences around their gated communities. Countries moving in this direction have historically had a little more than rocky futures.
To tell you the truth, the guy in the White House now was elected on a platform of supporting the middle class. His immediate turn toward corporate Wall Street dominance, putting his administration between that group and the needed pitchforks was a monumental shift in the direction of this country. There was a chance at that moment to change the future of this country for the better. It was lost and squandered away. The genesis of this Nobel Peace prize president will likely be the next bloody revolution and world war.
"So, one question. Can the 1% ownership class walk away with the stock market in hand and leave the 99% to whither in the dust? Or does the market need a middle class to maintain it's astronomical height?"
The pendulum cannot stay at one end of the run or the other. It swings back and forth. One extreme, leads to the other extreme and back.
The market's astronomical height is due to a record credit bubble, now globally reaching 156 trillion dollars in size. The final phase of the bubble has been government debt, as the U.S. government has run trillion dollar annual deficits, along with other governments running deficits. The market climbs as the middle class shrinks.
The market faltered when the FED ended QE, then Japan stepped in and the EU central bank says they are going to buy up bonds, keeping the bubble alive and the market stoked to new highs.
If you really think about it, the middle class has been in a state of decline since the DOW secular bull market began in 1982, or even the nominal point low in the secular bear market in 1974.
I see the point regarding the longer term demise of the middle class. However, look at the job partcipation rate. It was increasing through much of the first half of that longer period. It is only since 2000 that it began to drop and is now back to 1978 levels. This is new. So not only is the middle class vanishing, but overall job participation is back to the level of almost 4 decades ago.
All I can say is that long term QE and massive interest rate manipulations from the Fed only make the problem worse. If you must maintain these programs for half a decade, they are not the answer and will ultimately make the problem massively worse as you paint yourself into a corner and create an economy totally dependent on this unsustainable and counterproductive stimulus.
When it all comes home to roost, we are going to have one hell of a problem on our hands. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing that Bernanke video comment about being 100% sure the Fed will be able to control the unwind over and over and over again as things implode.
Greatest thing about robots is that they don't bitch about having to work on Thanksgiving.
A: Education is free; has been to anyone within walking distance of a public library. I was five when I recognized i could be anything I want because information was free.
B: Change is the constant. People choose to act or die. Most people are not handicapped physically or mentally. One need only look around their country, continent or the entire globe and ask, "What type of life do I wish to live?" and act to achieve that life rationally, systematically making corrections along the whole path.
C: The supreme gift of reason is thwarted by government controls, the anti-reason of religion and bad philosophy.
See the number of laws governing Americans, for example. Laws that are too numerous to know are anti-reason.
See countries that submit to Islam (pardon the redundancy). See the child left to die without readily available medical treatment because her parents know the mind of a god and know it's that malicious entity's will that she die . . . and they worship that fantastical monster!
See your cousin who is not handicapped, sees the world around him as readily as any other rational man and yet he never seeks a path to a rich, happy life.
Even highly automated production moves to asia. I am in the electroics industry. since 1980. It is highly automated. All high volumne production is now in asia and they use the same equipment we did. All that's left here is low vol. military, some medical and high reliablity industrial stuff. If we get a consumer like product we get the prorotypes, a few small runs, then it moves overseas.
True story. It's the labor cost. Always has been. I get quotes from US suppliers, Mexico suppliers, and Asian suppliers. Guess which is always higher R, usually by 30% or more? The US supplier, every time. Same equipment, same process. Everything to manufacture is always cheaper in China. Their quality is getting better but that is the only headache with China still. Mexico is becoming more even with China though. And it's a matter of time until Chinese labor rates are on par with Mexico.
Another fallacy in this reading is that factory workers are middle class. That isn't the case due to lack of wage growth compared to real inflation of commodities, education, and health care. My engineering job is barely upper-middle class now. Change with the times or get left behind.
"Change with the times or get left behind."
Not everyone can be a brain surgeon or a Wall Street banker. I would think even those jobs will be replaced by robotics and artificial intelligence some day. No more $350,000 annual bonuses at Goldman Sachs.
The Davinci surgical system assists doctors, but i would think that a future system will be capable of performing the task with no human operator.
Imagine every home with a 3D printer.
Everything is changing rapidly now. Even those trying to keep up with the changes could be left behind.
erm.....uhh.....Kurt Vonnegut wrote all about this decades ago and mordantly humorously.
A new paradigm will have to evolve wherein PRODUCING is separated from acquiring those necessities, wants, and luxuries which are able to be obtained without having to go to an 8 to 5 cubicle, 5-6 days, or 40 more hours a week.
Guaranteed 'incomes', or vouchers to get what one needs, some other kind of incentives to get the nice things we now take for granted with our incomes and credit facilities.
I am certain that the Geniuses at the top of the chain already know that there are 6 billion excess peoples in the world. It's either exterminate them or another method found for human beans to live their 5 score and ten.
What's going to replace work is going to be interesting to see, unfortunatlely none of us alive today will be able to unless someone figgers out a way to live 200 years.
I've always had a hankering to play the banjo.
Guaranteed death seems more likely than guaranteed income. Why should billionaires want their park lands infested with useless human disease breeders?
Everything gets more efficient except government,
which steals/corrupts/destroys more than ever before.
Fire half the bastards, and cut the rest to minimum wage.
Problem solved.
As a kid i enjoyed a automated resturant called Horn & Hardarts. Food was good,hot and few who staffed were nice.
We are what we produce. If we don't produce anything, we're worthless in a capitalist society. Barring a move 'back to the wild', the only possible outcome is population reduction - given the technology replacing jobs paradigm. It is Darwinism at its corollary finest. Those who got wealthy first by hook and crook have slowly and subtley changed the rules to benefit themselves. The end game is a ridiculous concentration of wealth in the form of productive asset ownership, and value batteries such as gold, precious paintings, and other collectibles that the 1% ascribe value to.
If population reduction doesn't happen naturally - or fast enough - artificial means are needed to accomplish the goal. Otherwise, the sleeping beast will dream what is happening and awaken. Hence the need for slow subtle changes - or a virulent plague (much preferable to war).
Don't think so? What would you and your descendants be doing if you had very old wealth and lots of it? Population grows exponentially but wealth only grows geometrically - and then there are finite limits to that. To ensure the future wealthy state of descendants, one has to create a statis. This can only happen if population is static and everyone is about the same level of wealth, more or less. Anything that reduced population in lesser socio-economic strata would be cheered on. There would be no haste to deal with these crises unless they threatened to lead to unrest and necktie parties.
When you add all those nouveau-riche sociopath CEOs et al, the potential for aggressive instead of passive solutions grows.
"The end game is a ridiculous concentration of wealth in the form of productive asset ownership, and value batteries such as gold, precious paintings, and other collectibles that the 1% ascribe value to."
There isn't really an end game, as nothing is static. A cycle always morphs. At the trough of the last cycle there was a concentration of wealth. The modern American middle class grew out of that trough and is now shrinking, going into the current trough.
Economic depression occurs at the trough, which does cause upheaval. 1932 brought us the New Deal.
A concentration leads to a de-concentration, as a cycle morphs. De-concentration then leads to concentration, as cycles ebb and flow.
The variabilities or "ebb and flow" are what is adapted to but the problem arises when the trend line fails to remain reasonably flat. Those morphs or deformations on a steeper trendline may result in the breaking of the old cycle. Adaptation to the new cycle may be impossible.
If you say "nothing is static" then you're saying cycles aren't static either?
We now seem to be pushing the needles to the red...
Interplanetary travel is but a generation away. Like other pioneers, the more risk one is willing to take, the more likely the overpopulation will see the advantage of seeking a better life on another planet.
As did the easterners and midwesterners when the east became 'too crowded', they headed west.
Our descendants will head "north".
You forsee a truly horrific future on earth, if you think death of radiation poisoning in a cell the size of a coffin is a better life.
This is what i've been reduced to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGYaFMFU63U
Corporations are very anti-free market, they lobby for MANY regulations to intrench themselves.
This gives them extra capital to invest in "automation", if you will.
The point im trying to make is that they have enormous resources and can do things on an industrial scale that a smaller organization woud just struggle to deal with.
Sloper,
i think your letter-writer's heart is in the right place, but his analysis is short-sighted and is only evaluating this issue from the perspective of a recent shift in international mercantilism. speaking of international mercantilism, and before i get to my main argument, i'd like to point out that these chinese capitalists are not in any way capitalists -- at least as it's traditionally understood. it's fair to say that janus ain't a 'pure-capitalist' (i do, however, believe that any economy must be based on the principals of open access to markets and the philosophy of incentive), and so it isn't that i'm defending 'capitalism' per se; only, i'm attempting to clarify the issue of china & capitalism -- and they ain't related. in all of china, what you have is a tottering totem of graft...petty little peasant tyrants funneling up to provincial communist bosses; all of it, every last goddam bit of the whole sino-dynamo built by, for and at the expense of the west and its technology. let's not forget that this nation of a billion point 2 was not long ago attempting to cultivate a native pig-iron industry by whipping peasants into cracking ore and fluffing bellows over coal fires by hand. every last bit of that technology was developed by the west and either delivered by traitorous couriers or purloined by chinese cunning or agents. they have no domestic market for the western way because they have no incentive to live the western way; these are peasants who're doing all the work that was done here some twenty years ago. and in my view, it isn't so much that technology has made the industrial worker obsolete (we consume more than we did twenty years ago), it's that other nations thousands of miles away, with the necessary feedback-capital yielded from their labor not returned to the economy that consumes, have all the manufacturing technology and infrastructure we've happily fore-fitted in the name of 'capitalism', for the benefit of communists at the behest of international merchantilists. what a fuckin world!
anyway, my main argument, and the most important consideration in any of these debates is the 7 billion pound gorillia in the room -- demographics. for the last century or so it's been fashionable for the hip and intelligent of the western world to go childless and for all their lives live singly and 'find themselves'; all the while, every cess-swelled village and squalid dung-heap all across the world is motivated by a single and irresistible instinct: to breed. and these mouth-breathers who won't even bother to swat flies off their children's eyes are prolific at very little, but when it comes to the issue of impregnation they put rabbits to shame. fly over lagos in a helicopter and you'll get a sense of what i mean.
you hipsters think you're winning with your iphone six and your seven series benz; and you may take a small battle with a double mocha-latte along the way, but you bitchez are losing the war -- and it's one of duration and attrition and mathematics. you high IQ cunts are low breeders; you fail to fulfill your primary obligation to civilization and humanity by passing along the most advantageous of traits...and you sit back and postulate on what's the best ideology to replace the present putrescence or you flip through your ikea catalog all the while jose and jonathan goodluck are poppin out chillins all across the globe whose cultures and economies could only independently support fractions of those numbers...but you do, hipsters. you're funding a future of barbaric hordes who will burn and plunder the earth asunder. and you know who understands how rotten are these indigenous cultures and their governments more than you or i ever will? their inhabitants, that's who. why do you think we have bases in ever corner of the world? it's because these breeders want us there...wake the fuck up, people! we're not uninvited colonialists, most of the protests and whatnot are just theatrics...the people know that when uncle sam lifts anchor and sails away, it's goddam bedlam and pandemonium the second he's breeched the harbor. you bitchez think fergueson is just in amorica? fuck no! this is a fuckin globe of ferguesons.
so now we've delivered free technology transfers to the world's teeming hordes, and through the dislocation of capital from a warped paradigm where producers and consumers are not integerated in a direct economic relationship we've fostered outrageous disproportions in third-world populations, and so we've given them all the tech and population numbers they need to over run us. and you hip cunts think it's a churlish joke. and they're spillin out by the steamer load in every western port of call; and they come to collect; and then point a finger and condemn us as evil despoilers.
so while you sophisticates were hiking through nepal and catching the sunset in the yukatan while having one to no kids (but doubtlessly putting together a facebook page to die for!), your world has radically changed in a single generation...and that change is accelerating...and it doesn't include people like you.
so, by looking at it from another angle, maybe the swarthy hordes deserve to subsume you high IQ hip-set...they've obviously outsmarted you in the ultimate and elemental metric of evolutionary advantage -- passing your genes to the next generation.
silicon valley, how does it feel to be bested by the slums of lagos?
janus
Ok... I'll bite.
Let's look at the world from a purely material viewpoint for a moment. Did it ever occur to you that the 'hipsters' with all of their technology were/are the failed experiment.
So what if the world's 'swarming masses' regress to the mean once that technology is withdrawn, its infrastructure collapsed. They are use to that. As you point out, they are winning the breeding war... if the so called k limit changes they will adjust and carry on.
Assuming the world survives all it's genius has wrought... debatable...
Did it ever occur to you that you maybe nothing more than a parasite, committing the ultimate parasite sin... that of killing its host... assuming the world does not survive. I have news for you my friend... these swarming masses are the salt of the earth. They are what has kept mankind in the game for the past thousands of years. Their labor has provided the idle time, creating the opportunity for all of those genius minds to work.
Ain't arrogance a wonderful thing?
Personally I like to think there is a point to the human soul... or even, that the human soul exists... That in the midst of the struggle perhaps there is something more than production... production relegated to a means, not the end.
You live in an age where man has substituted knowledge for wisdom. Such an age never ends well.
Lordflin,
please don't read the following in the spirit of contentiousness; based on what you've written, i suspect we inhabit the same turf. also, when discussing these matters in the present age with all of its thought-constraints, it's rather difficult to say things directly; much of what i do on the Hedge is conveyed by means of subtle innuendo (especially when it seems as if i'm anything but subtle). for when dealing with the post-modern mind, it is often impossible to state things in a straight-forward way; in that wisdom relative to the human condition (i.e. the soul) often involves certain incompatibilities that cannot be reconciled when viewed through the prism of this wretched materialist dialectic.
Let's look at the world from a purely material viewpoint for a moment. Did it ever occur to you that the 'hipsters' with all of their technology were/are the failed experiment.
yes, that is precisely what i'm saying...post-modernist values, as manifest in these pestiferous pukes, is the most vapid and worthless station for individual humans since the advent of eunuchs. and that is what they effectively are: androgynous and spineless gadabouts whose raison d'etre is to flock mindlessly to whatever is dictated to them as the trend.
So what if the world's 'swarming masses' regress to the mean once that technology is withdrawn, its infrastructure collapsed. They are use to that. As you point out, they are winning the breeding war... if the so called k limit changes they will adjust and carry on.
i'm going to have to disagree with part of this statement. they most certainly are not accustomed to the sudden and precipitous withdrawal of technology and systematic distribution of resources...in that it's never happened before. they haven't the capacity or the inclination to suffice our systems with their own because they haven't any; we are raised to understand ourselves as part of a society, complete with the rule of law and two millennium of cultural refinements; such things cannot be grafted into tribal minds with some coloring books and pamplets and a few decades of 'education'. i will, however, concede that they will revert to a mean; only, it will be at population densities FAR lower than we see today. for the time being, the surplus of their untenable population levels are being absorbed onto our shores and subsidized by our generosity; but that will not last much longer. and as that relates to k limits, there is much more to the modeling of 'k' structures that doesn't fit within the horizons of the calculated parameters. all things being equal only holds till it doesn't (if that makes any sense).
Assuming the world survives all it's genius has wrought... debatable...
i'll answer this with a Bible quote: "there is a way that seems right to man; but the end of that way is death." and again: "the wisdom of man is foolishness to God."
Did it ever occur to you that you maybe nothing more than a parasite, committing the ultimate parasite sin... that of killing its host... assuming the world does not survive. I have news for you my friend... these swarming masses are the salt of the earth. They are what has kept mankind in the game for the past thousands of years. Their labor has provided the idle time, creating the opportunity for all of those genius minds to work.
i think you may be confusing the development of societies within the framework of a nation-state and extraneous/global population explosions that occur for no reason other than the artificial abundance of resources. think of it this way: a lion's pride dwelling in the savannah develops and evolves based on the availability of resources and the capacity of the lion to flourish (premised on the advantages/disadvantages of its species) relative to both considerations. it is a type of society that's been refined for hundreds of thousands of years. now, we could breed lions in artificial environments and support incredible numbers of them. even so, there is therein no 'pride' or lion society...only big mammals that are more like gerbils than lions. remove the artificial supports and the lions return to 'pride' formations, but at substantially reduced numbers -- numbers that will be supported by the intrinsic nature of the lion and what is in its environment to sustain them.
Ain't arrogance a wonderful thing?
here i'm certain we agree, and so again, more Bible: "pride cometh before a downfall and a haughty heart proceedeth destruction."
Personally I like to think there is a point to the human soul... or even, that the human soul exists... That in the midst of the struggle perhaps there is something more than production... production relegated to a means, not the end.
You live in an age where man has substituted knowledge for wisdom. Such an age never ends well.
profound...and i concur; but with one small caveat: i happen to believe that western civilization, though by no means optimal, is still highly preferable to the world's alternatives. problem is, the world's alternatives and their representatives do not agree with janus. they are equally -- if not moreso -- convinced that you and i should instead live under the edict of a caliphate, or some newfangled han emperor, or a belligerent and brutal tribal chieftain. all of which is to say, i find western civ to be the preferable incubator for the human soul whilst it's trapped in the mortal coil. it is now in grave jeopardy because the post-modern mind likes to pretend that all things are equal. i disagree.
we've given these people The Gospel, the plow, the tech and the know-how...it is now up to them. time to sink or swim, bedoins.
and so i'll sum this up by saying that these are not the salt of the earth; the best the world has ever produced comes from the middle orders...these societies over yonder invariably produce a two-tiered system with depravity and indolence at the top and everthing beneath it suffocating under its brutal and ignominious girth. and we are diluting and stunting our development for the sake of folks who have no appreciation for our ways and end up hating us for attempting to bring them in. i say we call-off the experiment; as it's become an abject failure and likewise imperils all we've built.
nevertheless, my friend. cheers to the Pilgrams. Happy Thanksgiving. and God bless.
janus
Thought provoking posts!
Just think of humans as chimps in clothes and it all makes perfect sense.
The 700 military bases however are not there just to save the natives from themselves... but without the West those places would be much larger shitholes than they already are.
no-no, my brother -- thank you, Zer0head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWPcid4l74U
stay dangerous, my friend.
before i depart serious mode and return again with the funny, i'll only say that when dragons start to peek-out from their lairs, it's time for dragon hunters to unsheathe their swords. dragon's blood is ambrosia for janus.
mrs. janus just popped the bird into the oven...so now my only task is to sip wine and wait. in that time i suppose i'll draft something fun and festive while the fowl steams in the oven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txX-kPn3h6s
{if you give me weed, whites and wine/
and you show me a sign/
i'll be willin, to be movin...}
en vino vertias,
janus
Not certain I know what a sub genius is... human intelligence has never been much to write home about... and as I recall the article for which this one is derivative was mostly hubris.
That said... the easiest jobs to replace and automate are so called information jobs... those largely filled by what I can only assume is the genius class of humans... Then there is entertainment... would love to see these folks disappear anyway as I am tired of being subjected to their imbecilic political views.
But the rub was always going to be the death of the consumer. So we eliminate 6.5 billion people as they are unnecessary... on the verge of doing this with the next great war... but here is what no one has ever explained to me... unnecessary to what??
Aren't people the point?
No, the genius class includes names like Fermi, Einstein, Von Neumann, Feynmann, Bohr, Pauli, Watson & Crick etc.
What would modern society be with quantum mechanics, for example? No modern electronics, no computers, very few sensors or transducers, most modern material and chemistry science would be nearly impossible.
Even General Relativity (as abstract as one can get): no global postioning system, no atomic clocks etc.
Ideas underlie every single important technology, though the originator genius rarely benefited economically nor did they care-they wanted to understand how the universe works. Yet these ideas underlie every technology in the modern world, not economics nor sociology.
You missed this guy's previous article in which he included himself in said group.
This all ties in with the David Rockefellers and Bill Gates Senior running around the world holding meetings with other Oligarchs to promote the elimination of 80% of the world's population. Of course, they will not offer themselves as the first to die. Although those pricks should have died long ago.
Of course when the supply chain is totally automated, ever hear about automated cars and trucks, there is going to be large percentage of people who have no where to go.
Ever consider purposefully orchestrated pandemics? Can you say Ebola? The artwork at the Denver airport forecasts the intentions of these sick fucks.
One man uses a machine to do the job of ten men. Now nine men are unemployed. Those nine could start their own businesses except that they have no capital. Even if one man manages to scrape together some money and start a business, to whom does he sell his produce? You still have eight that are unemployed.
One man uses a machine to do the job of ten men. But he still only gets paid the wage of one man. And unemployment just went up. Who's buying?
You share the productivity gains - they dont have to work to get income, but their income will be lower than the income of the one who has a job. Will it work? No idea. But it better does cause there ain't no other non-violent option. People should really read the Manna novel (linked even in these comments) Certainly made me think (and act) about steering my daughter away from dolls to Lego Mindstorm...
Well written and thought out. It makes me think how far I am from being replaced by a robot? Nice work!
'
'
'
As soon as lithium ion batteries arrive, you will see the first gen cybermen. Rough robots. Then the next gen will come.
Then take all the advances in AI, and robotics, and start piling them on top of each other. 10 years.
They say in 25 years, 50% of the jobs will be gone. I'm an optimist. I think it'll only be 20% gone by that time. But climbing steadily.
Ha-ha! SweetDoug! You don't know shit!
Really? Ever used the ol' Makita cordless drill from the late 90's? Ever used the Dewalt 20v they've got now?
Ha-ha! You and Orville are nuts! You think you can make that 'fly'?! And you think hundreds of people will climb onto that thing and go across the oceans someday?!?
•?•
V-V
The future is going to be divided into two groups of people
Those who can do math and can thikn abstractly as well as critically
Those who cannot. Even the skillled trades will require some form of computer science education in the future.
You forget a third class: Embezzelers, assassins, extortionists, politicians, military and police.
http://www.dilbert.com/2014-06-04/
The main productivity gains came from labor arbitrage. The way the government measures productivity gains is in out put per dollar of input and not per head. And, if they are measuring US productivity they only count US labor and not foreign labor. The US is no longer a closed system, so the numbers no longer make sense.
Let's say IBM closed a factory and farmed all of its manufacturing out to Flextronics in Asia. IBM's productivity went up because they no longer spent labor dollars in the US. Instead, they bought the finished good as if it was a raw materials and just marked it up for a profits.
Pay cheap labor overseas and sell it at US labor costs ... labor arbitrage that shows up as a huge productivity gain. It is B/S.
Apple was probably one of the largest beneficiaries of labor arbitrage-esque "so called" productivity gains.