This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

The End Of Meaningful Work: A World Of Machines And Social Alienation

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Daniel Drew of Dark Bid

The End of Meaningful Work: A World of Machines and Social Alienation

Many activists are clamoring for a higher minimum wage. That's an admirable goal, but is that where the worst problem is? Even at the abysmally low wages of the present moment, we still have 938,000 people being turned away from McDonald's because there aren't enough McJobs. The real problem is the lack of meaningful work. In a world of machines and social alienation, meaningful work is as scarce as water in the drought-stricken California Central Valley.

One cause of the employment crisis is relentless outsourcing to foreign countries. However, even more insidious has been the replacement of human workers by machines. For hundreds of years, the Protestant work ethic lauded hard work and efficiency as ideals to strive for. It's not easy to object to those principles. But what happens when efficiency means eliminating humans? It's doubtful the early Protestants ever imagined that could be a possibility.

Even up to the present day, many view new technology and efficiency as the main drivers of human progress. For awhile, it seemed like this was indisputable. In his book Rise of the Robots, Martin Ford describes the 25 years after World War II as the "golden age" of the American economy. Productivity, employment, and wages were increasing in synchrony. As with many trends, economists assumed they would continue indefinitely. It was the glorious free market at work.

Then it all came crashing down at the turn of the century.

This time, it really is different. The shift happened when machines transformed from mere tools to actual workers.

Martin Ford explained, "In 1998, workers in the US business sector put in a total of 194 billion hours of labor. A decade and a half later, in 2013, the value of the goods and services produced by American businesses had grown by about $3.5 trillion after adjusting for inflation - a 42 percent increase in output. The total amount of human labor required to accomplish that was...194 billion hours. Shawn Sprague, the BLS economist who prepared the report, noted that 'this means that there was ultimately no growth at all in the number of hours worked over this 15-year-period, despite the fact that the US population gained over 40 million people during that time, and despite the fact that there were over thousands of new businesses established during that time.'"

If this trend continues a few more years, it will be two lost decades, which means an entire generation has gone by with no net new jobs created. This might be somewhat permissible if the population had stagnated or declined, but with 40 million new people, it sets the stage for a national disaster.

It is truly a new era. Ford confirmed, "There has never been a postwar decade that produced less than a 20 percent increase in the number of available jobs. Even the 1970s, a decade associated with stagflation and an energy crisis, generated a 27 percent increase in jobs. This new reality is nothing less than the end of progress and the Protestant work ethic. Efficiency can no longer be held up as something that is unambiguously good. The Protestants were wrong. There is something much more important than efficiency: survival.

In a world without sufficient work, some have argued in favor of a broader social safety net. In a New York Times op-ed called "Sympathy for the Luddites," Paul Krugman said more education is not the answer, and it never was. Indeed, education is probably the biggest national scam in history. Nothing turns the average person into a debt slave the way college does. Krugman said instead of more education, we should provide everyone with a basic minimum income - kind of like Social Security, except for all ages. Krugman claims it's the "only way" to have a middle-class society. He's not the first one to suggest this. Ironically, the biggest libertarians of all, economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, agreed that a basic universal income was prudent policy.

Another proposed solution is broad-based capital ownership. The basic concept is to mimic the way rich kids get an inheritance. Everyone would get an inheritance, and it would be courtesy of Uncle Sam. The initial implementation of such a project would require an enormous one-time expenditure, probably $100 trillion if the individual amounts were meaningful in any sense. It would be like a lump sum version of Social Security. It would be the ultimate quantitative easing, possibly the QE Infinity that some have referred to. Unlike prior quantitative easings, this one would actually benefit the average person because everyone would be a capitalist.

The idea for widespread capital ownership can be traced to the Founding Fathers. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison all believed men should have their own farms and be self-sustaining citizens. Abraham Lincoln supported the idea with the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted citizens 160 acres of government land to cultivate.

In his book The Citizen's Share, economic sociologist Joseph Blasi said, "business capital has replaced land as the source of wealth creation."

Blasi told Fortune Magazine, "We could have a future where technology creates a low feudal serf class - people with low wages or flat wages or high structural unemployment. Or, we could have a future where we have a smaller workweek and citizens broadly have more capital ownership."

Blasi explained to PBS, "John Adams favored distribution of public lands to the landless to create broad-based ownership of property, then the critical component of business capital in the largely agricultural U.S. Current levels and trends in inequality would almost certainly have terrified the founders, who believed that broad-based property ownership was essential to the sustenance of a republic."

James Madison warned that inequality in property ownership would "subvert liberty" by fostering class warfare.

Blasi raises compelling points about the Founders. This information completely defies the critics who think socialist capital redistribution is inherently Un-American. As the Founding Fathers argued, such socialist policies are necessary to ensure a republic where the "common man" is not merely a concept, but a reality as well.

Nonetheless, the compelling scheme of broad-based capital ownership is not without problems. First of all, there is the whole feasibility issue. If we want to give every American a stock portfolio, it would require an unprecedented one-time expense. Second, unless there were some kind of "reload" option, it could create a society where there are no second chances. Investing is basically a gamble, and if you blew your entire government inheritance on a biotech stock, would you be permanently homeless? In the new dystopia, you wouldn't be able to "work" to get the money back because the machines would do all the labor. The money would be lost forever. On the other hand, this reality might make people extremely risk-averse, and we could have an even more severe situation than we have now, with government bonds trading at negative interest rates.

Whether it's guaranteed income like Social Security or a broad-based capital ownership program, what both "handout" solutions fail to do is restore the dignity of work. Even if work is routine or inefficient, the mere act of working and contributing to society creates meaning in the worker's life. No one wants to receive a handout. People want to feel like they earned it. This is what workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps felt like during The Great Depression.

The History Channel explains, "Formed in March 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC, was one of the first New Deal programs. It was a public works project intended to promote environmental conservation and to build good citizens through vigorous, disciplined outdoor labor. Close to the heart of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the CCC combined his interests in conservation and universal service for youth. He believed that this civilian 'tree army' would relieve the rural unemployed and keep youth 'off the city street corners.'"

With 938,000 people being turned away from McDonald's jobs and riots in the streets, there has never been a time since The Great Depression when we could use something like the Civilian Conservation Corps as much as now.

Even an ambitious work project like this does not eliminate the threat of machines whose primary advantage is efficiency. Are human beings inefficient? You better believe it. Are we loud, obnoxious, smelly, and unsanitary creatures that are huge liabilities? Yes we are. But for thousands of years, those were accepted realities. Only now, when mechanical options present themselves, are these realities being questioned.

Nothing captures the humans vs. machines debate as well as Agent Smith's interrogation of Morpheus in the 1999 movie The Matrix. Ironically, the film was released at the turn of the century, just when efficiency was about to diverge from human employment. In eerie prescience, Agent Smith calls it the peak of our civilization. According to him, human beings are like the dinosaurs, about to be wiped out and replaced by machines. He is dressed like the MBA automatons that dominate corporate America. Sometimes, it's not clear if this is entertainment or reality.

One writer named Hayley Krischer shared a frightening story about her five-year-old daughter:

The other day, I pointed out the pink sunset between the cluster of bare winter trees behind our house to my five-year-old daughter, and she turned to me, her face blank and said,

"Is that real?"

"What do you mean, honey? It's the sunset."

"No, I mean is that fake, like is this something we see on TV, or is it actually happening?"

When our children don't even know if a sunset is real, we have a problem. What happens when we can't even tell if a human is real? Aiko Chihira is the name of the new receptionist at the Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi department store in Tokyo. She's not made from the same stuff as you and me.

One way we can halt creepy, degrading mechanical intrusions into our social experience is through a new series of incentives. In the same way we have "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco products, we could have a sin tax on companies that use a machine to completely eliminate human interaction, which would be defined as face-to-face interaction or vocal communication, but not text or pictures. Conversely, we could provide subsidies for companies that create new human interaction in their business transactions. For example, banks that use ATMs when human tellers are available would have to pay the technological sin tax. If they created a new policy where all ATMs were shut down during normal business hours, they would have to hire more tellers, which would boost employment and create more human interaction. Both of these results would be good for society.

The goal of these policies would be to eliminate the increasing mechanical alienation that pervades every aspect of life. Anyone who has been to a party where everyone was using a cell phone can attest to this reality. Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, says modern technology is already rewiring the way the human brain works. UCLA scientists found that sixth-graders who went five days without any digital screen exposure did substantially better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders from the same school who spent hours every day looking at their electronic devices. When a New York Times reporter asked Steve Jobs how his kids liked the iPad, he said, "They haven't used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home."

It's clear that technology has intruded far enough into our lives. If we do not act now, we will lose our ability to communicate with each other and the ability to enjoy meaningful employment. We will degenerate into an idiocracy. If you agree, you can sign this petition to President Obama to promote the responsible use of technology in the work environment.

Despite the clear data and obvious dangers of being replaced by machines, being a Neo-Luddite is not easy. Critics abound. The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation hands out annual Luddite Awards to make fun of tech critics who wish to "smash the engines of innovation." According to them, technology is unambiguously good; it is "the wellspring of human progress." Because nothing says "progress" like no net new jobs created in 15 years when the American population increased by 40 million. There is nothing unscientific about demanding a technology policy that promotes moral responsibility. If science has bioethics, technology can have technoethics.

Some critics will argue that we shouldn't create incentives with sin taxes because it interferes with the "free market." The free market evangelists at Forbes write columns that are filled with quotes like, "The market always wins, you cannot stop it." It's simply not true. The free markets brought us slavery, monopolies, dangerous working conditions, and unsafe consumer products. Contrary to what you heard from Gordon Gekko, greed is not good, and it does not work. The backwards belief that greed somehow benefits society with one giant invisible handshake is one of the greatest lies ever perpetuated by the economics profession.

Even Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations and the one who popularized the Invisible Hand, said, "When the regulation, therefore, is in support of the workman, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters...No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

Economist Joseph Stiglitz said, "The reason the Invisible Hand often seemed invisible was because it wasn't there."

The free market has certainly failed us. We are left with a society that has no work to offer 40 million new citizens. We prefer to spend most of our days staring at screens rather than at actual human faces. We jump at the chance to avoid human contact. Text messaging is basically a regression to an earlier mode of communication: the telegraph. Instead of Morse code, we use emoticons - artificial digital faces to express emotions we can barely convey across our actual faces. Now, it is considered an accomplishment rather than an abomination to create a humanoid robot receptionist. The free market brought us slavery. Now, it wants to purge everyone of our humanity and make us all more like robots.

Am I a silly Neo-Luddite? Why don't you ask Aiko Chihira for her opinion. She might not have an opinion now, but she will some day.

 

- advertisements -

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Mon, 05/18/2015 - 19:55 | 6107771 knukles
knukles's picture

Ned Ludd was right.  Happy happy, joyful Dystopia.
The Progressive's dream.  A life of vacation.
Complete with perfect absence of self-esteem and sense of belonging, raison d'etre.  Phhht.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:12 | 6107825 0b1knob
0b1knob's picture

Look on the bright side.   All the computer nerds will get hawt android girlfriends.

To replace their current girlfriends who are either imaginary or inflatable. 

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:53 | 6107958 tmosley
tmosley's picture

"The free market has certainly failed us."

No, it hasn't.  We haven't had one in more than a century.  Rather, it is the mixed market that has failed us.  We also know that Communism fails, as does Fascism (Franco's Spain).  Indeed, the only economic model that has EVER worked has been the free market.

And why on Earth do you want to create all these make work jobs?  Can't you just let men be free to do what they want?  It will happen, just as it has happened online.  Almost everything will be free--ad supported or supported by optional premium content.  Things that are already dirt cheap, like raw ingredients for food, will become cheaper.  Dump the blocks into your kitchen printer and you'll have a gourmet meal in a half an hour.  Need plastic or ceramic things?  Print them!  Need metal things? Print them at a local scintering shop for a small fee!  No money for a place to stay?  Move into a 3-D printed apartment powered by printed solar cells.  Etc etc.

No, the future, absent government intrusion, is so bright you don't even need eyes to see it.  With government intervention to stop a phantom threat (missattributed to non-existant capitalism when actually caused by government intervention), all we will get is a stall, or a crawl forward.  Don't let that happen!

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:56 | 6107972 LianaKaulitz
LianaKaulitz's picture

Work more for less. Blame anybody except the banks
https://youtu.be/llbzUyv1CLU

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:16 | 6108031 Vampyroteuthis ...
Vampyroteuthis infernalis's picture

I cry BS. Machines are not taking away our jobs. Gross mismanagement from our congresscritters, supposed business leaders, banksters and other privileged douche bags is taking away employment.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:57 | 6108182 smlbizman
smlbizman's picture

ok...obvious 800lb gorilla in the room question.....when everything is finally automated( which i firmly believe is well on its way) who is buying ur shit????

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 22:25 | 6108273 WOAR
WOAR's picture

"...I'll take the Robots for 100, Alex."

"Oh, I don't think so. You'll take 100 Robots for nothing, and like it."

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 22:26 | 6108282 r00t61
r00t61's picture

When everything is automated:

(1). The efficiencies produced by this level of total mechanization will translate into super low prices for the techno-caretakers, the upper-middle class white collar professionals that design, implement, manufacture, and maintain the machines. 

(2). These low prices will also be granted to the Morlock Proles, but only for those items that contribute to Bread and Circuses.  Manufactured Franken-food and iThingies will be cheap, cheap, cheap. 

As for this article, man, a proposal consisting of yet another series of monolithic, top-down, centrally-planned "solutions," culminating with and highlighted by sending a petition to the Teleprompter in Chief to effect "change."  I've already had my fill of this style of  Kunstler-fixing for the day.

Is this satire from the Onion that's just been improperly labeled?

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 23:03 | 6108404 MonetaryApostate
MonetaryApostate's picture

Kingdoms come & Queendoms go...

When she'll blow, nobody knows...

But one thing is for sure....

It'll be a shitstorm fo sho....

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/249/972/802.jpg

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 00:26 | 6108564 Oh regional Indian
Oh regional Indian's picture

The Age of Machines is upon us, who here is ready for the butlerian jihad?

https://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/machine-strong-human-weak/

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 09:03 | 6109285 Bush Baby
Bush Baby's picture

deflation is the product of increases in productivity

deflation breeds more deflation as those companies able to supply lower cost products get the consumers dollar- a race to the bottom.

When women flooded the job market the labor pool increased, more competition for jobs = lower wages.

How many jobs would be lost if ther were world peace?
Think about that for a minute.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 06:01 | 6108837 Refuse-Resist
Refuse-Resist's picture

But will the fembots be programmed with feminist logic and include a built in emotional hamster wheel,  like the real thing?  Will the fembot constantly seek validation from its smartphone, have a flock of beta orbiters, and be fat? Will the fatbot demand that all men deem it beautiful and 'curvy'. Will the fembot have a profile on OK Cupid, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, and Plenty of Fish?

Is this fembot going to be a realist simulation (short hair, piercings, tats, and entitled attitude) or will it be in the kitchen making sandwiches, providing sex, and shutting the fuck up?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:41 | 6107906 post turtle saver
post turtle saver's picture

who are these shysters, these snakes in the grass, who get to decide what is or isn't "meaningful work"? who get to decide what is or isn't "fair"?

you know what I say to people like that? FUCK YOU, that's what I say... take your nannyisms somewhere else where people cut from lesser cloth can find succor in them...

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 08:37 | 6109191 Bush Baby
Bush Baby's picture

The counter balance to increases in productivity through automation is an increasingly innefficient Government.
Government bloat is the tip of the iceberg.
Millions of private sector jobs exist soley due to government innefficiency and rule making.
Bottom line, it simply takes a lower percentage of humans working to support the lifestyle of the human race, a trend that will continue.

The times they are a changin.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:59 | 6108188 Butterflying
Butterflying's picture

My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do... www.jobs-review.com

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 07:29 | 6108951 Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture

The vast, vast majority of humanity is ignorant of history.  I am talking about you.  "Educated", wealthy, Western people.  You all seem to believe that the world started with WW2 and America's post-war prosperity that created the high consumption life style of the American middle class.

No!

The world has ALWAYS had excess production and "useless eaters."  Ever since agriculture started and permanent communities formed.  It wasn't a utopia then and it won't be a utopia now that robots are doing much of the manual labor.  The elite, the people with the wealth and power today, want their children to be the elite of tomorrow (well, actually they want to live forever and rule humanity forever and they are pouring their money into research towards that goal now).  They control the guys with guns (police, military) and they control you.  Your descendents will be building pyramids in space for them if necessary to burn excess production and productive capacity.

They will find something for you to do.  Idle hands are the devil's play thing.  They'd rather have you breaking rocks with a hammer 7 days a week then sitting around plotting with your other peon buddies about how to bring them down.  Put this nonsense out of your heads.

They would prefer you stop breeding voluntarily.  Hence the push to lower birth rates, abortion, birth control, brainwashing women to abhor children and family life, etc.  If people don't stop breeding voluntarily, they will have to take "more extreme" measures.  But no, the Swedish model of a 50% of the country sitting around playing video games all day is not going to be applied to the world.  In fact, the Swedish model is already being raped and destroyed (literally) by mass immigration of Africans.  Probably not a coincidence.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 19:58 | 6107780 Zapporius
Zapporius's picture

Ted Kaczynski called it!

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:12 | 6107826 Seek_Truth
Seek_Truth's picture

He wasn't an eloquent writer.
His methods of getting attention were wrong.
But his message was spot on.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 22:27 | 6108283 WOAR
WOAR's picture

I bet half of you don't even know who that guy even is.

*cough*Unibomber*cough*.

(I still upvoted, though.)

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 07:30 | 6108953 Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture

Uni?  Oh he set off more than one.  Unabomber.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:01 | 6107788 ZippyBananaPants
ZippyBananaPants's picture

If you can fart a song on YouTube, you can make money.  Times have changed.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 05:27 | 6108816 acetinker
acetinker's picture

It turns out, not so much:

Le Petomane-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tixKopGjn5s

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:01 | 6107789 A Lunatic
A Lunatic's picture

Good news; You'll all be dead soon anyway........

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:05 | 6107798 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

Let these dumb asses goto $100/hr. The prices for good and services will always be 2-4% inflationary growth. These peons will still be broke. Paint me shocked. 

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:32 | 6107879 post turtle saver
post turtle saver's picture

just once, I'd like to see the Tylers stop posting drivel from authors who have obviously never read "Economics in One Lesson"... we've seen article after article about how evil machines are replacing people and that the "free market" has failed us... the socialists sure do have an axe to grind, but I'm on to their shennanigans...

first, the author assumes we have a "free market" to begin with... this is rubbish and easily refuted by inspection when, on this very site, we constantly bemoan TBTF, QE, etc. - at best, we have "crony capitalism", which isn't capitalism at all... it's fascism... which, by any other name, is simply another form of socialism...

second, machines replacing people has been going on for hundreds of years... this is no new phenomena, and by inspection again we see that humans over that time span have managed to adapt, find new areas of employment, and so on... the fact that we're even reading this author's writings by use of some of the most complex machinery in history tells me all I need to know about his errors in extrapolating the future...

no, sorry... the evil machines are not takin' our jerbs, and I doubt few on this board have ever lived in a true "free market" economy... I bet many have lived under socialist, communist, dictatorial, or fascist rule however... tell me, how does a true free market with a true democratic republic compare to that? think on that for a moment...

I leave you all with this as a parting consideration:  https://youtu.be/Oz9fX_HfsXA

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:59 | 6107982 Creepy A. Cracker
Creepy A. Cracker's picture

"Economics in One Lesson"

By Henry Hazlitt.

Free at The Mises Institute, here:

https://mises.org/library/economics-one-lesson

A must read.  Very good book.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:05 | 6107800 raywolf
raywolf's picture

the government is never the answer to anything.... the world has plenty of resources..... things should be becoming cheaper and cheaper, but they are not because Govt. manipulates the currency into inflation so it can wipe out it's debt....

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:37 | 6108113 Perseus son of Zeus
Perseus son of Zeus's picture

Well said. Now go sit and watch some teevee.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:08 | 6107801 Chuck Knoblauch
Chuck Knoblauch's picture

The problem with turning on the rich?

It will lead to a dictatorship.

I think dictatorship of some type is inevitable.

Then the struggle against it will begin.

Not there yet.

Face facts folks, we are 98% chimp.

We are prisoners to cycles.

We don't live long enough to learn anything.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:15 | 6107836 Seek_Truth
Seek_Truth's picture

WWIII will happen before any kind of "revolution" happens.

WWIII is knocking at the door.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:20 | 6107850 Chuck Knoblauch
Chuck Knoblauch's picture

Most will disappear into a distraction until they cannot anymore.

The reckoning is coming.

The cycle must complete.

A new one to begin long after.

The how is irrelevant.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:06 | 6107802 Cabreado
Cabreado's picture

"The free market has certainly failed us."

The Self-Absorbed -- the Narcissist and Sociopath -- have failed us, in the (natural) process of destroying free markets.

Get it right... last call...

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:23 | 6107858 Renfield
Renfield's picture

<<"The free market has certainly failed us.">>

Centrally planned 'markets' have certainly failed us.

For their original sentence alone, as it stood, this article merited no more than a "3". And that was out of kindness, for the other information it presented.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:06 | 6107803 2handband
2handband's picture

Meaningful work my sweet ass. Not a single job that feeds this machine is meaningful. In fact, if you are doing anything that helps keep this horseshit going, from bagging groceries to running a corporation, then YOU are part of the problem.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:56 | 6107970 SeekingNuNormal
SeekingNuNormal's picture

100% agree with you.  It's like you are getting paid to drive the world deeper into insanity.  I've been jobless for 3 years, trying to find work that is meaningful.  Serves me right.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:07 | 6107808 XqWretch
XqWretch's picture

Tax foreign based companies imports heavily. Lower corporate taxes for domestic based companies dramatically. Problem solved.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:17 | 6107842 Monetas
Monetas's picture

Socialism is filled with simplistic solutions .... that don't work .... people don't understand the unintended consequences .... of central planning !

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 10:40 | 6109580 XqWretch
XqWretch's picture

Socialism? Clearly you do not know the history of tarrifs which helped make the New England an industrial powerhouse.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:52 | 6107953 falconflight
falconflight's picture

I'm willing to consider it at this point.  Yeah, I know there'll be a cascade of remember the Great Depression, but with 25% effectively already living in a greater depression, I'd sacrafice some standard of living (higher prices) to try to create American manufacturing jobs.  

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:16 | 6107812 Dumgoy
Dumgoy's picture

The good news is they're working on robots that will kill the unemployed (those not worth turning into slaves), aka Jew Henry Kissnger's 'useless eaters', aka GOYIM.

Control of the Judefetzen printing presses makes anything possible.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:16 | 6107837 heywood2
heywood2's picture

Let me know when Aiko starts working the whorehouse instead of the department store.

I'd hit it.

 

 

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:17 | 6107844 XqWretch
XqWretch's picture

better bring some lube

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 00:41 | 6108608 TheEndIsNear
TheEndIsNear's picture

How about Roxxxy, or you could visit a love doll brothel.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:17 | 6107838 Jorgen
Jorgen's picture

I saw the movie "Ex Machina" last week. We are probably no more than 15-20 years away from this kind of AI technology. Then with all the research on mapping human brain and its memory, the elites will eventually achieve immortality. The humanity as we know it will become completely obsolete.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:21 | 6107854 Cityzerosix
Cityzerosix's picture

Great; see you for a beer in 789440404004003002300955885858499302029948477477373229210111 million years.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:22 | 6107856 Seek_Truth
Seek_Truth's picture

This is the real world, not sc-fi.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:56 | 6107971 tmosley
tmosley's picture

Yeah, like those crazy flying machines and wrist phones!

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:32 | 6107880 Uber Vandal
Uber Vandal's picture

Therein lies the problem with immortality.

Even if I could create a perfect copy of myself, even tweak it to rid it of any perceived faults and set it to age 25 indefinitely, and then upload myself into this perfect copy, the problem is.......

It is still a copy.

A hollow, empty, copy.

While the copy might know the who, when, where, it may even know the why, will the copy know how to feel, or understand the warmth of love, the rage of betrayal?

I have met many empty, and hollow people already. Perhaps they DESERVE immortality.

I have gotten upset enough once to wish that one person lives long enough to watch the sun burn out one day in fact.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:43 | 6107914 Seek_Truth
Seek_Truth's picture

Your version of immortality is based on a flawed model- a copy of the subject.

That's the problem.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:52 | 6107952 Uber Vandal
Uber Vandal's picture

How does one gets the spark of life into the machine?

If one DID get into the machine, would immortality cause even greater madness?

I may be presumptuous here, but with some of what I have seen written from you, you have obviously seen much more than meets the eye.......

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:10 | 6108009 tmosley
tmosley's picture

That is why you don't upload via scanning and copying.  Rather, you upload via neuron-by-neuron replacement.  Replace each neuron with a link to an emulated one, allowing continuous communication between the biological and emulated neurons, and you won't even notice the transition, until after the process is complete.  Then you can stay in a computer, subjected to speedup, increasing the amount of time between "now" and the heat death of the universe/destruction of the computer running your simulation by a factor of at least a million (difference between electrochemical signalling and speed of light signalling), more if "you" can run on a computer that is smaller than your actual brain, or choose to exist in the real world with dramatically enhanced cognition.

This is the case of a passenger on the Ship of Thesseus.  Replace parts slowly, and the passenger survives.  Clone the ship a mile away while destroying the original ship, the passenger dies.  Simple as that.

Now, as for creating a copy, you are quite wrong.  The copy would be "you" and would have a soul, just like a clone of you by any other method would have a soul.  Just not YOUR soul.

As to the "boredom" argument, there exists a field of study called "fun theory" that suggests that no matter the length of time that you are alive, you will never run out of things to do (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Fun_theory).  Especially in a realm where you can make as many different and varied worlds as you want, and have the opportunity to interact with a completely endless number of different and interesting people, whether "real" or created specifically for your sake.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:35 | 6108104 Uber Vandal
Uber Vandal's picture

Thanks for the great discussions tonight.

This is what makes this site great.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 01:36 | 6108620 TheEndIsNear
TheEndIsNear's picture

Even if a physically and neurologically perfect copy could be made of yourself, it would not be you. It would simply be another person exactly like you. That's the fallacy of the elite "uploading" their brains into a machine. The original "you" would still die.

P.S.

I once read a science fiction novel about a teleportation device that worked by first making an exact replica of the original at the destination, and then destroying (killing) the original. Not exactly an appealing form of transportation in my view.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:20 | 6107852 Monetas
Monetas's picture

People pursue happines .... happiness can't be gifted by the state .... people on an individual level must engage in their world .... find a need and fill it .... the potential is limitless .... and only freedom lets people access all the possibilities !

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:21 | 6107853 lordbyroniv
lordbyroniv's picture

Someone needs to invent a Star Trek replicator.  That will solve everything !!!!

 

Oh,...and a holdeck for sex too.  We are gunna need that as well.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:24 | 6107855 Renfield
Renfield's picture

<<The free market has certainly failed us. We are left with a society that has no work to offer 40 million new citizens. We prefer to spend most of our days staring at screens rather than at actual human faces. We jump at the chance to avoid human contact. Text messaging is basically a regression to an earlier mode of communication: the telegraph. Instead of Morse code, we use emoticons - artificial digital faces to express emotions we can barely convey across our actual faces. Now, it is considered an accomplishment rather than an abomination to create a humanoid robot receptionist. The free market brought us slavery. Now, it wants to purge everyone of our humanity and make us all more like robots.>>

In a perpetually expanding system of gov-fiat 'money', it is INEVITABLE that sooner or later you will have to pay people not to work. That is because resources, and indeed the planet, are limited.

"Humans Need Not Apply" is well worth the time to watch, for a fairly terrifying look at how automation is essentially replacing humans even in 'safe, professional' occupations such as doctor, lawyer, and accountant. It isn't just the McDonalds flippers that this concerns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

Here is a much better article about the impact of automation on various industries:

http://dollarcollapse.com/art-of-the-collapse/is-a-trap-about-to-be-sprung

And, best of all, the solution to this problem altogether:

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.ca/2012/10/self-sufficiency-local-solution...

Buzz Hargrove did make the point that robots tend not to buy a lot of cars (something Henry Ford also understood well). However, this is where the whole 'over-population' meme comes in, along with various 'solutions' presented from time to time by certain oligarchs. Then again, perhaps in some sociopathic brains, humans themselves and perhaps all of life is expendable. After all, the universe would carry on just fine without any life at all, wouldn't it?

It isn't the 'free market' that has failed us. It's the centrally-planned, gov-fiat currency system that has, as was inevitable from the start. The problem is we are confusing the fake (including fake govvy 'money') for the real. Anyone blaming the 'free market' for this is either stupid, or a charlatan.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:23 | 6107862 Salsipuedes
Salsipuedes's picture

These are all interesting ideas Dave................ Thank you for sharing..........Dave.........I do have some bad news..........the pod bay doors have been soldered shut......... Good luck Dave.....

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:30 | 6107871 Kreditanstalt
Kreditanstalt's picture

Milton Friedman was a "libertarian"?????

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 22:30 | 6108288 r00t61
r00t61's picture

Maybe in his own mind.

Maybe.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:32 | 6107878 Kreditanstalt
Kreditanstalt's picture

If we had sound money - instead of this ever-expanding fiat paper crap - the problems would solve themselves...!

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:33 | 6107881 suteibu
suteibu's picture

Of course, you could completely staff a huge retailer like Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi in order to save labor but the end result would be bankruptcy.  In order to sell something, you need a consumer with disposable income. If robots replace such workers the cost of supporting so many out of work would increase and the tax burden on those with jobs would ensure the majority had no disposable income.

Customer service robots are and will continue to be a novelty as the cost of maintaining would way exceed the low cost of hiring part time young women to do the work as is currently the practice.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:37 | 6107882 falconflight
falconflight's picture

James Madison warned that inequality in property ownership would "subvert liberty" by fostering class warfare....that would be so true, however, since none of us by virtue of property taxes own any property, hasn't that problem been corrected?

sarc on/

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:52 | 6107954 post turtle saver
post turtle saver's picture

if I've said it once I've said it a thousand times... give the average citizen property tax relief and watch growth take off like a firestorm...

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:00 | 6107984 falconflight
falconflight's picture

All the evidence is on your side, but...North Dakota had a property tax referendum a few years back to eliminate that tax. It failed.  I'd say it was the special education the public receives cradle to grave that accounts for the referendum failure.  

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:32 | 6108091 post turtle saver
post turtle saver's picture

it's the same "special education" that makes normally sane voters say "yes" all the time to bond referendums put in place "for the children"... then, turn around and wonder and complain about how their property taxes are so high... it's heartbreaking to watch but it happens... every... time...

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:59 | 6108190 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Normally sane voter!!!

Thanks for pointing out an oxymoron I hadn't run across previously.

 

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:33 | 6107886 22winmag
22winmag's picture

Wage slavery aka work belongs in a museum right next to fiat money.

Work is hell.

I vote for a leisure society.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:38 | 6107895 A Lunatic
A Lunatic's picture

Will it be considered murder to send a .44 round through Aiko's head in the future........??

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:44 | 6107918 falconflight
falconflight's picture

Just imagine the bonefide and righteous transfer of wealth if the millions upon millions of acres of the 'People's' land (And that's a whole lot more than national park land...i.e. BLM) were sold off for a nominal price to small buyers...say no more than 100 acres per.  The federal gov't has no business owing most of some western states.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 20:46 | 6107925 theFNG
theFNG's picture

Double the wages and halve the full time work week. 

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:22 | 6108057 Haloween1
Haloween1's picture

Every person who  graduates high school should automatically receive an annual stipend of $25k for life. Any earnings due to a job accrete over and above the stipend.  If they committ a felony, in addition to any prison sentence, they lose their stipend for good.

 

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:32 | 6108090 mla
mla's picture

> Am I a silly Neo-Luddite?

Yes.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:34 | 6108092 skynet_21
skynet_21's picture

"The free market has certainly failed us"

When did zerohedge go socialist/collectivist?


Mon, 05/18/2015 - 21:37 | 6108115 Perseus son of Zeus
Perseus son of Zeus's picture

Keep the people well fed and entertained!

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 22:01 | 6108202 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Honest money only scares the dishonest.

 

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 22:30 | 6108286 Prober
Prober's picture

The problem is that there are WAY TOO MANY humans, who breed like bacteria in a cesspool reegardless of the state of technology, advances in automation, environmental pollution, resource depletion, congestion, etc.

Even worse is that the humans who should not be allowed to breed at all are the ones who reproduce the most.

If you project out the trendlines, it is inevitable that the proletariat human biogarbage will overwhelm the ecosystem, the entitlement programs, the social structure, the government operations, etc.

Humans need massive population reduction and rigid control.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 22:37 | 6108309 John Wilmot
John Wilmot's picture

Humans replaced by machines...

Hmm...

I seem to recall reading this same story last year...

...and the year before

...and the year before

...and every year since since the steam engine was invented.

Why do people never learn that this is an economic fallacy? (rhetorical question - I know why).

Machines do not disemploy people (though of course they may require people to switch jobs), they increase the productivity of labor and therefore wages. Why does a farm-worker today, driving a tractor, make more than a farmer a century ago driving a plow-horse? Because his output per hour is much higher and so he is more valuable to his employer.

In economic terminology, capital accumulation increase the marginal revenue product of labor, which wages follow.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 23:13 | 6108435 Cityzerosix
Cityzerosix's picture

Each of the large farms of central England employed 10-15 people in the 1950's now they employ 1 but he still gets paid fuck-all.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 02:04 | 6108693 DipshitMiddleCl...
DipshitMiddleClassWhiteKid's picture

they do to a point and maybe in some countries where they value education and vocational skillsets, this would be some kind of utopian economic scenario but the truth is, in a place like the U-Essay..many of the people who lose their jobs to machines don't have the intelligene or drive to learn something new or re-tool.

 

it's a systemic problem and it's only getting worse

 

 

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 23:10 | 6108427 bid the soldier...
bid the soldiers shoot's picture

look at the bright side

nothing says "progress" like no net new jobs created in 15 years when the American population increased by 40 million.

The 'demand side' goes up by 40 million but no more workers have to be hired.


 

 

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 23:10 | 6108429 Porous Horace
Porous Horace's picture

Meh. The machines took "all the jobs" a long time ago. In 1800, 95% of the country's workers worked in the production and distribution of food. Today it's less than 5%. But we don't have 90% unemployment, instead we created the highest standard of living the human race had ever seen, as each person was able to produce more. The jobs designing, building and maintaining industrial robots pay very well. We need more of those jobs.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 02:02 | 6108691 DipshitMiddleCl...
DipshitMiddleClassWhiteKid's picture

good data + off the shelf machine learning algos = better than humans!

 

its coming!!

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 02:48 | 6108712 Global Observer
Global Observer's picture

Not sure why some obsess over this "meaningful" work. Factory workers at the beginning of industrialisation found the work very alienating. Soon they started finding satisfaction in the work they were doing.

True, it is never a good idea to put large percentages of population on state-sponsored welfare for long. It generates a sense of entitlement and even resentment towards those engaged productively. At the same time it is extremely dangerous for any society to leave large percentages of productive age people  without a means of sustenance for long. So some creative methods should be invented to engage large swathes of people in activities that are completely useless and unnecessary but can be pretended to be vital and cannot be replaced by automatons any time soon.

One thing that readily fits the bill is "spying on"/"monitoring" internet discussions and attempting to "steer" them in some predetermined direction. Given the number of internet "trolls" one finds these days, it is quite likely a lot of people are already being employed in this manner. These kind of jobs don't consume any extra resources, the "employees" are busy and feel they are doing some very important social function and best of all even the "trolled" get an ego boost thinking their discussions are so-important that the government is keeping tabs on them and employing "trolls" to muddy the waters and keep the "truth" from coming out. No matter what a person's knowledge, interests and language skills are, there is a place on the web that person can feel at home "contributing" i.e everyone is eligible for this "job".

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 02:49 | 6108715 pcrs
pcrs's picture

A higher minimum wage is as admirable as shooting yourself in the foot. Why deliberately limit your options?

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 03:11 | 6108727 Ohne Deckung
Ohne Deckung's picture

What this may be a human is getting mysterious by the day.

The prospect beckons what is meant will be found as appendix in a computer animation.

The day dawns on which the robots risks jokes openly about us.

Imagine.

And you should get the picture. The picture of what it means to be like us.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!