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Scarcity, where we're heading?

  • 18-07-2010 06:22PM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,121 ✭✭✭


    I was watching a tv program today about a bus that has been designed to be operable without a driver. It works by following a magnetic track embedded into the road ans it follows the same route much like a tram follows its tracks. It's only in development but the engineer said it's possible that in 20 years or so, there will be no need to bus drivers.

    This got me thinking about the changing nature of the world we live it. It seems that less and less people are needed to do jobs as technology improves. 100 years ago, putting down a new railway involved employing hundreds of men to do physical labour whilst now, machines have cut the man power requirements greatly. I'm not calling this a bad thing, I think technology is a wonderful thing but is it not somewhat worrying that such advances will inevitably destroy employment for many people?

    Let's look at our current situation. We had such high employment during the boom because it was a building bubble which is still man-power intensive labour. If we had an exports boom, it would create little employment as it's the opposite. Thus, is can easily be extrapolated that most of the unemployed construction workers are in a bad situation.

    So where are the jobs of tomorrow going to come from? Right now, we hear things like the "smart economy" and the "green economy" but these are buzz words. The sad fact is that we can't all be computer programmers, tech support agents or chemists.

    I thought this could make an interesting topic for discussion because it's something I haven't really heard people talking about. Is there light at the end of the tunnel or was Mr Malthus right in that we are beginning to see the effects of too many people, too few resources?

    Discuss and let's keep it civil ;).


Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 39,019 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,007 ✭✭✭✭thebman


    you need men to build the machines and men to design the machine and men to maintain the machines.

    Even when you manage to automate building them you still need men to maintain them.

    The media will never be automated, sound production etc.., managing the projects for all of the above.

    I don't see a lack of work being the problem.

    Yes there will be less menial jobs for people to do which will allow our minds to focus on better creations do you not think? I think it will be good if we can stop having people dedicating their lifes to doing work you can build a machine to do.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,853 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    I'm holding out for personal or micro fabrication :D . I wouldnt worry about it, increased productivity leads to a greater standard of living. It takes the insular "union" mindset to see innovation as a threat. A shortage of capital and an oversized state will create the seeds of future unemployment, not whether buses have conductors nor indeed drivers.

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 14,568 Mod ✭✭✭✭johnnyskeleton


    RichardAnd wrote: »
    So where are the jobs of tomorrow going to come from? Right now, we hear things like the "smart economy" and the "green economy" but these are buzz words. The sad fact is that we can't all be computer programmers, tech support agents or chemists.

    In greater public sector employment, services and consumerism. Political economy is concerned not with the creation of wealth, but the manner in which that wealth is distributed.

    If we lived in a fully mechanised world we would like have massive government intervention to redistribute the wealth from those who own the machines to those that don't. And while you may find this distasteful, it is just another way of distributing wealth among society.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,364 ✭✭✭ei.sdraob


    In greater public sector employment, services and consumerism. Political economy is concerned not with the creation of wealth, but the manner in which that wealth is distributed.

    If we lived in a fully mechanised world we would like have massive government intervention to redistribute the wealth from those who own the machines to those that don't. And while you may find this distasteful, it is just another way of distributing wealth among society.

    political economy? is that what you call your failed ideology nowadays?? whats next a 5 year plan :rolleyes:

    no its Socialism at its finest, sowing its own seed of destruction

    makes you wonder why anyone would bother to innovate and create when the fruits of their labour would be taken away, to those that didnt or couldnt be bothered


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,857 ✭✭✭Valmont


    This post has been deleted.
    Just wait for the minimum wage robot!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,164 ✭✭✭cavedave


    As johnnyskeleton pointed out increased efficiency of some industries has weird effects on others. A string quartet still needs the same number of musicians as one 200 years ago. But a modern brewer can make thousands of time more beer than one hundreds of years ago.

    This leads to Baumol's cost disease where the wages of jobs that cannot increase in efficiency go up to match those that do.

    Even in some of these jobs efficiency improvements seem imminent. A teacher now can only teach as many kids as one a hundred years ago. When the kids have their own computer teachers will they be able to teach more? Maybe but much teaching of kids is just getting them to behave and its hard to see a computer doing that unless teaching games become a lot better.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,914 ✭✭✭danbohan


    Valmont wrote: »
    Just wait for the minimum wage robot!

    i thought they were in use only in public service ?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,635 ✭✭✭maninasia


    In greater public sector employment, services and consumerism. Political economy is concerned not with the creation of wealth, but the manner in which that wealth is distributed.

    If we lived in a fully mechanised world we would like have massive government intervention to redistribute the wealth from those who own the machines to those that don't. And while you may find this distasteful, it is just another way of distributing wealth among society.

    That's not the way it's happening right now in the US. Instead wealth is getting concentrated in executive and shareholder class.

    The OP has a point, many common work-a-day jobs are falling by the wayside and it is not entirely clear what these unemployed people will do. It depends on the economy also of each country whether it can support a high demand for these people to be alternatively employed in services.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19 127.0.0.1


    maninasia wrote: »
    That's not the way it's happening right now in the US. Instead wealth is getting concentrated in executive and shareholder class.

    Any proof? or figures to backup this statement??
    Most shareholders got badly burned in last few years, pensions wiped out and 401Ks destroyed with the stock market crash


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,853 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    cavedave wrote: »
    As johnnyskeleton pointed out increased efficiency of some industries has weird effects on others. A string quartet still needs the same number of musicians as one 200 years ago. But a modern brewer can make thousands of time more beer than one hundreds of years ago.

    This leads to Baumol's cost disease where the wages of jobs that cannot increase in efficiency go up to match those that do.

    Even in some of these jobs efficiency improvements seem imminent. A teacher now can only teach as many kids as one a hundred years ago. When the kids have their own computer teachers will they be able to teach more? Maybe but much teaching of kids is just getting them to behave and its hard to see a computer doing that unless teaching games become a lot better.

    A musician can now make money from recordings so there is productivity straight off. The other factor is that more people are able to enjoy these labour intensive services because they need to spend a smaller % of their income on "stuff", also I'd assume there are more professional musicians in London now then there was a 100 years ago so there are greater opportunities for people to follow their interests.

    Healthcare for instance has not been allowed to enjoy the full benefits of productivity improvements due to government intervention so there has been no interest in providing low cost solutions.

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,164 ✭✭✭cavedave


    silverharp
    A musician can now make money from recordings so there is productivity straight off.
    Musicians don't make money from recordings anymore they make it from live playing
    ...people only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn’t make any money out of records because record companies wouldn’t pay you! They didn’t pay anyone!

    Then, there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone.

    So if you look at the history of recorded music from 1900 to now, there was a 25 year period where artists did very well, but the rest of the time they didn’t

    Lady Gaga said the same thing int he Caitlin Moran interview that is now behind a paywall.
    Healthcare for instance has not been allowed to enjoy the full benefits of productivity improvements due to government intervention so there has been no interest in providing low cost solutions.
    I do not think it is as simple as the government are to blame. Catheters kill as many people as cars. Some of this is because of lack of government will but a more general human problem not seeing infectious deaths being as bad as accidents and giving too much status to doctors are also significant factors.
    "Some doctors, for instance, were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands; they felt that their social status as gentlemen was inconsistent with the idea that their hands could be unclean


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 377 ✭✭whatisayis


    maninasia wrote: »
    That's not the way it's happening right now in the US. Instead wealth is getting concentrated in executive and shareholder class.

    The OP has a point, many common work-a-day jobs are falling by the wayside and it is not entirely clear what these unemployed people will do. It depends on the economy also of each country whether it can support a high demand for these people to be alternatively employed in services.

    I read this in the Irish Times last Friday. Unmanned petrol stations will become more frequent in Ireland it appears. As the article states - it won't do much to reduce unemployment numbers but will be good for the service station owners.

    “We would like to have 10 unmanned forecourts by the end of 2013-14,” O’Sullivan told me this week. At present, legislation only allows fuel groups to sell diesel at these stations. “There is legislation coming so hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll be able to have unmanned unleaded as well.”

    Santry is doing about €3 million annually in sales, becoming a regular staging post for taxi drivers on runs to Dublin airport, according to O’Sullivan. “It’s performed better than expectations. If we can get unleaded, we could nearly double that.”

    It won’t do much for our unemployment queues, but O’Sullivan said there could be an upside. “Maybe, in rural locations, where people have had to close [stations], if they don’t have to staff them, these could become viable again,” the Corkman said.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0716/1224274821422.html


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,853 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    cavedave wrote: »
    Musicians don't make money from recordings anymore they make it from live

    the market moves on, social networking etc is now away of reducing the importance of the music company. Moreimportantly the choice and size of venues have increased, an Oxygen type event would have been impossible 50 years ago for instance, aslo the size of indoor venues have increased.





    cavedave wrote: »
    I do not think it is as simple as the government are to blame. Catheters kill as many people as cars. Some of this is because of lack of government will but a more general human problem not seeing infectious deaths being as bad as accidents and giving too much status to doctors are also significant factors.


    good point , the question is which system reacts to new information and can take advantage of new technology? looking forward I would say the next big leaps will involve self diagnostic and monitoring. If more diseases can be caught earlier , hospital time will be reduced.

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 39,019 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,031 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    RichardAnd wrote: »

    Discuss and let's keep it civil ;).
    Technology rasies standards of living more than anything else. Wouldn't it be great if none of us even had to work. Technology provided all our heat, food and health needs.

    Bring it on...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,164 ✭✭✭cavedave


    Tim Robbins

    Technology rasies standards of living more than anything else. Wouldn't it be great if none of us even had to work. Technology provided all our heat, food and health needs.

    That always bothers me about the unemployment crisis talk. surely the aim of any society is to have 100% unemployment. The less time you have to spend typing for someone else, filling their petrol etc the more time you have to design buildings and green energy inventions. Unemployment isn't a problem poverty is.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,031 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    cavedave wrote: »
    That always bothers me about the unemployment crisis talk. surely the aim of any society is to have 100% unemployment. The less time you have to spend typing for someone else, filling their petrol etc the more time you have to design buildings and green energy inventions. Unemployment isn't a problem poverty is.

    Oh sure when we had employment, the talk then was all "the work / life balance"...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,007 ✭✭✭✭thebman


    This post has been deleted.

    I don't think anybody has ever done that for me at a petrol station.

    You fill it yourself and the person takes your cash. If you have a laser/credit card system there then problem solved.

    Also for those places that almost exclusively sell junk, vending machines and machines to give out car wash vouchers. Have CCTV to catch vandals and your sorted.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,635 ✭✭✭maninasia


    127.0.0.1 wrote: »
    Any proof? or figures to backup this statement??
    Most shareholders got badly burned in last few years, pensions wiped out and 401Ks destroyed with the stock market crash

    Look at the revenue reports of the financial and multinational giants based in the US, they are flying. Then look at the unemployment rate there. The Dow is at 10,000 still...so it's actually not bad for even shareholders who owned prior to the crash. It's the regular working class people who are heading downhill there as manufacturing gets outsourced and productivity gains means using less staff to do the same job. These productivity gains are leading to wealth getting concentrated in managerial and shareholders hands.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19 127.0.0.1


    maninasia wrote: »
    Look at the revenue reports of the financial and multinational giants based in the US, they are flying. Then look at the unemployment rate there. The Dow is at 10,000 still...so it's actually not bad for even shareholders who owned prior to the crash. It's the regular working class people who are heading downhill there as manufacturing gets outsourced and productivity gains means using less staff to do the same job. These productivity gains are leading to wealth getting concentrated in managerial and shareholders hands.

    Maybe they should build a big wall around the US and keep the hard "workers" in and prevent trade with rest of the world?
    Maybe Obama could build a real socialist paradise modeled on so many that have failed in the past?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,635 ✭✭✭maninasia


    Haha..you are very negative.

    Why don't you turn the argument on it's head then and keep promoting American jobs going to China in there millions while the American government loses tax revenue, needs to support more unemployed and America becomes a indebted nation. It has nothing to do with Obama, grow-up! It's about doing what's right for each individual country. I'll wipe the floor with you on this argument, it's not something you want to go down, you obviously are repeating some very simple ideology...learn a bit more how the world really works.

    http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-08/26/content_6057648.htm
    http://www.thedailyherald.com/business/33-business/3408-friction-to-rise-as-china-favors-domestic-companies.html
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703964104575335820883025094.html


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,227 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    RichardAnd wrote: »
    I was watching a tv program today about a bus that has been designed to be operable without a driver. It works by following a magnetic track embedded into the road ans it follows the same route much like a tram follows its tracks. It's only in development but the engineer said it's possible that in 20 years or so, there will be no need to bus drivers.

    No worries, won't work in Ireland since we dig the roads up too often and the tracks would not be put down correctly.
    RichardAnd wrote: »
    So where are the jobs of tomorrow going to come from? Right now, we hear things like the "smart economy" and the "green economy" but these are buzz words. The sad fact is that we can't all be computer programmers, tech support agents or chemists.

    Very true.
    I actually think these words are dreamt up by some media pr spin person to make people feel they have some future.
    Lets face it most of the guys who laboured on building sites are never going to be website designers, on line traders or pharma engineers.
    But seen as their jobs are gone they have to be fed some tripe to keep them from going postal.

    It is like telling people in Pitsburgh where the local steel mill is shutting, (becuase the company can source cheaper steel in South Korea) that everything is going to be ok and they will have better jobs working in a microchip plant.
    They will have more leisure time and a better quality of life, hell they are going up the value chain.
    Except then the microchip plant is closed because the company can open one in Costa Rica or Malaysia, but the workers are told they are going even higher up the value chain since they will be deisgning the chips and operating call centres.
    Except they can't all be designers or engineers and that call centre is going to Ireland before it eventually ends up in India.

    All of these arguments have been used with global trade where jobs are moving to far east or wherever.
    Who in the west really benefits apart from the ones who actually own the companies who now produce in the far east.

    Yes short term we get cheaper goods, but long term we end up paying for the social problems caused by unemployment and an aging workforce who can't support it's dependents.

    How do normal citizens in the west benefit if everything is produced in China ?
    Compare countries like Germany which unlike the Uk did not destroy and sell off it's manufacturing base, the Germans maintained their manufacturing companies and have now a more balanced economy.

    I often see the argument trotted out here about how we should not support EU agriculture and let in cheap imports from Africa, Asia, South America etc and force amalgamation of smaller farms into bigger large scale production.
    That's great, but what exactly do people suggest happens to the thousands of small farmers and the rural communities that exist around them ?
    ... Wouldn't it be great if none of us even had to work. Technology provided all our heat, food and health needs.

    Bring it on...

    And where will you get a little thing called money ?
    Will we all be on social welfare ?

    I am not allowed discuss …



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 370 ✭✭wiseguy


    I find this fear of China strange tbh

    China is already no longer the place for outsourcing since the wages and standard of living is rising rapidly.
    An example of capitalism lifting people out of poverty.
    Eventually Chineese would become "developed" and price themselves out of the low skilled manufacturing and the jobs will move elsewhere, not to mention a large and rapidly aging population with not many kids


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,635 ✭✭✭maninasia


    It's not fear of China, rather the situation at the moment is unfairly to China's advantage due to currency setting, trade rules, lack of pollution and labour laws. It's great for China and Asia the way things are now..they boost their living standards. However the argument that manufacturing is moving out of China is wrong, only some of the lowest end stuff is moving to Vietnam etc or else to Western China..their manufacturing is just getting more advanced, in fact FDI to China is still tremendous. China is and will continue to be for decades the world's manufacturing powerhouse. Other countries don't have the infrastructure and education base and internal market to match them (e.g. India/Vietnam etc.).

    http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2010/07/16/foreign-direct-investment-in-china-increases-19-6-in-h1.html

    Look in the comments section-
    'US investment in Beijing was up 75% on the year on year '

    When they get more spending power they will buy more Western goods but their own manufacturing base will still have an advantage over overseas goods. Therefore the benefit to most Westerners (as opposed to Western companies) is negligible.


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