Robots will take our jobs

KyussBishop wrote: »

Until scientists completely replicate the human mind, there'll always be more work to do: Scientific research and the pursuit of knowledge.

There's literally an infinite amount of work to be done there - accumulation of scientific knowledge is an endless pursuit.

But what will the thickos do? (I'm in the thicko camp btw!)

I do like the idea of freeing up people from mindless labour, 150 years ago all most people were able to do in Ireland was grow enough food for their families and raise a few pigs. Now we have a very small percentage of our total population able to grow enough food for tens of millions of people. Eliminating mindless tasks from the workforce is only really a positive really.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

But what will the thickos do? (I'm in the thicko camp btw!)

I don't believe in calling any human "stupid", we do stupid things and tend to forget we're just an animal underneath all our socialisation. The potential of the human species is massive, especially if we were freed from manual labour and maintaining our societies. Just look at human history, you remove a chunk of manual labour increase the educated population and then Greece happens, Rome happens, the renaissance, democracy, women's rights. The potential of having 7 or more billion highly educated humans with plenty of free time on their hands is just hard to fathom.

More people could get into academics, more scientists, more doctors, more engineers. While robots might do all the hard manual work we still need to plot the course of our species and ensure we're doing everything right. We could focus on securing life on earth and spreading it across the galaxy. While we have come to assume life is probably common throughout the universe we don't actually know that it's happened anywhere else in any meaningful way. I think we have an obligation to ensure life is a permanent part of the universe.

Grand Moff Tarkin wrote: »

I won't worry until we start to call the robots cylons.

But we're already fearing the oncoming invasion of huge metal pylons across our land.
Surely these similar sounding cylons you speak of aren't far behind...

Note to Bill Cullen.
I see you received my telegram from 1960 Re: Robots
Stop spouting old new as an "original thought" of yours.

If competent robots are invented we are looking at a huge increase in the standard of living. For a start it makes opening a busineas much easier and products much cheaper.

KyussBishop wrote: »

Ya the latter part, was more taking this piss out of the usual rhetoric against welfare Part of my point though, is that arguably wage-only income already is redundant.

Consider how that future economy will be setup: Where will the money come from, for paying the basic income?

When you answer that, explaining how it can be practically done, then simply apply those same arguments in favour of a basic income in our current economy - and they apply just as well.


What you're going to find is this: The arguments against doing that today, make no sense when applied to that future economy - they get unmasked as mere rhetoric - and those same argument don't even apply to todays economy either.

But the problems I see with this hypothetical future are very clear, in a highly automated society where even middle class jobs like accountants are made redundent the only people present in major organisations, the ones who make the decisions are going to be very powerful, as things are in our current capitalist system the means of production are typically concentrated in the hands of large corporations with literally thousands of employees. As automation increases and even management becomes redundant you get this power concentrated in a continuously smaller and smaller number of people within the corporations.

You're saying the government will force the corporations to provide a basic wage to people to redistribute the wealth but why on earth would they do that when they can just pay off the politicians? They already do it now, just think how much more easily they will do it when they have even more power concentrated in their hands.

What's more with jobs like accountancy being automated who is going to keep that knowledge alive? There most surely still be accountants in the world even if just to teach in university or develop the programmes but with the lack of any kind of incentive why would a person study it in college instead of something more interesting like art or music?

I don't share your future of a leisure based utopia, I see a neo-feudal society where the average person has literally no worth to society and has no hope of ever reaching the higher levels of business or government.

KyussBishop wrote: »

A basic income is government providing everyone with a guaranteed income - which would be unavoidable when everybody is unemployable, due to complete automation of the economy.

Your view of a neo-feudal future:
I'm confused - do you advocate doing anything to try and stop that? Or do you just think there are no alternatives? (i.e. are unconvinced of the alternatives already put forward)

The key there is everyone, everyone wouldn't be unemployed. At the moment in our society to use the language of Marx the means of production is concentrated in the hands of a small number of very large and complex corporations with literally thousands of employees each. Automation will do nothing to weaken the control of these large corporations over the economy but it will make a number of jobs in the corporations, even middle class jobs like accountants redundant until no one but the top brass are left, with no internal power structure left within the corporations they have no way to be replaced and have no incentive against nepotism.

Now you say politicians will redirect all the surplus production to the average person as a form of basic income but why would they? Politicians are easily bought under the current system they'll be even more easily bought by a permanent quasi-hereditary elite. So what if the economy grinds to a halt, with the effective elimination of the middle class the elite would have no one to challenge their power, education isn't even important since all we need are people to maintain the machines, expanding human knowledge is not necessary to maintain the structure of their society.

Don't get me wrong I called it neo-feudal to represent the power structure but I don't mean to describe the conditions the lower class will live in, the basic income distributed could vary from being barely enough to live on to enough to make the world a virtual paradise but it doesn't change the fact that the average person has no way to advance to the higher levels of power in government or corporations, the path is closed by machines. Have you ever read Brave New World? Take away the genetic engineering and I have a sense of foreboding that we as a society are heading somewhere similar and I think this more than a lot of other factors is responsible for our economic slow down right now.

As for stopping it? I haven't a clue. The drive towards mechanisation and industrialisation has been present throughout all of recorded history and has become semi instinctive in human minds. Deindustrialisation on a large scale or even stopping industrialisation at this point in time would be neither desirable nor possible. It seems that in attempting to create an easier life for ourselves human beings have doomed themselves to a society of rising and possibly permanent inequality.

Graph:

Source for the graph: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3629

KyussBishop wrote: »

What I was asking about here, was doing something about neo-feudal concentration of power, not about increasing automation:


Your post seems to presuppose that nothing will be done to tackle increasing concentration of power within society - that's what confuses me there, because there doesn't seem to be a reason as to why nothing will be done about that.

That concentration of power, largely depends upon keeping the public distracted from seeing and/or caring about how that is manifested, but the people holding power won't be able to hide it much longer - a lot more people are seeing how that power is rooted in how the monetary system works, how banks can create money and the power that gives them and finance, over government, business and the rest of society.


Once enough people realize that government can take that power away from them, pretty trivially, by putting that power under democratic control - then the public will have large enough numbers to influence government, to make that happen - and then when that happens, those who gain their power (either directly or indirectly) through how the monetary system functions, will lose a huge amount of their power over government, business and the rest of society.

Perhaps things might change but I don't think they will, certainly I can see no feasible way they can and I would like to say if your idea for change involves the average person knowing how money is created then taking it upon themselves to overthrow the government and reform the banking sector then that's just not going to happen.

What's more even if it did it wouldn't change the fact the a very small minority of people would have a monopoly on the means of production over entire industries. So even if it did banking reform is not an adequate way to prevent what I warned.

KyussBishop wrote: »

You don't need to overthrow government, we've still got a democracy - as imperfect as it is - what is going to stop people influencing government, to remove any emerging neo-feudal powers, once enough people are conscious of that happening, and know how to stop it?

Once you reform the banking and monetary system, to bring them under democratic control, then the public will know that they can make government give them a Basic Income, at any level the public desires - and the public will know that government can fund pretty much anything, so long as the physical resources and manpower are available for doing that ("there is no money" would no longer be an excuse, for holding back government spending).


Once you reform the monetary system like that, you pretty much kill the power the banking/financial industry has over government, business and the rest of society - redistributing, in one massive swoop, most of the current 'elite's power, back into democratic hands (you don't even have to care about the wealth they've amassed - because you've just taken away their most significant tool for securing/expanding that wealth).

Once you democratize the monetary system, government and the public, will have all that's needed to greatly reduce inequality.

There is more than one way to over throw a government, granted they can be overthrown democratically and this is what I originally insinuated though admittedly in hindsight did not make clear, but this doesn't change the fact that if your idea for reform involves the majority of the public becoming not only knowledgeable on the creation of money but passionate enough to change it then your idea won't even get off the ground. Even if you did overthrow the government the implementation of what you desire would necessitate the creation of a pro-post-keynesian political party to replace Fine Gael.

If you want to see your plans implemented I suggest you may have to take a page out of the book of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and advocate the setting up of a vanguard party to steer society in the way you desire. Otherwise it won't happen and it raises the question of where these politicians familiar with the work of Steve Keen and Minsky are going to come from..

As for neo-feudalism, why would the public influence government to stop it happening? They wouldn't even be aware it was happening, they wouldn't be aware anything was wrong. As far as they are concerned their standard of living in constantly improving, that the elites standard of living is improving faster is of no consequence.