Because they refuse to acknowledge the progress of change, isn't always good.

 

Heyesey, I know you are a brainy type....but I really did not understand what you are saying.

We are all salves to the land?

Change is inevitable and no not all of it is good.
Change that is good for some may not be good for others.

When things change around me then I have to figure out what changes I have to make for me because of changes that happened out of my control.

Lfe has been huge chess game to me, it seems.

 

The way it would be decided is that those who own the robots and machines will enjoy leisure and luxury, while those who do not will be destitute. Obviously, this will be a politically unstable situation.

So, what are likely to be the political results of this?

 

We are slaves to ourselves, to our system, to our existence. Before argiculture, man survived on his wits and his physical strength alone.

A mentor had an expression that he drummed into my head: "the only thing that is constant in life, is change".

 

Yes, I had that drummed into my head as well...

The only sure thing is change....or... the only thing I can be sure of is change...

I like yours better...

 

If all production is achieved by machinery at zero cost of labour, what will they need money for?

 

These population predictions aren't necessarily true 10G. Recently, demographers have seen a sharp decline in population growth in many of those countries where there have been population booms. India is slowing down dramatically, China's population is stagnant and expected to fall. The global average for numbers of children per family in the 1950s was about 6, that is falling and falling. For the population to increase the number of children per family has to be about 2.1. In Europe, where women have freedom of choice about their lives, the birth rate is less than that and the populations in many countries are falling. Iceland is slightly different because they have very cheap and readily available childcare and having a child young is not seen as a stigma as it is in many other European countries. However, as more and more women throughout the world achieve this freedom then they will decide about their education, their careers and when or if to have children.

There was a fantastic article in The Sunday Times about it but you have to subscribe to read it online (although I'm sure one of you bright sparks can find it, it was written by Michael Hamilton and published on 20th Jan.)

The corollary of all of this is that many population experts are predicting the rise to continue into the 22nd century but by the 2300s the population will be at a level of between 2-4 billion. That is some margin of error, but it is taking into account a number of known unknowns and lots of unknown unknowns.

 

Someone will still have to develop, build, and program those machines. So, at least the technically inclined workers will still be employed.

 

I worked for a company that developed widgets that the Asians copied and could produce cheaper. So, the company started opening production lines in foreign countries and layed off American workers to do so. Some American workers were retained if they could speak the language of the country that the widgets were going to be produced in.

 

Only until the point where we have developed machines that can do THOSE jobs as well as - or better than - humans. Which, given the accelerating rate of development, may not be far away...

 

THe change that you speak of is technological, I think. The positive side is that before the industrial revolution, it was still very common for people to starve to death. It still happens today, but only in extremely poor and underdevloped countries. Society has benefited from technology.

 

Men make things.... [ It doesn't matter what]
Men make better things....
Men make machines that make better things...
Men make machines that make machines that make better things...
Men make machines that make machines that make machines that make better things ...
Men watch machines make >>>>>>

OPS! .... Terminated.

MACHINES .... >>>>

 

Society has benefited from technology up to now. When fewer people were needed to work on farms they were able to find work in factories. Computer technology destroys jobs without creating any new jobs that pay nearly as well.

 

There's only one answer.

We have to send a man back in time to terminate Konrad Zuse.

 

Absolutely, no question about it, man has benefited from technology. But there is a cost associated with the technological advances.

Whether this could have been done differently is a moot point, but our environment has paid a dear price for the advances, and that price continues to increase virtually unabated.

With the advances in health care and nutrition, people are living much longer, the aged portion of the population in developed countries is exploding. In one projection, in the UK, one third of the babies born in 2012 will live to 100 years.

Our ability to absorb the cost of caring for the elderly will be severely taxed, far greater than it is now. We as a country have borrowed heavily from the safety net intended for our retirees, we are repaying the debt by borrowing from unborn citizens. This is totally insane economics, the spiral is tightening, the consequences of our foolishness will be severe.

 

Yes, but there will be a larger and larger class of people who are no longer needed for production of anything or to provide services to others, but who nevertheless are entitled to live.

 

By who are they entitled?

 

So, if an IT company, provides a system for a client to automate their payroll for example, they CREATE jobs by needing people to design, implement and manage the system. You DESTROY the jobs of the clerks who worked in payroll.

But you are saying that payroll clerks are better paid than Technical Architects, Design Authorities, Program Managers, software developers. testers etc etc etc???

These systems become obsolete reasonably quicker as something more efficient comes along meaning that the IT industry needs to employ MORE people and not put ANYONE out of work. More and more clients feel the need to keep up so THEY ask for a similar system. And so it goes.

You'd have double-book entry clerks with quills writing up enormous ledgers wouldn't you DL

 

The UN Convention on Human Rights

 

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml


Not sure this covers what all the takers in the USA want to have done for them....