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Ok Let's assume that some of us saw this issue long ago. 3o years ago. Let's assume that we had the power to write laws back then. What laws would we have passed 30 years ago and how would the current situation be different?
"It's not a lie if you believe it." -- George Costanza The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves. --Bertrand Russel
... What laws would we have passed 30 years ago and how would the current situation be different?
It hadn't occurred to me previously in this thread that there might be a "management by laws" approach to this problem. I was thinking that it is more of a general cultural thing, maybe even a broad human cultural thing.
The replacement of workers by machines trend goes a little deeper than ordinary greed on the part of the "makers". Here's one example; in the field of forest management, the current problem is too much woody biomass, a result of decades of other types of mismanagement (though that mismanagement was long thought to be proper). Removing a bunch of it strategically to sometimes "restore" ecosystems, but more often to disrupt potentially catastrophic wildfire patterns, is now considered to be a desirable action. But accomplishing that removal is a huge and expensive endeavor, which is often paid for using tax dollars. So the taxpayer is the "Maker" who wants to save money. It's about five times more expensive to do it with hand labor than to use machines (a type of robot). Consequently, machines are used and maybe ten labor jobs are displaced for every machine.
The range of choices for this scenario would be: do nothing and let it burn and accept the consequences (leave-me-alone libertarianism); displace workers in order to make the task more affordable, thus saving society money (conservative greed); or have the taxpayers reduce their personal standard of living by paying more to support more workers (socialistic wealth redistribution, WPA style).
We all contain each of those characteristics, so the choice (if there can be a choice) would depend more upon which of those characteristics is currently culturally dominant. The easiest path is to do nothing.
I do conject that we are in a downward spiral of lessening jobs due to lessening markets due to lessening purchasing power due to lessening jobs due to ...
At some point the economic system will collapse and wealth will be redistributed. We have the choice to attempt it intentionally and rationally, but we will probably actually do little or nothing about it. The unfortunate thing about the catastrophic path is the inordinate amount of collateral damage that comes with it, whether it be a forest fire or a revolution.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete. R. Buckminster Fuller
I do conject that we are in a downward spiral of lessening jobs due to lessening markets due to lessening purchasing power due to lessening jobs due to ... [/quote]
TO some extent I agree that this is happening. But think there is much more to it.
IMO, one of the key factors has to do with what we know as bubble economies.
During the inflation of the bubble, all of the feedback systems are great.
IMO The world has been engulfed in a bubble economy since WWII. High demand and accelerating productivity form new technologies fueled the bubble.
After WWII the USA became rich as our economy supplied products and food for people around the world. In turn we spent a lot of money, Eventually lots of this money was used to buy imported stuff. Which started productive bubble in other countries. Then US manufacturers figured out they could lower their cost structures by moving more parts of production aborad. ANd this further fueled these emerging economies. As people around the world became more wealthy, they also started buying more stuff. SO demand goes up, production is increased, highl levels of investment.
And we have lots of new tech related products. So now there is more stuff that everyone wants to buy. And so the cycle continues and feeds on itself to apparently ever inflate the bubble. Pretty much everyone is getting richer and generally happier about all that.
But as with all economic bubble, at some point the positive feedback mechanisms begin to break down. As loggy was pointing out, the american consuming public has had to start tightening it's belt. Wages have not gone up for a long time, And actually, the availability of "good jobs" has fallen.
Since the voracious american consumer was largely responsible for kicking off the bubble, the whole dynamics of the process is eroded. This erosion is furthered by progressive economic shocks of the dot com bubble and then the 2008 panic...
Now suddenly people see clouds and are less wiling to spend freely. And they have less to spend if they wanted to spend. Corporations had sensible responses and have figured out ways to do more with less,,,, less labor, fewer people. Su unemployment remains stubbornly high even though corporate profits are soaring.
So before you had virtuous feedback mechanisms..... more prosperity begat more prosperity.
But now we are on the other side of the bubble economy. Instead of ever increasing demand, you have stagnant demand.
Governments have been trying to re-start the whole process. But the fundamental dynamics have shifted. People mostly do not have a lot of extra money to spend. And are more inclined to save their money because of economic uncertainty. And for that reason stimulus packages that may have worked well in the past are like sending a river into the desert.
Think of it like a giant economic ponzi scheme. If I can sell my ponzi stuff for lots of money, then I want to buy other people's ponzi stuff. But once people stop buying ever more ponzi stuff.... the whole bubble starts to deflate.
IMO the world economy has shifted out of a phase of ever accelerating economic expansion. We became accustomed to that previous reality and assumed that it could be perpetuated indefinitely. But maybe it was just and exceptional time? ANd if so, maybe the world will have to get accustomed to a new "normal."
If I am correct, what ever is happening with robotics, is just a very small part of much larger trends that are playing out.
"It's not a lie if you believe it." -- George Costanza The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves. --Bertrand Russel
...Think of it like a giant economic ponzi scheme. If I can sell my ponzi stuff for lots of money, then I want to buy other people's ponzi stuff. But once people stop buying ever more ponzi stuff.... the whole bubble starts to deflate....
As we veer ever so gently off topic, this notion of bubbles and expansion leads me to awkwardly introduce the idea that mechanisms for making money, that do not involve producing something of value, such as all forms of gambling, generate their "wealth" through a type of inflation. The housing bubble, for instance, was too much about manipulating the market (from both ends - unreasonable lending and a flipping stampede) and too little about creating real new value.
Ardy's Ponzi analogy has a lot to do with an economy based upon questionably necessary stuff. As long as expansion is occurring, everything seems okay, but meanwhile wealth disparities increase and equilibrium is lost. Speed and mobility are other Ponzi-like elements, where the benefit-cost ratio drops off quickly after a point and they become inflationary (inflate a bubble). Pretty much everything that inflates eventually deflates.
Robotics, when viewed from the exceedingly modest definition of absolute need that is based on food and shelter as necessities, only exists because of the current state of inflated need in few "rich" cultures. As the bubble deflates (who knows if it will happen gently or with a POP!) the "need" for robots will disappear.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete. R. Buckminster Fuller
As we veer ever so gently off topic, this notion of bubbles and expansion leads me to awkwardly introduce the idea that mechanisms for making money, that do not involve producing something of value, such as all forms of gambling, generate their "wealth" through a type of inflation. The housing bubble, for instance, was too much about manipulating the market (from both ends - unreasonable lending and a flipping stampede) and too little about creating real new value.
How To Make Money: Central bank, fiat currency, US Feral Reserve, and unaccountability. Those boys will show you how to make money.
