Person in the foyer at the doctor's office said technology is making jobs obsolete...

[Deja Q]

What's your take on that? And how will the future economy, the "new economy", or any other economy be defined if technology does render us obsolete?

[Hello_Kitty]

1. This is an interesting article about work and consumption. (edited to add link)

It made me think about some of our culture's ingrained assumptions about work and consumption. I don't know about you, but I would trade less pay for fewer hours on the job.

Oops, forgot the link! http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962

[Deja Q]

3. Define 'consumption'.

Personal boats being an example of extremes (why not just rent and treat the boat with a little dignity than to junk it up)...

And given how wages have been devalued over the last three to four decades, to work fewer hours means no health care, no real standard of living, nothing.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. The article explains it pretty well.

You are right about the low wages. Compare us to most of Europe (especially Scandanavian countries) where they have a shorter work-week, a mandatory vacation, and a solid safety net.

[leftstreet]

9. Maybe healthcare, shelter, food etc shouldn't be tied to our labor

Maybe?

:shrug:

[leftstreet]

7. “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied.”

snip

It was this latter concern that led Charles Kettering, director of General Motors Research, to write a 1929 magazine article called “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied.” He wasn’t suggesting that manufacturers produce shoddy products. Along with many of his corporate cohorts, he was defining a strategic shift for American industry—from fulfilling basic human needs to creating new ones.

In a 1927 interview with the magazine Nation’s Business, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis provided some numbers to illustrate a problem that the New York Times called “need saturation.” Davis noted that “the textile mills of this country can produce all the cloth needed in six months’ operation each year” and that 14 percent of the American shoe factories could produce a year’s supply of footwear. The magazine went on to suggest, “It may be that the world’s needs ultimately will be produced by three days’ work a week.”

What an interesting article.
Thanks for posting!

[Hannah Bell]

23. We were long ago able to produce enough goods to supply the world.

China, right now, makes something like 70% of the world's shoes with a few thousands of workers.

The world's people could be living dignified lives, everyone employed, with lots of leisure & family time -

but it would disempower elites, so it isn't on the programme.

instead, we will be indoctrinated with narratives about how there's "not enough money" & everyone must work harder & better & get less. The unemployed, too, must get less.

[unpossibles]

17. thanks for the link!

Great article.

When I was a contractor, I had one good year where I was able to work shorter weeks and loved it. The "loss" of the extra money did not matter as much as the gain in time.

[Hello_Kitty]

19. At my previous job I worked 12 hour shifts.

It was a 3 day/4 day deal where I worked every other Saturday night. That night was mostly overtime so it was worth my while monetarily but I calculated that if I downsized my life a bit I could have dispensed with that shift and only worked 3 nights a week. Of course, that wasn't an option. :(

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Here's what I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

[Deja Q]

5. ...

:rofl:

There still comes a point when people need to do things to remain people and earn a good living wage.

[Hannah Bell]

24. Here's what i think:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll

[guitar man]

4. From someone in a tech driven industry

I can tell you, it's scary. I work in television. I started in the industry 8 1/2 years ago switching the board in master control. In that time, I have seen automated switching implemented, cutting our master control room staffing down from 3 full time shifts (168 hours) to 100 hours a week, and we could run it with less manned hours than that if we wanted to.

I moved into management about 4 years ago and I'll be damned if they aren't integrating and centralizing a lot of the job I have now, to the point where I can see them handing my job over to someone running several stations at once on a centralized network. I guess at that point, I will have to just go home and sit down :(

[Deja Q]

6. I know the feeling...

Which is why I've started studying for a different career.

Math skills can be put to various uses, but if programming is going offshore for good, then I don't think it's logical to spend even a penny in furthering education in the programming field.

ROI.

[guitar man]

11. I don't know what I'd do next

I've changed "careers" so many times already, I don't know which way to turn next. If this folds up on me, I'm thinking about buying a 15yd dump truck and hauling sand and gravel. Honest living and when I shut down the truck at the end of the day, I can walk away from it. Not like this management gig that haunts my every waking moment even when I'm not at work.

[jamesbolton]

10. Of course that is happening...

and has been happening for over a 100 years. I used to work in textiles, and it seemed management's number one drive was to get rid of people. They hated the uneducated and uncouth(as they viewed it) guys that worked in the plant. They wanted to fire all of us. Every few months they would upgrade or change something to get rid of more of us. I used to overhaul spinning frames, and I finally lost my job when they bought new ones that required less maintainence.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. Define 'us'.

Any new technology will unemploy some people and employ others. Until we create robots which will build robots to do all the work, there will always be jobs.

It is a silly statement.

[valerief]

13. Didn't they say that all through the 20th century? nt

[truedelphi]

14. Want to know the scariest automation of ALL. The preprogrammed WAR MACHINERY

During an idle moment yesterday, I picked up a book by Jeremy Rifkin on the subject of Time.

He started into this riff about how the 1987 stock market crash was related to the preprogramming of master computer scenarios, and how certain stock market real time events would set off one or more of these machine-run responses.

So in the fall of 1987, certain of these "real events" occurred, at least in terms of how the machines analyzed events. Since there were no human beings in the loop, the response was the MACHINES setting off the full blown stock market creash.

That is bad enough. Then Rifkin goes on to say -- that the same type of "machine programs" are now controlling the warheads on our nuclear subs and on our satellites!

This is really scary stuff. Between 1976 and 1984 we had at least two well publicized nuclear events wherein total Armageddon was avoided through the intervention of human beings.

One involved a flock of geese near the Artic. Human beings realized that the geese were being seen as a shadow of "nuke missiles" attacking Alaska. The launch sequence was aborted.

Another involved two people - a Russian and an American nuclear sub commanders, in the Mediterranean, both of whom refused to believe that their counterpart was launching their warheads against the continental targets of the other.

If it had not been for the human beings throwing the switch, and deciding against continuing with the machine loop, I imagine that few of us would be here today.

[The2ndWheel]

15. Jobs aren't obsolete

You're just needed less.

[SoCalDem]

16. Every new technological breakthrough comes with a "price"

automobiles put buggymakers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights out of business

factories put craftsmen out of work

assembly lines put many people out of work

heavy machinery put laborers out of work

improvements in telephony put lots of "phone operators" out of work

computers eliminated millions of people who used to process accounts, handle customer service, work as bank tellers, etc..

Each new innovation was "sold" as a wonderful way to cut down on the work-load of the individual, and the common thinking was that the workers would remain, but THEY would have more "leisure" with their work, and an easier job....what was not factored in, was the fact that employers had to PAY for the new-and-improved equipment, and that they would not WANT to continue to pay employees to do less work, and to keep paying them raises along the way.. Employers see innovation as a way to ELIMINATE workers.. Machines don't ask for time off to go to a soccer match, they don't need medical insurance, or paid vacations or pensions.

As each new thing came along, the workers were expected to adapt to the change, and to actually change occupations as their former one was "phased out".. The rub is that a 40 yr old guy who has been at the same job since he was 18 (and who is quite good at his job), just cannot put his family on hold while he re-trains for a "new" career..especially when he emerges from the training as an entry-level novice, not at the top of his former payscale.

The relentless ratcheting DOWN of pay, as jobs changed has ruined the middle class worker

[notesdev]

18. Those darn automobiles

putting buggy whip manufacturers out of business... how DARE they???

[anonymous171]

20. Ahh I see the technocratic wing of the party is still alive and kicking.

PROGRESS ABOVE ALL ELSE!

[MiniMe]

21. Outsourcing is making jobs obsolete

It's not that the jobs aren't being done, they are just being done overseas.

[XemaSab]

22. I work in an industry

that cannot be outsourced and cannot be rendered obsolete via technology.

That being said, nobody's hiring. x(