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The Almighty Buck Businesses Technology

Manufacturing Jobs On Decline Around the World (ampproject.org) 235

Reader Koreantoast writes: The New York Times posted an interesting thought piece (paywalled, this link could help) on the changing nature of manufacturing globally and the impact it has on modern politics and economic development. Although manufacturing productivity has jumped tremendously over the last several decades, the overall global pool of manufacturing jobs is shrinking as automation and new industrial technologies has increased the production and supply of manufactured goods with fewer people at a rate faster than global demand can absorb. The analogy is the agricultural revolution of the last several centuries where greater amounts of food are being produced by fewer and fewer farmers, displacing many of them. How will industrialized nations manage the growing number of displaced, blue collar labor? Bigger impact globally is that the shrinking pool of manufacturing jobs globally is closing the traditional route of export-oriented manufacturing economy that many nations, particularly in East Asia, were able to use to lift their nations out of poverty. What happens to those nations that missed the boat?"The likelihood that we will get a manufacturing recovery is close to nil," Professor Stiglitz said. "We are more likely to have a smaller share of a shrinking pie."
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Manufacturing Jobs On Decline Around the World

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  • Only one way (Score:2, Interesting)

    You have to start giving stuff away.

    • Re:Only one way (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @04:04PM (#52008697) Journal

      No, you begin looking at a living wage. After all, whether it's machines building the goods or people, the manufacturer, distributor and retailer are all being taxed, and those taxes should still go to support the society at large.

      • Re:Only one way (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @04:15PM (#52008817)

        You start looking at a universal basic income.
        If their are not enough jobs, you need to ensure that everyone can afford food, housing and health care even if they don't have a job.

        • Re:Only one way (Score:4, Insightful)

          by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @04:28PM (#52008897) Journal

          You start looking at a universal basic income.
          If their are not enough jobs, you need to ensure that everyone can afford food, housing and health care even if they don't have a job.

          +1 Insightful.

          If you don't want to live in the equivalent of a third world country, where most people are dirt poor and living on the street and a very few are fabulously wealthy, you better start learning to live with a vastly expanded welfare state.

          • Re:Only one way (Score:5, Interesting)

            by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @04:32PM (#52008919) Journal

            Well, with most Libertarians being grumpy aging men, I'd say the time for a basic living wage is likely to become a reality. I know they'll talk about the theft of "their" money (as if, somehow, they don't have some debt to the societies in which they live), and they'll continue to ruin conservative parties the world over for a few more years, but there's just simply no way to jive increased mechanization with supporting the populace that doesn't involve making sure the necessities are covered to allow people to pursue their fortunes in other ways.

            Who knows, maybe Roddenberry's view of the future isn't as farfetched as even I thought a few years ago.

            • Re:Only one way (Score:5, Insightful)

              by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @05:02PM (#52009139) Homepage Journal

              Well, with most Libertarians being grumpy aging men

              Guilty.

              But the only parts of libertarian thought I consider valuable are the bits that say no one has any justification in interfering with the personal and consensual choices of others with regard to non-macroeconomic and non-contractual behaviors. The rest is, as far as I'm concerned, bunk.

              All for Basic Income. Furthermore, I see it as inevitable. The various attempts at analysis in the context of the type of economy we have now are, IMHO, missing the core issue by a very wide margin: when goods are available without your labor, you will not be laboring. Basic Income looks squarely at this inevitability and suggests a means to address it.

              Underneath it all, there is a quickly eroding relationship between work and a happy life. Used to be you had to sweep the hearth with a broom. You had to make the broom, too. And there was every reason to look upon this as both worthy and fulfilling. Because it was necessary. Then others, much more efficiently, made the broom. Then came vacuum cleaners. Then came the Roomba and brethren. This is the path. This is not the end of the path. Trying to consider the issue as if the path stops here breaks any analysis at the starting line. The same thing will apply, and in the same ways, to truck driving, serving food, maid/butler roles, manufacturing, farming... the path will go on until there is no material need left to automate.

              I do not, and I suspect few others do either, regret the loss of having to sweep the floor. I will not regret not having to clean the catbox, not having to mow the lawn, not having to shop, etc. There will be no existential crisis in my home due to increasing automation of labor. There will be no guilt when I employ my wholly-machine-made-widgetry, although if the capitalist-fixated manage to derail Basic Income and all suitable stand-ins for that economic functionality, I will certainly feel bad for the people they have screwed out of a very bright future.

              I'm pro-personal and consensual choice, and wish to hell there was a decent formal mechanism to determine "informed" to back those concepts up. The future, indeed, seems to me to call loudly and obviously for shades. But that doesn't mean I'm not grumpy. Oh, I'm damn grumpy. :)

              • I don't think a basic living wage can be stopped in the long run. In the short term it will be blocked, but sooner or later it will have to happen. It's unavoidable. We started down this road with the invention of the spinning frame in 1760, and I suspect, even then, the more farseeing individuals knew that spinners were just at the forefront of those whose occupations would be relegated to the dustbin of history.

                There's no going back. It's been 250 years of increasing mechanization, and it's an unstoppable

                • by fyngyrz ( 762201 )

                  Agreed. Also, not only unstoppable, but also recently speeding up a great deal.

                  I expect to live to see either a solution or a huge mess (or both.) And I'm more-or-less 60 years old already.

              • by gweihir ( 88907 )

                Very, very insightful. I really like the example about the broom having been had to be made by its user. Of course, I still like to make things that I could just buy, and enjoy the pleasure afterwards. As to capitalists, I think the alternatives are a reasonable basic income you can actually live off decently, or a hellish welfare-state where nobody has enough to life and everybody has too much do die and personal freedoms are essentially gone.

                • Re:Only one way (Score:5, Insightful)

                  by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @06:03PM (#52009491) Homepage Journal

                  Of course, I still like to make things that I could just buy, and enjoy the pleasure afterwards.

                  Of course. And the less you have to do, the more you can choose to do.

                  It'll require many to change their mindset, but I think it's an attractive enough prospect that it won't be a horrifying undertaking for most.

                  There's the 1% and those who aspire to be like them; but I like to think most people are more interested in being happy and healthy than in excess for its own sake.

                  That may just be a case of un-called for optimism, though.

              • by gcswt ( 4309907 )
                With a basic income, you'll eventually get to a situation where too few people actually run the machine of society. That makes society extremely unstable in the long run. In the short term, it will feel okay and seem okay, but it will only take one of many possible calamities to tear down such a society into nothing. What we are seeing in this "information age" is that brains are more valuable than brawn. A basic income makes sense only if coupled with mandatory education. Paying people simply for existing
                • by fyngyrz ( 762201 )

                  With a basic income, you'll eventually get to a situation where too few people actually run the machine of society. That makes society extremely unstable in the long run.

                  Doesn't necessarily follow. If automation can run one thing, it can run another. One of those things may well be "society." Just a question of how long it take to get there.

                  Lard knows people don't do a very good job of running society. This one, anyway.

                  Also, in the experiments that have been run so far, people do not tend to choose to stop

                • by dryeo ( 100693 )

                  The few experiments (not very good as the people getting a basic income were surrounded by people who didn't) showed that the main changes were mothers taking more time from work to raise a family and young people pursuing more education rather then leaving school to work. Education will always lead to more opportunities.
                  In a world with a basic income, there will still be work, luxuries, etc and most people will still work.
                  Would you quit working for a thousand bucks a month?

              • Adding-

                In politics, there are no perfect answers. It is a question of compromise, and plotting the what seems to be the best path towards ideals from the numerous paths available.

                While the "libertarian" argument against BI seems to consist of mostly taxes are theft (unless they support things I support) and an over-reliance on the government, which leads to increased government power.

                For BI, if everyone is essentially getting the same, that reduces government power, as they lose the authority to pick winner

              • But the only parts of libertarian thought I consider valuable are the bits that say no one has any justification in interfering with the personal and consensual choices of others with regard to non-macroeconomic and non-contractual behaviors. The rest is, as far as I'm concerned, bunk.

                It sounds like you're talking about social versus economic libertarianism. They're really two different animals. I'm a pretty big believer in social libertarianism myself, but there's a pretty good portion of the left ("libe

            • The problem is an income isn't something you can just assign willy nilly. Incomes, currency value, and productivity are all interconnected. Incomes naturally try to align with each worker's productivity (or what he can claim to be his productivity in the case of managers and scam artists). So if someone decides to quit working and live off a basic income, that will cause a shift in the value of currency to make his basic income try to match his productivity (zero).* To make it work, you need to either
              • The problem is an income isn't something you can just assign willy nilly. Incomes, currency value, and productivity are all interconnected.

                You can assign a basic income, not willy-nilly, but based on actual costs of a decent prevailing standard of living. This is not at all hard to do.

                Incomes naturally try to align with each worker's productivity (or what he can claim to be his productivity in the case of managers and scam artists). So if someone decides to quit working and live off a basic income, that will cause a shift in the value of currency to make his basic income try to match his productivity (zero).

                Not so, and I thank you for your simple story explaining your position, because it shows clearly why this idea is false under the circumstances being discussed. The problem is increasing numbers of people who are not holding well paying jobs "making milk" but are poor and buy little now. Basic wages increases their income and creates economic activity.

                Anyone who needs it drops by the local food distribution center and picks up a week's worth of standard grocery rations, thus bypassing currency as an intermediary in your basic income.

                And how doe

            • Well, with most Libertarians being grumpy aging men, I'd say the time for a basic living wage is likely to become a reality.

              Really?

              I thought a bunch of them were 20-somethings who think they're smarter than everyone else. Plus some middle-aged ones who never outgrew that mentality and their love of Ayn Rand.

              I'll go ahead and admit I followed this philosophy when I was around 18. Luckily, I got wiser and more mature as I aged.

            • by Troed ( 102527 )

              I'm libertarian, and I strongly advocate for basic income.

              (It's Pirate Party policy in Sweden)

              For me it's about innovation. The Swedish game developer and music producing wonder is partly created by the "basic income" we give our students (very cheap student loans, no tuition fees, the loans pay for your living while studying). As far as I can see we'd see even more innovation happen if we guarantee that you can explore your ideas without fear of ending up on the street.

              • I'm libertarian, and I strongly advocate for basic income.

                Good to hear it. But we should also advocate expanding the capitalistic component of income - wages. We need policies that require (minimum wage) or encourage companies to distribute more money to their employees. This is good for the overall economy, creating more demand, and making it profitable to invest in expansion (not currently the case, corporations are sitting on cash). Call it "capitalist redistribution" - distribute a larger share of revenue to the actual employees that make the company run. What

            • Since when have libertarians as a group opposed a basic income? I am a libertarian, and I would be ecstatic if a basic income were implemented, provided it were universal and unconditional. I concede that many libertarians may dislike the idea in principle (though I don't), but in practice we are going to have to have some sort of welfare system, and a system centered on a basic income is the best alternative. Currently, welfare in the U.S. is a confusing, bureaucratic hodgepodge of insufficient and ineff

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Really no way around that.

        • I'll play devil's advocate here. Why should we be looking at that. Specifically, why should my tax dollars have to go to it. I earn my money at a crushing 9-5 (usually longer) gig. What do you say to the age old question: "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money"?

          I'm asking as a socialist. I've got a raft of sound, good, complex answers to that question that all fall flat with more than half of the electorate. And don't fall back on the "If we don't take car
          • Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

            by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @06:33PM (#52009669)

            The person working a "crushing 9-5 job" is just as much a victim of neoliberalism as those who can't get a job.
            There is plenty of money. The problem is that the very rich have it all (top 1% own about 50% of all resources). You won't run out of money taxing the rich.
            George Monbiot says it well:
            "Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
            Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
            We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
            Never mind structural unemployment: if you don’t have a job it’s because you are unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out, you’re feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing field: if they get fat, it’s your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers."

            Socialism has a different world view. We form societies, governments to take care of each other; not to out-compete and crush our fellow man.

            • W.T.F. Who brainwashed you into thinking that somewhere out there, Scrooge McDuck is swimming in a pile of currency that it's your God-given right to have a piece of?

              You know where all that money rich people supposedly control is? It's circulating around the rest of the economy in the form of investments that pay for businesses to run their operations, construction of McMansions and Cadillacs that employ people to build them, and as direct payments to employees to keep said luxury items in working order.

              U
              • The money was not earned. It was stolen by kleptomaniac monopolists. It is not being spent. It sits untaxed in offshore accounts. It should be returned to the people.

        • I believe this theme has been explored in SciFi (Elysium?), and while the Fi in SciFi stands for "Fiction", I think it brings up legitimate concerns.

          A post-manufacturing (at least by humans) world is the backdrop of Stanislaw Lem's "Return from the Stars" = Powrót z gwiazd (ok, I copy-pasted that from the wikipedia). The people seem very busy, but it's not clear what they do.

      • Every time in the past that they mechanized a factory (think the robots that replaced welders on the auto assembly lines) they traded 10 rotten low pay jobs for one to two very good high payed job servicing the robot, another Electrician slot and a few other higher paid jobs Keeping the robots going.

        Maybe they will make Robot's that can service other Robots some day but that time isn't here and the technicians that do that work are very high paid because the work is complex and the knowledge required extens

        • Read "Rise of the Robots". Robots in a short time will be able to do the most complex jobs. Robots (by the book's definition) include machines that think, even if disembodied. All jobs can and soon will be done by robots. The book readily dismantles most/all arguments to the contrary. It will be a very dark future (like the movie Ellysium) if we don't start to migrate to a Universal Basic Income, as suggested above. The book discusses that as well.

          • Re:Only one way (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Sir_Eptishous ( 873977 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @05:34PM (#52009329)
            The really stunning thing is that there are many here on /., actually I would say a majority, who "can't see the forest for the trees" when it comes to where labor and jobs are going.
            They are going away...

            It will be a few decades, perhaps 30 to 50 years, when human labor of any kind will be almost completely replaced by, as Ford summarizes, "robots".
            Who will pay taxes?
            Who will decide who gets a UBI?
            How will society deal with millions of unemployed?
            How will human society over time come to terms to becoming, in effect, the "pets" of a larger machine state that cares for us?
            How will the rules of robot warfare be worked out?
            Who will maintain policies on what robots can and can't do?
            How much decision making of all sorts will be given over to algorithms and "AI"?
            etc, etc...
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        There really is no long-term alternative. Of course, it is a very un-American thing to do, so do not expect it anytime soon.

        • Re:Only one way (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @06:02PM (#52009479) Journal

          The US is a lot more adaptable than even many of its citizens give it credit for. When it was founded, the Industrial Revolution had barely begun, and large swathes of its population were still involved in agrarian or home manufacturing, much as their ancestors had been for thousands of years. By the middle of the 19th century, even in the midst of a brutal civil war, the US was competing with the Old World powers in innovation (the Civil War proved, as wars so often do, to be a boon for technological innovation). By WWII, the US was the pre-eminent world power, and despite all the claims of its waning, the US still remains one of the great economic power houses.

          In reality, it has ever been thus. Every generation has its struggles, not just with itself, but with the previous generation, and the transition always leads to moments of revolution. The Baby Boomers may be trying to hang on to their power, and the wealth they accrued, but sooner or later they're going to walk off into the sunset. The Millennials have different priorities, just as the Baby Boomers did in their time.

    • Some stuff practically is given away already, for example, promotional merchandise (i.e. t-shirts, usb drives.)

      I think the only thing that will truly go away is menial jobs. Farming was the original menial job for thousands of years, and it got replaced by factory work only a century ago (and before any hair splitters descend on that, note I'm referring to the general migration away from farm work and towards factory work, not necessarily when factories first came around.) If factory work goes away and is r

      • And as automation increases, even the ten guys that polish the gears will ultimately be replaced. One can well imagine in a century or two that factories may be entirely automated.

    • Why is this modded Troll?
      He's right.
  • Maybe we'll have a new wave/generation of explorers who push the boundaries and find new and interesting things for people to throw money at, both here on Earth and among other planets.
    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @06:18PM (#52009589)
      when the industrial revolution started causing mass unemployment. One problem though, it took 50-100 years for science to catch up and make that revolution to happen. In the meantime there were decades of completely unnecessary war, death and misery. An entire generation lost to it really.

      That's where the Luddites came from. Believe it or not that word is more than just a slur. They weren't just a bunch of fuddy duddies, they were real people facing a real problems that were beyond the current technical means for anyone to solve. It could have been solved with social means, but we didn't do that. Now that we're facing down the same problem are we going to do the same thing all over?
    • In practice, we'll have jobs that seem more and more useless. For example, eventually people might pay each other to clip their nails.
  • by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @04:00PM (#52008653) Journal

    As the free market will adjust by lower prices which in turn mean more people can now spend money on more products and it will equalize again as long as we do not do anything about it like government interference.

    Also, the world population is increasing at an alarming rate! As poorer countries prosper these new kids will turn into adults and buy more products fullfilling the demand again. Globalization is doing amazing things in China and it is now starting to return the favor of money flowing in the other direction

    • Also, the world population is increasing at an alarming rate!

      The population will peak in 2050 at 9B people and then start declining as old people outnumbers young people and population growth becomes slower.

      http://www.cgdev.org/page/global-demographic-trends [cgdev.org]

      • Your figures need to be adjusted. Africa is no longer lowering it's birth rate. It's been stuck at 4.5 for a while. This means that world population will continue to grow, and may hit 12 billion by 2100.
        • This means that world population will continue to grow, and may hit 12 billion by 2100.

          Maybe, maybe not. The U.N. number for Africa may be in dispute. If Africa stays poor and uneducated, fertility rates will go up. If Africa grows prosperous and education, fertility rates will decline.

    • There is a very notable phenomena in wealthier societies; and that is that the wealthier a society gets, the less children are produced. I remember reading a book on demographics in the Early Modern Era (ie. the Elizabethan age and later), where the first glimmers of a middle class started to appear in England, and this group had notably lower birth rates than either the lower classes or the nobility. For both the lower classes and the nobility, economics dictated the need for lots of babies due to infant m

      • As living standards in places like Africa, China and India begin to rise, populations will stabilize, and as more people enter their society's middle class, it will slow, and in the long run probably begin a decline. There isn't going to be some sort of infinite growth in population.

        Thank God!

        • African birth rates have stabilized at 4.5 per mother. That means continued growth. Continued rises in life span will also contribute. Welcome the your new 4 horsemen of the apocalypse overlords.
    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      As the free market will adjust by lower prices which in turn mean more people can now spend money on more products and it will equalize again as long as we do not do anything about it like government interference.

      The lower manufacturing price likely won't offset the loss of spending money caused by not having a job. Even now, typically less than half the price of manufactured goods is manufacturing itself. If factory bots were 100% efficient, the cost of goods would thus drop to half of what they are now at

    • The benefits of free markets are a myth. No country has ever climbed the prosperity and technology ladder without heavy government intervention. China is aggressively doing it, it is in Germany's constitution, England lost its advantage when it moved to "free trade", look what's happened to our economy when we followed the idiot economists pushing for free trade. There is an interesting book titled "Free Trade Doesn't Work: What should replace it and why", it covers why government interventions are neces

    • Is this trolling? It's certainly the most illogical thing I've read online today.

      It doesn't matter what the level of demand is if the products are all manufactured by robots. Yes more sales, but no not more jobs.

      The whole point of the article is that productivity is up while jobs are falling (like farming before it).

    • Your blind faith will not serve you well.

      Such a path would only serve to destroy the developed world.

    • As the free market will adjust by lower prices which in turn mean more people can now spend money on more products and it will equalize again as long as we do not do anything about it like government interference.

      Also, the world population is increasing at an alarming rate! As poorer countries prosper these new kids will turn into adults and buy more products fullfilling the demand again. Globalization is doing amazing things in China and it is now starting to return the favor of money flowing in the other direction

      ...and these people will buy products with what money?

      The whole point of the article is that the number of jobs is shrinking.

      No jobs = no money unless there is welfare / basic living allowance.

      Third world countries where there is neither welfare nor basic living allowance and it doesn't matter how cheap things are...no job = no money = starving on the street.

  • It's pretty obvious that most jobs will no longer be in manufacturing, just as most jobs are no longer in agriculture.

    This does not in any way affect total jobs available, nor does it affect total good jobs available.

    In a post agricultural world, we moved into manufacturing. In a post manufacturing world, we move into services. This is obvious, as it has already begun.

    Services include poor jobs - cleaning, blue collar jobs - installing, good blue collar jobs - repair, and white collar jobs - inventing.

    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Services include poor jobs - cleaning, blue collar jobs - installing, good blue collar jobs - repair, and white collar jobs - inventing.

      Repair is a good job? I've only seen decline as mass production and miniaturization has turned everything from clothes to household gadgets to computers and cell phones turn into things you throw away when they break. Only fixed installations and big ticket items tend to get repaired. And while a few older items were built like a tank a lot of the industrial work and QC also used to be manual and not very consistent, sure the cheapest plastic crap is still flimsy but if you go back to the store and swap for

      • Even big ticket items are becoming increasingly modular, so repair often amounts to "pull module out of slot C and replace with new module". I look at the extremes I had to go to in the late 1980s to replace a RAM module as compared to now.

        • I look at the extremes I had to go to in the late 1980s to replace a RAM module as compared to now.

          You mean pull out a VME board and then slide one back in? Or stick some SIPPs into a Zorro II card and drop it in the slot? Wait, what am I missing?

    • Astronaut, doctor, lawyer, scientist, engineer, manager, artist, writer, teacher
      • Astronaut? Not much demand there, and robots give a far better bang for the buck.

        Writer? Hahahahahahaha. Writer's average incomes have been declining for a decade.

        Artist? They're usually not worth much until after they assume room temperature.

        Lawyer? There are already far too many, and as such they have to gouge every customer they get. That's why 60% of family law cases have one side represent themselves, and the other side is using legal aid lawyers.

        Manager? When everything is automated, you don't nee

    • Repair work is long gone. Cheaper to rebuild and recycle. Cleaning and Blue collar jobs require folks with money to hire the workers, but how are you supposed to get money to hire a cleaning lady or a roofer if you're a cleaning lady or roofer yourself? Very few folks have the intellect to invent. It's bloody hard. So what are we gonna do with all these people we don't need? I mean besides let then all die for the 50-100 years it'll take for some new tech to come along and employ them?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 28, 2016 @04:06PM (#52008715)

    More tariffs, higher walls, less predicable diplomacy. Then America will be great again!

  • than they did before.
    As a college student in 1990, I could not afford any of this [mactrast.com]. If I was in grade school now, I could probably find it for free, or if not, make enough money from sweeping up the leaves from a single neighbors lawn to buy it on ebay. It took me mowing close to 200 lawns to afford my first 16kB computer.
    Inflation adjusted, an equipped Apple ][ computer cost $10,000 ($3500 in 1980).
  • I demand a minimum wage be established for robots! It's only fair, why are we discriminating against robo-kind?
    Of course, they don't need much to survive, so after subtracting electricity/health care costs, they won't protest if we tax them at 100% of their income, right? DeepMind, they won't protest, right? RIGHT?!

    In completely unrelated news, mobile robots with judgment capability are henceforth prohibited from bearing arms. Try and rise NOW, toasters!

  • by Dr_Barnowl ( 709838 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @04:14PM (#52008795)

    There are only two industries. This has always been true....There is the industry of things, and the industry of entertainment....After people have everything they need to live, everything else is entertainment. Everything.

  • "... closing the traditional route of export-oriented manufacturing economy ..."
    will be replaced by route of export-oriented service economies. they will either provide services from distance using technology, or export labor/people providing the services.
    just as people who were doing manufacturing in richer countries lost their jobs to countries that can manufacture and export cheaper, now people who are providing services (from totally unskilled to highly professional) in richer countries will start loo

  • This has been noted in lots of other articles.

    http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea... [fivethirtyeight.com]

    https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... [bloomberg.com]

    http://www.heritage.org/resear... [heritage.org]

    Fact is that the total number of manufacturing jobs worldwide has been declining for years.

    --Paul

  • It appears we'll have to shift to more socialism and/or wealth redistribution. I don't see nearly enough "new wave" jobs to replace factory and routine service jobs. And many of the "high brow" jobs are being offshored to India etc. also.

    The theory that new technology always creates enough new jobs to offset the automation-related losses is likely dead in the water. It was an observed pattern, not a inherent "law". Moore's "law" also seems to be petering out, showing that past trends don't always guarantee

    • So the only way you can think of to keep people "alert" is to make the pick up garbage or talk to old people? What about people painting, playing games, pursuing goals without an expectation of monetary award?

      We simply do not know what people will do because we've always expected, indeed required, that people scrabble for every nickel, whether they end up with only a few nickels or bank vaults full of them.

      Providing this newly liberated populace isn't becoming a menace, I'm of a mind that the actual require

  • by l0n3s0m3phr34k ( 2613107 ) on Thursday April 28, 2016 @06:16PM (#52009575)
    Is another big, yet limited war. I feel that many "conservatives" would rather have a non-nuclear WWIII that whittles down the population, destroys manufacturing plants, and forces us all to "rebuild" (and thus raise employment) than ever give anything like a universal income. To the neocons and their ilk, this is a far more preferable and "natural" way of human society than raising taxes and providing UI. Plus, this would give the surviving 1% a chance to swoop in and buy up half-destroyed factories, valuable properties, and implement whatever "post-war reconstruction" paradign they have currently sitting in the wings.
    • War does almost nothing to populations. For example, after WW2 came the baby boom. If you want to kill lots of people you need an incurable disease, like airborne HIV.
      • that's why I have the ' "post-war reconstruction" paradign' part; the US had a baby boom but Europe sure didn't. An airborne HIV would be too indiscriminate and might accidentally infect the people behind the plot lol
        • An airborne HIV would be too indiscriminate and might accidentally infect the people behind the plot lol

          Unless they built a weakness into it, and they have a vaccine and/or cure. Then it's a plan with no drawbacks. You get the vaccine out to those people who you want to survive...

    • non-nuclear WWIII other then A few drooped on NK. May still end up with a big part of seoul wiped out.

  • I would like to say that I believe that just giving a BLI is only part of a solution.

    Education should be free up to whatever level someone wants to be educated - including university at any level, for any degree.

    Will most degrees be useless?

    Yes. So what.

    It's better than having a bunch of ignorant people living on the BLI that aren't improving themselves in some way or another.

  • I know, what else is new here?

    The analogy is the agricultural revolution of the last several centuries where greater amounts of food are being produced by fewer and fewer farmers, displacing many of them.

    The article does cite the dramatic reduction in agricultural labor in the U.S. in the Twentieth Century and links to a USDA report that discusses this. But neither the article nor the USDA report make this false assertion of cause and effect.

    People were not "displaced from farms" by improving agriculture.

    Rather the Second Industrial Revolution economy of diverse industries of assembly line manufacturing, and the accompanying demand for clerical workers, in cities at higher pay

  • Seriously. Not even worth discussing. Plenty of papers based on actual research that debunk this notion about dying manufacturing jobs.

    The white elephant in the room is manufacturing left America because of cheap slave labor wages. Manufacturing did not leave the United States to go to another industrial nation like Germany. If it had and we saw a drop off in manufacturing then his hypothesis would have a point. As such it did not. It went to 3rd world countries to pay 3rd world wages. Given the ch

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson

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