America May Miss Out On the Next Industrial Revolution (theverge.com) 297
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Robots are inevitably going to automate millions of jobs in the U.S. and around the world, but there's an even more complex scenario on the horizon, said roboticist Matt Rendall. In a talk Tuesday at SXSW, Rendall painted a picture of the future of robotic job displacement that focused less on automation and more on the realistic ways in which the robotics industry will reshape global manufacturing. The takeaway was that America, which has outsourced much of its manufacturing and lacks serious investment in industrial robotics, may miss out on the world's next radical shift in how goods are produced. That's because the robot makers -- as in, the robots that make the robots -- could play a key role in determining how automation expands across the globe. As the CEO of manufacturing robotics company Otto Motors, Rendall focuses on building fleets of warehouse bots that could eventually replace the many fulfillment workers who are hired by companies like Amazon. "The robots are coming," Rendall said. "After the Great Recession, there was a fundamental change in people's interest in automation. People started feeling the pain of high-cost labor and there's an appetite for automation that we haven't seen before." While Rendall described himself as one of the optimists, who believes automation will, in the long-term, improve society and help humans live better lives, he said there are changes afoot in the global manufacturing scene that could leave American industries in the dust. "China is tracking to be the No. 1 user in robots used in industrial manufacturing," he said, adding that the country is driving "an overwhelming amount" of growth. The difference, he added, is how China is responding to automation, which is by embracing it instead of shying away from it. This is in stark contrast to industrial advances of the previous century, like Ford's assembly line, that helped transform American industries into the most powerful on the planet.
Bad assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at Yahoo. The first, and for some time the best internet search engine. Now dust.
Economists, and the like, keep using 20th century (some even 19th century) models. Intellectuals cling to the past as badly as others. And the fools who like what they say pay them. Sadly the factory workers have no such benefactors.
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He who innovates/invents first has little effect on 5 years later. If that long.
Look at Yahoo. The first, and for some time the best internet search engine. Now dust.
Economists, and the like, keep using 20th century (some even 19th century) models. Intellectuals cling to the past as badly as others. And the fools who like what they say pay them. Sadly the factory workers have no such benefactors.
Yahoo first? I would have said Altavisa off the top of my head. Too lazy to check further, though.
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I don't know if Altavista was even second. Thought they did start within a year of each other. And, they're long gone.
Before Yahoo there was gopher. In the early days of the web it still worked well, but you had to be a geek to use it.
My first browser was Mosaic. It was the first. Long gone.
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Altavista was the precursor to Google, a search engine for the Web.
Yahoo! was unique in being a homepage for the web - a collector of news and oddities that you could start your day on, and by the way had a search function that was never as good as Altavista or Google.
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ISTR that when Yahoo! added a search form, that form actually called out to Altavista. There were a few iterations using different search engines before they had their own, and I'm not entirely sure right now whether Altavista was the first or
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Webcrawler.
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I think the first www search engine was Excite. There were some non-www search engines before that though.
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Look at Yahoo. The first, and for some time the best internet search engine. Now dust.
Uh no. Yahoo is not and never has been a search engine. They did eventually make the front page an interface to someone else's search engine instead of an interface to their directory, and in the process eliminated their entire reason for existence. When they were a curated directory, there was some reason to use their site. When they just became a bunch of poorly implemented web fora and a Bing search field, there was no longer any reason to go there unless you were using one of their "communities". For ex
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Economists, and the like, keep using 20th century (some even 19th century) models. Intellectuals cling to the past as badly as others.
That's like saying physicists cling to outdated 19th century ideals of Newtonian physics. The field of economics has changed massively since the 1800's, with the introduction of game theory, econometrics, etc... The reason you start with Smith, Malthus and Hume is they laid the foundations of modern economic theory, the same way Newton laid out the foundations of modern physics.
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In other slashdot robot news ... (Score:5, Informative)
If American robots had their own economy it'd be bigger than Switzerland
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
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It wouldn't be much of an "economy" since robots don't spend money.
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Layoffs were inevitable. They would happen no matter what we did - because no human can compare with a robot at any price. Even a slave is more expensive than a robot because robots don't need to eat and sleep.
So in the meantime, we may as well pay people a living wage.
Don't worry we won't miss it (Score:3)
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Re:Don't worry we won't miss it (Score:5, Informative)
And when Lord Dampnut ends the Meals on Wheels (created by Republican Eisenhower by the way) and starves your granny to death - I'm sure that will make you feel so much better.
No, I'm not exagerating, The Orange Fuhrer's latest budget proposal includes complete defunding of both meals on wheels and food for peace.
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But does Meals on Wheels rely on government grants to do its good work? There are hundreds of Meals on Wheels organizations around the country, so it's hard to generalize, but overwhelmingly, the groups get the majority of revenue from charitable giving, not government funds. In 2015, for instance, the national Meals on Wheels reported that government grants accounted for just 3 percent of its annual revenues of $7.5 million. Meals on Wheels for San Diego County in California says that government grants made up just 1.5 percent ($68,534) of its revenues of $4.4 million. Not all branches are so independent. Atlanta's group gets 48 percent of its revenue from government grants (none of the annual reports I looked at broke down exactly what level of government or specific program supplied the money). Many of the annual reports don't even break down revenues by source (see here) and others aren't even posted online.
The source article has links to the numbers mentioned.
Once again, we see a Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer crying wolf. Could you at least do that when he does things wrong? It dilutes the message.
And the federal government shouldn't be funding charities unless it's a direct exchange of money for direct services to the government like any other would-be private contractor. The federal budget isn't an endless str
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There are still some things you need human labor to do, but they are going.
There are HUGE problems coming.
Almost no one in the US understands why the French Revolution happened.
Won't be pretty.
born and raised in the US, just a better student of history.
Sure, but that's not the big news. (Score:2)
The big news is that everybody may miss out on the next industrial revolution.
Nonsense (Score:2)
We are already robots. We don't need other robots. Didn't you read the memo? You have to wake up by 6, get coffee by 8, push buttons until 5 and hibernate by midnight.
Everything else is either a bug or a feature, including this comment which is a bug. Maybe someone hacked my coffee... I'll get the reset button.
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You have a poor understanding of what a robot looks like. Robots don't sleep so no need to wake. They don't drink coffee, take bathroom or lunch breaks. They don't go home. They don't get tired and aside from occasional downtime for maintenance they out perform humans in almost every manual task. Because of capitalism, maximize profits and minimize costs, most manual processes will be done by robots in the near future. It's inevitable.
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Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
You know what else they don't do ? Buy shit.
Too much automation and the savings in labour cost is outweighed by the losses in demand (demand can only exist as long as enough people are earning enough money that some of the ones who want your product can also afford it).
Now I am not panicking much. Automation is a good thing. It can create a much better society - but one thing is for certain: that society CANNOT be capitalist. A capitalist society cannot exist unless there are lots of viable means for people to earn a living - you can't have any business without customers.
So what kind of options are available ? Forget the history of the luddites, we've never seen automation on the scale that's now possible before and nothing in human history is any guide. But there are two historical events that are - they just aren't human history. The first is when cars displaced horses. Today there is less than 1% the horse population there was 150 years ago. The rest became glue.
The second is dogs. Until the 19th century every dog on earth had a job. There were even dogs in restaurants running on a treadmill to keep the spit turning. Today ? The only dogs that have a job now are bloodhounds and seeing-eye dogs. Yet there's still a dog in almost every home. We've kept them around, in a life that's basically a 20-year holiday, while raising their standard of living and their life-expectancy - and without expecting anything in return. We did it, just because we like their company.
The question before humanity is: are we going to treat each other like dogs or horses ?
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And there are too goddamn many of us anyways.
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Yeah... but I don't think humans make very good glue.
Candles and soap though.. we should be great at making those, the amount of fat we carry around... we're actually the only primate that has a layer of fat year-round (that's more commonly found in marine animals who need it for warmth).
Even odds (Score:2)
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Better hope not, because if America goes down you can be sure it'll take down the rest of the world with it. Not necessarily talking nuclear hellfire here, but you can rest assured that the collapse of one of the lynchpins of the ballyhooed "interconnected global economy" will drag everyone else down with it.
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All the big American companies already have their headquarters in Europe or Bermuda and the like so I think we can cope.
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By "headquarters", do you perhaps mean where the corporate charter was filed and where the registered agent lives? Or do you mean where all of the engineers are?
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By "headquarters", do you perhaps mean where the corporate charter was filed and where the registered agent lives?
That might indeed often be Europe.
Or do you mean where all of the engineers are?
And that's India. ;)
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We'll survive the fall of America (assuming it's NOT in the form of nuclear hellfire anyway) - just like we survived the fall of every other great empire to ever exist. We survived the fall of the Greek empire, the Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire, both French Empires, the Empire of Great Britain...
That last one was at LEAST as much a cornerstone of the interconnected global economy as America was. They were having their own version of the current America/China competition/interdependence more than a century
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> That empire fell - and another took it's place. So it shall be when America's empire finally falls - as all empires must fall sooner or later.
It's Canada's turn, bitches! Toques, Double-Doubles, poutine, and socialized medicine for all, eh?
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I wouldn't mind that :)
Canada is awesome.
I WISH my country was run like Canada is run.
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Québec has its share of assholes, just like any other place. Sorry you didn't like your visit.
As a Canadian, I apologize.
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You do realize that the fall of the Roman Empire threw Europe into what is commonly known as the dark ages, right?
"Surviving the fall" is always a lot more pleasant from the perspective of a few hundred or more years.
and China robo factory may make acid rain to in (Score:2)
and China robo factory may make acid rain to in acid downpours
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and China robo factory may make acid rain to in acid downpours
Look for when the Yuan replaces the dollar as the international currency. That'll be the sign that "shit's gonna get real."
Now as much as I dislike their form of government, I'm pretty certain China will clean up their act pretty well. Even a dictatorship won't last if the majority of people aren't being placated.
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We got along way as economically we are nowhere close to where the USSR was in the final days when people lined up for hours for a loaf of bread and milk or waited 10 years for a car.
However, I do imagine if a democrat gets elected next some nut right wingers will use guns and try to start a civil war. Not all republicans but 10% of the population for sure in my opinion as I read 1/3 of Republicans really do believe Obama was a muslim born in Kenya as fact!
Not an insult to conservative or Republican readers
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and china is going to face lot's of people out of (Score:2)
and china is going to face lot's of people out of work + Apple to start India manufacturing due to rules to curb the activities of foreign companies.
So the USA may have to add import taxes. Also having local manufacturing cut's down on shipping costs and customs issues.
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America has outsourced manufacture to China, reaping the benefits of a great trade advantage: with under 5% unemployment, we have access to cheap goods and have a smaller export economy than import economy. We go out to people who make crap cheap, get that crap from them, and sell them relatively little.
When robot automation--the tag we're giving to the next visible step in technical progress--takes over manufactories, one of three things will happen.
If that automation comes at a pace the economy can
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The worst part of this whole "Not made in the U.S.A." problem is that cheap shipping was in part due to an American invention: the standardized shipping container.
good grief (Score:2)
Which "people" were feeling the pain of high-cost labor? Certainly not the high-cost labor.
I guess there won't be any pain when the robots take all those peoples' jobs.
It's funny how some of the same people who decry immigration and H1-B visas think their lives will be made better when robots take their jobs.
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Easy it only counts if their own job is on the line. I got mine so screw you ... oh wait me? Baaahh
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It's funny how some of the same people who decry immigration and H1-B visas think their lives will be made better when robots take their jobs.
No mention of the fact that automation creates jobs too? My view on this is that a lot of people are conflating labor competition with the developing world (which has as a result held down labor pricing power for past 40 years or so in the US) as a phase change in how automation interacts with human labor, while ignoring that automation is still creating jobs, just as it has for the past few centuries.
Just because jobs aren't being created as rapidly as one would like in the developed world, doesn't mean
Reading skills. (Score:2)
I briefly read that as.
Miss America May Be Out Of the Next Industrial Revolution
But she worked so hard to win! ;)
I may have some mild dyslexia. o_o;
Nake Fews (Score:2)
The Onion nails it again. [theonion.com]
It won't effect the USA (Score:2)
Clickbait headline writing: (Score:2)
It's the next Industrial Revolution. And we're the world leader!
American exceptionalism (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as the situation continues, no matter what happens in these fields America will not be shaken. The largest economy, largest consumer base, most trusted currency.
Playing fast and loose with debt ceiling, threatening to default on t-bill payments etc are graver threats to America. Such instability and uncertainty at the top might force others to swallow the differences and form an alternative or at least a competing reserve currency. China would really love it if it could import its raw materials for in yuan. It is investing so much in Africa and Australia trying to lock up raw material supplies in non dollar denominated trade.
But it is not coming anytime soon.
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Euro is breaking apart.
Is it? The UK isn't in the Euro, and out currency tanked relative to it when we decided to lock and load the largest footgun we could get our hands on.
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Unlikely though that the rest of Europe is as stupid as the Brits. If they are, yes, you're right... without the EU there will likely be wars all over Europe again within a few decades or a century. However, it's way more likely that the 27 member state EU will do fine without the UK and new nations will join the EU, and that in 20 years from now the UK will become a member again and probably get even better conditions than they had before.
But even without the EU, wars are getting less and less likely, be
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America is the world's reserve currency.
Amen. I've got 5 moderately-sized rocks from the Grand Canyon, some pumice from Haleakala and a Ford Escort transmission in my basement. When they apocalypse comes, I'm going to be sitting pretty.
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News to you: Rest of the world does not fear US Military as much as you think they do. Everyone wants to trade with USA, to sell stuff to USA. Peo
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If the US politicians ever decided they wanted unrestricted open warfare against a country there are only a couple of countries (Russia and China, mostly due to their nuclear arsenal) that would be able to stop the US military from simply steamrolling over them.
Right, because we totally won in Vietnam and Korea.
High-cost labor? (Score:5, Insightful)
People started feeling the pain of high-cost labor
"High-cost labor" is corporate-speak for people who want to eat. Heaven forbid they get enough money to feed themselves.
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This is actually a good thing (Score:2)
CEO Claims (Score:2)
Until Then: Poverty, Misery and Unrest (Score:2)
"When one door closes, another one opens". If you die in the long hallway between the doors, that's YOUR problem.
Enjoy the decline!
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"automation will, in the long-term, improve society and help humans live better lives"
"When one door closes, another one opens". If you die in the long hallway between the doors, that's YOUR problem.
Enjoy the decline!
Yes, and do you realize how much those bodies in the hallway will stink up the place?
Are they here yet? (Score:2)
Small business is going to get left behind (Score:3)
As a small business manufacturing a fairly niche product, in the past few months I've noticed that vendors are less willing to to small production runs of custom parts. Last week I had a CNC milling vendor tell me, and I quote, "Well, you haven't done any business with us in a while so we're unable to work with you." This week, I had a pallet company tell me that they could no longer make 25 custom pallets for me and are only taking minimum quantities of 200. Another vendor, who I always thought was quite busy, suddenly closed their doors. Other vendors are pushing out their schedules because they're getting more work.
As for making things in China, they have gotten to the point with quality and mass production that they are no longer willing to take on small jobs. One company that made custom cast & milled aluminum wheel hubs used to do short runs of 40 pieces but they have gotten contracts from major auto companies and are no longer doing the piddly stuff.
Re: It's the 80s again (Score:4, Insightful)
Robots worked well for Japan. 3rd largest economy, far larger than its population could do without robots, and even it is tiny island.
Also population crash isn't a problem, worst thing that happens is lower quality of life.
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They have 1.3 Billion people - and a reasonably young population. They could have a negative growth rate for the next 6 decades and they would STILL outnumber Americans.
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3rd largest but only a fourth the size of the U.S. GDP with 1/2 the population. In 1990 Japan's GDP was 75% the size of the U.S. GDP at the time. The robots didn't help them keep up.
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Surely this guy has noticed Amazon is already the leader in using robots for fulfillment work [inddist.com], going so far as to purchase their robot supplier (Kiva is now Amazon Robots) so they could ramp up production in order to purchase everything they could make...
The US actually leads in robotics... (Score:5, Informative)
The ironic thing is that the US is actually known as a leader in robotics. Car assembly lines are almost completely automated, for example. Chip making, pick and pull machinery is a common staple. CAD/CAM is a part of everything and anything in the US. Want to be able to design a new widget? Better know Solidworks, AutoCAD, or similar.
The talk about the US losing the robotics race is unfounded. In fact, contrary to what a lot of people believe, the US still doing manufacturing, and is definitely not going anywhere. Robotics will definitely be a part of how new plants are done, period.
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shut up, Threepio.
As basically a communication device, wouldn't he lose his entire purpose in life if he did that?
Elon Musk, Tesla, and Robotics (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see any mention of Elon Musk and Tesla in this discussion. Musk is bringing a new level of automation [washingtonpost.com] to his car factories. The interior of the new Model 3 will be designed for full robotic assembly. For example, typical wiring harnesses that appear in other cars will be avoided as they are not suitable for robotic manipulation. Instead, wiring connections are likely to be more pluggable by robots. Their new cars feature full glass roofs. I suspect this is because it will leave the top of the car open for robots to work until close to the end of assembly. Most cars weld their roofs on during frame assembly (which is typically robotic for most car manufacturers). This limits access to the interior during final assembly.
Musk has talked about the machine that makes the machine [arstechnica.com] as the most important engineering challenge to be solved in manufacturing. He says the final version of his factories will look like an "alien dreadnought". Humans will be involved only in maintaining the robots, and not in the actual assembly process, since they slow the entire process down to "human speed". I'm not sure how many people are aware of the level of innovation that is occurring right now in America at Tesla's factories. There is no company in the world that is doing what Tesla is doing in automobile manufacturing.
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Their new cars feature full glass roofs.
Is that a good idea ? If you park in sunny areas it'll be unbearably hot even if you park with the front of the car away from the sun (current strategy). And if you roll-over: glass all around you even more than before with the side/front windows...
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Is that a good idea ? If you park in sunny areas it'll be unbearably hot even if you park with the front of the car away from the sun (current strategy).
Well, the way my 1998 Audi handles this is that a solar panel is used to run the air circulation fan at low speed. It runs the blower motor at just 3 volts, the voltage regulator is built into the solar sunroof. I'd have done the same for Teslas.
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Humans will be involved only in maintaining the robots, and not in the actual assembly process, since they slow the entire process down to "human speed".
As long as the robot still needs someone to bring it its alcohol (if it's Bender) then I'm sure we humans can find a job.
Now I just need someone to bring me my caffeine so I can stay awake 24/7.
Anyone managed to train a dog barrista?
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Have you bothered to look up who (and what) else lives off your taxes?
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I'd rather have electric cars paid for by tax dollars than the same old fossil fuels crap. Saves money in the long run.
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If the US population could fall to under 100 million, I would love it!!!
Hm. While I can sympathize with your wish for a less populist, therefore perhaps a less frenetic pace of life, it would suck if I was one of the 3/4th's that disappeared. Not so much for you, but for me. Life is all about perspectives of the future. Some are less prosperous than others.
Some thrive on a fast paced life. I never did, preferring a more tranquil existence than others, and I loathe crowds. But for all of that, I would wish t
Re: It's the 80s again (Score:4, Insightful)
I've always thought that the people who want less population should lead by example.
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I've certainly encouraged their leadership in starting the process. Sadly, they don't take my advice.
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If the population crashed by that amount, the US would have to have a decade's lead on military technology, otherwise CONUS would be overrun by a country with more population. This already happened. When some plague thinned the native American population to 1/10 it was back in the 1600s, it was relatively easy for colonists to get a foothold and push the natives aside. This can easily happen again, and with how quickly an invasion can happen (hours with planes, days via ship), if the US population crater
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The American Expeditionary Force Siberia never had an intent at colonization. Its purpose was to help the Czechslovak Legion get back to the fight against the Central powers in WWI and to recover war materiel that had been staged for the use by the previous Russian regime on the Eastern Front. There was an early intent to fight against the Red Army (mostly to prevent the Germans from invading) but that was dropped almost immediately. A side aim was to prevent further Japanese colonization of the Russian Far
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I should have been clearer about this. The US was not interested in turning Russia into a colony, but ensuring other countries don't do that (especially Japan.)
It makes for some history that not many people tend to know about, and some Russians still view the holding of those cities as a sore point, even now.
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> there would be just 10.2 people per square kilometre.
I need as much space as I can get for my personal bubble.
Re: It will miss out if no industries left (Score:2)
The U.S. government is planning bigger wars. (Score:2)
War is very profitable for those who design it because they can hide what they are doing from the taxpayers.
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The US has a stranglehold on "Intellectual Property" ... media distribution rights and patents.
That's because without it, all you'd have left would be high-speed pizza delivery.
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Hey, look on the bright side. For once the USA may actually show up to a world war on time...
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I have seen the future and you are incorrect.
I've seen the future too. You, Lady Liberty and Freedom are all weeping.
I miss the nice America.
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Well, in Japan, many of the people have gone to the services industry... entertainment and high-class "waitressing" and the like. When there's nothing to produce, people will just have to get, er, creative on how to extract money from those that still have it.
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Everyone enjoys a race to the bottom right? Those service industries you're talking about were over-saturated 5 years ago.
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Well, in Japan, many of the people have gone to the services industry...
Well, in Japan, they have just about the highest suicide rate in the developed world. Maybe we don't want to emulate them too closely.
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Well, in Japan, they have just about the highest suicide rate in the developed world. Maybe we don't want to emulate them too closely.
Has a lot to do with their culture and work ethic. People who can't conform to the ideals presented by society look for the easiest way out. It's not dissimilar to what happens in North America or Europe when there's a serious depression and people start losing their jobs. The suicide rate goes up, so does the murder-suicide rate because people see no way out. It's also the same reason why here in the west that you see things like 15.0-35.9:100,000 for male suicide rates here in the west, but female sui
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