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from the better-than-growing-up-to-be-a-sink dept.
Scientists at Kings College London performed a longitudinal study to test the 'Pareto principle' and found that adults who were greater users of public services were most likely to have had a low score on the intelligence and impulsivity test administered at age three.
"About 20 per cent of population is using the lion's share of a wide array of public services," said Prof Terrie Moffitt, of King's College and Duke University in North Carolina. "The same people use most of the NHS, the criminal courts, insurance claims, for disabling injury, pharmaceutical prescriptions and special welfare benefits.
"If we stopped there it might be fair to think these are lazy bums who are freeloading off the taxpayer and exploiting the public purse.
"But we also went further back into their childhood and found that 20 per cent begin their lives with mild problems with brain function and brain health when they were very small children.
"Looking at health examinations really changed the whole picture. It gives you a feeling of compassion for these people as opposed to a feeling of blame.
"Being able to predict which children will struggle is an opportunity to intervene in their lives very early to attempt to change their trajectories, for everyone's benefit and could bring big returns on investment for government."
Full Paper: Childhood forecasting of a small segment of the population with large economic burden DOI: 10.1038/s41562-016-0005
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:40PM
In twenty years 90% of people will be unemployable, unable to compete with automation. Attempting to educate people to better compete for the small number of remaining jobs will be futile. Only the small percentage who own and control the means of production, or those who are extraordinarily talented, will be able to support themselves. Not saying I know the answer.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday December 16 2016, @04:51AM
Impossible without government stupidity that would probably quickly collapse and thus self correct. Barring true AI, all bets are off then as we likely hit the Singularity and by definition no useful thing can be discussed from this side of it, so we will assume no AI.
Why would people have all these machines, vs hiring lots of people? Because they produce goods far cheaper. So it follows that the goods so produced will be CHEAP but still require expending effort and resources to keep making the goods. Why would they make goods nobody can trade them anything for? Why indeed. But people would want them, in the case of some, obtaining them would be a matter of life and death. So would we see a dystopia; where armies of robotic farmers sit idle as hungry people turn to subsistence farming on substandard lands not owned by big agribusiness because the owners of the machines wouldn't put the machines to work, deeming the pitiful coins the starving masses offered to not be worth the effort? Does that really seem like a likely outcome in a sane world?
Capitalism is a willing buyer and a willing seller coming to an agreement. Well the goods are now CHEAP, remember? So the service provided in exchange need not have an especially high value, at least when viewed from our viewpoint. Rich people will be able to hire people to indulge their every whim, to do all the things their machines can't yet do. Surely you can think of a hundred possibilities without effort. Maybe vast hordes of humans find work as NPCs in a super MMOG and trade ingame gold for the food and shelter needed to sustain themselves in the real world; all so a few super rich people can enjoy more realistic games. We will more likely see even stranger than that, but who cares? Maybe being carried around on the backs of servants like in ancient times will become a custom, as a way to demonstrate wealth.
Economics is about humans exchanging goods and services between themselves. Robots and other automation are just capital goods, nothing more. Their existence hasn't rewrote the basic rules of economics yet and aren't likely to. An economic transaction must always have a acting human on both sides and if we are still using Capitalism both sides must value the item received in the trade above the item traded. Always. Again, barring AI from the discussion.
(Score: 1) by charon on Friday December 16 2016, @11:25PM