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Good news! Automation capable of erasing white collar jobs is coming, but not for a decade or more. And that’s also the bad news because interest in automation accelerates during economic downturns, so once tech that can take your job arrives you’ll already have lived through another period of economic turmoil that may already have cost you your job.
That lovely scenario was advanced yesterday by professor Mirko Draca of The London School of Economics, who yesterday told Huawei’s 2018 Asia-Pacific Innovation Day 2018 that the world is currently in “an era of investment and experimentation” with technology. The effects of such eras, he said, generally emerge ten to fifteen years in the future.
Innovation in the 1980s therefore sparked the PC and internet booms of the mid-to-late 1990s, and we’re still surfing [SIC - suffering?] the changes they unleashed. “Our current era of mobile tech doesn’t measure up to the radical 1990s,” he said, as shown by the fact that productivity gains appear to have stalled for a decade or more.
[...] “We predict that AI and robotics will lead to some sort of productivity surge in ten to fifteen years,” he said, adding that there is “no clear evidence” that a new wave of technologies that threaten jobs has started.
But he also said that it will once businesses see the need to control costs.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 11 2018, @02:40PM (37 children)
It makes more sense when the base rate is above inflation, but it still makes sense to store food for winter, even if the value of that food drops by half before winter comes, you'll be glad to have the saved food rather than starving when none is available for harvest.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @02:50PM (36 children)
You can't store money you don't have. And an awful lot of the jobs that are going away due to robots and efficiency gains are minimum wage jobs.
It never ceases to amaze me how people that are doing well seem to believe that everybody has the same situation. For an increasing share of the total jobs, the pay is below what it costs to live and still have money left over at the end of the month for frivolous things like emergency savings and health care. If we had laws on the books that required everybody that had a job to be paid at least well enough to be able to afford the cost of living, and people still didn't save, then that's one thing, but you cannot save money you do not have.
And Khallow is a fucking moron for pretending otherwise. The reason there are so many poor people in the US is because the rich are greedier than in other countries and other countries don't have legalized bribery.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @02:57PM (7 children)
Awww but khallow's ideology requires that we ignore anything that doesn't back up the ol bootstrap and save fiscal responsibility trope.
Khallow and friends have swallowed the koolaid and are the greater barrier to effexting change.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday June 11 2018, @03:17PM (6 children)
Like what? You'd have to come up with something first.
Not my problem obviously. I'm not the fruit loop with the half-baked ideas who needs 100% compliance. Show your ideas work first, then we have something to talk about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @03:20PM (5 children)
There is no discussion with a brainwashed fool, the call to discuss ideas is just more bullshit to try and make yourself appear reasonable and open to better ideas. Ive read enough of your opinions to know it is a waste of time.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @04:43PM (4 children)
You are doing i wrong and now you are angry and flinging ad hominems.
You need to challenge opponents statements by determining where are the boundaries within which they hold true, so that you and the opponent can agree upon the model.
Then, you together determine if the boundaries have been crossed. If there is any disagreement along the course of the process, recursively repeat the method.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @07:30PM (3 children)
Nah, sometimes experience indicates that sometimes it is wasted effort to have a real debate. The problems are obvious, the solutions less so. Until khallow can acknowledge reality there is no discussion worth having.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 11 2018, @08:34PM (2 children)
It's not experience here that keeps you from having a real debate, but its absence. I have two decades of experience with real debate on the internet. You apparently have much less than that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:56PM (1 child)
Oooh two decades of internet discussions!! Nice presumptuous attitude with such shining additional credentials... Lol a bigger jackass than I thought. Maybe try learning about reality instead of circle jerking and flame warring.
I'm sure you got some value over 20 years, but internet discussions != reality. I stand by my assessment, fools like you pushing old school brainwashed economics are the biggest barrier to improving our world. Trust me, I get your position I justthink it is flawed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 14 2018, @03:11AM
Since we're doing internet discussions instead of reality, I rest my case.
So what? I'm not seeing any evidence you actually disagree with me, much less understand my position or even your own. You haven't said anything qualitative about either your opinions or my arguments.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 11 2018, @03:12PM (10 children)
Maybe we ought to help them this time rather than just screw them over again? I suggest looking hard at minimum wage, for example. While I prefer doing away completely with minimum wage (since I think it serves no useful purpose and instead at best just increases the overhead of employing people), I notice that the people who claim to care about a living wage suspiciously ignore that cost of living varies by location. Just as we don't have a fixed one-size-fits-all global minimum wage (what minimum wage would make sense for both Europe and Subsaharan Africa, for example?), we shouldn't have national-scale minimum wages either, particularly for large countries like the US.
Instead, estimate cost of a set standard of living by reasonable sized districts (such as county/parish-scale) and make the minimum wage proportional to that cost of living and adjust every few years on a regular basis. As a bonus, you get automatic adjustment of minimum wage, reducing the cost of compliance for businesses who now have a fairly predictable system to adjust to or the need to lobby for changes in minimum wage every few years, and the whiny, high cost of living areas get their higher minimum wage standards like they want without bringing down really poor areas.
You don't need such laws. Simply don't work for that low of pay or figure out how to lower your cost of living well below that. Most people have it figured out.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @03:34PM
GENIUS!!
"Simply dont work for that low of pay or figure out how to lower your cost of living" ha!! Id like you to go visit Compton in LA and spread your wisdom. Please, bring the wisdom of fiscal responsibility to a neighborhood in need!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 11 2018, @08:22PM (8 children)
That's already in practice [dol.gov], though as with all things it could be further improved.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 11 2018, @09:04PM (7 children)
Sorry, no it's not. It's a bunch of different governments pushing minimum wage as far as their scope of governance allows. The city of Seattle or the state of California can't mandate a $15 per hour minimum wage for the entire US, but they can for the entire city of Seattle or the entire state of California - and they did. And the federal minimum wage has been imposed on Puerto Rico to its detriment.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 11 2018, @09:19PM (6 children)
I'm sorry, in the my logical universe
means that there is one minimum wage across the nation, which is not the case, we already have
which is one of the great things about a Federal-State-County-City system of government, isn't it? So the locals can raise minimum wage if they feel it's appropriate, and if all the locals raise it high enough then the federals won't have to.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 11 2018, @10:59PM (5 children)
In your logical universe, does Seattle and California have the power to decide what the minimum wage should be for any group larger in scope than those political entities?
And once again, the vast majority of these minimum wage laws don't operate based on the local cost of living.
Why again is there a federal minimum wage which is fixed across the entire US without regard for the local cost of living?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 12 2018, @12:47AM (4 children)
No. Are they actually doing this in your universe? I can see how they might make a case for political change outside their jurisdiction, just as do-good social assistance agencies attempt to "bring up the standard of living" in countries around the globe, but jurisdiction has meaning, outside jurisdiction it's just noise.
Imperfect, room to improve, but better than a uniform level for the whole country, right?
Because there's nowhere in the entire US with a local cost of living of zero? And, possibly, the federal government does not trust itself to accurately, fairly, efficiently and effectively determine cost of living across the entire country for purposes of minimum wage determination, so they set it uniformly a little high for some places (which can probably utilize the extra income to stay integrated with the rest of the country and not spiral down into a pit of poverty), low for most, and leave it up to the local governments to raise it where needed?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 12 2018, @04:10AM
Exactly my point. It's yet another point of dishonesty (in addition to your habit of routinely mischaracterizing my arguments) that you equate variation of policy with policy that scales to the actual alleged needs of regions. One-size-fits-all is still the norm for minimum wage policy despite your many assertions to the contrary, it's just that the parties implementing these policies don't have the power to implement them on a larger scale.
There are two consequences of this that are particularly troublesome. First, that regions that are low cost of living are massively screwed. Puerto Rico being a good example (I believe Fresno, California will be another, should California fully implement its $15 per hour minimum wage in 2022 and inflation not eat up the difference).
Second, that businesses have to contend with massive variation in minimum wage and abrupt changes in minimum wage depending on the whims of all these governments interacting together. My second suggested approach doesn't eliminate the problem, but it at least makes it based on reasonably predictable economic parameters that can be forecast out several years rather than whatever some city or state government cooks up.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 12 2018, @10:55AM (2 children)
Sorry, that's nonsense. There are huge differences in cost of living - and we already have the example of Puerto Rico which is getting screwed by the current "little high" minimum wage. Anyway, I looked at state level [pewresearch.org] minimum wage. Every one of them does a fixed rate for the entire state. It's a typical feature of minimum wage law. They just don't care. Now, if there actually is a de facto living wage-dependent minimum wage by region (which I don't grant is true), it's merely by coincidence, not because someone tried.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 12 2018, @01:11PM (1 child)
And that's wrong, so vote in people who care about all the people (voters) instead of just the ones with money. Oh, but the Republican fantasy vote for the benefit of the people they wish they were rather than the people they actually are will never allow this. I guess that's a defect in the system that we're stuck with.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:22PM
That's ok. You can vote for the other Republican Party, you know, the donkey one rather than the elephant one, and they'll promise to do something about it. That's assuming very generously that you ever cared in the first place. I have yet to see anyone who actually did.
I myself vote for where I want my society to be in the future rather than what I personally want. That's why I traditionally vote Libertarian.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 11 2018, @03:30PM (15 children)
I think the real truth that can be explored when comparing those with to those without might be summed up as: "What would you do for $10?"
If you've got a million in the bank and 20K coming in per month, probably nothing at all - it's a waste of your time to even think about it
If you're homeless and haven't eaten in a week, standing outside a McD's, you'd probably do quite a lot for that $10 - it's VERY valuable to you at that moment.
Yet, it's the same $10 either way, just worth a lot more to those who have less, so they're willing to sacrifice more to get it. The same principle applies throughout the scale in-between, and if we used Bhutan's GHI along with our deified GDP, we'd be measuring what people are sacrificing to get their food, shelter and smartphones.
And we all know this, but he is also a predictable source of a certain perspective.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 11 2018, @09:27PM (14 children)
Which let us note, is being used as an excuse [soylentnews.org] to ignore economic matters rather than illuminate them! I think the only reason Bhutan introduced such metrics is because it would have utterly failed with any attempt at real economic metrics. A nebulous measure of "happiness" is a lot easier to game.
As to the "$10" thing, even minimum wage jobs quickly rack up more than $10. An 8 hour day at the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour means you get back around $50. That's a quick way to solve the $10 problem for people who can work. I grant that not everyone can work, but I don't grant that it is a large portion of the US population.
Sounds like an awful lot of projection there.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 11 2018, @10:45PM (13 children)
A) What's their motivation to "game" a respectable, by your standards, GDP?
B) Maybe GHI reflects the actual values of the people of Bhutan and they want to shape their policies and international relationships to maximize that, instead of, for instance, trading a valley with an ancient temple for a lake and a hydro-electric dam because it represents "progress" in the opinion a bunch of foreigners'?
C) I'm sure Bhutan is just as corrupt and imperfect as the rest of the world when it comes to government getting the people what they really want, but they've stuck by this GHI thing for quite a while now, I'm guessing it does make more sense to a lot of their people than GDP.
There's that assumption that "anybody can get a job whenever and wherever they want" again. Back when minimum wage was $3.25 per hour, I could interview at a dozen places advertising "HELP WANTED" and get turned away from all of them, why would it be any better today for similarly "undesirable" people?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 11 2018, @11:10PM (12 children)
GDP measures economic activity, which I have already stated [soylentnews.org] isn't the ultimate goal of an economy. That too can be gamed (with the gaming being a significant contributor to boom/bust cycles). My view is that an economy is best measured by how it serves the needs of its participants from the lowest up to the most wealthy. These metrics don't measure that.
It doesn't, but "maybe" it does. The current measure serves more to excuse poor performance that to help anyone.
Welcome to good propaganda.
Yes, and...
And you could interview at one place and get hired. Not seeing the point of your story since people were getting hired back then.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 12 2018, @12:55AM (11 children)
Excuse to whom, exactly? What does Bhutan gain or lose with a good or poor GHI rating?
Government makes decisions for large groups of people and metrics like GDP/GHI are one way of rolling up a complex multi-dimensional messy human problem into a linear measure of better vs worse, helping to make those decisions based on a little more than who yells the loudest at the meeting.
I got hired back then, too. In my late teens, I'd be away at school, grow my hair long, come home for the summer, interview for jobs, get turned down everywhere, cut my hair and get hired at the next place I interviewed - three summers running. My long hair wasn't messy or unkept, or even particularly long - it just wasn't conformant with the culture of the town. Many other things were also not conformant with the culture of that town (a melting pot drawn primarily from New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Ohio), like unfamiliar accents or brown skin - those people never did get hired.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 12 2018, @04:22AM (10 children)
The people in charge, of course, benefit greatly. Remember it's first and foremost is propaganda generated to make the current powers look good. With traditional metrics, the country is at best mediocre which would, of course, reflect badly on those in power. With the "GHI" or whatever it's called these days, they can tweak the metric itself to show great performance.
Which is why they're such great propaganda. Who can be against "happiness"? The complex, multi-dimensional messy human problem is well a problem. The index number, particularly for an easy scam like GHI, can be whatever the powers-that-be want it to be.
In other words, a problem that you fixed trivially by slightly altering your appearance. Tell me again why I should give even the slightest fuck about people who can't get jobs because they can't be bothered to make slight changes in their appearance or behavior. As to the racism you mention, indexes aren't going to do a thing to fix that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 12 2018, @01:15PM (9 children)
Reflect badly in whose eyes? Anybody who thinks GHI is bullshit already thinks poorly of those who use it, regardless of what it says.
If it wasn't working for them, they wouldn't still be using it.
But it does keep people from getting jobs, even the shittiest jobs in the county, and now you've got people with no other resources than handouts and crime. That's a problem that's much cheaper to fix than to live with.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:27PM (8 children)
Any citizen of Bhutan would be the natural target of that propaganda.
Did I ever write otherwise?
And what does that have to do with happiness metrics again? As soon as I get my civ up to industrial age, I'll fix your New Jersey racism thing. I don't remember why the switch got left on "racism on", but I'm sure it was a good reason.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 12 2018, @04:14PM (7 children)
Like so many things, making it illegal drove it underground - and like a fungus it continues to thrive there.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 12 2018, @04:55PM (6 children)
Now you write:
Doesn't sound so easy now, does it?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 12 2018, @06:02PM (5 children)
It is still a problem that is much cheaper to fix than to live with.
Simply making things illegal does not fix them, never has and never will.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 12 2018, @06:21PM (4 children)
Except we have yet to see this fix.
Then why mention it?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 12 2018, @07:45PM (3 children)
Fixed? No. Progress? Absolutely. The "non-discrimination" laws in and of themselves do very little, except "empower the powerless" to sue in court when they can prove that someone was stupid enough to say that the reason they made some protected decision against the person was because of their protected distinguishing trait (race, sex, etc.) Too bad that the courts are highly biased in favor of the wealthy.
Things that have made real progress at reducing racism include: busing for school integration, certain structural city planning (more prominent in the 1970s than recently) that placed high and low income neighborhoods in close proximity, and, let's be honest, the dying off of people who used to live with open racism and never interacted with people of other races until later in life.
As long as people are segregated along racial, or any other lines, there will be prominent differences - perpetuating the basis of the prejudices.
I believe this one started with a quip along the lines of "Anybody can earn $10 with very little effort" - which: A) missed the point that working 2 hours at any kind of a job is a lot more than a wealthy person would ever consider doing for $10, and B) not everybody can get a job to earn an extra $10 over and above their essential living expenses.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 13 2018, @05:10AM (2 children)
Bottom line is that your "fix" is to just live with it and wait for the bad actors to die.
Assuming they don't kill each other first. And let us note here that this has nothing to do with the thread. It's a non sequitur.
In other words, another non sequitur fallacy. Part of a pattern, it is.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:19PM (1 child)
No, that's your bottom line. For me it's the slowest part of the solution, but still a major part of what has been implemented so far. Integration is my preferred solution, but I'm not a political activist so I'm not out actively campaigning for change beyond making sure that my family is "out in the world" as integrated with the normies as possible (two kids with autism - not "oh dear, johnny is being self absorbed again" autism - hard core and harder core.)
Only when you declare it so - it was a normal evolution of a conversational tangent, if you want Roberts Rules of Order to apply, don't reply to me.
When lived as long as I have, see how focused your conversational threads are, hm?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 15 2018, @04:07AM
Which is most most non sequiturs are. Normal, irrelevant tangents that distract from the subject.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @06:40PM
I think this is a case where both sides of the spectrum are right. Wages haven't kept pace with the inflation of health care and housing; most people suck at managing money. I guarantee the hypothetical person making 35k could have done more to reduce expenses and bring in more money. Roomates, moving closer to work and biking/walking, buying a cheaper vehicle, reducing utility costs (thermostat changes), cutting unnecessary services, better shopping skills, etc. Poor people tend to suck more at it because being poor is stressful, and stress causes a decline in decision making ability. The poor often get stuck paying more interest and higher unit prices due to not having the cash to optimize their procurement. It is easy to blame greedy rich people or stupid poor people. What would help is changes to the public school system. Instead of having parents pay for lunches and supplies, the tax base should cover the entirety of school supplies as well as provide three healthy meals a day for students. As far as how to pay for it, lets start with getting rid of ever more bloated administrations and other inefficiencies Everyone who has had a job has seen their employer stupidly waste money. These same people who suck with money (most people) are the same ones managing schools and passing budget bills at all levels of government. If taxes need to be raised, so be it. Who can argue that children, who through no fault of their own, shouldn't have access to proper nutrition and a reasonable education? Make financial literacy a priority starting in elementary school. Make it a graduation requirement. While we are at it, make stress management and interpersonal skills part the curriculum as well.