Read this interesting essay written by DEREK THOMPSON
For centuries, experts have predicted that machines would make workers obsolete. That moment may finally be arriving. Could that be a good thing ?
The end of work is still just a futuristic concept for most of the United States, but it is something like a moment in history for Youngstown, Ohio, one its residents can cite with precision: September 19, 1977.
For much of the 20th century, Youngstown's steel mills delivered such great prosperity that the city was a model of the American dream, boasting a median income and a home ownership rate that were among the nation's highest. But as manufacturing shifted abroad after World War II, Youngstown steel suffered, and on that gray September afternoon in 1977, Youngstown Sheet and Tube announced the shuttering of its Campbell Works mill. Within five years, the city lost 50,000 jobs and $1.3 billion in manufacturing wages. The effect was so severe that a term was coined to describe the fallout: regional depression.
Youngstown was transformed not only by an economic disruption but also by a psychological and cultural breakdown. Depression, spousal abuse, and suicide all became much more prevalent; the caseload of the area's mental-health center tripled within a decade. The city built four prisons in the mid-1990s—a rare growth industry. One of the few downtown construction projects of that period was a museum dedicated to the defunct steel industry.
The future will tell us whether or not this pans out as he envisions. What does SN think will happen ?
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday June 25 2015, @03:02PM
The city built four prisons in the mid-1990s
This is all you need to know about what will happen.
Forming a new Amazon tribe? You can't. The wilderness is owned. Every square acre is owned. Combat staffs and swords, even AK-47s and Amazon secret techniques I'm not at liberty to disclose, are futile against agent orange, firebombings, and worse.
The terminators aren't coming. The machines aren't coming. Don't worry about the Goa'uld or Ori. The military-prison-industrial complex is coming.
We can fantasize about Marshall Brain's Manna, which has already been posted, but there will be no Project Australia to swoop you up into a fantastical Elysian field. There is only the military-prison-industrial complex.
…
Then the archeologists of the next great sentient race will dig deep, discover the ruins, and wonder what happened to those apes that built skyscrapers. They'll go to the moon and wonder just what mistake did those old apes, millions of years ago, who had the stars in their grasp, just what mistake did they make?