Over the past couple of years, I have been increasingly thinking about what the future will look like. Work, technology, communication, transportation, etc. are all changing faster than most of us even realize. I think that, regrettably, some form of socialist basic income will be in our future as technology increasingly marginalizes more and more jobs. The ability for people to work and live the American dream will become increasingly difficult.

What says the Sigforum braintrust? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill, or is the world changing faster than any of us is truly prepared for?

UBI? Luddites have been predicting the death of human jobs since the 1820’s.

Technological changes produce more jobs than they eliminate, in general.

Well, I, for one, am still waiting for the mass produced flying cars that Popular Mechanics and Popular Science promised we'd be driving well before now...

Same shit. Different flies.

The first fax machines were spitting out pages since 1843...

To be clear, I was not advocating for UBI. I look how quickly less skilled workers are marginalized by technology and wonder if the speed of advancement is something we are ready for.

I'm sure that Org the caveman was bemoaning the fact that those damn farmers were killing the incentive for kids to hunt and gather.

I'm not concerned

Not worried about it all. Things will work out.

But the fashion will be fabulous, where's my unitard?

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:
UBI? Luddites have been predicting the death of human jobs since the 1820’s.

Technological changes produce more jobs than they eliminate, in general.

That may be true, but the problem in the future will be the replacement of jobs involving low cognitive ability with jobs that require much higher cognitive ability. Here's Jordan Peterson's take on this:


Link to original video: https://youtu.be/9Rxfem5nxoA

Everyone has bought a Glock.

quote:

Originally posted by tigereye313:
But the fashion will be fabulous, where's my unitard?

Rompers!

Peoples' jobs have been displaced or changed with evolving technologies and natural market forces since the beginning of civilization. Somehow they adapted. The much bigger danger is government interfering with market forces to destroy, sometimes intentionally, mostly seen in the 20th century with communism, but has also happened in this country, for example with coal.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
Everyone has bought a Glock.

The Glock 217, two chamber .22 short revolver, designed to comply with "common sense" safety regulations.

BRAWNDO!

the thirst mutilator

If you are interested in time travel, let's all meet up last Thursday at 7pm and talk about it.

Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc

The advance of technology is usually overestimated in the short run, and always underestimated in the long run.

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:
Technological changes produce more jobs than they eliminate, in general.

In the past this has been largely true - certainly having the effect of shifting jobs around. But if you think about it we have always had up to this point 'dumb' technology.

What we have never seen before is the introduction of AI - or smart machines. We will get to the point - who knows when - when the machines / computers can design, repair and implement themselves. That is when we are in trouble. Who knows when that will be probably not for awhile.

Take for instance 'driver-less' cars. Okay - no more human drivers - okay that's a couple hundred THOUSAND jobs gone. Bad enough. But if we get to the point that when the cars themselves - when they breakdown - can go to a centralized hub to be diagnosed, stripped down, and repaired by other machines??

Holy cow we are in trouble. Will humans be necessary to fine tune those programs and machines? yes probably. But those humans would need to be pretty darn specialized in terms of intellect, education and experience. No need for a workforce of thousands doing the semi-skilled manual work.

All this will likely not play out in our lifetime but we are certainly heading in that direction. Just watch a few Boston Dynamics videos and you can see the progress.

----------------------------------------------------------

Keith Richards will join the Borg.