The coming "Age of Abundance", and "Humans Need Not Apply"

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fredgiblet
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Re: The coming "Age of Abundance", and "Humans Need Not Appl

Post by fredgiblet »

Nathan_ wrote:Capital has to compete with labor, and that includes the high initial startup cost. given the prevalence of cheap labor across planet earth, robots are probably not just on the cusp of being adopted. It makes sense to automate when a basic laborer is getting 20-30$ an hour, not so much at 1$ per hour.
The thing a lot of people fail to remember is that that $1 an hour is a good wage in those places. What happened in China with manual labor and in India with call centers is that the money we pumped into their countries through outsourcing raised the standard of living for the people until they started to price themselves out of competition. There's a lot of companies migrating away from those two because the people are expecting more money than they used to.

Absalom
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Re: The coming "Age of Abundance", and "Humans Need Not Appl

Post by Absalom »

fredgiblet wrote:
Nathan_ wrote:Capital has to compete with labor, and that includes the high initial startup cost. given the prevalence of cheap labor across planet earth, robots are probably not just on the cusp of being adopted. It makes sense to automate when a basic laborer is getting 20-30$ an hour, not so much at 1$ per hour.
The thing a lot of people fail to remember is that that $1 an hour is a good wage in those places. What happened in China with manual labor and in India with call centers is that the money we pumped into their countries through outsourcing raised the standard of living for the people until they started to price themselves out of competition. There's a lot of companies migrating away from those two because the people are expecting more money than they used to.
Shame on you, you should know better than to bring economic realism into our paranoid ramblings of implausible apocalypses :p .

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icekatze
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Re: The coming "Age of Abundance", and "Humans Need Not Appl

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

We're talking about apocalypses? I've been talking about ongoing trends.

Hundreds of thousands of people die each year because of poverty. Politicians and business leaders show anywhere from apathy to open hostility for the poor as it stands. Since people are becoming more productive yet are not seeing any economic improvement from the productivity they're responsible for, I don't see why they would see economic improvement from increased productivity that they aren't responsible for.

Nathan_
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Re: The coming "Age of Abundance", and "Humans Need Not Appl

Post by Nathan_ »

fredgiblet wrote:
Nathan_ wrote:Capital has to compete with labor, and that includes the high initial startup cost. given the prevalence of cheap labor across planet earth, robots are probably not just on the cusp of being adopted. It makes sense to automate when a basic laborer is getting 20-30$ an hour, not so much at 1$ per hour.
The thing a lot of people fail to remember is that that $1 an hour is a good wage in those places. What happened in China with manual labor and in India with call centers is that the money we pumped into their countries through outsourcing raised the standard of living for the people until they started to price themselves out of competition. There's a lot of companies migrating away from those two because the people are expecting more money than they used to.
I'm not saying its a bad deal for them, that's their call, it is however, a wage level that will retard capital investment.

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