Arioch wrote:Companies like WAL-MART, whose employees represent a not-insignificant percentage of their own customers, are beginning to realize that it's in the company interest to pay their employees a more decent wage, so that they will have enough money to buy the company's products.
I'm aware that it's hip to rag on Wal-Mart, but (at least where I live, I wouldn't be surprised if it's different in California due to everything-prices) they already paid better than most of the grocery stores that they put out of business, and those businesses which had figured out a profitable niche (meat is one that I know of) didn't go out of business in the first place. For the uneducated, Wal-mart is one of the few jobs where you can actually get regular raises (at least, that was the case around 9 years ago). The motivation for the $15 an hour wage is more strongly related to getting employees: lots of people don't want to work service jobs (because any customer that you have to attend to has a 90% chance of sucking as a person right then), so to get decent employees to stick around they need to pay more.
Wal-Mart has had negative impacts, but in the region that their corporate management is based in, wages weren't one of them: the only people making a living wage in the businesses they put out of business were the family of the owner, everyone else got paid more at Wal-Mart.
Grayhome wrote:But that's my point, the jobs in CHINA are being replaced by machines. Not even humans operating on the most pitiful of slave wages can compete with these new machines. This new almost totally automated factory in China illustrates the problem:
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/chi ... ion-soars/
And by doing so they discover that quality improves: part of the reason that computers jumped onto USB is that the previous connectors were often much more difficult to properly manufacture, and HAD TO be made by machine: moving cable construction to China moved production
away from machines, over to humans.
Also, if you currently want cheap manufacturing, you look to Africa. The Chinese are doing it because African workers are cheaper than Chinese workers.
Grayhome wrote:
There are, however, people that are essentially doomed
That is exactly what worries me, their doom and the ensuing riots. These machines crush their human competition in terms of money, time, efficiency, you name it.
The example of a "doomed" worker that I'm talking about was someone who
literally thought it was impossible to use a map to navigate an unfamiliar town. My knowledge of him is all second-hand, but basically he was functionally retarded. Apparently he
seemed normal when you first spoke with him, but he essentially lacked the ability to learn at anything approaching a normal human pace. Those who cannot learn...
or who refuse to, are the same as those who are doomed. For a time, when the industrial revolution was in full swing and computerization had not yet started working it's way into the real world, jobs were available where some, or even most, employees had little need of mental exertion. As they went, so too went the typing pools (which existed only because typists were taught and practiced in NOT jamming the typewriters), and many others who, to be frank, were little more than disposable minions.
icekatze wrote:hi hi
There are enough smart people out there to understand what is happening and come up with viable solutions. The question is, will any of those solutions be implemented in time? People don't exactly have a great track record when it comes to taking preventative measures, so I suppose the followup question is, how bad will things get before enough people realize that something needs to be done.
A dooms-day fear based on one interpretation of social security & friends funding shortfalls basically has young workers abandoning work to go live off the land. That's probably about as bad as it can get, and probably not for too long before the politicians accept en-mass that the Rubicon has been crossed, and the assumptions they worked with have ceased to be accurate.
dragoongfa wrote:What areas would I leave specifically in human hands?
For starters anything that requires human to human interactions. Clerks, cashiers and all that. ATMs and automatic cashiers are faster but this kind of service covers millions of job positions.
Apologize to everyone working the fast-food industry. They don't deserve to subject themselves to the ignominy of customers.
dragoongfa wrote:Then I would consider if certain jobs in manufacturing could be relegated exclusively to human hands instead of having just a couple of techs overseeing entire manufacturing lines.
I would also consider a total ban on self driving cars, buses and trucks. Millions of jobs there as well.
These of course are from the top of my head but are areas that are on the road for automation and if that happens there will suddenly be hundreds of millions of lost jobs worldwide.
Requiring all self-driving vehicles to be either non-commercial, or have a CDL-licensed maintenance tech ride with the vehicle might be sensible for the first little while, and certainly it should be the case for taxi/bus/etc. vehicles, but baring self-driving consumer vehicles is a little too harsh.
Grayhome wrote:I agree wholeheartedly with Dragoonfa, I am finally, FINALLY beginning my first job after almost a YEAR of searching after graduation from college. I was going INSANE with boredom and not doing enough meaningful work. I was volunteering at food pantry's, soup kitchens, local libraries, local historical societies and I STILL felt like shit for not earning a wage. Now that I have decent employment and the promise of a pay raise after 30 days of work, I am MUCH more content and MUCH less cabin fever-y.
What are you working in, and what is your degree for?
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned in this entire discussion is the actual employment problems that we have. A couple strike me as biggies:
1) Public education averages miserably enough that a lot of employers require degrees for jobs that should require high school graduation.
2) We don't have enough people going into the trades & engineering.
We are currently staring down the barrel of a gun. The recession pushed it off, but the truth is still inevitable: the Baby Boomers will retire, and we don't have the people to replace them. Self-driving cars, as one example, pose a potential
solution if the government proactively goes out, and recruits the newly unemployed to take training as, for example, an electrician. HVAC? From pole to equator, you can find a good wage. Auto mechanics: you don't want to live without them.
We don't just have a looming unemployment issue: we also have a looming retirement issue. These are automatically the best solution for each other.