The problem of jobs

[poxpower]

Seems to me there's two contracting facts about society:

- We want to be more efficient, always doing more with less
- We all want a job

???

This is not sustainable. Isn't our dream, as humans, to get to a point where we don't even have to work anymore and can just sit around all day doing whatever we like? How is that ever going to happen if we constantly have the mentality that jobs are good and we all need a job and that job has to be all week long for most of our lives.

It seems insane to still think like this.

But how can the transition be made from a working to a non-working society? There's always going to be some humans who have to work and some who don't. You can eliminate the factory jobs, but you can't replace the researchers or the politicians. So even if at some point all jobs are done voluntarily ( think of Wikipedia for instance, all volunteer and non profit and beats every other encyclopedia ever made ) there will still be a time where some people will have to work and some won't and some people would end up being compensated for doing nothing :O

So what we gon' dew?

[Al6200]

At 1/4/09 03:28 PM, poxpower wrote: Seems to me there's two contracting facts about society:

- We want to be more efficient, always doing more with less
- We all want a job

???

I don't think that these contradict. Consider that only a tiny portion of the population actually produces things that we need to survive (think farmers, civil engineers). The vast majority of the population makes luxuries that we don't need. So it follows logically that if we made it possible to produce those luxuries with less labor, people would simply demand more luxuries.

This is not sustainable. Isn't our dream, as humans, to get to a point where we don't even have to work anymore and can just sit around all day doing whatever we like?

Not really. I bet if no one had to work, people would still keep jobs for the status and the entertainment. Consider all of the people who make games/movies for Newgrounds and don't make any money off of their submission. Clearly most humans need to occupy themselves with some sort of pursuit or interest.

How is that ever going to happen if we constantly have the mentality that jobs are good and we all need a job and that job has to be all week long for most of our lives.

Well, most people need jobs so that they can afford luxuries.

It seems insane to still think like this.

But how can the transition be made from a working to a non-working society?

I don't think it can be made. Humans need to work, even if it's not for money.

There's always going to be some humans who have to work and some who don't. You can eliminate the factory jobs, but you can't replace the researchers or the politicians.

You can replace the researchers with an AI, but I don't think that people would vote for a robot.

P

So even if at some point all jobs are done voluntarily ( think of Wikipedia for instance, all volunteer and non profit and beats every other encyclopedia ever made ) there will still be a time where some people will have to work and some won't and some people would end up being compensated for doing nothing :O

Well, yeah. Already people have enough spare time to take up hobbies like arguing on a message board. I don't see any reason why we won't have more spare time in the future.

So what we gon' dew?

This is actually something I've thought about a lot. What if we had computers so intelligent that they could do math, science, and engineering better than humans? What if we had robots that could build houses better than humans, build things better than humans, and drive cars better than humans? What would such a world be like?

Some have suggested that all of the machines would be owned by a wealthy elite, and that this wealthy elite would simply sustain the rest of humanity out of the good of their heart, or wipe them out to save money. Others have suggested that humanity would merge with machines, such that any distinction between them would cease to exist.

I, however, think that in such a scenario we'd move into a Marketing/Service based economy. An AI designs the car, a robot builds it, but a human sells it to you at the dealership. An AI drives your car, but a human designs the car so that it appeals to people.

Even if robots had superior strength and intelligence, they still wouldn't have a clue about how to sell you a new house or TV. How could a robot know what humans want better than other humans?

The blogger Half Sigma suggests that the US is already moving to a marketing-oriented economy, except that Chinese/Indian people (and not robots) will be doing the design and manufacturing work.

I don't think that he's right though. The US still has a lot of intellectual capital for running a high-tech economy, even if China is capable of competing on that front.

[JackPhantasm]

Before we invent a sustainable source of infinite energy that can produce any object and eliminate the need for luxaries we will be doing other things, like colonizing planets.

I think you fail to realize that those two butting heads is thousands, perhaps, millions of years down the line.

So what we need to do in preparation of that is have a public education system that is par.

And there you have a resource that CANNOT be made from the aforementioned energy source: human knowledge.

It can only be taught to you from your own experience or by correspondence with others who have experienced what you are trying to learn.

Thus we would ideally have one teacher for every young person. It would be the only real job anyone would have down the line, where your two concepts will meet.

[EKublai]

At 1/4/09 03:28 PM, poxpower wrote: Seems to me there's two contracting facts about society:

- We want to be more efficient, always doing more with less
- We all want a job

???

Uh-oh pox is creating branch-threads.
but I think you're generally right in your facts.
Fortunately, while human's are exceptionally good at thinking constructively, there almost just as good at thinking destructively, and possibly even better at thinking constuctively as a result of thinking destructively.

Related to your other thread, think about how we conduct ourselves today. We strive to better ur individuals lives. So we take on a job that works making a hard task an easier one. We succeed but at the expense of the other person's failure. We get money. Our job becomes easier, theirs more difficult. so it is that we create allies and enemies because we have identified that sometimes when someone else succeeds, we succeed, but when another person succeeds, we fail. Those others are our enemies. Then when we meet our enemies, our job becomes tougher even moreso because we rush to create a better product faster, we become more efficient. And when we defeat the enemy we either find new ones or our job becomes easier than ever and we celebrate

What do I mean by rambling like this? The concept of a 'job to do' is subjective. And so someone who does not care that others succeed at his or her expense will not find it necessary to do anything at all.
In other words, as long as someone can identify an enemy, there will always be a job to do.

[YuanYan]

I don't think the medical field could ever be ran sufficiently without humans either. Sure, they can invent all sorts of cures and microchips and equipment to further improve the quality of one's life. But trained humans will always be needed. I don't think we'll run out of jobs. We'll need more people to run the technology, so our work force will invlove more technology saavy workers. That won't be as hard to implement as people think it will be. Our grandparents can't type because there was no computer class when they were kids, it was all farming and baby making. We'll adjust everything else to accomodate technology.

[Minarchist]

The idea that technology reduces the demand for labor, resulting in a net loss of jobs, is a classic fallacy and is contrary to the long history of human civilization. The fallacy exists because of the incorrect view that economics is a zero sum game.

Consider a manufacturer that purchases a labor-saving machine. Right away, jobs that would otherwise not exist are created to produce this machine. It may be that already there is a net increase in jobs, but this is really only the beginning. It is assumed that the manufacturer only acquired the machine because it will net a profit. With this profit, the manufacturer either expands his industry, invests in another industry, or increases consumption. In all three cases, additional employment is generated.

Other manufacturers in this industry will then acquire these machines to compete with the original manufacturer. Each manufacturer acquiring these machines creates employment through the above process, but as the demand for machines increases, the machine industry correspondingly expands and prices of machines fall. Then prices of the goods that the manufacturers produce fall as the machines become more prevalent in the industry.

If the demand for these goods the manufacturers are producing is elastic, then as the prices fall, demand increases, and to meet this demand, the industry expands and further employment is generated. If the demand is inelastic, then as the prices fall, the consumer still has more money to spend than before, and this money is spent elsewhere in the economy, generating still more employment.

[Brick-top]

At 1/4/09 03:28 PM, poxpower wrote: Seems to me there's two contracting facts about society:

- We want to be more efficient, always doing more with less

Like the SAS with explosives.

- We all want a job

No we all want an easy job that pays a lot. There's a difference.

???

This is not sustainable. Isn't our dream, as humans, to get to a point where we don't even have to work anymore and can just sit around all day doing whatever we like?

Not always, my grandparents are getting really close to their 80's and they've just started slowing down. They don't have as many responcibilities or needs but they still stay fairly active.

How is that ever going to happen if we constantly have the mentality that jobs are good and we all need a job and that job has to be all week long for most of our lives.

You get a job that fits your lifestyle and interests. Nuff said.

It seems insane to still think like this.

But how can the transition be made from a working to a non-working society? There's always going to be some humans who have to work and some who don't.

Those working: Has the physical and mental capabilities of doing basic work.

Those not working: Can't move or dying.

Nuff said?

You can eliminate the factory jobs,

It was factory work that saved the economy of this town in the 60's when roughly 12,000 people lost their jobs. Don't bump it.

but you can't replace the researchers or the politicians.

Yesss, you can. There's always someone who can do better than you at something.

So even if at some point all jobs are done voluntarily ( think of Wikipedia for instance, all volunteer and non profit and beats every other encyclopedia ever made ) there will still be a time where some people will have to work and some won't and some people would end up being compensated for doing nothing :O

Are you saying we should all get rid of money and work just to better society? I'm sure those working for wiki have some sort of real jobs.

shoot the none workers. Your problem is solved.

So what we gon' dew?

[RedSkunk]

At 1/4/09 11:03 PM, Minarchist wrote: The idea that technology reduces the demand for labor, resulting in a net loss of jobs, is a classic fallacy and is contrary to the long history of human civilization. The fallacy exists because of the incorrect view that economics is a zero sum game.

Bingo. Give the boy a biscuit.

Efficiency does not mean less manpower. There are more factors at play. Take recycling. Recycling creates jobs (it's quite labor intensive) while reusing resources. It also consumes a lot (manpower, electricity, water, depends on what you're recycling).

Green technology is another example. Everyone wants more efficient transportation, housing. This means new technology, research, and skillsets in building materials, HVAC, energy sources. Green is a boon for industry because highly specialized industry can't be as easily outsourced. Neither can the manual labor or know-how that'll be required.

[JackPhantasm]

You guys aren't realizing that pox means advances in efficiency that are millions of years away. Like I said, a source of infinite energy, coupled with matter makers.

[poxpower]

At 1/5/09 11:28 AM, JackPhantasm wrote: You guys aren't realizing that pox means advances in efficiency that are millions of years away. Like I said, a source of infinite energy, coupled with matter makers.

holy shit, Jack is the one who understood :O
:O
:O
:O

This topic is about how we can transition from our society where we need jobs to a society ( that is possible ) where automation can replace the basic jobs and we'll just be left alone doing whatever we want. Possibly jerking off a lot.

[Al6200]

Does anyone think it's possible that we'll all just become marketers, service drones, and salespeople? Because to me that makes a lot of sense.

[Minarchist]

At 1/5/09 11:28 AM, JackPhantasm wrote: You guys aren't realizing that pox means advances in efficiency that are millions of years away. Like I said, a source of infinite energy, coupled with matter makers.

Compared to ancient civilization, modern society has near-infinitely less scarcity of resources, yet we have many times more jobs and ever-increasing demand for labor. It seems unfounded to me to think that future technology will change this pattern.

At 1/5/09 11:54 AM, Al6200 wrote: Does anyone think it's possible that we'll all just become marketers, service drones, and salespeople? Because to me that makes a lot of sense.

It makes no sense. The US economy of consumption is supported by continuous borrowing from more frugal overseas savings and production. We're on the verge of a massive decline in the American standard of living as these overseas creditors simply stop lending us money and start improving their own living standards. So obviously manufacturing will always be necessary.

At the end of every sequence of machines in the manufacturing sector is a human operator. To create a machine with intelligence that can do the job of human beings, can be viewed economically no different than simply having a child. In other words, you've increased the labor force but also increased the demand for labor (robots need energy, repairs, etc just as humans need food, clothing, etc).

[RedSkunk]

Anyone who thinks humanity will be around in a million years is really naive.

[JackPhantasm]

At 1/5/09 12:15 PM, Minarchist wrote:
Compared to ancient civilization, modern society has near-infinitely less scarcity of resources, yet we have many times more jobs and ever-increasing demand for labor. It seems unfounded to me to think that future technology will change this pattern.

It's important to note that this pattern has only been around for 20 or so thousands of years.

But I agree, jumping to the end of the equation (we are assuming a utopian outcome rather than an armageddon one, obviously) is rushing things.

I am not learned in this, you seem to be an expert. Where would the next steps land us, do you think?