This isn't progress. There is nothing better for society than good old manual labor.

We've got a problem. If you automate, the jobs, what's left of them, stay here. If you don't automate, the jobs, all of them, go overseas to cheaper labor markets. Take you pick.

Yes, this is somewhat of an extraordinary automation taking jobs story. But let's not forget that more jobs are created in order to program the automation, to design the automation. It's not that there are less jobs, just an increase of jobs needing more schooling.

And let's not overlook that generationally modern peoples are less likely to want to do manual or menial labor jobs anyway. In some cases, the businesses needed to replace the loss of workers they already had.

This is the other side of the same coin.

Sir S

Edited by - Sir Spectre on 5/15/2004 6:09:29 PM

we need to colonise new planets.

Are you volunteering Kimk? I'll strap you to rocket, and see what happens .

Naw, what we should do to him is a good 'ole fashion Corsair keel-haul through a jump hole!

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"The worst player has guns, and grenades, and vehicles, and all manner of damaging tools. Like a baby with a razor blade, he need not be skilled at all with his tools to cause terrible damage with them; a blind man can fire a tank and kill you."

--7--

These days, as things become more and more computerized, more jobs can be lost. But, they do not have to be sent over seas. A lot of companys that send coustomer service over seas, have suffered customer anger at responce. They will be back here or be hurt in the wallet.

If saving an extra dollar on my next pair of shoes I buy means 1000 Americans workers (or whatever country the company bases out of) lose their jobs, then I will gladly pay the extra dollar (or two, or three).

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"The worst player has guns, and grenades, and vehicles, and all manner of damaging tools. Like a baby with a razor blade, he need not be skilled at all with his tools to cause terrible damage with them; a blind man can fire a tank and kill you."

--7--

Here's a question for those of you worried about losing jobs:

How can the US have more immigrants, more new able bodies of working age, older workers staying in their jobs longer and increased productivity of disabled workers once thought of as unable to work ... and yet decrease the unemployment rate in the past two decades if we're losing sooooo many jobs to automation?

Don't fall prey to the notion that a person has to stay in the same type of job all his life and if suddenly his field is automated he's in the street.

The point is, automation requires workers to make it automated in the first place. It's simply the new market for workers to manually make automation.

All the while automation makes small businesses and individuals more productive. And these small businesses grow and need more people to handle the influx of business. I see it all the time, specifically in my line of work.

Sir S

Edited by - Sir Spectre on 5/15/2004 9:50:15 PM

@Sir Spectre

I understand what you are saying, and what you say is true. Automation makes the small businesses work and increases efficency in larger companies. And like you said, "automation requires workers to make it automated in the first place". These machines may make some jobs decrease, but these are the jobs of aging baby-boomers (may be applicable in the US only) who will retire soon anyway, or be moved up to management status. The creation of these automations open new jobs for young new workers that are just entering the job market with their new-fangled degrees that make them so desirable by large companies yet resourceful enough to start their own.

I'm only against shipping jobs overseas, but if someone thinks otherwise then I am open to your arguements.

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"The worst player has guns, and grenades, and vehicles, and all manner of damaging tools. Like a baby with a razor blade, he need not be skilled at all with his tools to cause terrible damage with them; a blind man can fire a tank and kill you."

--7--

I think we should ship jobs overseas, simply because those people need jobs more than we do, but the UN should work out an international minimum wage law, to insure that everyone in the world gets roughly the same wages for the same work.
As far as automation goes- machines go bust if they're unattended, so people will always be needed to supervise them.
Imagine, if you will though, a world where all jobs were done by machines, and all their wages would be divided equally among the humans, so men could lead a life of freedom and luxury...

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its funny that the americans in this thread whine about bringing in imigrants, you have tons of room for them, i can understand the other concerns though.

Try the immigrants in NZ, half of them can't speak english properly ......

ff for once raises a fair point. Where he lives in S E England, immigration, both official and illegal, is creating a major social and economic problem. The same problem affects most of the rest of the country but is exacebated in kent and the south east because thats the first port of call for the immigrants. And this is a problem of successive Govts making, because of an unspoken open doors policy to attract cheap unskilled labour for businesses. My own employer has effectively deskilled 70% of the workforce and is replacing experienced long serving workers with foreign immmigrants from E Europe/Balkans, China, and Afghanistan. The company my wife works for has for some time now hived most of its customer service operations off to India. As we have a much smaller population than the USA the knock-on effects of these processes are much more immeditely noticeable.

Our Govt ecently admitted that there had been such an open doors policy in place because of the pressure from employers to find cheap labour. They also had to own up (despite initial denials) that criminal and security checks on these migrants were incomplete or absent, that a blind eye had been turned to many excesses and rule-breaking by people organising the flow of migrants (passport fraud, forged visas, briberey, people smuggling, racketeering) and that for many of the migrants themselves their work was a form of indentured serfdom, where injury or even death is not uncommon.

but businesses can cut their wage bills by employing illegal immigrants, so that's all alright then. It stinks. Sorry to get on my soapbox about it. I think technology is only an issue in respect that the gulf between skilled and unskilled is growing, to the point where jobs which you think wouldbe automated are actually done by cheap workers who can be replaced faster than a spare part and in the constant pressure for short term profits are cheaper than automation which requires capital expenditure. many of the immigrant workers dont even get paid, theyr in and out of the job in days and any money theyve accrued goes to their "agency" first.

please please please let me get what I want..