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Humans may not Apply: The future of Jobs

How bad is Automation?

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You're really a funny man, you know that? Remember the average citizen? Not that smart, right? Around half of the population is dumber that this poor sod.

Critical thinking is not something everyone can do, and it's also something that, in large enough number, causes just as much instability while causing efficiency to collapse.
Perfection is the enemy of better. I would be pleased if a bad thing happened less often and I never expect a 100% conversion rate. Right now our schools don't even teach critical thinking until college.

Step 1: don't get profit as the first and only priority for society.
It's a clunky measurement of improvement, an artifact from an older time. We've inherited problems our ancestors didn't even understand.
 
As machines get smarter and smarter more and more jobs are going to disappear starting with the jobs that require the least cognitive ability and slowly move up the ladder.

We're already in a situation where the US military (the chief enabler of socioeconomic growth for those lacking means) can't find anything for the bottom 10% of adults to do simply because they're not smart enough.
 
Perfection is the enemy of better. I would be pleased if a bad thing happened less often and I never expect a 100% conversion rate. Right now our schools don't even teach critical thinking until college.
Oh, that one is a feature, not a bug. The US socio-political system requires a population as passive and easily convinced as possible. Critical thinking is left to foreigners and immigrants, which is why the rate of foreigners jumps from 10 % to 55-60 % between undergrad and grad in college. It makes for all the political advantages of a dumbed-down populace that doesn't bother the leadership while the investment to create a technology-enabling elite can be really cheap (no need to teach 100 kids well from kindergarten to get 1 good engineer when you can just pay twice more a foreign college student to come over and become a good engineer) and as politically-safe as possible (many positions are reserved to born-citizens, officially or not, thus keeping this foreign elite out of the circles of power).

I'm sorry to reveal it to you, but a large part of your education is designed to make you obey without thinking to the right stimuli, much moreso than almost anywhere in modern democracies. It does work at the moment due to this beautiful system importing foreign brains to sustain it. Consume, be loyal to your various tribes, consume as many symbols of that tribe as possible, compete to have more symbols than your neighbour and be constantly claiming that you are the bestest best ever and any issue is just physically unsolveable and/or exceptional.
It's a clunky measurement of improvement, an artifact from an older time. We've inherited problems our ancestors didn't even understand.
For your elites? It is the main criterion.
 
Every time I talk with you I get a little more distrustful of power, and I'm pretty far gone to begin with.

Consume, be loyal to your various tribes, consume as many symbols of that tribe as possible, compete to have more symbols than your neighbour and be constantly claiming that you are the bestest best ever and any issue is just physically unsolveable and/or exceptional.

God bless America.
 
Every time I talk with you I get a little more distrustful of power, and I'm pretty far gone to begin with.
Oh, no, it's mainly localized to you guys, as one of the consequences of World War II. See, with most of the planet fucked up, including the vast majority of industrial powers, while the US was not only intact but grabbed (for the greater good, of course) top-level scientists and engineers all over the planet, others wanted to come where science was done. It started a virtous cycle that offered a truly unique opportunity to not have to choose between high technological innovation and population control. It's an opportunity other countries and governments did not have, particularly because they had to reinforce their education systems to compensate the bleeding caused by US attractiveness.

Hell, even the whole 'don't trust governments as concepts' fits very well in that population control scheme as it makes people who do not like this deliberately refuse to take part in the system itself. Therefore, any real opposition to the system makes itself impotent and unable to change anything. Look at your political landscape: most people distrust the government and... do nothing beyond posting #ThoughtsAndPrayers or such nonsense. Look at what happens here when a large enough part of the population is discontent with the government: it takes the debate to the streets for months. You want to live in a place where the government is actually fearful of its population and reminded of it regularly? Cross the Atlantic.
 
Not many people find it, they look for more, for accomplishment. Particularly the rich ones, I daresay. Rich people are rarely happy or satisfied, that's one of the harshest discoveries they make.

Sure, I don't think Rich people will ever be satisfied, we all have infinite wants after all.

But I generally don't see the majority of rich people going out of their way to murder people, or defraud them of their money (Bernie Madoff got into a super bad time with the FedGov after that fuckup, as was BNP Paribas for laundering South Sudanese money, and HSBC too IIRC.), or even doing something generally questionable. That's generally a bad stereotype.
 
As machines get smarter and smarter more and more jobs are going to disappear starting with the jobs that require the least cognitive ability and slowly move up the ladder.

We're already in a situation where the US military (the chief enabler of socioeconomic growth for those lacking means) can't find anything for the bottom 10% of adults to do simply because they're not smart enough.
Yeah, and the situation would get ugly if we don't simply go 'sorry, you rich folk can not have your double digit million plus incomes and inheritances, we'll take all incomes above X million and your kids will not be able to get anymore than Y million in the inheritance'. That and create an electronic surveillance state.

The context has changed, and not for the better.
 
Yeah, and the situation would get ugly if we don't simply go 'sorry, you rich folk can not have your double digit million plus incomes and inheritances, we'll take all incomes above X million and your kids will not be able to get anymore than Y million in the inheritance'. That and create an electronic surveillance state.
LMAO this is the most Aaron Fox thing that could be said.
 
LMAO this is the most Aaron Fox thing that could be said.
Problem is our technological context doesn't support anything else anymore. Especially since the ability to create synthetic plagues has fallen from nation-states and decades to months and a moderately sized biotech company to even smaller and shorter (hell, you can get CRISPR by mail these days). That has caused the moral calculus to shift immensely. For civilization to survive, you'll have to accept that certain preconceptions like work to live, privacy, among others are no longer possible. We still have far too many ideologically charged idiots who would do anything for their cause, and that includes people who think mankind must die.
 
Problem is our technological context doesn't support anything else anymore. Especially since the ability to create synthetic plagues has fallen from nation-states and decades to months and a moderately sized biotech company to even smaller and shorter (hell, you can get CRISPR by mail these days). That has caused the moral calculus to shift immensely. For civilization to survive, you'll have to accept that certain preconceptions like work to live, privacy, among others are no longer possible. We still have far too many ideologically charged idiots who would do anything for their cause, and that includes people who think mankind must die.

Aren't you unemployed right now anyway? I could get you on making a little over $15 after a year if you like factory work and 3 day weekends. You'd have to move to the southeastern US though. We literally can't find people to work at times, plus a lot of places are starting to see an increasing number of employees in the Baby Boomer ages starting to retire.

As for privacy, depends. Can't do anything about ecommerce or CCTV cameras everywhere. OTOH, nobody is required to have a Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr account to post their daily activities and photos on. Or if you're afraid of being spied on via the built in web camera on your computer, there's been this remarkable invention called duck tape.
 
Problem is our technological context doesn't support anything else anymore. Especially since the ability to create synthetic plagues has fallen from nation-states and decades to months and a moderately sized biotech company to even smaller and shorter (hell, you can get CRISPR by mail these days). That has caused the moral calculus to shift immensely. For civilization to survive, you'll have to accept that certain preconceptions like work to live, privacy, among others are no longer possible. We still have far too many ideologically charged idiots who would do anything for their cause, and that includes people who think mankind must die.
Shitty webcomics are not the real world.
 
Aren't you unemployed right now anyway? I could get you on making a little over $15 after a year if you like factory work and 3 day weekends. You'd have to move to the southeastern US though. We literally can't find people to work at times, plus a lot of places are starting to see an increasing number of employees in the Baby Boomer ages starting to retire.
Actually, last I've checked those jobs are being automated, so even if I can move down south (fat chance), by the time I've set myself up my future job is already automated.
As for privacy, depends. Can't do anything about ecommerce or CCTV cameras everywhere. OTOH, nobody is required to have a Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr account to post their daily activities and photos on. Or if you're afraid of being spied on via the built in web camera on your computer, there's been this remarkable invention called duck tape.
To quote a rather knowledgeable forum insect:
Wetapunga said:
Between 1990 and today we went from digital cameras costing thousands of dollars and being the size of your head; too costing about 1 cent, are smaller than a fingernail, and everyone having at least one in their pocket at all times directly linked too a global information network upon which many people voluntarily post dozens of pictures every day that are analyzed by hundreds of information analysis programs.

Cameras are getting smaller and cheaper at a geometric rate, facial recognition software has gone from being computer intensive and unreliable, too highly reliable and processing efficient. Internet companies track your identity, interests and purchases simply too advertise too you better.

Human population is plateauing and we are congregating in dense cities while computers are increasing in power, efficiency and number all the time. We will reach a point in the first half of this century where the amount of sensors in a city is so great that the data floating around the net is sufficient too build a full picture of someones life in real time.


In a few decades you will reach the point where sensors are basically smart dust, incorporated into virtually everything; not leaving an easily identifiable trace of your life with such sensor density will be impossible.


The panopticon is a technological inevitability, it is basically the most sure thing we can predict about the coming century.
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The fear mongering in this thread
rolleyes.gif




Dictatorships rely on secrets, denial of information and concentration of force; when the government is as exposed as the people it becomes very difficult for them too amass the power needed too become a dictatorship without being overthrown before they reach critical mass. A dictatorship always relies on a force of loyal enforcers smaller than the populace they try too oppress, when the movements and organization of this force are impossible too mask it becomes much easier too avoid and out maneuver them. With equal degree of omni-surveillance available too both sides it becomes a numbers game which the populace inevitably wins.

Secret organizations coming in the dark of night too drag away dissenters and throw them into a dark hole only works if the organizations are secret and they can't be tracked




Look it's a technological inevitability that a Panopticon will arise, so we should have a rational discussion (not FEAR FEAR FEAR DOOM) about how society and government should adapt too having a fair and free society in a post-privacy world


There are certainly an enormous number of benefits too a society that can see and record everything. Disasters, crime and accidents become far easier too control and reduce; emergency services can be dispatched the second someone is in trouble; corruption, blackmail and bribery become impossibly hard too pull off without reprisal. Constant monitoring of infrastructure, energy use, transportation, ect allows for vast increase in efficiency of all systems. Diseases and toxins can be tracked in real time, outbreaks that would cause great epidemics isolated quickly and all potential vectors shutoff and tested/cleaned.

The knowledge in the back of your mind that you are potentially being watched and judged will cause people too act more civil too each other, or understand why someone is so upset if you can trawl back through their recent past (family abuse is annihilated in this post-privacy world, bullying, harassment you ain't getting away with that shit)



There is a fuckload of positives too an omnisurveilance society, yet you people seem to be obsessed with it being a terrifying dystopia
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Ahh yes the "Your argument falls apart entirely at this one nitpick and thus I don't have to address any of the other points you made"

Classic lazy debating and lack of in depth consideration

Governments already have to dedicate silly huge budgets too information security in crucially sensitive departments like intelligence, and already it is shown too be quite permeable relying more on employee compliance than an airtight information security system.

The vast majority of the government apparatus cannot afford such information security measures, it relies on thousands upon thousands of ordinary citizens working office jobs; how do you get anyone too work for you at a cost effective wage if you have too demand they are completely stripped of all electronic devices (which already are practically a part of people, in coming decades they will be basically an indispensable part of a persons being) just too work in a government department?

Governments are made up of people, unless you reduce everyone too mindless automatons or have a gun too their head at all times you aren't going too have a productive and cost effective workforce that is information tight. The only government departments that have scary effective info security are the ones like the CIA and NSA which have enormously drawn out vetting processes and pay their people HUGE salaries with bonuses and pensions too keep them happy and quiet, there is no way that the government can afford too pay everyone in the bureaucracy that handles information the wages of intelligence department workers, and certainly cannot have such complex hiring processes.


In the modern world government policy is already leaked as fast as it is created and the minutes of meetings end up available too people who are interested. The increasing pervasiveness of digital data recording and processing will make it much easier and faster for leaked tidbits of information too be collated together into a coherent picture and built into a story of government scandal


The government can certainly keep some things secret from the people in a surveillance society, with great effort and expense. But what is infeasible is the government keeping secrets on a large enough scale that it can have a secretive government apparatus large and effective enough too openly oppress the people for the evilz. The larger the government group the more difficult it is too keep information from leaking, and the rest of government that cannot afford too hide in super secret evil plotting bunkers will have adapted too operating in open non-secretive politics, their political advantage of full openness makes them very hard too nail down with blackmail and they will gain political support by crusading against the secretive totally not plotting evilz part of government sucking up so much public funds in its effort too hide from the public.

When the parts of government actually busy doing the governing and public relations shit have accepted full openness, they are not going too tolerate secret little government cartels, they become a brilliant target for demonstrating how open and trustworthy you are too the voting public. A poltician that has accepted openness and embraced it will be a terrifying force too fight as another politician/government entity with secrets, especially if secret plotting department relies on the open no-secrets politicians are in charge of dividing up the budget.
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Being a monster is entirely relative, we are deep in the dark world of moral relativity in this discussion; black and white morality in decision making becomes impossible


If technology advances too the point where rogue individuals or small groups can be an existential threat too orders of magnitude more people than belong too the group; via weapons of mass destruction, bio plagues, ecosystem crashers, climate sabotage, ect... then the moral calculus balances out too determine that preventing the destruction or grievous harm of vast numbers of people justifies certain actions that seen abhorrently immoral in their own right


It's basically the Trolley Problem but on a Nation State -> Civilization -> Species level depending on how dangerous the threat is.


If technology has developed too the point that small groups can cause vast destruction, then either civilization and the species is doomed; or civilization will adapt too contain and control such threats... by whatever means necessary



Omnipresent surveillance is at least the most morally neutral of countermeasures, it is passive and can detect such problem groups before they can become a major threat and authorities intervene in the most morally just way possible (arrests and psychological treatment) Groups that actually manage too build a threatening weapon will likely be spotted before they can deploy it in an effective manner and the Panopticon system can help authorities manage the emergency response causing the least harm possible too the innocent and the guilty alike.
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The thing is that technology is shifting the balance of risk; biological weapons formerly took years of work and enormously expensive facilities, trial and error, and as a result only States could implement them. With genetics now programmable on computers, the developing field of digitally simulated biology, genetic strings being written in a computer, printed and inserted into cells too create new species... this is only the beginning. The technology and resources required too create a super-plague has gone from state level down too merely company level, and it is inevitably going too fall further too the point that very small groups of individuals can create highly dangerous engineered organisms with equipment and knowledge available too civilians.

There are plenty of omnicidal nuts out there, the people who advocate culling humanity as a cure too environmental exploitation of 'Mother Nature' Would you trust these sorts with the ability too cook up plagues?

So you are confidently asserting that threats too civilization can never come from anything less than full nation states
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How could you possibly justify this claim, history is rife with small groups or individuals that caused great catastrophes through their own selfish philosophically driven actions; even if the ultimate destructive force was the war machines of nation states it was non-state-aligned individuals who tipped the balance from rational diplomatic confrontation too armed conflict
Shitty webcomics are not the real world.
Wee little problem with that, what used to be the sole proprietary of governments (viable bioweapons), are now proliferating to the point where the average person can cook up a synthetic plague. We have far too many people that are so ideologically charged with settling ethnic scores, culling or killing off humanity, among other things to not be worried.
Genocide man?
Given that our trajectory is too eerily similar to the setting's prelude and that fiction loves to become reality in various ways...
 
Wee little problem with that, what used to be the sole proprietary of governments (viable bioweapons), are now proliferating to the point where the average person can cook up a synthetic plague. We have far too many people that are so ideologically charged with settling ethnic scores, culling or killing off humanity, among other things to not be worried.
Shitty webcomics are not the real world.
 
Shitty webcomics are not the real world.
Problem, fiction and real life have a symbiosis Rufus, if people can think it up, it can (and more often than not will) happen in real life. No buts about it. We already have too many people who have the crazy idea that humanity is a blight on mother earth, let alone all the idiots who want to settle ethnic scores.
 
Problem, fiction and real life have a symbiosis Rufus, if people can think it up, it can (and more often than not will) happen in real life. No buts about it. We already have too many people who have the crazy idea that humanity is a blight on mother earth, let alone all the idiots who want to settle ethnic scores.
No, the real world doesn't work like that.
 
Actually, last I've checked those jobs are being automated, so even if I can move down south (fat chance), by the time I've set myself up my future job is already automated.

To quote a rather knowledgeable forum insect:


Wee little problem with that, what used to be the sole proprietary of governments (viable bioweapons), are now proliferating to the point where the average person can cook up a synthetic plague. We have far too many people that are so ideologically charged with settling ethnic scores, culling or killing off humanity, among other things to not be worried.

Given that our trajectory is too eerily similar to the setting's prelude and that fiction loves to become reality in various ways...
Aaron you need a job.
 
Aaron you need a job.
What have you think I've been trying to do for the last year? Hell full-bore automation has been showing up here in Montana as well. Even Walmart is automating the shit out of it's stores...
 
With the amount of effort you put into shitposting on the net you could've easily received a job thrice over.
1) I'm not shitposting and 2) I've put in enough physical and electronic applications that I've been getting typer's and writer's cramp and only got four interviews to show for it.

BIG FAT EDIT:

Summary: Basically, what we assumed is automation isn't viable anymore...
 
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What have you think I've been trying to do for the last year? Hell full-bore automation has been showing up here in Montana as well. Even Walmart is automating the shit out of it's stores...

Sounds like you're either too lazy to do anything, or you have zero idea about how to go about looking for work.

FYI, the plant I work at typically hires anywhere from 10 to 20 people a week. Maybe 1 or 2 have jobs a year later. It has nothing to do with automation, and more to do with people just not liking the job for various reasons. On top of this, we're constantly having people retire, oftentimes from either managerial posts or more technical jobs that might not necessarily require advanced training, but that do typically require several years of hands on experience.

With the baby boomers retiring in faster numbers and not as many people around to replace them, this has somewhat offset any manpower issues.

Another thing to keep in mind, modern industrial equipment is often obsurdly expensive. One company I was with a couple of years ago was looking to buy a new 1,000 ton FAGOR press.

http://www.fagorarrasate.com/product/1/transfer-presses.aspx

The plan was to use it to replace an older existing machine that was falling apart. It would still only have required two or three operators, not counting tooling techs, so not very manpower intensive. The reason corporate refused to get the shiny new toy though, it would cost $20 million.
 
@Diablo21, I have been looking for work. Most of the jobs that I find out there is literally 'requires X years of prior experience', and I'm a user of the local transit over a car (I don't even have a driver's licence). Now you are starting to sound like my father. :mad:
 
Sounds like you're either too lazy to do anything, or you have zero idea about how to go about looking for work.

FYI, the plant I work at typically hires anywhere from 10 to 20 people a week. Maybe 1 or 2 have jobs a year later. It has nothing to do with automation, and more to do with people just not liking the job for various reasons. On top of this, we're constantly having people retire, oftentimes from either managerial posts or more technical jobs that might not necessarily require advanced training, but that do typically require several years of hands on experience.

With the baby boomers retiring in faster numbers and not as many people around to replace them, this has somewhat offset any manpower issues.

Another thing to keep in mind, modern industrial equipment is often obsurdly expensive. One company I was with a couple of years ago was looking to buy a new 1,000 ton FAGOR press.

http://www.fagorarrasate.com/product/1/transfer-presses.aspx

The plan was to use it to replace an older existing machine that was falling apart. It would still only have required two or three operators, not counting tooling techs, so not very manpower intensive. The reason corporate refused to get the shiny new toy though, it would cost $20 million.
Speaking as someone who has been 'unemployed' (internships don't count as employment as much as it counts a busywork) for two years now (Hooray for being let go due to the government not being able to afford to have me anymore) getting a job is a lot harder than you might first assume.

The longer you are 'out of the job market' so to speak, the harder it is to get a job due to workplaces telling you that "You've been out of the workforce for too long, sorry." and sending you on to the next job interview, in the past two years I've gone through five internships outside of my field of education out of desperation. Every single one has turned me down for a job either because they didn't have the resources to keep me on or because they just didn't flat out need me enough to justify payment.

The job market is shit right now.

Edit: And this doesn't even account for the applications that haven't replied back (300+ and still going upwards)
 
The job market is shit right now.
No, it's an employer's market. Us employees are fucked in basic terms... and that is before this little thing called automation is put into the equation!
Edit: And this doesn't even account for the applications that haven't replied back (300+ and still going upwards)
I lost count at several dozen applications, and I've seen at least one in ten (some days it's like one in six) job openings having the words 'X years of experience required' or 'X years of experience recommended'... and this is consistent on multiple job websites. Hell, one of the jobs I've just field an application in is one that I didn't get a call back the last time I've been looking for a job (and it was a housecleaning gig at the local hospital!). I've sent an application to Burger King twice already because their 90-day application filing. I'm only lucky that the local Scheels store has a one year file policy for their applications!
 
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