Why the poor don't move

[Mich the Tester]

A made a slight change for you

Over the past 200-300 years a lot of jobs have been automated out of existence. New jobs eventually fill their place and overall productivity goes up.

Yep, but the process of adaptation is not immediate and can be very painful; a lot of scribes and their families ended up poor due to the printing press, and they probably stayed poor for generations. Now I'm not saying we should prevent progress or de-invent stuff, but I think we're all going to have to accept that as we can automate more and more quickly we're going to continuously destroy jobs and we need a system that does a few things;

1) helps and encourages people to be a step ahead of their job being destroyed, given that most people simply aren't aware of what's coming
2) provides for them while they're out of work or retraining
3) gets people retrained and up and working quickly, before the despondency sets in that seems to lead to so much misery
4) trains long term unemployed to take up new work or training opportunities
5) rewards retraining and new work, and doesn't allow for sitting around getting despondent
6) takes account of individual and local circumstances instead of acting as one big cookie cutter that consigns one generation after another to failure

In theory we have a system to do that, but it's become unwieldy and ineffective and unaffordable.

[Old Hack]

I was reading an article the other day that effectively implied most people not technically gifted would struggle to work in the near future, and what we’ll have are two classes; those who work (wealthy), and those who live off benefits (poor). That we should prepare for, literally, 50% unemployment amongst adults.

Mostly down to automation.

[bobspud]

Yep, but the process of adaptation is not immediate and can be very painful; a lot of scribes and their families ended up poor due to the printing press, and they probably stayed poor for generations. Now I'm not saying we should prevent progress or de-invent stuff, but I think we're all going to have to accept that as we can automate more and more quickly we're going to continuously destroy jobs and we need a system that does a few things;

1) helps and encourages people to be a step ahead of their job being destroyed, given that most people simply aren't aware of what's coming
2) provides for them while they're out of work or retraining
3) gets people retrained and up and working quickly, before the despondency sets in that seems to lead to so much misery
4) trains long term unemployed to take up new work or training opportunities
5) rewards retraining and new work, and doesn't allow for sitting around getting despondent
6) takes account of individual and local circumstances instead of acting as one big cookie cutter that consigns one generation after another to failure

In theory we have a system to do that, but it's become unwieldy and ineffective and unaffordable.

No one puts cash into automating something that is already cheap to do with a body. That brick laying machine must cost a bomb meaning that for men to do it by hand it must cost a mega bomb the bricks have not changed so it must be the labour. When I was in Czech a few years back I watched a team of their guys building cobbled roads using granite blocks by hand. my friends view was yes its expensive but the road round the corner was laid down the same way in the 15th century so not that expensive when the costs are spread over 500 years

The fact of the matter is we probably dont need half the people that are on the planet, however the dumb continue shag more and the clever work harder to support it.

[VectraMan]

Over the past 200-300 years a lot of jobs have been automated out of existence. New jobs eventually fill their place and overall productivity goes up.

Exactly. Growing up in the 70s/80s you'd often hear about machines and computers putting real people out of work. These days nobody ever really says that, for the obvious reason that despite virtually everything that used to be done by people being in some way automated, we don't have 95% unemployment. Despite the recession there are much more jobs now than in the 80s (especially when you consider the number of women that now work) when there wasn't a PC on every desk.

[Mich the Tester]

No one puts cash into automating something that is already cheap to do with a body. That brick laying machine must cost a bomb meaning that for men to do it by hand it must cost a mega bomb the bricks have not changed so it must be the labour. When I was in Czech a few years back I watched a team of their guys building cobbled roads using granite blocks by hand. my friends view was yes its expensive but the road round the corner was laid down the same way in the 15th century so not that expensive when the costs are spread over 500 years

The fact of the matter is we probably dont need half the people that are on the planet, however the dumb continue shag more and the clever work harder to support it.

Agreed on the last bit, but on the first bit I'd say this; you know, and I know, and most of the people on this board (who are all either educated by the state or self-educated to degree level) know that those machines will get cheaper, quicker, smaller and more efficient very quickly. The trouble is, there are builders living on our street and half Lady Tester's family are brickies (the other half are farmers and doing very well out of it). When I try to tell the brickies what's coming, they just don't believe it, or maybe don't want to believe it. They raise moral objections about destroying jobs, or about destroying an ancient craft, but they won't accept it. I have to accept that despite my intellectual objections, software testing is being automated and I can't stop it, so all I can do is retrain to do specialist testing that can't be automated, to automate some tests and to be able to do other things. There are huge numbers of people in many industries who just don't get this, what do we do to make it clear to them?

Anyway, we probably already have 50% unemployment if you add up the number of unemployed on benefit, the number of people on income support, the number of people on retraining schemes and the number of people on disability benefit who are actually just written off. Plus, people on early retirement schemes, freelancers in many industries with no work.

[Mich the Tester]

Exactly. Growing up in the 70s/80s you'd often hear about machines and computers putting real people out of work. These days nobody ever really says that, for the obvious reason that despite virtually everything that used to be done by people being in some way automated, we don't have 95% unemployment. Despite the recession there are much more jobs now than in the 80s (especially when you consider the number of women that now work) when there wasn't a PC on every desk.

We have enormous hidden unemployment. See what I just said;

we probably already have 50% unemployment if you add up the number of unemployed on benefit, the number of people on income support, the number of people on retraining schemes and the number of people on disability benefit who are actually just written off. Plus, people on early retirement schemes, freelancers in many industries with no work.

You could also add people who are 'employed' by the government to do work that's of highly questionable value, administering parking fines, checking on rules and regulations nobody needs and so on.

The Soviet Union had very official little unemployment, but a lot of people doing pointless jobs; they hid their unemployment, much as we do now.

[sasguru]

We have enormous hidden unemployment. See what I just said;

You could also add people who are 'employed' by the government to do work that's of highly questionable value, administering parking fines, checking on rules and regulations nobody needs and so on.

The Soviet Union had very official little unemployment, but a lot of people doing pointless jobs; they hid their unemployment, much as we do now.

What about people talking BS on CUK?

[Old Hack]

The fact of the matter is we probably don't need half the people that are on the planet, however the dumb continue shag more and the clever work harder to support it.

Very hard to look at that without saying it's contrary

[bobspud]

Agreed on the last bit, but on the first bit I'd say this; you know, and I know, and most of the people on this board (who are all either educated by the state or self-educated to degree level) know that those machines will get cheaper, quicker, smaller and more efficient very quickly. The trouble is, there are builders living on our street and half Lady Tester's family are brickies (the other half are farmers and doing very well out of it). When I try to tell the brickies what's coming, they just don't believe it, or maybe don't want to believe it. They raise moral objections about destroying jobs, or about destroying an ancient craft, but they won't accept it. I have to accept that despite my intellectual objections, software testing is being automated and I can't stop it, so all I can do is retrain to do specialist testing that can't be automated, to automate some tests and to be able to do other things. There are huge numbers of people in many industries who just don't get this, what do we do to make it clear to them?

Anyway, we probably already have 50% unemployment if you add up the number of unemployed on benefit, the number of people on income support, the number of people on retraining schemes and the number of people on disability benefit who are actually just written off. Plus, people on early retirement schemes, freelancers in many industries with no work.

Agree about the brick layers because I had a front seat view for the type setters and printers getting sacked in the 90's Many of them thought that because they had a union card they were sorted for life...

[Mich the Tester]

What about people talking BS on CUK?