a good read from the Smithsonian

[callmeslick]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovatio ... -180961423

[Pudfark]

Skynet

[callmeslick]

nice, thoughful contribution, Pud. I'm sure you didn't read it, but it likely wouldn't have made sense to you anyway.

[Pudfark]

Old Pudfark sez: " It's hard to care about BS, when ya don't. "

The false 'old problems' don't work for ya anymore, so ya create new ones to pontificate on their solutions...

So, there's yer explain.....I liked 'Skynet', better.

[Darkhorse]

I have read everything you posted on this subject and still do not see the doom and gloom you keep pushing. Sure there will be bumps in the road on our way into the future like this article pointed out, but we will adapt and overcome just as we always have. I will stay optimistic!

Erik Brynjolfsson is less pessimistic. An MIT economist who co-authored The Second Machine Age, he thinks automation won’t necessarily be so bad. The Luddites thought machines destroyed jobs, but they were only half right: They can also, eventually, create new ones. “A lot of skilled artisans did lose their jobs,” Brynjolfsson says, but several decades later demand for labor rose as new job categories emerged, like office work. “Average wages have been increasing for the past 200 years,” he notes. “The machines were creating wealth!”

[Pudfark]

"we will adapt and overcome just as we always have."

[callmeslick]

I have read everything you posted on this subject and still do not see the doom and gloom you keep pushing. Sure there will be bumps in the road on our way into the future like this article pointed out, but we will adapt and overcome just as we always have. I will stay optimistic!

Erik Brynjolfsson is less pessimistic. An MIT economist who co-authored The Second Machine Age, he thinks automation won’t necessarily be so bad. The Luddites thought machines destroyed jobs, but they were only half right: They can also, eventually, create new ones. “A lot of skilled artisans did lose their jobs,” Brynjolfsson says, but several decades later demand for labor rose as new job categories emerged, like office work. “Average wages have been increasing for the past 200 years,” he notes. “The machines were creating wealth!”

I agree with his hope, but that is why I am issuing alarm calls. It will call for a sea-change in thinking around the primacy of education, the nature of work, and I don't see us addressing it. I see other cultures doing so, but I see the US electorate demanding we circle the wagons and go it alone, and that is a recipe for disaster. Further, the nature of the new jobs may not, due to supply/demand rules, compensate all that many people, all that well. We better be prepared to embrace an active transfer of income from the investors to the workers or the whole ball of wax goes to shit. Thanks for the intelligent input, DH.

[callmeslick]

the gloom and doom are around the transition period, by the way of clarification, DH. Note the fellow from MIT doesn't address the gap period or process from job elimination, which is coming more rapidly than anticipated, and the creation of new opportunities for employment. Nor, does it address whether the 'new opportunities' in any way provide the income the old ones did. I see issues with that last part, as follows: if you think of the available cash for wages, benefits and investment income as a slowly expanding pie, the section that isn't being siphoned off by the investors is growing smaller, leaving less for paying for actual work by humans. With a lot of free humans to do that work, and a smaller pile willingly applied to paying for it, coupled with good-old human nature, it could be a race to the bottom of the acceptable pay scale(and maybe below it) for a LOT of people. Too many people for a stable society, IMHO. You may be more hopeful, DH, and bless you for that. I have to make calls to prepare my future and that of my grandkids, so I tend towards skepticism, it's healthy, and always a pleasant surprise when stuff comes out better!

[Pudfark]

How does all of this ^^^^^^ apply to Obama? It don't. Why? Trump will do what he will do. You'll either roll with it...or...get rolled.

I hope ya find the above...offensive. Big Hoots here, me sounding like you...eight/ate years ago.

[callmeslick]

another strong contribution. Try taking a course in English at your local community college, Pud.