What happens when there aren't jobs left for people to do?

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jp451 wrote:

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You're probably saying, "Technology makes life easier for us," but, keep in mind that as money is being spent towards new technology, jobs are being lost. So what are we basically doing? We're creating machines that will take our place. And if people don't have jobs to get money, that means that the government doesn't get any tax money either. To me, it's a lose/lose situation. The government is not benefitted, and neither are the people. I'm not saying that we should stop advancing ourselves, but why do we really want to put each other out of work?

The other day I went to a town about 30 minutes away from my house. It was the morning the garbage collectors collect the garbage. I watched as the machine extended a mechanical arm to lift the trash and dump it in the truck to be grinded.

What does this mean? Just a few months back, it used to be two men on the job. One man had to pick up the garbage and throw it in the grinder. But now that they have the mechanical arm, they just put a number of people out of work, not to mention how many tax dollars went into the production of this mechanical arm. Also, since they put people out of work, they have also eliminated the chance of getting taxes, because they can't take the taxes out of a paycheck if he doesn't have one.

He does bring up an interesting point. right now many many people are employed to create and engineer these machines. but will it always be true.

what happens when we get to point when computers surpass us in intellect. when computers CAN design, create, and repair themselves.

don't dismiss this as some remote possibility. it's insane the advances we made in ai and processing power over hte past five years alone. i don't see this being all that far off.

do you think any company would hire architects if they could just have a computer do the job at a fraction of the cost? the same applies to just about any field once ai technology progresses far enough. Sure everything will be a lot cheaper

But what jobs are there for people left to do then. And without tax revenue, how can our government survive.

Edit

Has anyone here read the article in the American Perspective

Good Work
Job strategies for the new economy.
By Robert Kuttner

I just found it today and it talks precisely about this topic and reaches that conclusion that the government WILL need to redistribute our wealth at some point.

So far, menial jobs lost were replaced with more intellectual jobs. What happens when computers surpass us in every measure of intellect and can do any job including the professional jobs better?

I'm not saying that this will happen soon, just that WE WILL REACH A LIMIT ON NEW FIELDS AT SOME POINT And computers will eventually surpass us in doing intellectual jobs too.

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Our government will have to downsize as well. There is still far too much bureaucracy. Get rid of it - less taxes.......maybe.

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Luddites felt/feel this way, for ages now. As technology advances we get rid of menial labour. So there's one less garbage man, maybe he can be retrained to design a garbage truck to do it all by itself.
Once upon a time in america...........Women used to be employed by the thousands to iron clothes and sew button holes to make a living. Now they can be doctors. Things change, people will always find useful things to do. Have no fear!

Edited to make sense...........I hope! :wink:

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Revolution.

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What happens when there aren't jobs left for people to do?
-- Some people starve to death. Then there's JOB CREATION because the nation will need more gravediggers.

Sadly, I'm one of those who has lost a job. I'm not starving just yet, but keep your shovel handy.

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Dependence on the government and/or illegal activity.

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So far, menial jobs lost were replaced with more intellectual jobs. What happens when computers surpass us in every measure of intellect and can do any job including the professional jobs better?

How can we depend on the government if the government loses so much tax revenue from the unemployed??

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We all become prostitutes.

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They become prison guards to guard the prisons filling up with their former workmates.

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Wilso, There ain't gonna be any money in the government coffers to pay those prison gaurds.

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We'll ship 'em all to Oz. There kinda used to the criminal element down there. :wink:

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Ceili, Who's gonna pay the "shipping" cost? LOL

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But Equus, we think you are the wittiest smartest fella.

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Washington lobbyist.

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Until they invent food replicators, my chef biz is safe. In fact....when everyone else is out of work, they will need to learn how to grow and cook their own food...nobody will have any money, but barter works for me as well.

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Titus wrote:

Washington lobbyist.

I thought you had to be a wealthy campaign providor to get those jobs!

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Lawyers and former administration officials frequently fill these shoes.

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It was observed with the advent of the railroad that technology, while it was supposed to free us from the constraints of labor, simply raised the bar in terms of how much we are expected to accomplish during a working day.

In an ideal world, technology would gives us more of our basic necessities (all of us) with less input of labor, and we'd all be content with that. But, since it's not an ideal world, inequity will continue to be profligate, and us rich folk (I am an Amreekan, after all) will keep consuming until we run out of stuff to turn into new toys -- and the packaging we buy our new toys in -- or we run out of room and start dying.

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I do think this is a serious concern I am bringing up here.

In a decade or so, computers WILL be able to do intellectual jobs.

What then?

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Re: What happens when there aren't jobs left for people to d
The lesson of history is that technology creates more jobs than it destroys. If that were not true, we would have been out of work long ago. For example, power looms destroyed the cottage weaving industry but created a much larger textile industry based on factories. The human population expanded enormously after the Industrial Revolution because people became more productive. Most of the jobs we hold now did not exist before the steam engines of the Industrial Revolution. We created them.

The basic reason for this is that technology creates products and services cheaper, which creates more demand for them which creates more jobs. Not many people wanted to buy a $1000 Model T when they were hand-made but when they were mass-produced on the assembly line for $300 each, lots of people demanded them, creating a vast automobile industry that replaced and surpassed the horse-based technology.

That's why technology advanced markets, like the US, are fountains of employment while technologically backward markets, like the Middle East, are economic abysses.

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What happens when there aren't jobs left for people to do?

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