We need to decide as a society that jobs and a living wage are more important than GDP and efficiency (good luck).
I was thinking about this as I used an automated parking meter the other day.
Let's see...instead of paying a meter-maid and support staff good, union wages, we'll rip out all the old meters that had worked fine for 50 years and replace them with credit-card machines made in China...every swipe will send money to a bank somewhere else in the country that pays no taxes...we'll remove at least 100 jobs from our local economy...and we'll be create all sorts of waste from printed paper tickets. Brilliant!!!
It'd be funny if it weren't so tragic.
"Are jobs obsolete?" -CNN
-
jacob
- Site Admin
- Posts: 17120
- Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
- Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
- Contact:
In the Schumpeter/Kondratiev sense, we're in the winter period, which means that we're at the end of the last innovation cycle(*) which was the oil age.
(*) I think Schumpeter later abandoned the innovation cycle.
So now we're in a funk and we'll stay there until the next "resource" is dug out ... I'm not quite sure what that will be yet. I only have two candidates: information or biotech.
I think this also means that the things that cheap energy facilitated like lots of consumer junk to stuff into the walls, literally, walk-in closets, and cheap travel will go the way of the dinosaur (much like none of what currently surrounds us is built with impressive craftsmanship ... i.e. compare the boring clothing today with what it looked like 150 years ago) and be replaced by ...
The only problem in terms of using capitalism as a distribution model is that while the span between a hard manual worker as a lazy one is maybe a factor 3 in production, the difference between a creative genius and an average person is a factor hundred or beyond ...
[I sincerely doubt that humanity as a whole will wisen-up and adopt voluntary restriction to preserve their evolutionary/tribal roots, like e.g. the Amish or those dudes in Startrek 9.]
(*) I think Schumpeter later abandoned the innovation cycle.
So now we're in a funk and we'll stay there until the next "resource" is dug out ... I'm not quite sure what that will be yet. I only have two candidates: information or biotech.
I think this also means that the things that cheap energy facilitated like lots of consumer junk to stuff into the walls, literally, walk-in closets, and cheap travel will go the way of the dinosaur (much like none of what currently surrounds us is built with impressive craftsmanship ... i.e. compare the boring clothing today with what it looked like 150 years ago) and be replaced by ...
The only problem in terms of using capitalism as a distribution model is that while the span between a hard manual worker as a lazy one is maybe a factor 3 in production, the difference between a creative genius and an average person is a factor hundred or beyond ...
[I sincerely doubt that humanity as a whole will wisen-up and adopt voluntary restriction to preserve their evolutionary/tribal roots, like e.g. the Amish or those dudes in Startrek 9.]
I'm kind of in the Ray Kurzweil camp when it comes to the next innovation. Transhumanism, AI, etc. Maybe not true AI, but something that is close enough to pass as living. A good example is how Big Dog moves. That robot moves like a living thinking animal. We know it's not, but it's getting close to being "close enough." Go to 1:25 to see it on the ice (I'm sure many already have).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
Oh, please no Jacob. Not those crappy old uncomfortable clothes. My poorly made clothes last plenty long enough. I don't need stockings or leather shoes that were almost wooden in their build.
I would ask why do we need to preserve our evolutionary/tribal roots? Sure there is some good in it (tighter society), but there also is a lot of useless conflict from that model.
This graph ties in nicely to the conversation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... aphic.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
Oh, please no Jacob. Not those crappy old uncomfortable clothes. My poorly made clothes last plenty long enough. I don't need stockings or leather shoes that were almost wooden in their build.
I would ask why do we need to preserve our evolutionary/tribal roots? Sure there is some good in it (tighter society), but there also is a lot of useless conflict from that model.
This graph ties in nicely to the conversation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... aphic.html
Boston Dynamics also made the PETMAN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bJeeocJ ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dmR8G6Z ... re=related
Early stages:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX93nDOu ... re=related
Looks neat but I wouldn't upload my mind yet!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bJeeocJ ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dmR8G6Z ... re=related
Early stages:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX93nDOu ... re=related
Looks neat but I wouldn't upload my mind yet!
Intelligence is an emergent property that can be approximated from programming, but never duplicated in essence.
We should stop trying.
Some day all these masturbating scientists will actually have to produce something of value - ie food, shelter - in a way that doesn't destroy the world.
Thankfully Liebig's Law will put them out of business before long anyway.
</incendiary device off>
We should stop trying.
Some day all these masturbating scientists will actually have to produce something of value - ie food, shelter - in a way that doesn't destroy the world.
Thankfully Liebig's Law will put them out of business before long anyway.
</incendiary device off>
Emergent doesn't mean it's not possible to be duplicated. It also doesn't matter if it's real or just facsimile of intelligence for it to be useful on complex tasks.
Why should we stop trying? Just bury our heads in the ground?
Yes, scientists are completely useless and just caricatures of bond villains. Come on. The reason you get to write this is because of scientists...many scientists. From Da Vinci to Franklin to Edison to Tesla to whatever the names of the guys were in DARPA who made the first internet protocols. Yes, they make some tech that is both positive and negative. There is nothing humans do that isn't both positive and negative. A hoe plows a field and works wonders on a human head. Ignorance would only guarantee the negative.
Why should we stop trying? Just bury our heads in the ground?
Yes, scientists are completely useless and just caricatures of bond villains. Come on. The reason you get to write this is because of scientists...many scientists. From Da Vinci to Franklin to Edison to Tesla to whatever the names of the guys were in DARPA who made the first internet protocols. Yes, they make some tech that is both positive and negative. There is nothing humans do that isn't both positive and negative. A hoe plows a field and works wonders on a human head. Ignorance would only guarantee the negative.
We should stop trying because we are destroying the life-blood of our species through mistaken innocence. Maybe that is the end-game; and if so, then so it goes...if we aren't smart enough yet to determine what is useful and ennobling and what is useless and destroying, then we deserve the fate we get.
I would gladly give up my internet for clean water. But it is what it is; I'm here, so is all this. But that doesn't mean we have to keep making stupid decisions just because we can.
Restraint seems to be the one emergent property we can't even learn ourselves...so how could we ever program that into machines? Hmm.
I would gladly give up my internet for clean water. But it is what it is; I'm here, so is all this. But that doesn't mean we have to keep making stupid decisions just because we can.
Restraint seems to be the one emergent property we can't even learn ourselves...so how could we ever program that into machines? Hmm.