What do people do when there are no more jobs?

[kentuck]

When robots and automation do everything they used to do?

That appears to be the direction society is going and we should prepare today for that eventuality, in my opinion.

It doesn't have to be scary.

We should look at it as an opportunity to improve our society. We could improve our infrastructure, create new trails to enjoy nature, make new parks for recreation purposes, and "work" to make our world safer and more beautiful.

In order to do that, we would have to do away with the old order of capitalism. Workers that would be needed for the new "creative" jobs would be paid by the government. It would be a form of socialism.

That is my idea of how we must adapt to the new reality of less and less jobs.

[Salviati]

1. We will have it within our grasp to make our world a heaven or a hell.

Paradise or perdition, it's our choice whether we let our better natures guide us, or succumb to fear and prejudice.

[RKP5637]

3. K&R!!!! n/t

[Auntie Bush]

2. But where is the government going to get the money to do those things if very few

have jobs and pay taxes?

[yeoman6987]

5. That is a huge problem that doesn't fit the discussion at all.

[kentuck]

6. The capitalists will still be gathering all the wealth for themselves.

Capitalism is not going to disappear. They will just not be able to create enough jobs for our people. Politicians will have to muster the courage to tax them, unlike today.

[Warpy]

16. What wealth?

No jobs means no customers for the goods and services provided by automation and that means no income to the capitalists, no matter how efficiently those automated places turn out goods and services.

The money pump works from the bottom up, not the top down.

[brush]

28. Good thought. They probably figure China and India's middle classes, exponentially bigger than . .

our shrinking middle (probably non-existent by then), will be the consumers for all the product produced by robots and automation here, or whatever production that is still here and not off-shored.

Now, what to do with all those excess eaters here?

Anybody remember that movie "Soylent Green"?

[Warpy]

33. I don't think they've thought about it, at all

Business and economics today completely ignore the demand side of the equation, thinking the invisible hand fairy that regulates the markets without any laws will also supply people who are picking the money off trees to buy the products.

[brush]

36. Yep, "picking money off trees". You're probably right. They only think about more profit . . .

which getting rid of workers will bring.

No thought of the people out of work at all.

Just heartless.

And didn't Amazon just announce a grocery store coming without any human employees at all, all robots and automation?

[CK_John]

24. Money at the national level is a concept, when needed it shows up.

[kentuck]

25. They can start the printers up at anytime.

Their only concern is that they not inflate the economy.

[JHan]

4. It doesn't have to be scary, I welcome it-- our next great evolutionary step if we do it right.

[Calculating]

7. Do you want Star Trek or judge Dredd/Hunger games?

Whether or not we implement a universal income will determine which outcome we get.

[Rex]

8. Riot.

If it came down to no more need for human labor, the only thing left would be to riot. How else would people eat and live?

[Calculating]

10. The logic behind UI is this

Either the poor will turn to crime/riot and you need to spend money fighting that and jailing them, or you can pay them a universal income with some qualifications such as a mandatory 1 child policy or something like that. The end goal is a peaceful reduction in surplus population.

[Rex]

11. We don't seem to like peace that much.

Much easier to deny the problem and let it destroy the entire system one day.

[Blanks]

9. We still have to eat...

And we will be engaged in activities that consume energy, even if that energy consumption is just to distribute the food that we are eating.

So we need people capable of repairing those systems that grow the food and transport the food.

There will always be things for people to do. We need to be teaching (through actual experience) how things used to be made so that they understand what they need to do to survive if small break downs occur.

Because we are going to continue to have destructive natural disasters where people are cut off from civilization and need to know how to survive even if it's just for short periods of time.

That's my recommendation moving forward. Put wood shop, metal shop, sewing, home economics, gardening and livestock care back into our schools and daily lives. Even if we are just doing them for the entertainment value. That's what I'm doing, and I enjoy it.

[SamKnause]

12. Millions of us will die.

Wages have been flat for decades and production has been through the roof. (This did start to change for the better in 2015.)

I have never had a 40 hour per week job.

I have always had to work overtime.

They have been downsizing and automating for 25 years.

They get a new machine and they fire 1 person.

Now a worker has 2 machines to run, or oversee.

They add another new machine and fire another person.

Now a worker has 3 machines to run, or oversee.

I was up to 5 machines, plus inputting data on the computer to print tickets

for pallets, and turning in the final production count at the end of the shift.

I was also responsible for testing products that Quality Control flagged.

There could be as many as 40 pallets per shift.

We could have had an entirely different country if honest honorable people

ran our government, ran our corporations, ran our banks, ran our health care system, etc.

The wealthy are not interested in the 99%.

They just need a work force large enough to sustain their life style.

They do not care or think about the rest of us.

[Generic Other]

13. Subvert robots

That's what I will do.

[Raster]

14. Humans and our societies will have to evolve...

...and replace capitalism and the accruing of monetary wealth as our primary motivator with other motivators, such as the advancement of humankind and the guardianship of our planet.

[shraby]

15. It will have to be addressed, because if people don't work and earn money to spend, the

companies will soon have no one to sell their good to. They better start thinking of some way to put money in consumers hands and pronto.

[sarcasmo]

17. Universal basic income.

http://fortune.com/2016/11/06/elon-musk-universal-basic-income/

[KittyWampus]

34. If larger corporations were half owned by public and public got dividends

however infinitesimal from each- that would be a universal basic income.

[LisaM]

18. One thing missing (I think, anyway) from this argument

is that work can, and should, be rewarding. I worked in a bookstore for years and I absolutely loved it. I only left the job because I needed to move. I look back on that period in my life very fondly.

I also worked at a daycare for a few years, and I loved that, too. I would have stayed had the money been sufficient.

There are lots of people who enjoy working and being productive. It creates a moral satisfaction. I don't mean that we all have to drudge away in jobs that we don't like, but I think work itself is important.

Grocery store cashier jobs were, until a decade or so ago, good-paying jobs that people held for a long time and got decent pay and good benefits. It was social. They knew their customers and their neighbors. They were represented by unions. I used to love going to Safeway and running into them.

First they demeaned the job, now they are trying to eliminate it. This disconnects with the life I want to live. Also, automation is very invasive. That new Amazon store will track your every move.

[kentuck]

23. True.

And most of the jobs now being robotized are more menial jobs. These are the people that will need jobs. Many people find meaning and satisfaction in their jobs. In my opinion, work is good for society and good for the individual.

[Hoyt]

19. Somebody will design, maintain, program robots. Those will be good jobs. Services will still exist.

All though the "trade among ourselves" folks have been persuasive short-term, longer-term we will realize their a billions more people who will buy products from us and other countries will be good for just this reason.

We'll need some kind of guaranteed income for an increasing population, but there will still be lots of jobs. I don't see a robot crawling under my kitchen sink and installing a disposal, painting my house, policing the streets, teaching gun fanciers how to shoot people, etc.

[gulliver]

20. Get back to living life again.

I agree. It doesn't have to be scary. It is something we should be aiming for. Everyone wants to retire early and live like a kid again. Right now we divide up privileges using work, money, and wealth storage systems. That's already starting to show signs of being unworkable.

We will have to give up on the hard rule that people have to work in order to deserve to eat. When the robots are doing everything, that rule would mean no one deserves to eat.

We'll retire at birth. We'll work on things we want to work on. Consumption of limited common resources like Kauai will need queues. VR will be plenty good enough for most people anyway. Spending time with the people you want to spend time with is better than Kauai.

There are lots of problems with this picture, but we are already experiencing them with the world just being semi-automated.

[moondust]

21. Maybe AI will replace capitalist management

and proceed to replace rapacious, greed-based decision-making with a principled egalitarian paradigm.

[TwilightZone]

22. Well, that's partly why we've been shifting to a service-based economy for decades.

Credit card companies and banks, for example, can't automate everything. They've tried.

Robots and automation can't do everything. There will be restaurants, financial services, tourism, health care, education, etc., for the foreseeable future.

Of course, a lot of those jobs, particularly stuff like call centers, are relatively low-skilled and definitely low-paying.

That is, of course, part of the problem.

I agree - infrastructure repairs and improvements are a huge field of opportunity. A new version of the CCC or WPA, just preferably without the depression this time.

Problem is - the GOP wants to slash the size of government and that's an easy place to slash and burn.

[MineralMan]

26. Lots of them will die. That's what.

Seriously.

[Dems to Win]

27. It's a good question, one that's been asked by many factory towns already

It's also one reason some people are wanting to slow immigration. If we can plainly see a future without jobs, why do we need more people?

[SubjectiveLife78]

29. Probably anything you can think of

Whether that's becoming a self-actualized artist, or committing suicide because no individual or society in general needs you in any way whatsoever, we'll run the gamut. Like any era of humanity, the reality will be some messy combination of anything and everything.

[kentuck]

30. ???

Can you expound on that?

[SubjectiveLife78]

32. On what?

There are 7 billion+ people on the planet, and counting. There's at least one of any sort of human you can think of. We can see what the free time that the progress of civilization has afforded human beings can do, and if we're then further removed from the whole production part of the equation, to get even more lost in our abstract imagination, I'm sure at least some of us will go crazy.

I doubt it'll be utopia. I'm sure we'd get even more individualized, which comes with pluses and minuses, like anything else in life. We would all need each other even less than we do today. Driverless cars. Whatever Amazon is doing with grocery stores. We all even want solar panels on our houses, so that we're all energy independent. We all want to be off the grid, but completely dependent on a single mass system. We want the best of both worlds, without the downside of either one. Which, there's no reason to think that's physically possible. Get lost in YouTube videos. Virtual reality is coming, and I mean, as soon as we're all hooked into that, it's all over. Who is going to want to come out of that to deal with the bullshit of actual reality? If this is actual reality, which who even knows anymore.

We've been messing with the environment since we hunted with sharp sticks and picked berries, let alone become a species of only consumers, supported by a global machine that just produces. That's not really a setup for a decrease in our ability to shape the world in the interests of a single species.

Do you think it's going to be perfect when we're finally free from work? Everyone will be cool, and agree?

[kentuck]

37. ..."finally free from work"...

I think that could present a huge crisis for our country. There could be chaos, crime, and revolution.

If we want a better world, then perhaps we have to help plan it?

Why do we need robots anyway?

It is up to the younger generation to fix this problem. We have done all the damage we can do...

[Danascot]

31. You may find this article interesting

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028336166

[HughBeaumont]

35. This is America. It's GOING to be scary. There IS no other choice.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE.

Wealthy/rich/upper middle classers will never stand for being the only income earners taxed to subsidize the "useless eaters".

REPEAT. THEY WILL NEVER STAND FOR THAT.

Also, think of how many millions are going to feel depressed and worthless because so much of their life has revolved around working - at least when they went to a job and were valued, that meant something. To come home with a paycheck that they earned. Take that away and what do they have when they're evicted and forced to live like the Great Depression (because, sorry, bills don't stop when your work does) . . . nomadic and starving?

Guaranteed Minimum Income is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. NEVER. America is a loveless, bitter, paranoid, shit-horrible cruel fuck of a nation that steadfastly refuses to do the right thing for it's children and citizens thanks to dominion, masculinity and patriarchy.

We have one of the weakest social safety nets among industrialized nations and now even THAT's on the chopping block. They just elected a fucking CEO/Reality Star/Self-important billionaire ornament as president. That ornament is bringing on extreme neo-Fascists who are poised to make this nation a draconian two-class hellhole. Never mind ADDING what's needed; we'll be lucky if 80 years of progress doesn't go up in flames.

It's like I've been saying all along - "Given the choice between "Humanity" and "Not Inconveniencing Rich People", Americans choose the latter with stunning regularity". Even if it means shooting their own feet.

[kentuck]

38. Well, that 's an uplifting thought.

There's a new generation. The Baby Boomers are passing on.

Maybe they will make a better country?

[HughBeaumont]

39. Uh . . . more than a fair share of X-ers became GOP sellouts like their "Reagan Democrat" parents.

Progressive and Democratic hatred is apparently passed down like racism, sexism and misogyny is. Generation X (mine) has no excuse to be this politically dumbassed.

And what's the message here: "Be dishonest"? "Not care about what happens to the generation that's being handed the reins of the economy"? CEOs and the wealthy are building the moat and closing the drawbridge on these people. A millennial with 5-6 digits of student loan debt can't buy big or even medium ticket items.

Trumpenchancellor just appointed a fast-food CEO as his labor secretary. A guy who HATES LABOR and loves automation is now our LABOR SECRETARY. Trump himself has a record an arm long of stiffing small businesses, hating unions and employing low-cost workers.

Just yesterday, Trump reiterated his pre-campaign statement that American wages are too high. And I'm supposed to be confident that everything's going to be OK under this fucker????

[pipi_k]

40. When I look back

on the jobs I used to do, I can't think of even one that a machine could do. Not one.

So I'm not seeing this automation issue as a huge problem for very many people, and even for those whose jobs can be replaced by a machine, there are still plenty of options available, and new jobs that could potentially be created by switching to machines.

whether or not they're built here in the US, someone still has to repair them when they break down.

Also, as the Baby Boomer population ages, we will need, on various levels, caregivers and medical professionals, for the next 30 years or so, anyway. People my age are getting set to retire, and some have done so already. That means the non-machine jobs we used to do are becoming available to younger workers.

So, I'm sorry...I can't just fall into the Chicken Little stewpot whereby "we're all gonne DIIIIIEEEE!!!!" is the only option. Maybe I'm naive? I dunno. But looking at this issue from a different angle, I can't bring myself to see it as anything other than a problem that WILL have solutions if people are willing to see them.