AP Investigation - Technology Killing Millions of Middle Class Jobs

[stephendare]

Jeffery, not disagreeing with what you are saying.  Technology is having a huge impact on the number of bodies needed in many areas and given past history or technology advances like the invention of power looms which created huge slums in England and the mechanization of agriculture in this country which forced share croppers off the land and into slums in US cities, the process of adjustment is ugly and hits people with the least education and income.

You are right to be concerned and even alarmed.

DogWalker and I, back on the same side of the street.

[KenFSU]

If you're not familiar with 3D printing:

[Lunican]

The Rise of the Permanent Temp Economy

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/the-rise-of-the-permanent-temp-economy/?src=recg

[buckethead]

Heard a bit about that on NPR yesterday, Lunican. Very interesting.

I think where Jeffrey gets it right is in projecting there will be a greatly lessened demand for overall labor, skilled and unskilled. This includes many 'creative' type positions in the near future.

In the future, controlling the means of production will be as important as ever. It might be the case that a new socio-economic system is required, or a massive reduction in population. (By what means? This is a scary question... and if I have pondered it, so have those who are much smarter than me, as well as more willing and capable of enacting policies to such an end)

Will the new technology serve all of mankind, or just a few? If history is any guide, it doesn't bode well for the masses. (unwashed or otherwise)

[Traveller]

To see one author's vision for the future after 3-D printing, read "Makers" by Cory Doctorow.  The novel is actually available for free (legally) on the author's website.

http://craphound.com/makers/download/

[cityimrov]

I once walked to Walmart and realized that I could buy several shelves of stuff with one paycheck.  That was unheard of in the past.  I also know that one visit to the ER could bankrupt me.  Doctors are expensive.

Half the country is automating.  The other half can't.  The part that is automating is becoming cheaper.  The part that can't is becoming more expensive. 

[Shwaz]

Imagine that 7 out of 10 working Americans got fired tomorrow. What would they all do?

It’s hard to believe you’d have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force. But that—in slow motion—is what the industrial revolution did to the workforce of the early 19th century. Two hundred years ago, 70 percent of American workers lived on the farm. Today automation has eliminated all but 1 percent of their jobs, replacing them (and their work animals) with machines. But the displaced workers did not sit idle. Instead, automation created hundreds of millions of jobs in entirely new fields. Those who once farmed were now manning the legions of factories that churned out farm equipment, cars, and other industrial products. Since then, wave upon wave of new occupations have arrived—appliance repairman, offset printer, food chemist, photographer, web designer—each building on previous automation. Today, the vast majority of us are doing jobs that no farmer from the 1800s could have imagined.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/12/ff-robots-will-take-our-jobs/all/