Incredibly depressing, right as I head out the door to go to work. 5 Stars.

binro you are really harshing my mellow

How about selling the shit cheaper? How about letting people work fewer hours without losing pay? How about we not make twelve-year old migrant kids pick fucking okra in the blazing sun lest their families go hungry?

With the technology we have food, shelter & clothing and medicine should be abso-fucking-lutely free for everyone. People should not be suffering malnutrition anywhere in the world. Homeless people shouldn't have to huddle in alleyways between empty apartment buildings. People shouldn't have to live in pain because they can't afford medical care. Brilliant people who could probably make great contributions to humanity, should not have to waste their lives in toil or be crushed with debt to acquire knowledge. We are failing to advance as a species.

One of the earliest forms of taxation consisted of the people who raised crops & livestock giving a portion of their stock to the government who in turn gave it not only to the soldiers who kept the farmers safe, but to the thinkers and craftspeople so they could focus on advancing civilization rather than worry about where their next meal was coming from. We should be doing the modern equivalent.

But then rich fuckers wouldn't be able to lord their power of us, I suppose.

Basic income:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

I remember kind of joking about it with my boss at a little store I worked at; I think the self-checkouts hit the west and east coast before they got to the midwest and to him I might have as well been telling him that I saw a UFO. And while I argued that it makes the lines go faster, let's say you're buying something like beer or cigarettes and forget your ID and the shopkeeper recognizes you because you're a regular, well, forget about it being checked out by a robot.

But this was back in maybe 2001 or 2. The self-checkout machines were convenient but the supermarket was still staffed to the nines with not a single aisle not manned, and at least two people assisting people with the self-checkout, even at non-peak hours. I went to that same supermarket, during what I'd consider to be a peak hour, and there were 2 of 18 aisles open and only one person helping the self-checkers. And it's jobs at supermarkets and places like Safeway and Wal-Mart and Lowes that are usually the ones mentioned in presidential speeches which can create more jobs for those who may have become unemployed after 2008.

I'm fortunate to have a job right now that couldn't be replaced by robots because it's too spontaneous of a situation (I think) but I'll bet more people will start paying attention not when they get rid of tons of farmers or grocery store clerks, but when they make one that replaces things like Lawyers' jobs. And that's not improbable. Put all the knowledge of the law in a robot, and that's much more efficient than citing precedents off the top of your head. If the two law-bots can have a logical argument then, well, who needs Lawyers?

I mean, robots are cool. Down the line there could be more jobs available for people who can learn robotics than there are jobs in the service industry (or any line of work) right now, but that's sort of the thing you read about in science fiction. So sure, if I was a parent right now I'd get my kid into that field as soon as possible, but as the same parent I would also be thinking if I'd be able to afford the necessary education because I might be replaced by a robot any day.

All of that would be possible if we had followed rule #1 of the Georgia Guidestones. Instead, we're moving headlong into an unsustainable population explosion. There simply isn't enough bounty to go around anymore. What purpose will sophisticated robot slaves serve when there's no food for them to gently place into our waiting mouths?

Developed countries tend to have slower population growth and families tend to be smaller in size. When there are things like plenty of food and social safety nets, people don't feel compelled to crank out kid after kid so they'll have someone to provide for them when they're too old and broken down to work.

You can even see it by social strata. Low-income families tend to produce more kids. Middle & upper-income families tend to produce fewer. There are, of course, exceptions and the reasons are more than economical, but the fact is advanced technology and easier lives would more likely curb the population explosion rather than fuel it.

The irony is that I'll bet a lot of the people who would be affected by this used to work in car manufacturing shops, which were themselves outsourced to robots, so that's why they're working at places like Lowes.

I remember when I first started thinking about this. It was during the Y2K scare and they had to re-hire all these old guys to come in and fix the bugs on old ATMs that would reset the date back to 1900, probably the only legitimate thing to be worried about with that whole thing.

Further ironically, the supermarket I go to used to be 24 hours, and it does make sense to not fully staff your store at 2AM like you would 5PM. But that just made it easier for everybody on a beer run to just walk right out of the store past the automated checkers with pretty much anything they wanted (mostly beer) so they decided to close the store earlier than the bars closed to alleviate that instead of, I dunno, hire more people. And this is the company that's always on the State of Oregon employment office front page saying that they're always hiring new people.

IZ;

"fixing/making robots" wont be a replacement for even a fraction of the jobs they eliminate.

For one, robots aren't like 1940s cars, needing a tuneup every 3 months...they'll work for a year or more before anything breaks.

The cheapness of technology means that, aside from the most expensive robots, most will just be replaced, not fixed.

And it's not like every company will have a robot repair department. It will be contract work just like it is today...robot breaks down, they call the manufacturer to have their regions repair guy fly in...it will be one person covering the repairs on several thousand robots, which in turn replaced tens of thousands of humans....so about a 10,000 to 1 job exchange ratio.


In the end, it's all about increasing profits and concentrating wealth at the top.

Yeah, that's what I was implying. I mean, it would be cool if they made making robots as easy as operating a POS system (and some of them are pretty complicated) but I don't see that happening, at least not in any of our lifetimes. And lots of people, like myself, suck at math. It's just the way it is.

But there are other examples of this. Was I afraid I was going to lose my job at the movie theatre because people were using the website instead of going to the front to buy tickets, leaving me bored with nothing to do? Nope. Because people come off the streets, their tickets don't scan, things like that. But when I worked in another ticketing place, we were literally instructing our subscribers on how to manage their own accounts online which meant that we started terminating or laying off our workers. It was only a matter of time until my name was up next, and when it happened I can't say that I could really feel sorry for myself because I helped facilitate that process.

So I don't really know. Do I like my smartphone? Sure! But do I think about how millions of operators lost their jobs because people like me can just ask Siri? And how the companys that make maps are probably going under because you can just use google maps? Not really, until I saw this story.

Selling the shit cheaper?? That's a huge part of the problem. Consumer goods are cheaper than they've ever been, but a larger and larger portion of the profits are going to the .1%.

Tax high incomes (including capital gains and inheritance) at a 70-90% rate. Give the workers decent wages even if it means raising prices, and we'll be back on the track we were on for 50 years before Saint Reagan took office.

All CEO pay including stock options and real property must be limited to at most 100 times the pay of the lowest paid individual in the company.

Performance bonuses must be agreed to by a majority vote of the employees.

A CEO that leaves the company is entitled to the exact same severance package the other employees are entitled to.

Really, the technology isn't the problem -- it's the CEO's and upper management fucking over the rank and file employees. If my job were taken over by a machine they could probably find something else for me to do ... or I could continue doing my job in addition to the machine and thereby increase production while not increasing labor costs. But that will never happen because those fuckers don't give a rat's ass about you, your family, or even common decency.

They cut labor costs on the CFO's spreadsheet so their director buddies give them a huge bonus that they stick in the bank and forget about.

I've seen so much of this shit starting back when Reagan took office, companies using "the economy" as an excuse not to hand out raises and then hiring on the CEO's chums as VP of nose-picking or whatever at a huge wage.

My own experience was even fucking funnier. I was given my annual review and because I am awesome I was given a nice raise and signed off on it and everything. Then when it came time to start paying the raise they said there was no money because "economy" and then the next year they gave me a raise buy it was less than the previous raise which they never paid.

Meanwhile the CEO hired on two of his buddies from his previous company and nobody really knew what the fuck they even did.

Then that CEO left without really doing any good for the company and the directors brought in some other CEO who sold the company to another company (costing the shareholders 30%+ of their share value because "economy") and got a huge fucking golden parachute to do it.

Man the stories I could tell about this bullshit. You just wouldn't believe the sheer arrogance and stupidity rampant at the highest levels.

"Top executive talent" is one of the biggest horseshit phrases in the universe. Just one overmoneyed douche after another hopping from company to company and hoovering up obscene amounts of loot with every hop.

Yeah, it's all pretty stupid and staged. It's insulting that PBS goes around to golf-courses, Stanford and the Google "campus" to flounder with the rich and privileged, who predictably don't give a shit about anything as long as they make money. Save for those two guys, one who, thank god, actually mentioned poverty and hinted at the fantasy world American tech entrepreneurs live in.

We already have surplus labor, so I have no idea what our glorious leaders and elites have planned for us. They'll probably just decrease labor standards, pay us less, and shift more people to part-time and temp work. That way, if anyone complains, they can just can them and hire the next starving slave for a few months. Of course, after earning so little they'll be on food stamps so the government will, again, be subsidizing corporate capitalists, just like they say they don't want. This will all, naturally, cause massive unrest, leading to god knows what. It's already started, far as I'm concerned.

The robot doesn't care if it gets your job.

To someone in the third world, my job could be the difference between life and death for them and their family.

It would suck for me if I lost my job, but if it's unavoidable, I'd rather it go to a fellow human any day.

I don't actually have the sort of job that can be outsourced. A lot of it could conceivably be done by a machine, but a more likely scenario is it would go to someone willing to work cheaper.

If that happened, I wouldn't be angry at my replacement. I'd be angry at the circumstances that led to it.

But they wouldn't need suicide prevention nets for robots who would build future iphones.

c) 80% capital gains tax, Basic Wage

Not sure if c) is a joke or what, but 80% capital gains tax would be about 2-3 times higher than the next highest country in the world.

fine. 70%.


(in all seriousness, there needs to be a mix of various taxes, tariffs and bans to encourage and force a more equal distribution of wealth, in all countries. Aim for the 1% having at most 20% of the worlds wealth, instead of the current 90%)

This comment was stolen by Brian Harrod, who allegedly helped El Chapo escape from a Mexican Prison and has, so some have claimed, made death threats against Donald Trump.

Brian Harrod should be replaced by a robot.

Never seen one but I know what you're talking about. And that's fine; I guess it could be said that turn of the last century soda pop store people lost their jobs to vending machines too, and if people complained about the loss of the human touch it didn't seem to make much of a difference, but those people could easily get jobs at bars or other restaurants back in those olden times.

I was actually at a restaurant tonight and thinking about this. It was probably a dumb idea to go out to a place on a friday night next to a movie theatre just for a cup of chili and a beer, but was thinking that was a situation where one robot could come in handy. Among other things the place has a little kids' area (damn hipsters having kids) and was absolutely packed, every staffer doing their damnedest to keep the "please wait to be seated" area manned since they don't do reservations. A simple bot at the front with a map of the tables on it to call out a name that you enter once it's clear would save a whole bunch of frustration in the long run, and does make more sense than just having someone stand up there and not do anything else.

But like I said, it was full of kids running around and was relatively chaotic. The idea of having a robot, with a stop censor or not, possibly serving my food some day is something I don't think we'll ever have to worry about as long as people keep breeding.. oh jesus this just gets worse and worse. Skynet everybody!

this isn't an issue of technology.

technology doesn't do anything on its own (yet)

this is a problem of corporations using technology to increase their profits and dividends for a select few of the already-wealthy at the expense of the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands (eventually millions) of people.

while at the same time our society increasingly tilting to let the few suck up the wealth of the world, and punish those that, despite a desire to work, are "uncompetitive" because they want things like being able to afford food, shelter and sufficient income to raise a family.

this is a policy issue.

Newshour titles make it pretty easy :)

Man, you must have some strong political ties to pull anything off. Let us know if you can be used as a contact.

You don't know me.

Of course you're right, but you don't _know_ me.

Are you ever not full of spite?

In terms of lies fed to the working class, is the original ending really any better?

At least it was a BLATANT fairy tale ending.

Could be worse. It could have been The Secret of Happyness or The Internship.