Cheaper foreign labour doesn't make people obsolete. It makes blue-collar workers in the West obsolete.
Technology, in turn, will make that cheaper foreign labour obsolete; outsourcing manufacturing only accelerates the inevitable job losses that will happen.
That is not to say that outsourcing is a good thing, but blaming our problems on it ignores a large issue that we will face in the near future.
>cheaper labour make people obsolete,not technology.
I never thought of it that way. It would be interesting to see the change in average wages for the entire globe over the past 50 years considering how many relatively good paying industrial age jobs have been outsourced to serf and slave labor in "3rd world" areas
Indeed but I'm curious about the average wage rather than the standard of living. A decreasing average wage and increasing standard of living would indicate the obsolescence of wage labor.
The genie is out of the bottle. We created a cheap and easy way to communicate with anyone in the world, which also means an easy way to reach inexpensive labor markets.
There isn't really anything we can do about it. Creating all the laws in the world will only ensure the mass exodus of companies that want to compete globally.
Workers need to give a company a reason to hire them.
The issue is globalization and economic abuse by certain elites, not technology. While I don't personally think Trump is sincere given his history, people are voting for him because they want to end the trade policies that have been objectively hurting the country in order to enrich a certain small demographic.
Whoever wrote this article just pulled something out of their ass with enough trendy buzzwords and quotes to get readership.
Very similar things to today (just with a few of them mundane things removed):
Sports/Prostitution/(non-sexual paid)Companionship/Parenting/Baby sitting/Dog sitting (will never be automated).
Gambling/Consumption (will never be automated). With a large basic income compared to cost of living ratio, these might actually be people's day-day 9-5.
Politics/War (because ofcourse that isn't going anywhere in the next 35 years) - By 2050 we may see the first AI Senators though.
Creative endeavors: Dancing, Stage Performances, Movies, Books, Music (while computers can write, or make art, potentially any of the above, there will always be a higher appreciation for human creativity).
Writing and maintaining all this software (until that is automated - not by 2050 though).
Data-analysis to ensure these ML systems are doing the correct things (until that is automated - not by 2050 though).
Apart from that my bet is on academics. Humans will be full-time students (my personal career of choice). Hopefully more scientific research/advancement. Primarily theoretical endeavors, like philosophy, mathematics, theoretical physics (i.e. abstract thought - things that are not exclusively based on previously aggregated data).
Exploration/colonization. We are still the most adaptable machine/energy efficient machines (it is still unclear if curiosity can be built into a machine's "personality").
Note: I'm sure there will continue to be Amish 19th century societies, alongside the new Amish 20th century societies that will start to pop up.
Note: This is all given that we do not destroy civilization first. Automation / increased productivity isn't all good! It doesn't just mean you need fewer people to make more money. It means you need fewer people to attain your goals. Even if your goal is to hurt other people!
Note: This is also given there is a separation between humans and machines in 2050. Given the adaptability of our brains, it is conceivable to give it new input/output streams. For example, what happens if I were to implant a calculator-chip into my brain? Once I was trained to use that implant, could I multiply/divide arbitrarily sized numbers as quickly as a computer? If so, instead of implants, can we collectively edit the human genome to have these bio-chips grow into our bodies i.e. such that no future generation has to worry about "implants"?
It looks like this story was moderated ... it disappeared from the top 200 shortly after reaching the top five of the front page. While discussing politics can often make sane people fight a flame war, this article is in NewsWeek and offers an interesting historic perspective. I didn't submit it, but thanks to @chatmasta for pointing it out.
I, too, appreciated the historical perspective. I long for it. I would like to see more of it.
I'm anticipating that jobs won't get wiped out completely, but people will switch to having more customized services. I'm hoping that things like furniture will be much more customized to peoples' individual needs instead of being sourced from far away.
Users flagged it, which is the most frequent reason why stories drop in rank on HN, especially when the drop is precipitous. That's what happens when flags reach a critical mass relative to upvotes.
We sometimes turn off the flags when the article is unusually substantive. I'm not seeing that here though.
I wasn't blaming this on The Moderators but failed to differentiate between user moderation and official moderation. Sorry I was unclear.
I've seen other cases where stories dropped that fast, and while you didn't find a reason to "resurrect" it, I didn't see a reason for it to drop. It's obviously a community standard and we're (those who liked the history aspect) only a couple of voices, so all is fine. Thanks for answering!
>Somebody has to step up and lead us through this transition—rally us and help us all benefit from the great inventions of our time.
It seems here that the author is calling for some sort of Napoleonic figurehead to lead the way into the electric age and does not realize the meaning of "the medium is the message".
Paper-based, literate societies naturally form centralized hierarchies because that is the nature of the paper and printing press technologies. It is a one way flow of centrally controlled information where the end user has highly limited feedback to the source and so this is how rigid bureaucratic hierarchies were formed in the Roman, British, and French empires. They kept mountains of papyrus, parchment, or paper-based documentation in order to manage their militaries and colonies.
The electric medium is the opposite of that in many ways. Electricity is distributed (as opposed to centralized) and allows for feedback. So naturally, electric societies form distributed, flat hierarchies -- like that of many non-literate nomadic tribal cultures. There is no use for the Napoleonic figurehead in the electric age. This tribal design is implemented by terrorist organizations whose most effective tools use the electric medium (i.e. cell phones, remote IEDs, and of course the insatiable coverage they receive on television).
I agree with this, but I read that line as meaning that there needs to be a politician that can communicate a technology focused long-term view of the economy.
All of the US candidates are using social media effectively to communicate their message, but none of them actually understand technology (witness how they talk about encryption). It would be good to have a politician that could talk about the vision of where the economy is truly going.
Sanders' projects that he's telling "the truth" but his vision of rolling back the economy to the good old days is naive. But it's not surprising that a 74 year-old would lean that way.
None of this should be surprising because the main way that politicians use technology is to target their voters.
21 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 51.3 ms ] threadTechnology, in turn, will make that cheaper foreign labour obsolete; outsourcing manufacturing only accelerates the inevitable job losses that will happen.
That is not to say that outsourcing is a good thing, but blaming our problems on it ignores a large issue that we will face in the near future.
I never thought of it that way. It would be interesting to see the change in average wages for the entire globe over the past 50 years considering how many relatively good paying industrial age jobs have been outsourced to serf and slave labor in "3rd world" areas
There isn't really anything we can do about it. Creating all the laws in the world will only ensure the mass exodus of companies that want to compete globally.
Workers need to give a company a reason to hire them.
Whoever wrote this article just pulled something out of their ass with enough trendy buzzwords and quotes to get readership.
One has to wonder what jobs would 10 billion people we are going to have in 2050 be doing.
Sports/Prostitution/(non-sexual paid)Companionship/Parenting/Baby sitting/Dog sitting (will never be automated).
Gambling/Consumption (will never be automated). With a large basic income compared to cost of living ratio, these might actually be people's day-day 9-5.
Politics/War (because ofcourse that isn't going anywhere in the next 35 years) - By 2050 we may see the first AI Senators though.
Creative endeavors: Dancing, Stage Performances, Movies, Books, Music (while computers can write, or make art, potentially any of the above, there will always be a higher appreciation for human creativity).
Writing and maintaining all this software (until that is automated - not by 2050 though).
Data-analysis to ensure these ML systems are doing the correct things (until that is automated - not by 2050 though).
Apart from that my bet is on academics. Humans will be full-time students (my personal career of choice). Hopefully more scientific research/advancement. Primarily theoretical endeavors, like philosophy, mathematics, theoretical physics (i.e. abstract thought - things that are not exclusively based on previously aggregated data).
Exploration/colonization. We are still the most adaptable machine/energy efficient machines (it is still unclear if curiosity can be built into a machine's "personality").
Note: I'm sure there will continue to be Amish 19th century societies, alongside the new Amish 20th century societies that will start to pop up.
Note: This is all given that we do not destroy civilization first. Automation / increased productivity isn't all good! It doesn't just mean you need fewer people to make more money. It means you need fewer people to attain your goals. Even if your goal is to hurt other people!
Note: This is also given there is a separation between humans and machines in 2050. Given the adaptability of our brains, it is conceivable to give it new input/output streams. For example, what happens if I were to implant a calculator-chip into my brain? Once I was trained to use that implant, could I multiply/divide arbitrarily sized numbers as quickly as a computer? If so, instead of implants, can we collectively edit the human genome to have these bio-chips grow into our bodies i.e. such that no future generation has to worry about "implants"?
EDIT - Found it at position 695
I'm anticipating that jobs won't get wiped out completely, but people will switch to having more customized services. I'm hoping that things like furniture will be much more customized to peoples' individual needs instead of being sourced from far away.
We sometimes turn off the flags when the article is unusually substantive. I'm not seeing that here though.
I've seen other cases where stories dropped that fast, and while you didn't find a reason to "resurrect" it, I didn't see a reason for it to drop. It's obviously a community standard and we're (those who liked the history aspect) only a couple of voices, so all is fine. Thanks for answering!
The right to be supported VS the right to work
It seems here that the author is calling for some sort of Napoleonic figurehead to lead the way into the electric age and does not realize the meaning of "the medium is the message".
Paper-based, literate societies naturally form centralized hierarchies because that is the nature of the paper and printing press technologies. It is a one way flow of centrally controlled information where the end user has highly limited feedback to the source and so this is how rigid bureaucratic hierarchies were formed in the Roman, British, and French empires. They kept mountains of papyrus, parchment, or paper-based documentation in order to manage their militaries and colonies.
The electric medium is the opposite of that in many ways. Electricity is distributed (as opposed to centralized) and allows for feedback. So naturally, electric societies form distributed, flat hierarchies -- like that of many non-literate nomadic tribal cultures. There is no use for the Napoleonic figurehead in the electric age. This tribal design is implemented by terrorist organizations whose most effective tools use the electric medium (i.e. cell phones, remote IEDs, and of course the insatiable coverage they receive on television).
All of the US candidates are using social media effectively to communicate their message, but none of them actually understand technology (witness how they talk about encryption). It would be good to have a politician that could talk about the vision of where the economy is truly going.
Sanders' projects that he's telling "the truth" but his vision of rolling back the economy to the good old days is naive. But it's not surprising that a 74 year-old would lean that way.
None of this should be surprising because the main way that politicians use technology is to target their voters.