The trend is unmistakable and cannot be reversed. Robotics will increasing do jobs that humans used to do. Far fewer people will be needed to create the robots than will be displaced by them.
The marked characteristic of today’s US manufacturing paradigm is the preference for robotic labor over manual labor. The benefits are obvious: 24/7 production, lower costs of “labor,” and more precise assembly. Robots can produce faster, better, and cleaner than humans can.
Google’s driverless cars now officially licensed in Nevada.
It’s only a matter of time until trucks on freeways have no human driver. A driver-less triple UPS truck could go from a terminal next to I-15 in Las Vegas straight up that interstate and drive itself into another terminal in Salt Lake City. The I-15 is mostly empty. I predict robotic trucks will soon be commonplace.
Finally, 3D printing will revolutionize everything and put many out of work. 3D printers are on the verge of being able to duplicate themselves and all you need to create something on a 3D printer is the CAD instructions, which will probably be on the Internet.
Watch the video in Crowdfunding meets 3D printing for guns. They talk about how 3D printing will make gun control, borders, and patents obsolete. This is not hyperbole. Nor is saying that robotics are about to unalterably change manufacturing and distribution, and eliminate millions of jobs.
The technocrats who design and make the robotics will prosper. But what about everyone else? And will they have the money to buy what the robots create?
We may be the most powerful country militarily, but economically and politically we look more and more like the third world: a banana republic being exploited by the uber-rich for resources and cheap labor, to build products that will largely be sold somewhere else. Do the technocrats care if we can afford to buy what they produce, if they can sell it to the EU, China, and Japan?
Meanwhile, an important trend has begun, and is likely to continue: increased self-employment and community networking. This is *our* wave of the future. I’m able to buy more and more of my food produced right here in my own county.
And when the price of our heavily-subsidized, artificially-cheap diesel fuel (inevitably) returns to world market price, those trucks will stop rolling. It will no longer be economical for Wal-Mart to sell us cheap goods from China. We’re going to have to make what we need close enough to home to be economically worthwhile… or go without. *That* is an employment program!
Not to say that the transition will be pretty or easy, but it will make a lot more sense than us paying taxes to subsidize a system that inherently ships our jobs somewhere else!
I don’t think I could have said it better myself. Pretty soon all those things they tell us we need to buy on tv won’t be what we’re buying anymore. Only the necessities.
Its like that new progressive commercial she gets the point pretty fast doesn’t she?
Its hard to deny but the point you are making is clear. The sad truth is the desire is from selfishness and imperialism not the thought of doing good to mankind. What can be done to stop it?