TAX THE ROBOTS

"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction) 03/11/2019 at 09:50 • Filed to: None

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“We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work. We should not feel nervous about the tollbooth collector not having to collect tolls. We should be excited by that. But the reason we’re not excited about it is because we live in a society where if you don’t have a job, you are left to die,” she said.

“We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in. Because not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage.”

Wealthy robot owners, she added, could be taxed by as much as 90%. Ocasio-Cortez cited comments by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who suggested that robots should pay the taxes for the people they replace, although he didn’t name a precise figure. “What [Gates is] really talking about is taxing corporations at 90%, but it’s easier to say: ‘Tax a robot,’” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Let’s ignore her partisan rhetoric for the moment, and go to the main point. People have talked about a universal basic income for a long time. Seems like it might be something that will have to be considered as more jobs are automated out of existence, however, unemployment in the U.S. remains very low and “wages and salaries rose 3.1 percent in the third quarter, the biggest increase in a decade, according to the Labor Department”. So, as some jobs disappear, others are created. That said, about 12% of Americans are still living below the poverty rate, and many more aren’t earning what would be considered a “living wage” (a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that half of all workers earn above $18 and half earn less than $18 an hour; a study by the Brookings Institution suggest that two-thirds of full-time workers earn at least a living wage ).

Thoughts? How do we proceed if and when many more jobs are automated out of existence? Will there always be new jobs created to fill the gaps? Related: how to deal with growing wage/wealth disparity?

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Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 09:57

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Certain jobs will never be automated. These aren’t even jobs that require degrees, and many of them pay surprisingly well.

The median pay for a plumber? 50,620.

Electrician? 51,880

Telcom technician? $53,606

None require a college degree. These are just jobs that are very difficult, and potentially impossible to automate to the point that the best machine is a human and that is very unlikely to change. They just aren’t seen as “good” jobs because they are blue collar.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 03/11/2019 at 09:59

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Gotta be willing to work! Love Mike Rowe’s campaign related to this. 

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:06

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You mentioned it, but universal basic income will become a necessity because at some point we will have automated all production. I think we are approaching that point faster than people think. Look how much has changed in just 50 years, think about where we’ll be in another 50. Once true AI is achieved A LOT of jobs will disappear quickly.

You ask this if there will always be new jobs to fill the gap...and I would say no. New tech or industry that develops will be developed with AI and automation as part of the process. I honestly think the next century will be where we meet a fork in the road for humanity and we either turn towards a future universe like Star Trek where humanity has eliminated poverty and jobs are basically pursuits to better yourself or humanity, not to put food on the table or pay for medical bills. Or we head towards a world where there are a very few people who own all the wealth (since they own the robots) and everyone else lives at or near poverty.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 03/11/2019 at 10:08

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never be automated

I would be wary of using never. Maybe not in our lifetime, but it’s probably closer than you think. These types of jobs will be the last to be automated though, that’s for sure.

BigBlock440 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:08

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There will always be jobs for people to move into as long as there are people willing to spend money on a product or service. Universal basic income sound good in on the surface , but there have been many trials in countries that have proved otherwise, Finland most recently . It is also based on the assumption that inflation won’t rise to match, but we have a ton of examples where a guaranteed, government backed, payment just leads to increased costs (college, healthcare, government contracts) and there’s no reason to think that wouldn’t happen if everyone suddenly had an extra 10, 20, 40k each year, and nobody would be better off.

My bird IS the word > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:18

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Decrease the population via natural attrition.  Reduce pollution, habitat destruction,  unemployment,  scarcity, and problems arising from urban overcrowding. 

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 10:22

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Robots are very good at doing repetitive tasks in set environments. Gotta put a resistor on those two pads? Robot will do it great! A thousand times per minute no less!

Robots are NOT good at doing unusual tasks in a strange environment. Tail light on that truck is flickering? Cables coated in mud and road grime? Might be a bulb, might be the socket, might be the switch, might be all three, might be none of the above. A robot is very poorly suited to the task, but a guy with a multimeter and basic troubleshooting skills is.

The caveat there is that human OPERATED robots are excellent replacements for dangerous environments. A soldier took 19 years to produce and train up, lose him and you still have to pay out survivor benefits and such to his family . An EOD robot gets destroyed? Write a PO. No letters to notify family. There is still the soldier, but the soldier is no longer the expendable replacement item. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 10:23

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A lot, yes, but t here will always be some jobs that automation can’t replace.

Also, see Elon Musk’s quote about robots: “Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated. ”  

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > My bird IS the word 03/11/2019 at 10:23

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Are you calling for mass sterilization? 

marshknute > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:29

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AOC is an idiot. John Oliver had the correct take on automation:

Automation eliminated outdated jobs and opens up the door for new ones. Try explaining to a farmer from 1900 that his grandson will be a Search Engine Optimization Specialist.

It might also help if we stop disparaging timeless blue-collar jobs (plumber, electrician, etc) and instead start discouraging kids from taking $250K in student loan debt for their useless Womens’ Studies degrees. Anyone, of any age and any skill set, can go to a trade school and begin a stable career as a plumber.

As for the “living wage” argument, you can’t just mandate higher minimum wages to cure poverty. Seattle tried that when they switched to $15/hr, and it resulted in employees making an average of $125/mo less thanks to reduced hours and layoffs. Not to mention it only accelerates the rise of automation by forcing every business to lay off as many cashiers as possible in favor of self-checkout machines. We’re already seeing the same thing happen here in NYC now that we’ve adopted $15/hr as well.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > BigBlock440 03/11/2019 at 10:31

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I think you’re right - as long as there are enough people with enough money and leisure time to necessitate more jobs in service industries and in developing and creating new products , things should work themselves out, but in order for this to work, there needs to be a balance and a strong middle class. If those able to spend time and money on leisure or “want” purchases decreases, then those jobs won’t be there, and automation will continue to chip away at the jobs that can be replaced by robots or computers.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 03/11/2019 at 10:35

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You’re assuming robots will still be controlled by code written by people...AI is the future and probably closer than we think.

The human brain computes at 1 exaFLOP, current super-computers work in the petaFLOP range. That’s only 3 orders of magnitude of difference and considering computer performance increases by an order of magnitude every 5 years or so we are only 15-20 years away from a super-computer having the calculating power of a human brain, which means it could theoretically think like a human.

Once we have true AI, robots will not be limited to just repetitive tasks.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > marshknute 03/11/2019 at 10:38

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Think of all the poor horse-shit scoopers!

I definitely agree on bringing shop back into schools and encouraging more to go into trades. People do have to be willing to work hard, though...

Good point about rising minimum wage encouraging businesses to automate. Unintended consequences can be a bitch. 

Future next gen S2000 owner > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:38

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The only way I see the wage/wealth disparity going away is through significant tax increases and a law regulating the max/min pay ratio at a company.

I’m in favor of a UBI but that will mean price controls. Money will effectively lose it’s value. It is complicated and many nuances to work through but it’s the only way forward I see.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:38

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A lot, yes, but there will always be some jobs that automation can’t replace.

People keep getting hung up on this...yes this is our reality now, but we are fast approaching a point where computers will be able to match human brain power, when that happens, theoretically, robots will be able to do any job a human can.

Future next gen S2000 owner > BigBlock440 03/11/2019 at 10:39

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People will always consume products and services but what happens when you don’t need people to create those products or provide those services?

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > marshknute 03/11/2019 at 10:41

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John Oliver had the correct take on automation:

His take is correct for now, that is until we get to the point that we automate thinking. Once AI matches human brain performance there really is no job that a human could do that a robot couldn’t.

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:41

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Be great if we reduced the population by starting with putting the Nazis where they belong; in the ground.

Future next gen S2000 owner > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:42

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Not today, but in the future, yes. Musk was wrong in his timing. Our current generation of robots can’t handle pure automation but 2 or 3 generations from now, absolutely.

With 20 years of AI and more advanced programming, I don’t think their will be a job a robot can’t do.

Once a robot starts writing code, it will all move at a much faster rate.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 10:42

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Your theoretical robot plumber intrigues me. =)  

marshknute > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:42

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While the Fight for $15 has been a dud, I still see no reason why we shouldn’t raise the minimum wage to reflect the modern day poverty line (like it was originally intended) and allow it to rise accordingly with inflation.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:44

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Lol. I mean everything is theoretical until it’s not. The point is that we are close to having the hardware ready, it’s just a matter of the code at that point.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Future next gen S2000 owner 03/11/2019 at 10:52

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I don’t begrudge anyone who earns, through their own ideas and/or hard work, riches beyond measure, but when this person’s great-grandchildren are still living off the fat provided by their distant ancestor, something’s gone wrong.

The application of UBI would be very challenging. If it’s just money (and not an allotment of housing and food along with it), what do we do with the person who blows all of their money on drugs or gambling? The point of UBI would be to replace all of the current social safety net, but in order to do that, it needs to be provided in such a way that basic needs will be provided for. 

For Sweden > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:55

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Perhaps we can proceed as we did when mechanization removed so many manual labor jobs?

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 03/11/2019 at 10:55

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Well, I didn’t expect this to turn into a Civil War II discussion, but okay.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, in this country, we don’t kill people for what they think (or say). 

For Sweden > marshknute 03/11/2019 at 10:56

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Fight for Fifteen is a enormous success for the power of alliteration.

marshknute > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 10:56

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I think it’s really naive of you to think we can automate everything.

All automation does is streamline old jobs and open the door for new ones. Try explaining to a 1900’s farmer that his grandson will be a Search Engine Optimization Specialist.

And don’t forget that while a utomation replaces unnecessary employees, it ramps up production so much that expansion is inevitable, thus creating more jobs. McDonalds’ kitchens can run with minimal staff, but there are 36,000+ restaurants worldwide.

Future next gen S2000 owner > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 10:58

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I guess I see that no differently than someone who blows their money on it now. It’s on them. It should be enough that a reasonable, responsible person can live comfortably on it. If you choose to spend it all on gambling, you get to live on the street. If you choose to spend it on a huge house, that’ s on you.

I’m a fan of personal responsibility. G iving someone enough rope to hang themselves with it if they so choose.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 11:00

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Honestly, I think the hardware is a big part of the challenge. J ust imagine all of the potential different jobs a plumber might encounter on an given day. How complex would a robot have to be in order to carry out all of these varied tasks?

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > marshknute 03/11/2019 at 11:07

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Yes, it definitely needs to be adjusted and set to track inflation so we don’t have to have these big fights every few years.

I’ve never considered that the minimum wage should be a “living wage”. It’s for high-school aged kids and maybe those taking on a second job for additional income, but unfortunately, there are too many making only minimum wage and trying to live on it. Not sure of the solution.

Azrek > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 11:10

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I’ve mentioned this on here before...We are starting towards how Saudi Arabia approaches their workforce and economy.
Saudi imports almost all of their labor and the Saudi citizens have a basic income. However, the Saudi youth, have 0 work skills or understanding of working. The country instituted what is called Saudization. This means 15% of your workforce has to be Saudi.
The issue now is the Saudi citizens want to be the CEOs, VPs or head of the board and not the nug workers as they are Saudi citizens. They, of course, have 0 skills...beyond just being.
So what the Imported labor has resorted too is having a Saudi citizen on their payroll and paying them to not show up. It is wild to see in person.

I personally advocate for a work skills program for some folks or more Trade Schools or Internships in real jobs instead of the service industry being our #1 industry. 

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 11:12

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I’m not saying we’ll be automating those jobs within 20 years, but in 100, its possible if not likely . 100 years ago we had just barely begun flying and most homes didn’t even have electricity yet.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Future next gen S2000 owner 03/11/2019 at 11:12

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“ If you choose to spend it all on gambling, you get to live on the street.” If our country becomes Socialist enough to have UBI, I can’t imagine that they’ll leave anyone out in the cold, regardless of what poor choices they’ve made.

And t here will always be some, sadly,  that will refuse any help whatsoever.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > For Sweden 03/11/2019 at 11:16

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Service industries will definitely continue to grow, but in order for this to work, the balance of wealth needs to be such that, along with a strong middle class, there are plenty with the money and time to spend on leisure and “conspicuous consumption”. Thankfully wages are starting to increase, but it still seems like things are out of whack.   

My bird IS the word > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 11:20

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Don’t need to. Reproduction  trends in developed nations are already reaching negative trends. I say that they encourage and incentivize it.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 11:21

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And 50 years ago, we were supposed to have flying cars. =)

I look forward to great technological advancement in the second half of my life, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

The Boston Dynamics folks are sure fun to follow. 

facw > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 11:21

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I think ultimately some sort of universal basic income will be required. There’s a question of what’s the b e st way to ease into that, and how to create incentives for future innovation, but I think it is inevitable that we will be able to build robots/AI to do enough tasks that a large portion of the population will be boxed out of good employment.

I don’t think it makes any sense to try to slow or stop that onslaught, it’s a huge boon to society in general, but I think we need to make sure everyone gets to share in that boon, instead of having the people who control capital reap nearly all the rewards.  

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Azrek 03/11/2019 at 11:33

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Ugh... I hope not.

I definitely agree with you that more emphasis needs to be given to trade schools, internships & apprenticeships, but anyone following these paths has to be willing to work hard. I hope enough of our next generation is.  

fintail > marshknute 03/11/2019 at 11:34

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The claims of negative impacts in Seattle are tenuou s at best (even more than the self-made bootstrapper fairytale that is so widely and insanely embraced even in this new belle epoque):  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/05/raising-the-minimum-wage-doesnt-cost-jobs-multiple-studies-suggest/?utm_term=.a9a16b1cc999

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/economy/minimum-wage-increases-in-six-cities-working-as-intended-berkeley-study-of-food-service-jobs-finds/

http://fortune.com/2017/06/27/seattle-minimum-wage-study-results-impact-15-dollar-uw/

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-24/what-minimum-wage-foes-got-wrong-about-seattle

Automation is coming no matter the wage. Much of the self-serve kiosk movement was born long before these marginal minimum wage hikes.

Imagine if the minimum wage enjoyed by young workers of the luckiest generation in ~1968 had been tied to inflation.

BigBlock440 > Future next gen S2000 owner 03/11/2019 at 11:34

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Then demand for those would dry up, and people would find other means to make money.

fintail > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 11:35

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And trade schools also aren’t free.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > facw 03/11/2019 at 11:35

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It’s an interesting exercise to consider what our society would look like if most don’t have to work most of their waking hours just to live...

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > My bird IS the word 03/11/2019 at 11:41

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Interesting take. Plenty of places are currently incentivizing baby- making to try to get back up to the 2.1 “replacement rate”, but if productivity by way of automation is high enough, and the taxes on businesses are able to match the taxes brought in by young workers (to fund care for an  aging population), then you might be on to something. It appears, however, that you’re encouraging the eventual extinction of the human race.

Are you yourself a robot... ?

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > fintail 03/11/2019 at 11:43

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Yup, just considerably cheaper. Also:

“ Opting for a trade school instead of a traditional college or university doesn’t mean you’re not eligible for federal financial aid. Trade school students can receive Pell Grants and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants – free money that doesn’t need to be repaid.”

BigBlock440 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 11:45

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Sure, but it will be a slow enough pace that it won’t make much difference in the foreseeable future.  Automation takes a lot of space, a lot of time, and a lot of money to get to complete automation, the more variety you have, the more of everything else it takes.  As long as people will pay for customization, it’ll be cheaper and easier to have a person do it than to try and teach a bunch of robots all of the potential combinations.  It’s not going to happen overnight, and people have been discussing this same topic for decades.  My entire job is figuring out how to make more with less people, automation is a big part of that, but it’s a marathon, not a sprint.  I would be very, very surprised if we reach the point that your discussing in any of our lifetimes.

fintail > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 11:45

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Emphasis on this needs to be made from a younger age too, like maybe 10th grade.  Other countries who still have a more solid working class have a greater emphasis on skilled trades and vocational training than the bizarre American/Canadian “must go to college” cult.

Shankems > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 11:48

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We will proceed as we always have . We’re going to have near 100% employment as more people shift into a permanent underclass that slaves at terrible service jobs that pay just enough to get by. Gov programs will cover more and more of the remaining gap. The disparity in wealth will be greater than at any time in the past with a few % and their family living as near gods in perpetuity .

Society should strive for as many people in it to have a have a “good” life as possible .   The real question is, what do we collectively collectively define as “good”, and can it be afforded . Some would say that if people aren’t starving to death, then that is that.

This only pertains to the a lready developed world. Africa and it’s peers are out of luck.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > fintail 03/11/2019 at 11:48

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$1.40 in 1967 equals $10.69 in 2019. It’s unfortunate it wasn’t tied to inflation long ago. 

“ In 2014, about 1.3 million U.S. workers age 16 and over earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Another 1.7 million had wages below the federal minimum. Together these workers make up 4 percent of all hourly paid workers.”

I wonder how many of those 1.7 million (waiters, I assume) actually ended up making less or near the minimum after tips. 

BigBlock440 > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 11:51

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That’s only 3 orders of magnitude of difference and considering computer performance increases by an order of magnitude every 5 years or so we are only 15-20 years away from a super-computer

Um, about that...

https://www.cnet.com/news/moores-law-is-dead-nvidias-ceo-jensen-huang-says-at-ces-2019/

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/moores-law-really-is-dead-this-time/

They’ve been running into limitations on what the materials can do, the layers in the chips are down to a few nm thick, a handful of atoms, and unless a major breakthrough with a different material happens, processing power won’t happen at the same rate it historically has.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > fintail 03/11/2019 at 11:52

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Yes, there are way too few “shop” classes in high schools any more.

Have your local plumber/welder roll up to the school in his new Corvette and give a talk, and maybe you’ll help convince some!

My bird IS the word > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 12:07

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How does that encourage extinction? If you can naturally bring the world population down from 3 billion to around say... 500 million I guess? This would be over the course of say...3 00 years? S ome math would be involved to find a good balance . Then re-incentivize births at a rate that maintains population.

There used to be a benefit to having a large population. Since we have removed most causes of premature death, and reduced the need for a large workforce to promote/staff industrialization, there is little need for everyone to be pumping out babies.

The problem is, this gets deep into dystopia/sci-fi horror territory, as reducing population is usually associated with mass murder, dictatorships, and eugenics. It’s really an unfortunate The U.S and China both have shown to be moving closer to having neutral and negative birth rates just by gentrification.

Also, this would imply global cooperation. Which is a very rare situation in itself.

fintail > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 12:12

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It’s funny, when I was a little kid, I had a brief interest in household plumbing systems, and I loved examining the piping in houses under construction. Maybe I should have ran with that, maybe wouldn’t have had student loans to pay off over a 10 year period (but are now a virtual necessity for any kind of corporate job). In a disturbingly housing-linked economic system, if you are lucky enough to own a good business, you can effectively mint your own money.

fintail > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 12:14

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And countless millions don’t earn a wage equal to that 1967 number adjusted for inflation, while those who pretend they built it all themselves made out fine with those relatively higher wages when they were starting out.

It’s really a crime how such wages haven’t adjusted over time, and it is an area where the US lags much of the developed world - low wages and a threadbare safety net as the socio-economic gap reaches pre-depression levels, and economic mobility withers. However, when people are brainwashed with TEM syndrome, it will never change.

Tristan > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 12:18

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https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm

7+ million unfilled jobs... Why would I feel obligated to pay a living wage for someone unmotivated to see their career grow beyond a minimum wage job? At what point can we accept that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink? I do think we need to put shop classes back in our schools and stop telling kids they HAVE to go to college, but the opportunities for the motivated are limitless.

Have I mentioned I’m a high school drop- out?

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > BigBlock440 03/11/2019 at 12:36

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From that second article

The use of alternative materials, different quantum effects, or even more exotic techniques such as superconducting may provide a way to bring back the easy scaling that was enjoyed for decades, or even the more complex scaling of the last fifteen years

There’s always another solution to the problem, from quantum computing to things like this

Moore’s law is dead for traditional chips, but probably not for computing in general.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > marshknute 03/11/2019 at 12:38

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You’re thinking of automation as it is today...a fixed repetitive thing with a static code. True artificial intelligence can change its own code as it see fit (i.e. learn), so once AI is on par with humans there is literally no job a human could do that a robot couldn’t with the right accompanying hardware.

And your assumption on expansion only works as long as there are more customers. Once you have too much supply you can’t expand any more.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 12:49

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I would argue we already have flying cars...we just call them helicopters. :)

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Azrek 03/11/2019 at 12:58

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They, of course, have 0 skills...beyond just being.

That’s kind of on them and their parents though isn’t it? If you have the means and the time you can learn anything you want to. I say i f we produce enough to support the population let the people who are content with just being just be. Let the people who actually have drive and want to accomplish something do just that.

Azrek > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 13:10

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At that point it is the perception of the country...as well as the development of the next and future generations of lazy folks.
It can be debated that the Romans also were extremely lazy at certain times in their history and imported labor who later sacked the area and Rome went into decline....and later vanished, but Italy and some of the foreigners remained to form a new country from the ashes.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Tristan 03/11/2019 at 13:37

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This is a very good point. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 14:00

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Well... Sikorksy was flying in ‘39, well before many of these predictions about flying cars.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > My bird IS the word 03/11/2019 at 14:04

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Was just a joke, and “e ventual” . If humans reproduce at a rate below the replacement rate, eventually (very, very far in the future) we’ll all go away.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > My bird IS the word 03/11/2019 at 14:08

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If from today, every future couple would have only one child, the population would halve every generation.

“ T here are about 7 billion people at the moment, so it would take about 33 generations for the human race to die out. That’s about 800 years, maybe a little longer. For the last 300 years or so, however, there would be fewer than 1,000 people.”

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 14:08

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Yea, people are kind of dumb sometimes. Why would we expect a flying car to look similar to a normal car? That’s really the only difference between a helicopter and all those “flying car” predictions.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 14:13

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Almost anyone with functional limbs, eyes and mind can pilot a car. When a flying “car” is as simple to pilot , and is within reach of being acquired by a middle-class  family, we’ll have what they predicted.

Seems like a lot of these predictors probably didn’t have a good handle on physics - ha!

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 14:25

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It’s almost as if a flying car would probably require a special license, different training, a lot more maintenance, and maybe have special take off and landing zones...hmm sounds familiar lol.

Yea, all those flying car predictions always gloss over the most important aspects , cheap energy and high power densities. It takes A LOT of energy to keep something in the air so you need stupidly cheap power for it to be affordable and you need to have something with a huge power density to carry that energy with you. Stupid physics.

BigBlock440 > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 14:40

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I would argue we already have flying cars...we just call them helicopters. :) 

I’d counter that.  Try and take your “car” through the drive-through...

BigBlock440 > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/11/2019 at 14:42

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We’ll see, but it’s certainly not a given, and definitely not without a major breakthrough .

facw > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 15:46

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https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/predictions

TheRealBicycleBuck > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 03/11/2019 at 17:36

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Every low-wage job that is filled by automation leaves a gap in our economy. The assumption is that the person replaced will find other employment, but the truth is that the job that person held was very likely the best they could have done. Seriously. Let’s take a look at some college readiness scores.

What do these numbers mean? In 2016, approximately 64% of the graduating class took the ACT. A bout 51% of the class took the SAT, but it’s not clear how much overlap there was or what percentage of the class took neither exam. Note that of the ~2M kids who took the ACT, only 26%, or about 543,000, were college-ready.

We also know that only 84% of the students who entered high school four years before graduated.

O f the 3.9 million kids who should have graduated in 2016, we can fairly estimate that 1/4 of them were college ready. (I’m being generous here since we can’t account for the overlap between SAT and ACT test takers).

Of the 3 million kids who graduated, 69% went to college whether they were ready or not. That’s about 2 million kids. Of those, about 60% will graduate in six years. That leaves about 800,000 kids with some education but no degree.

That leaves us with 900,000 kids who dropped out of high school; 1 million kids who finished high school but didn’t go to college, and 800,000 kids with some college. Yeah, there’s some fudge factor in there (I graduated in 8 years!), but we’re dealing with rough numbers here.

That’s 2.7 million kids from 2016 who need a trade, a manufacturing job, or a job in t he service industry. Our solution? Give the jobs to robots instead.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/11/2019 at 17:45

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Sad...