The Robots are coming (Page 13)

ghostgeek: There's probably no other country as innovative as the United States. At least that's the trope. But recent statistics from the U.S. Patent Office and new independent surveys suggest much of America's innovation is not home-grown: many of the country's best and brightest ideas come from non-citizens.

[ https://www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/foreign-patents-and-united-states-innovation.html ]

kittybobo34: A great deal of our innovatevness is from foreigners that come to america so they can work in their field and benefit from that.

chronology: ghost Old Fruit, we drift off subject. The cold and very hard facts are that if America commits to wide ranging replacement of it's working population by robots, and it working population can no longer make car or home payments that would be the economic version of American capitalism 'Drinking the Coo-Aid' . With such a huge segment of it's population in poverty and the value of it's commodities and assets at home crashing as a result, the dollar would be worthless, and so would the robot factories.
Before you downplay Americas record of inovation, remember most major nations striking progress in science and business always comes from outsiders. Germans were the main inovators in Britains Industrial progress in the late 19th century. If you went for a walk around Bradford or Leed's you would have heard more German than English in the late 19th century. America imported Germans as well in the 1940s to New Mexico for it's rocket and space industry. Japanese businessmen and investors created the modern industrial districts in China. Taiwan was also set on the road to progress by Japanese businessmen in the early 20th century.
One of the problems of understanding America today is that it has become steeped in secrecy in many activities. When the Space Shuttle was blasting off from Florida it was a fine tourist atraction, but Space Buffs virtually all agreed 'no way is that the mainframe of the American Space Programme' they were probably correct, America has way more advanced Space vehicles. But it is all secret. This is why America has become the subject of endless conspiracy theories.

kittybobo34: Democratic socialism as in the scandinavian countries might work, but I think even that wont be good enough to fend off the pitchforks and torches when things get bad job wise,

ghostgeek: The progressive elimination of people from the workplace, if it finally happens, will be a world wide phenomenon, driven by a multitude of locally taken decisions. Not something easy to thwart, but not something to panic about either. If human beings are clever enough to construct complex machinery, surely they should be able to make the necessary changes to the economic system to keep everything running along sweetly?

ghostgeek: The Romans ran a slave economy. It lasted a very long time. Our slaves are our machines. What the Romans could do, we should be able to do at least as well.

ghostgeek: The old Roman emperors provided bread and circuses for the populace. We have the means to provide much, much more.

ghostgeek: The modern economy might not need human labour but it sure cannot do without human consumption. That should be the job of people in the future; to consume. And they should be paid to do it.

briansmythe: https://www.fudzilla.com/news/46293-google-employees-quit-over-drone-evil

ghostgeek: I wonder who, or more likely what, will take their place.

briansmythe: Yeah wont be long till they won't need employees lol

ghostgeek: But they will still need customers, people with money in their pockets. So, unless they start paying robots pocket money, somebody is going to have to work out a whole new system of economics for when we humans sit on our backsides all day and do nowt but stare at a screen showing us things to buy.

kittybobo34: One idea is the universal income, but that just doesnt work mathematically. Another idea I think would work is subsidized basic necessities. Scrap the food stamp program, instead provide basic human food in a can, cheap, everything you need to survive, but doesnt have to be tasty. Same with housing, Converted container lot near a mass transit location. Then all you have to do is provide a minimum income, which wouldnt have to be big enough to survive in the normal world.

chronology: Ghost, we have already discussed this economic cycle you describe of national economic capitalism. In the future capitalist business will most likely be using an international currency within a global economic market. A fully automated mine in Australia supplying a fully automated factory in California manufacturing luxury cars for wealthy Oil Sheiks would be normal business.There is no need for any 'working class' as such anywhere. Or for the police, medical, educational, or prison system they manage the working class with now. None of these people are needed, even now.

Again the future breeding method of replacement labour for manufacturing and service jobs is not needed. No more social housing projects, no consumer toys to keep them ever running in their endless useless life cycles.

kittybobo34: All good points Chrono, I would add that we may need a licensing system to even have children . Society will see that its nuts to have a zillion semi retarded kids running around in a society that can't support them.

ghostgeek: OK, let's ask the obvious question. Will there be ANY need for humans to be alive and fouling planet earth in a hundred years time?

chronology: Ghost, well you could convert ships, aircraft, locomotives, farms and many other jobs over to automated operation in a few years. However that is unlikely to happen. Most likely the transition will be in steps spread over 30 years or so.
Will there be any need for people? well stricktly speaking no, people will not be required after the transition. There will be no need for many types of work. Rich folks will be unlikely to be much effected, there will still be a need for some people in jobs that are not worth automating such as street cleaning or whatever. It is depressing to speculate like this, but times change and you cannot stop progress.

Don't worry ghost, there will still be plenty of people peddling your favourite passtime, religion. Religion will most likely focus on the 'Sugar Candy Mountain' in the sky story. Where Candy Floss grows on trees and lemonade flows in streams. But it is difficult to image any people dumb enough to waist their time being ridiculed like that. Although religion today seems to caitter to hysterical unballanced types. You can see them at meetings jumping around and going near hysterical. Another way of mopping up excess unemployed is with the job schemes created simply to get people out doing something. Those schemes work well for highly educated people. But when you get very low information, dysfunctional people brought together clearing ditches or something you find they are pretty grim experience for the low intelligence people who do not seem to realise they have been just 'dumped' in swill bins to get them out of the way of normal people. People like to dress up in clothing that places them in a admired class of people with a pay cheque each month. They do not like being herded in work gangs like convicts with the dregs of society.

Remember as well ghost, automated factories can work 24 / 7 so a few factories in the work can supply all the needs for those products, you do even need to have automated factories in 95pc of the worlds countries.

briansmythe: Why Does every one always Suspect the The USA is always the Centre of the world , In a hundred years it will prolly be a Nuclear waste Land , Only Accesabable to Robots
Heeee

briansmythe: Lets see where your Highley educated , Populas is then , Walking around looking in swill bins
Unable to get to any other Country where they Live Normally Like Mexico , Cos of the Walls
Haaa

ghostgeek: In George Orwell's "1984" it was war that soaked up surplus production. It makes me wonder if someone will take that book down from its shelf and say, "Mmm!"

ghostgeek: There again, remember what happened at Jonestown. Religion has its own way of clearing the decks.

chronology: Well ghost I suspect there will be no such drama. Just plain old job creation schemes. But unfortunately the 'social profiling' there always is with these programmes is likely to please some members of the public, those find themselves among pleasant interesting people. But for those dumped in with the low information, poorly devellepod rabble life will be as depressing as it always has been.

As for Jonestown ghost, I dealt with that on my Trivia Blog a while back. It seemed to be just another one of the long line of hoaxes that come along. Ever ask yourself why all the 'dead' were lying face down? (so no one could recognise them) , ever wonder why there were no flies at all on those dead bodies? in the tropics of all places. What was claimed to be 'bodies' no one knows how many, were buried in a mass grave, they say, in California. They were never identified. Jones had faked his death, and resorection at least 6 times before the supposed mass suicide. He and his followers seemed to have skipped away because U.S. Federal and California State Authorities were closing in on welfare fraud among the Cult involving what was claimed to be millions of dollars. I know a Guy who served in Guyana in the 60s protecting an airfield there. Trust me ghost, if a dead body was lying out in the heat for even 12 hours it would not look or smell very pleasant. There were boys from The Black Watch in the area at the time. If there had been any such tragedy they would have been in the village in hours to lend assisstance. And they would have given full cooperation and assisstance to the U.S. Army Guys in the clean up of the bodies. The entire story makes no sense.

ghostgeek: Sounds like one for Lori.

ghostgeek: I guess there is one more possibility, that we all get packed onto giant spaceships and told to colonise the galaxy.

chronology: Who knows ghost. For me the biggest surprise recently in automatons was the self ballancing motorcycle by Honda. I thought it was a fake story at first, but no, it is real. It will be a short time till you have self driving motorcycles.

It really is astonishing to see the rider of the bike climb off, then walk away, the bike then follows him like a pet dog as he walks along. Honda plan to make an electric version of the bike. For me this is a sign that virtually anything is possible.

In America this will introduce an entire new generation to motorcycling, and Honda will be blazing the trail. You cannot stop progress ghost. Many Americans will love the freedom and convienience of motorcycling, without even having to learn how to ride a motorcycle. Thanks to Japans Robotics, now they can.