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Wycoff
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quote:
Originally posted by VJ
Knee-jerk pseudo-intellectual communists who oppose this 'roboticisation', as you call it, need to look at the big bicture: in the society as a whole, people need to do less work for the same results.
Apart from possible further dependancy from fossil fuels, I can't even imagine any rational negative aspects of this process. |
How about an even further rise in unemployment? Believe it or not, there are many people who depend on these "degrading" jobs for a living. Most of these people are not cut out for higher educational pursuits. What happens to them? These people are not going to disappear, and they will all be competing for a steadily shrinking number of jobs. That's one definite negative that I see from this.
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Wycoff
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quote:
Originally posted by Ted Striker
There was a time when there was a blue collar middle class. People could work in factories and learn a trade and make a decent living and raise a family.
These jobs are nearly non existent nowadays.
This is the natural case when a mature economy like ours transforms from an industrial base to an information base.
However the assumption is made that these workers will simply start training for the information based jobs, which has happened to a certain degree, but is not totally the case, and even the computer field is oversaturated with supply now. |
Exactly. Good post Striker.
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Az
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MACEDONIA - It's the name of the sovereign country to the north of Greece
Apr 2000
time: 07:32
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quote:
We can never transfer our "entity" from our brain because our "entity" is our brain. We might be able to make copies of it, but you'll still be the original and still be in your body. It's the same problem with transporters. It disintigrates you at one end, and creates an exact duplicate of you on the other. From the perspective of others and the new being, nothing's changed, but in reality, you're dead and there's an exact copy of you somewhere else.
Hopefully we'll never be stupid enough to create a "human" AI. Consider how dangerous an insect might be if it had the intelligence of a human. Intelligent machines will be that alien to us, and that dangerous.
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I've given it much thought, che (yes, some classes are boring  ). Unlike dematerializing transporters, which are probably one of the scariest thing ever ( you're dead, and noone ever knows it), the "upload" of human entity is possible, as long as the copies are interacting with a high bandwidth, and the brain is destroyed as data is written to the silicon chip/datashard/whatever.
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Ted Striker
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United States of America
Jan 1970
time: 21:32
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quote:
Ratio of CEO Pay to Average Worker Pay Reaches 301 in 2003
Average Worker Takes Home $517 a Week; Average CEO $155,769 a Week
BOSTON — After declining for the last two years, the gap in pay between average workers and large company CEOs surpassed 300-to-1 in 2003. In 2002, the ratio stood at 282-to-1. In 1982, it was just 42-to-1.
According to Business Week’s 54th Annual Executive Compensation Survey, published this week, the average large company CEO received compensation totaling $8.1 million in 2003, up 9.1% from the previous year. Business Week’s survey covers the 365 largest companies that have reported their executive pay to date.
From 1990 to 2003:
CEO pay rose 313%
The S&P 500 rose 242%
Corporate profits rose 128%
Average worker pay rose 49%
Inflation rose 41%
The average production worker fared less well in 2003. Their annual pay was $26,899 in 2003, up just 2.1% from 2002 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average worker took home $517 in their weekly paycheck in 2003; the average large company CEO took home $155,769 in their weekly pay.If the minimum wage had increased as quickly as CEO pay since 1990, it would today be $15.71 per hour, more than three times the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.
“While workers are increasingly anxious about their job security, and how they will pay the rising costs of everything from health insurance to housing, from college to gasoline, corporate executives continue to distance themselves from the cares and worries of those they lead. It sends a poor message to demand cost cutting from the factory floor, while costs in the executive suite are left to soar,” said Scott Klinger, spokesperson for United for a Fair Economy, an independent national non-profit that raises awareness of growing economic inequality.
“Boards remain far too clubby in the post-Enron world. We need some new board members who can say 'no' to executive pay packages that widen the chasm among those who collectively create shareholder value,” said Klinger.
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The 300 number cited is from Business Week, which does the survey each year. Business Week is hardly an anti-CEO magazine.
http://www.faireconomy.org/press/20...ayRatio_pr.html
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Q Cubed
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t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:32
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quote:
I don't think you are considering what overabundance means and what the consequences will be. There comes a point where developing new skills is not cost effective and people will do it for personal satisfaction only. |
That point isn't now, and honestly, I can't forsee a utopia like that.
quote:
Sure there will. People need to survive. If they can't work they still need to survive. |
Frankly, no they don't.
quote:
Quite frankly, not everybody has the ability to acquire these new skills. |
See above.
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I am not sure if you aware of the magnitude of such an endeavour when you make such a blanket statement. Most of these skills take several years of formal education, and several years more of training. So what would you eat in the mean time? Poo? |
Spoo, actually.
quote:
The society has an ethical duty to look after its unfortunate citizens. |
It does. That does not, however, mean that society can necessarily afford to look after all its unfortunate citizens.
You do realize that in any such society, it'll again be the middle class who gets shafted and will have to look after its unfortunate citizens. It'll be the forgotten middle class that everyone takes for granted that'll have the tax burden, that'll see its earnings go up in taxes because they've made it, just not enough to qualify for all the juicy loopholes, right?
Bring down the middle to keep the rich breathing comfortably. 
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14-03-2005 08:26
Answer it, then, maybe, I'll take you seriously. 
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