I'm new here! Don't kill me!
> Also known as taxation,
I wrote a lengthy reply to this argument below.
Automation:
There are still tons of physical jobs. The point is that even when automation "almost completely eliminated" the first type, unemployment did not skyrocket. I'd rather base my policy prescriptions on history and well documented economic factors than wild speculation about the effects future automation will have.
Sorry :). I'll leave that to Skynet ;).
> The point is that even when automation "almost completely eliminated" the first type, unemployment did not skyrocket.
Yeah, the labor pool moved to the service / cognitive jobs. With automation taking big bites off services and mental work, where should the labor pool move next? Now, I know there's a lot of place in marketing and all kind of bullshit jobs, but it surely has its limits, if not economical then those of mental health - bullshit jobs aren't exactly good for one's self-esteem.
That lots of humans are required to work the land, or that the horses are important for logistics and transporting people were both well-documented and established facts for many thousand years. Until at some point, they stopped being true.
CGPGrey rears his ugly head!
> Yeah, the labor pool moved to the service / cognitive jobs.
I'm sure you are right but I would argue that trying to quantify cognitive jobs is foolhardy and I am not convinced in the slightest that automation is capable of replacing them. Having said that, I have time and time again been surprised as to how ingenious human beings are with creating jobs! Industries no one ever thought of are now major industries. Humans are far more adaptable than horses. That's kind of our thing.