https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/15/convoy-flexport-automating-t...
There are tens of billions that can be carved out with automation. Electrics near large urban areas will definitely help air quality.
That's a lot of wealth transfer that's no longer going to happen between companies and poorer people; seems we'll accelerate wealth/income disparity.
Do you believe that the wealth/income disparity would decrease if instead of employing one worker to drive a truck, each box was hand carried by 1000 workers? Unless the more cost-efficient delivery companies prevent competitors from entering the (now leaner) delivery market, the result of a decrease in the marginal cost of production is more, better quality, cheaper goods whose price decrease benefits those who are at the margins the most (the group you seem to be wanting to help and who would hurt the most by artificially increasing the cost of delivering goods).
The "Curse" of Machinery https://www.stevebaker.info/quick-guides/economics-in-one-le...
Spread-the-Work Schemes http://www.stevebaker.info/quick-guides/economics-in-one-les...
And yes if you suddenly created huge numbers of unnecessary jobs at the bottom income disparity would decrease.
I don't know which scenario will play out. Neither do you. We'll have to see. Better yet, strive to make my scenario the reality. Complain about automation wouldn't help.
If you spent your whole life driving trucks and it's what you're good at, can you really transfer to a new occupation that's more fulfilling and well-paid in older age, or will you just be left unemployed or stuck with a worse job?
I think more automation is absolutely the future but we need to find some way to take care of the people who are left behind, and not just say "oh they'll get some other job".
the idea that an individual can somehow strive to change capital capturing massive swathes of business and not sharing those proceeds with those they have sidelined is pretty laudable.
i appreciate your optimism but i would consider it more on the unrealistic side, especially given that truck drivers probably aren't gung ho about studying for years to get retrained given most of them don't have college degrees in the first place.
That doesn’t mean we should create or endorse make work projects, jobs that could be faster, cheaper and more efficient when automated. Society has a responsibility to these people, which is why I support both basic income and job retraining programs. It’s the humane way to make progress without fear.
How do you think that's going to play out with energy production becoming problematic due to climate change, with water becoming hard to come by even in some Western regions, with resources like sand (!) growing in short supply.
Oh, sure, we'll just buy our way out with our endless resources and our ever increasing consumption. WCGW.
The real "half full", ie optimistic, outlook is that we find a way societally to do something like UBI, or spread jobs across more people (3 day week, etc.), or something else, without having to get there through violent revolution or similarly disturbing means.
You're right, I don't know _the_ answer, but I do know it's not greater consumption (ie shift truckers in to a job producing something else), unless we first solve energy production in a massively transformative way.
-cannot
+does not
I welcome automation, I don't welcome the income disparity that goes along with it. Automation needs to serve mankind, not only serve the currently wealthy who can "own the means of automation" to coin a phrase. No longer is the issue owning the means of production, but that the capitalists can owner the tools, and the [robotic] workers. Where does that leave the proletariat (the current workforce)? It leaves them useless to the Capitalists. In Capitalism that which doesn't aid profit becomes valued at zero -- and people can't live on zero, even if that means wealthy people can have their parcels delivered without any human intervention.
We can't rely on perpetual growth to get out of it, we're getting to the crunch. What worked before worked because we discovered energy production that seemed limitless, but coal isn't limitless. "But we found oil, surely that's limitless?".
Yes, it is disconcerting to remove so many jobs. There needs to be a solution to that.
The phrase "A rising tide lifts all ships" gets routinely mocked, but the data seems to indicate that is is true. While inequality has risen over the past several decades, quality of life even for the poorest quartile has improved.