An Interesting Presentation on Future Employment Issues

I am in no way proposing anything here. I have no idea what to do, but this is something which has to be borne in mind when future planning.

That's been said every generation since the industrial revolution started. It hasn't come true yet. So why is this generation finally the first? Or is this something that may come 100 years from now?

You need to watch it. It is well crafted and you will realise that its already happening. Indeed the first premise mentioned did come true almost immediately.
Right here and now, there are already nowhere near enough unskilled jobs around. Even McJobs require presentational skills which many do not possess - and they don't even pay enough to live on. In earlier times, war and pestilence sorted the manpower oversupply quite a bit. So the question remains. Now what?

there are 3 major tectonic axis here:

1) radical abundance
2) natural scarcity
3) artificial scarcity

1) The tech revolution (especially the biotech revolution combined with solar) will likely make most of the things humans do to make "money", free. We're entering an age of radical abundance... once gen-tech algae (which is a replicator) gets underway, the world will shift on its axis. All technology will have a Moore's Law attached.

2) We're not just hitting peak oil, we're hitting peak everything - Copper, Helium, Rare-earth metals etc etc. And while it might be possible to gen-eng micro-orgs to "mine" elements at an atomic level, this stuff is finite. The only way out that I can see is nano-techs like graphene taking the place of technologies based on rare elements.

3) People were forced off the land and into the factories with rent, in part via the enclosures. Although it is finite, land is not particularly scarce, and the fact that "too much land is owned by too few people" has been the root of all evil for thousand of years.

In addition to this, today the world is ruled by corporations, that exist to exploit monopolies - most of which are artificial... whether they be land, or "IP", or the rail-system, or issuance of the currency etc etc.

...

So - if we're going to lead happy and fulfilled lives, there are a couple of things we need to be understanding, or aiming towards.

1) "Jobs" are not a natural state of affairs - and while large sections of the population "need something to do", Jobs (ie: selling your time, rather than selling what you make) are probably not an especially desirable solution.

2) We need to eliminate artificial scarcity where ever we find it - no quarter. All artificial scarcity needs to be abolished. This will to an extent mean the end of the housing market, which will radically reduce the pressure on people to "find jobs".

3) we need to find ways to share/distribute those resources that are naturally scarce.

An eloquent repost.

@nicktaylor1 "All artificial scarcity needs to be abolished. This will to an extent mean the end of the housing market,"

Housing is artificially scarce because I like not having someone else in my house while I'm gone. Having every bed shared on a first-come first-served basis would reduce artificial scarcity, but I like having a place to call home. Where I know when I turn on the TV, it'll be set the way I left it.

All ownership is artificial scarcity. We have enough cars/computers/everything for people to share. But people don't like sharing. Get my son to share cookies, and he's happy. He likes sharing, but have someone else share his blanket, and he'll collapse. "ownership" seems like something ingrained into the human mind. Sharing everything isn't really possible.

After that, it comes a political issue of what do you force people to share, and how?

@nicktaylor1 " “Jobs” are not a natural state of affairs"

Yes, they are. Everyone has jobs, and had them as far back as recorded history goes. Even in hunter-gatherer tribal societies, jobs were the natural state.

@nicktaylor1 "we need to find ways to share/distribute those resources that are naturally scarce."

At least it's resources. So the selenium, once it's in my phone, is mine? It's not artificially scarce once it's in use, it's actually scarce. It's in the ground, where there are tons of it that mine owners are sitting on because it's more profitable to wait for the price to go up to start mining.

"Then what? An old question. The Irish poet W. B. Yeats wrote a poem called "What then?" The third verse says: All his happier dreams came true- A small old house, wife, daughter,son, Grounds where plum and cabbage grew; Poets and Wits about him drew; 'What then?' sang Plato's ghost,'what then?'
In the seventies there were numerous newspaper articles exhorting people to consider what they would do with all the leisure which was about to arrive in the very near future. This was in the era when one family income could pay for a house and family. It's difficult to imagine another reality outside a particular intensely manipulated and controlled social environment.
I found the soft but rapid and urgent commentary of the video together with all its assumptions to be manipulative in the extreme so I think I'll read a few more of Yeats' poems.

Im glad that some one finally gets it, since i have been in the workforce i have seen many aspects of my own job replaced by computers and machines and as i am aware of it and have been talking about it for some time I have been watching, and i can tell you that this is a problem that's only getting worse.

The problem isn't that we lack space for housing, seriously theres heaps of space, the problem isnt that we lack food, there's tons of surplus food, the problem is that those that own the automation put the rest of us out of work but wont share the benefits with the society they are slowly destroying with their greed, and we must still pay full price for the goods that we need to survive.

How will this work as more people are displaced by this automation?

How will we be able to afford to buy what we need?

What will be the quality of our lives when only the few benefit financially from owning the automation?

My guess is that unchecked we will see the beginning of a new age of slavery, we wont have the freedom that those who are in control have, and we wont have the power to do anything about it. Protest against it and an army of robot soldiers will uphold the status quo.

This is the beginning of a rather horrible science fiction end of the world type film, and the real problem is that we as a society still havent figured out that we need to look after each other first of all, if we had we wouldn't have poverty or starvation as we already have more than enough resources to solve these problems.

Governments will need to move to take control of these industries so that wealth from them is distributed for the benefit of society or the few will end up controlling the many.

I dont know what any party can actually do about this here now and in New Zealand, but sooner or later maybe in my lifetime, maybe in my children's, or maybe in the next few years we will get to a point where the ability of democracy to control corporations who wield this power will be lost.

Will those who own this automation realise that a starving population will generate them less profits ? I dont know, my guess is that the power that brings will blind them to the suffering.

So Wake up, this is happening now ! whose job is next ?

What is needed is a revolution in the educational sector, so we can start teaching young people how to build a creative, healthy and balanced life. We need to practise proper thinking... not regurgitation of books, but practical problem solving. NZ used to be known to house a lot of do-it-yourselfers but they seem to be a dying breed. We need to encourage people to invent their own life style instead of blindly following the latest "fashion". When you know how to produce your own food, build your own house and repair things that break then life becomes quite cruisy... unless you still owe money to the bank.

Ive been thinkng for a while that companies that turnover more with less employees should be taxed at higher rates.

Lol Dan, yes that would be nice but when the rates hit and insurance bills are due and school fees, and car regos and the multitude of other things come you will just end up selling your house to survive without income. Or be forced to sell. Without our society developing some Humanity there just wont be any humanity soon.