# Robotics will lead to mass unemployment in a world where many are elderly. Howso **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 30, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048 "2013-09-30T22:22:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/21 "2013-10-01T03:37:01Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > They didn’t realize how long it would take for the technology to mature (it still isn’t there yet after all). And they didn’t realize how far the public would let itself be ground down without resisting. I expect that if you’d asked many people back then how the public would react to the way they are treated right now and to the massive wealth imbalance, they’d have said there’d be a revolution, or at least riots. Considering the fact that people were significantly worse off and the government was vastly worse in its treatment of dissidents and police brutality was vastly worse then than now, your comment is quite odd. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/22 "2013-10-01T03:45:41Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > They also said it in the 50s. lol, they have been saying this since the 11’s…that would be the 1811s. 😛 Good grief, this luddite horseshit has been with us for over 2 centuries now, and folks have been fretting about it since the first machine was built that took away someones job because it could be automated. And the Der’s of the world will always be tearing out there hair at the prospect of the rich rubbing their hands together as everyone becomes poor and starving, even if that makes no logical sense since there would be no purpose to building factories to build shit if there was literally no one left to buy anything. It’s the old shoe maker event horizon all over again. What will happen when factories are fully automated? Well, since that’s unlikely to ever happen it’s hard to say, but my guess is that it will be similar to what happened to all the buggy whip makers, telephone operators and telegraph operators, as well as the 97%+ of Americans that USED to be in agriculture at the turn of the previous century…they will be doing other things instead of mindless manufacturing work. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/23 "2013-10-01T04:31:48Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > They didn’t realize how long it would take for the technology to mature (it still isn’t there yet after all). You aren’t paying attention. **Machines have already replaced almost all the jobs people used to do.** And yet somehow people found other things to do. I cannot believe people are still repeating the same stupidities they said when they invented mechanical looms. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/24 "2013-10-01T04:37:06Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > You aren’t paying attention. **Machines have already replaced almost all the jobs people used to do.** Hardly; its only recently started replacing more than pretty basic manual labor. And the past is irrelevant anyway; as technology advances it becomes capable of doing an ever wider variety of jobs, and despite the nearly religious faith many people have on the matter there’s no magic guarantee that more new jobs will appear to replace those eliminated by technology. And most important at all that ignores the whole question posed in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/25 "2013-10-01T04:49:45Z")
There is a robot that has been dominating the factory floor since Henry Ford. It’s called mass production. ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/26 "2013-10-01T04:58:49Z")
Remember all those movies from the 50’s and 60’s where they showed huge typing pools of dozens, if not hundreds, of (women) doing nothing but typing memos and invoices and other records all day? (of course you don’t you damn kid, get off mah lawn) They have been replaced by computers and maybe 1/10 of the number of people to run them. I know, I’ve been (and am) one of them. Automation HAS replaced a staggering number of non-manufacturing workers in the last few decades. And instead of the 4-day work weeks we were promised, we’ve just piled all the extra work on fewer and fewer people. Productivity (not livability) has become the watchword, and it has been for a long time now. I live and work in the Belly of the Beast (gigantor mortgage banking) and I know from everyday experience that inefficiency is rife within the industry. If people actually worked to their potential instead of slacking off or waiting for “other lines of business” to do something, unemployment in this country would be around 50%. So the next time you spend 75 minutes on the phone waiting for your next available representative, or 6 weeks waiting for a copy of a cancelled check, just remember - you’re helping keep unemployment in check. Now extrapolate that into all industries, and across the globe - inefficiency is the only thing keeping us from descending into anarchy. No, I’m not kidding. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/27 "2013-10-01T05:00:37Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > You aren’t paying attention. **Machines have already replaced almost all the jobs people used to do.** > > And yet somehow people found other things to do. I cannot believe people are still repeating the same stupidities they said when they invented mechanical looms. Well, there’s some chance we’ll give up on working, and let the machines do all the work. But, it’s not likely. Back in the fifties, people imagined we’d automation would lead to shorter and shorter work weeks, and more leisure time. Instead people work harder than ever, and we accumulate more and more crap. Anyway, what’s the point of being rich if you can’t have living people to bring you drinks? ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/28 "2013-10-01T05:00:47Z")
It’ll be a minor problem when they replace the basic service jobs like fast food, hair salons, and prostitution. Then it’ll be a bigger problem when they’re lawyers and doctors. But it won’t be the end of the world until they’re running their own businesses and smashing human competition. Pretty sure that’s how the Matrix started. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/29 "2013-10-01T05:12:23Z")
Because of automation Megacity 1 has almost a 97% unemployment rate but they seem to be coping. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/30 "2013-10-01T06:04:35Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Well, there’s some chance we’ll give up on working, and let the machines do all the work. But, it’s not likely. > > Back in the fifties, people imagined we’d automation would lead to shorter and shorter work weeks, and more leisure time. Instead people work harder than ever, and we accumulate more and more crap. > > Anyway, what’s the point of being rich if you can’t have living people to bring you drinks? Rich people will always have as many live people as they want to bring them drinks, cook their food, watch their children and have sex with them. The problem is, there aren’t that many rich people. Their personal need for live humans will account for only a tiny percentage of the population. The rest won’t be needed to produce goods of any kind, and most services won’t be needed. It will be Victorian England all over again, only worse, because at least there were factory jobs of some kind to be had, even though they did not pay anything close to a living wage, whereas once robots can match/exceed human abilities with regard to the eye-hand interface, it’s game over for all manual labor and most service jobs too. Machines never ask for raises, take time off or quit. The wealthy will LOVE them. They’ll be so much cheaper and more reliable than humans. But it’s not really technology that’s the problem. The rise of automation for most production and service jobs could mean that regular folks could lead paradisical lives of leisure, exercising their creative facilties, building stronger families and communities, doing all sorts of fun and good things, freed from the need to do things better left to machines. But the one tenth of one percent tends to skew heavily toward laissez-faire economics and libertarian principles, and they are NOT likely to see the wisdom of providing goods and food and stuff to consumers who’ve been automated out of jobs and don’t have anything that the One Percent want in exchange for those goods and services. I think there will be much human suffering before they figure it out … if they ever do. It might just take violence. In Asia, it almost certainly WILL take violence. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/31 "2013-10-01T13:11:51Z")
Slavish devotion to capitalism and a deep-seated resistance to seeing people get something they don’t ‘deserve’ (while _ **I** _ work hard for what’s mine!) are the only things keeping us from becoming a world where technology allows us (most of us) to stop working. Loss of jobs due to technology should be a boon, not a disaster. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/32 "2013-10-01T13:40:19Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > Slavish devotion to capitalism and a deep-seated resistance to seeing people get something they don’t ‘deserve’ (while _ **I** _ work hard for what’s mine!) are the only things keeping us from becoming a world where technology allows us (most of us) to stop working. Loss of jobs due to technology should be a boon, not a disaster. I think it has more to do with a deep seated desire to feel like you matter and that you feel like you are contributing. If you are working and getting rewarded (paid) you are obviously contributing, right? Since that is the only value measurement that Western society has used consistently as a whole for the last 300 years, it’s hard to break yourself away from it. Especially when the negative version of the coin for those 300 years has also been “If you don’t work, you are lazy/no good.” So, when people bring up something like “Fully Automated” it’s hard for others to sit back and talk about the complete loss of value their lives bring that would happen. It would be easier if we as a culture emphasized things like public works, or such, but we emphasize money. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/33 "2013-10-01T14:36:31Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > And instead of the 4-day work weeks we were promised, we’ve just piled all the extra work on fewer and fewer people. > [@LinusK](#): > > Back in the fifties, people imagined we’d automation would lead to shorter and shorter work weeks, and more leisure time. Instead people work harder than ever, and we accumulate more and more crap. If they’re comfortable with the '50s lifestyle (no cable or internet, primitive car, rarely eating out, etc), plenty of people can get by just fine working a short week with more leisure time. I have some friends who do just that, work part-time and thus spend very little; they pursue inexpensive hobbies like tabletop roleplaying and basketball. But, it turns out wants are unlimited, and people by and large chose to work to better their situation, rather than work less and tread water. That choice is perfectly valid. > [@Evil Captor](#): > > But the one tenth of one percent tends to skew heavily toward laissez-faire economics and libertarian principles, and they are NOT likely to see the wisdom of providing goods and food and stuff to consumers who’ve been automated out of jobs and don’t have anything that the One Percent want in exchange for those goods and services. I think there will be much human suffering before they figure it out … if they ever do. It might just take violence. In Asia, it almost certainly WILL take violence. It’s not up to them, though. If the one tenth of one percent got to dictate public policy, they’d be paying no taxes at all. It doesn’t matter who see wisdom in what, as long as the government has a monopoly on force, and the government is a democracy, the people dictate policy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/34 "2013-10-01T14:39:29Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > “Randian fantasy”? > > Dude, nobody except a few people who spend way too much time on the internet actually thinks Ayn Rand was remotely influential or even knows who she was. Them, and [editorialists for _Forbes_ magazine](http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/09/17/give-back-yes-its-time-for-the-99-to-give-back-to-the-1/). > [@](#): > > Op/Ed |9/17/2013 @ 8:00AM |302,293 views > > **Give Back? Yes, It’s Time For The 99% To Give Back To The 1%** > > \ > > Let’s begin by stripping away the collectivism. “The community” never gave anyone anything. The “community,” the “society,” the “nation” is just a number of interacting individuals, not a mystical entity floating in a cloud above them. And when some individual person–a parent, a teacher, a customer–”gives” something to someone else, it is not an act of charity, but a trade for value received in return. > > \ > > There is indeed a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity: the Internal Revenue Service. And, at a deeper level, it is the monstrous perversion of justice that makes the IRS possible: an envy-ridden moral code that damns success, profit, and earning money in voluntary exchange. > > An end must be put to the inhuman practice of draining the productive to subsidize the unproductive. An end must be put to the primordial notion that one’s life belongs to the tribe, to “the community,” and that the superlative wealth-creators must do penance for the sin of creating value. > > And Ayn Rand is just the lady who can do it. Very Randian stuff indeed! ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/35 "2013-10-01T15:08:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Them, and [editorialists for _Forbes_ magazine](http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/09/17/give-back-yes-its-time-for-the-99-to-give-back-to-the-1/). > > Very Randian stuff indeed! Ah yes. A few writers for Forbes. That’s certainly strong evidence of what a force Ayn Rand is. Next time, you’re better off pointing to Paul Ryan. Anyway the idea that libertarians and/or Randians are a force to be reckoned with is asinine. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/36 "2013-10-01T17:35:20Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No one; the factories will sit idle. And the _only_ acceptable solutions will be “Lower taxes! Fewer regulations! Punish the poor!” > > Or, you end up with a tiny elite living off of the automated economy; and the rest of the population either left to starve, or massacred by the equally automated military. Right, because when economic conditions change, social attitudes never change. That’s why we still have a feudal aristocracy that runs everything. The people who run factories and businesses are regarded as vulgarians, everyone knows that true wealth only comes from landowning, and any other source of income is lower class. The social pyramid goes: Aristocrats \> Soldiers \> Farmers \> Artisans \> Merchants. Or maybe when the industrialists became more powerful than the aristocrats they replaced the aristocrats at the top of the social heap. We now have mass democracy, remember? Women can vote? And stuff? As I say again and again in these threads, an automated factory that can churn out an endless stream of goods and services for free is worthless. “Owning” such a factory won’t make you rich, because you can’t exchange those goods and services for money, because the cost of those goods will be zero. Factory owners of the future won’t rule the world any more than farmers rule the world of today. As for the rich sitting behind walled gates topped with automated machine guns and watching the masses riot and starve to death, well, is that going to happen in Canada too? Because if, say, Canada has a program where a couple of factories provide enough food for Canada’s poor to not starve to death, why can’t the Canadians make a couple of extra factories to ship food to starving Americans? Canadians shipped food to Ethiopia when people were starving there, right? When they see pictures of Americans walking around like skeletons covered with flies and kids dying in the dirt, you’d think they’d try to help out as much as possible. And since food and clothing and shelter and every good and service that can be produced by a human being pours out of automated production centers for essentially free–it has to be essentially free otherwise a human could do it cheaper–then it will cost the taxpayers of Canada a mere pittance to feed hundreds of millions of starving Americans. Heck, maybe in socialist Mexico they’ll be even more generous. Or heck, maybe a couple of American state governments could set up their own welfare factories. After all, the point of the factory is that it don’t cost nothing to keep running, otherwise how could “the rich” own factory that don’t require any workers? Oh, of course Americans could never accept socialism! They’d rather starve to death! They’d never vote for that! Or have we abolished democracy before then? How’s that going to work? I understand that in today’s world the rich can shape public opinion through the media, and can buy votes and so on. Is that going to work when people are literally starving to death? Things are going to stay exactly the same, even though everything has changed? Even when other countries nearby us are managing to muddle through this transition? And a cornucopia of nearly-free goods and services are available for a pittance? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/37 "2013-10-01T18:48:18Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Ah yes. A few writers for Forbes. > > That’s certainly strong evidence of what a force Ayn Rand is. > > Next time, you’re better off pointing to Paul Ryan. > > Anyway the idea that libertarians and/or Randians are a force to be reckoned with is asinine. Among voters generally? No. Among the one percent? Yes! And even those who are not libertarians or Randians tend to be conservatives who believe in self-reliance and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, just like the daddy they inherited their money from did. It’s a very APPEALING set of beliefs if you are wealthy and powerful. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/38 "2013-10-01T18:56:09Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Among voters generally? No. Among the one percent? Yes! And even those who are not libertarians or Randians tend to be conservatives who believe in self-reliance and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, just like the daddy they inherited their money from did. It’s a very APPEALING set of beliefs if you are wealthy and powerful. You have a cite for this statement that among the 1%ers that libertarianism or Randianism is prevalent? Hell, do you have a cite that the majority of them are conservatives? That should be easier to prove, but in my own experience ‘rich’ people break down about the same as the rest of the population, politically, with as many being Democrats as Republicans…not surprising when one considers that they really aren’t some towering separate caste that all inherited all their money from daddy, as you tossed out. Not that it matters, since among voters it’s not, thus ‘the idea that libertarians and/or Randians are a force to be reckoned with is asinine’ is a pretty accurate statement among the non-Der faction. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/39 "2013-10-01T19:10:41Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Ah yes. A few writers for Forbes. > > That’s certainly strong evidence of what a force Ayn Rand is. > > Next time, you’re better off pointing to Paul Ryan. > > Anyway the idea that libertarians and/or Randians are a force to be reckoned with is asinine. Does the name “Rand Paul” ring a bell? I really, really wish you were right, but these morons just shut down the government and can do worse. You seriously underestimate the idiocy of the American right. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/40 "2013-10-01T19:14:19Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > They also said it in the 50s. > > People who stare into crystal balls often wind up with facefuls of glass. Mack Reynolds covered all this in a series of stories in the 1960s. In his future America, which was corporatist, all people had shares of “inalienable basic” which could not be sold, and which paid them enough dividends to live on. Those few who could get jobs could buy additional shares. It might happen, but it directly addresses the issue in the OP. Reynolds got other stuff right, including the state’s ability to trace people by credit card and phone usage, and the need for people not wanting to be found to go off the grid, about as hard in his world as it is in our world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048.md?page=3)