# Whats the future of...work

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-future-of-work/228327>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [February 9, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-future-of-work/228327 "2004-02-09T21:21:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-future-of-work/228327/21 "2004-02-10T20:16:59Z")

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A brief list of jobs that won’t be automated in the near future:

attorney, doctor, barber, artist, carpenter, plumber, nurse, computer programmer, massage therapist, journalist, sculptor, accountant, electrician, scientist, engineer, etc…

In the developed world, most people work in services, and most service jobs are not amenable to automation.

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**Author:** ![Uncivil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ccd318/32.png) [@Uncivil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncivil)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-future-of-work/228327/22 "2004-02-10T21:04:10Z")

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> [@xtisme](#):
>
> The great depression was caused by over speculation, not over production as far as I know. Had nothing to do with over producing goods at all.
> 
> At a guess, when the oil starts to get critical we’ll switch over to an alternate fuel like hydrogen. It will certainly cause a lot of disruption to the economy and will most likely have a profound effect on our society too. But I seriously doubt anyone is going to simply let the world grind to a halt simply because we run out of oil. There is simply too much money involved for the folks that come up with a viable alternative.
> 
> -XT

Thanks for the clarification.

One problem there - what if we simply aren’t able to find an alternative energy source thats powerful enough to replace oil? We use a vast amount of it. Hydrogen is a useful portable source, but we have to expend energy to in order to produce it. Its possible, regardless of the amount of money involved, that we won’t be able to solve this problem fully, and as a consequence the disruption will be huge.

Nuclear power is a possibility, but remember we’ll need to generate far more electricity than at present (what we use now + what we need to produce hydrogen to power vehicles). Nuclear fusion is another, but no-one knows if its really feasible.

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