Nothing will change

[AaronMk 281]

A philosopher of our time answers the question, "what will change?"

 

[Justin_Case001 4,943]

I truly hope that this guy is right.  I hope that not much changes.  I hope that we're in for years of boredom.  I think that would be a best case scenario.  But I'm still absolutely terrified.

 

You know, as a kid, I didn't give a sh*t who was president  A lot kids today seem to care, which I find amazing.  I didn't.  I mean, to me, it just didn't matter.  No matter who was president, the country kept chugging along, and everything in my world stayed the same.  I went to school, I came home, I ate Chef Boyardee, I played video games.  As a teenager, I understood more about politics, and I knew what republicans and democrats were, but I still didn't care much.  I knew that whoever was doing the job would keep the country chugging along, and my life wouldn't change.  I thought that fact was a bit of a testament to how good our government was compared to much of the world.  Honestly, my teenage years weren't much different from my childhood--I went to school, I came home, I ate Chef Boyardee, I played video games.  When George W. was elected, tons of people were devastated.  When Obama was elected, tons of people were devastated.  I watched this documentary earlier this year called Hating Obama, and it featured one guy talking about how crushed he was when he saw Obama elected, and how he knew it was the end of our country.  And I'm just lookin' around goin'...."Um....hello?!  Like...country still here, buddy!"  Bush, Obama, it was kinda all the same to me.  16 years of video games in my small, stupid bubble.

 

But now, at 31, I've grown up, and I finally understand how someone could cry over the results of an election.  I've cried over the past two days, and I'm very scared.  What scares me much more than the tangerine nightmare himself is the legions of extreme, hate filled followers who see this as their time to strike.  Obviously, the majority of people who voted Trump are not evil, but it seems that a terrifyingly large number of violent, dangerous, racist people and groups, previously dormant, view this as their victory and their chance to attack.  I'm scared to live my life, I'm humiliated to be an American, I'm humiliated to be a human, I weep for this country, I weep for this world, and I weep for humanity.

 

That was probably a lot more pessimistic and misanthropic than anyone wanted.  Apologies, but I've been holding this in for awhile and needed to get it out.

[DwhitetheGamer 867]

So... Jobs will still be shipped to other countries, unemployment will stay up, and everything will increase in price?

 

I'm sorry, but I don't see why it wouldn't change with Trump.  I hope he can get more jobs in America.

[cmarston1 5,965]

That really is the best outcome I could possibly hope for at this point, but I am still anxious that things are going to change and not for the better.

[Anneal 2,198]

That was probably a lot more pessimistic and misanthropic than anyone wanted.  Apologies, but I've been holding this in for awhile and needed to get it out.

 

What I found ever harder this election wasn't choosing who to vote and who was better, but trying to deal with people bickering and fighting with each other simply for having different choices. These last few years, the First Amendment for certain individuals has warped from "freedom of speech" to "freedom of speech as long as you agree with me". In fact, the pessimism of others over this year has started to make me miserable, too, and come election day I have lost several friends in real life and online because of the result. 

 

Conversely, I have become more involved in politics as I grew up. When I returned from Taiwan I was already interested in social sciences, and I see most teenagers around my age not giving a crap about what was going on in the world. It should be pretty ironic to say that seeing people around me distasteful about politics ended up getting me into it. I watched a bit of the 2012 election and even the 2014 congressional elections. And now in 2016, I finally have the right to vote...but as I said, the fierce reactions from both sides has shaken me.

 

I try not to be pessimistic or anti-American. I feel like too many people bandwagon into those ideas. But now it's getting harder to keep a smile in front of a sea of anger and depression. I try not to generalize the left-wing. I try not to complain about pessimism. And I try not to get irritated as the misanthropy bandwagon that's been going on in the millennial generation these days.

 

That's what polarized politics do you, I guess.

[AaronMk 281]

So... Jobs will still be shipped to other countries, unemployment will stay up, and everything will increase in price?

 

I'm sorry, but I don't see why it wouldn't change with Trump.  I hope he can get more jobs in America.

 

 

"BEEP BOOP. I AM A AMERICAN ROBOT."

[Twiggy 2,967]

 

"BEEP BOOP. I AM A AMERICAN ROBOT."

Not pictured: The thousands of human workers doing literally everything besides spot welding, chrome, and paint.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Twiggy

[AaronMk 281]

Not pictured: The thousands of human workers doing detailing, welding, quality control, ect.

 

While that may be true the reality is that the hundreds of position  further down the line are being done by machines, which since the shift to automation from the 1970's means less and less people are actually doing the welding or bolting down part. While a robot may not be delicate enough to do detail work or test shit out, it can be set with the tolerances deemed necessary to do a bulk of the work.

 

And this shit evolves for the better over time.

 

The economic debate over whether or not jobs are going over seas is frankly the wrong argument to have, but the easiest one to have: there are others out there that are not us and they have the things.

 

Except our things are here. They're just computer controlled and one or two guys with a bachelor degree in industrial engineering or some relevant field are standing nearby in a control room making sure those arms don't fail and everything is up to standard moving ahead. Factories just are not recruiting as often as they used to in the 60's and the 50's because they don't need to. These simple, low-skill and once high-wage jobs are being carried out entirely by machines, and it's set to increase over time.

 

A study by McKinzie and Co says:

 

 

 

that as many as 45 percent of the activities individuals are paid to perform can be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies.4In the United States, these activities represent about $2 trillion in annual wages.

 

And then adds:

 

 

 

Although we often think of automation primarily affecting low-skill, low-wage roles, we discovered that even the highest-paid occupations in the economy, such as financial managers, physicians, and senior executives, including CEOs, have a significant amount of activity that can be automated.

 

Locally here in Michigan, Detroit's hospital are deploying the da Vinci surgical robot which represents a grand step in surgical work. While it cuts down on hands needed in the operating room where the situation looked like this:

You end up more with a situation of one doctor behind a console and member a nurse nearby as backup maybe. Perhaps a third doing who knows what or the whole regular team all pretending to be supervisors.

 

The advent of algorithmic trading as well greatly rolls back the presence of human traders in the financial sector, and represents a foot-hold in automating the jobs of human accountants and getting them out of the office.

 

Automated driving systems can remove truck drivers and public transport drivers from the work-force, and this group represents a pretty major sector in the workforce.

 

http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/where-machines-could-replace-humans-and-where-they-cant-yet

http://fortune.com/2016/11/08/china-automation-jobs/

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/mexico-taking-us-factory-jobs-blame-robots-43238078

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ct-rosenthal-robots-jobs-manufacturing-0527-biz-20160526-column.html

 

We could roll back on our use of robots and scrap them and end their dastardly take-over of our lives. But that'd be at the cost of lost productivity and a cut in our competitiveness in the global field.

 

The real thing to talk about going ahead isn't how to bring these jobs back, because they probably won't come back to us though they're in the same house: it's how moving ahead we define work and a meaningful existence, it sure as hell won't be as invested in having full-time employment anymore.

[EpicEnergy 23,259]

Many things will change, but war... war never changes.

[ZiggWheelsManning 16,511]

You're correct to the point.  More wars will keep arriving and forming