Sound Good?
No?
Posted on 07/25/2014 5:40:12 PM PDT by nickcarraway
More than half of the jobs currently being done in Germany could be taken over by robots in the next 20 years, according to a think-tank. The study from Brussels think-tank Bruegel found 51 percent of jobs in Germany at the moment could be computerized and left to robots in the next two decades.
European countries most at risk from this computerization were Romania (62 percent) and Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and Greece - all 56 percent.
The exact affect this could have on unemployment rates is unclear because as technology takes over, new jobs are created, meaning those who lose their work to robots will not necessarily become unemployed.
“Technology is likely to dramatically reshape labour markets in the long run and to cause reallocations in the types of skills that the workers of tomorrow will need," Jeremy Bowles of Bruegel wrote about his study last week. "To mitigate the risks of this reallocation it is important for our educational system to adapt."
A study published in September last year caused a stir when it listed the jobs in the USA most at risk to robots.
The study calculated how at risk jobs were of computerization by identifying three things which hinder robots potentially taking over the job – creative intelligence, social intelligence and perception and manipulation tasks.
Telemarketers, clerks, referees and credit analysts were among the jobs most likely to be taken over by robots, while those least at risk included recreational therapists, social workers and doctors.
The Bruegel think-tank took this data from the 2013 study which was based on USA employment figures and applied it to Europe to find out how at risk European countries were.
On the whole, jobs in northern European economies were least at risk of computerization, while those in the south and east were most susceptible.
The more we remove ourselves from living the life we evolved to live, the more we have to torture kids by sending them to school to learn unnatural crap because without learning that crap, they won't be able to earn a living. Although not long from now, they still won't be able to earn a living. And for many grads, it may be happening already.
I never use a self serve pump, unless I find myself with an almost empty tank in the middle of nowhere.
We are on the same wavelength. I refuse to put carts back in kiosks. I only use tellers not ATMs and I mail my bills. I only use human checkers, and I call and wait until I get a human before doing whatever business I have with the company.
For boys and girls who aren’t tech college caliber, I steer them to plumbing, hvac, and politics.
Those are three areas that won’t be outsourced overseas.
We outsourced the POTUS.
Make sure they take the Turkish jobs, and then deport them
“I only use tellers not ATMs and I mail my bills.”
The other day my better half received an alarming brochure in the mail from a Mr. Chris Matthai (`The Oxford Club’) that I just got around to reading.
Chris warns that on this September 16th, the Federal Reserve will meet and abolish cash. Everything will be electronic.
And a bunch of other scary stuff, and that the SHTF if I don’t immediately send them—nothing, but I do send them something signed and I may eventually owe them $149.99.
So I’ll wait to do it first thing in the morning, by which time I will have forgotten all about it. I use a lot of cash, too, and think we may be safe for quite a while longer than this fall.
Sad but true...
That’s what’s scary. I think if most jobs are replaced by robots or automation, there will only be two ways to deal with it. One way, like in the book version of “Battlestar Galactica,” outlaw robots for jobs that can be done by people, except for very hazardous ones such as inspecting the inside of atomic reactors for example. The other way, well, hate to say it, but everyone get a guaranteed living wage, most likely funded by taxation of the profits made by the robots. The downside of that is people will be idle and the old saying, idle hands are the Devil’s workshop” applies. BTW, the other night, I saw a 1964 episode of “The Twilight Zone” where the owner of a factory replaced all his workers with automation and one foreman went crazy and busted up the control computer while yelling about the dignity of work that is needed for every man. Later on, the owner is replace by a robot, played by “Robbie the Robot” from “Forbidden Planet.”
The window on being able to become wealthy is closing rapidly around the world.
If you have the ability, you had better make what you can now, because I have a bad feeling it will be nearly impossible to work your way out of poverty in the near future.
Luckily, I am personally set. But I feel very sorry for those who are just now starting out.
...it will be nearly impossible to work your way out of poverty in the near future.
It doesn’t have to be. If you start your own business, you can get started with much less money using robots than hiring employees.
The main thing will be the government policies in place - if they constrain small start-ups or encourage them.
It will be a big opportunity for statists to rig the system to block upward mobility and get lots of people on the dole. No doubt that they will keep trying to do that.
“But the speed of the dislocation is going to faster than past technological waves have been”
True, but whole new industries that we can’t imagine will emerge.
For example, Youtube started in 2005 and is now a billion dollar company.
Well, that’s about it. I imagine during the next twenty years we may have laws passed like were recently passed in some European country, that would make it illegal for anyone to work more than, say, 20 hours a week, so as to share the remaining jobs (which jobs will also diminish in time, so this measure would just be kicking the can down the road).
This would mean that one could not better oneself by working longer hours, in the hopes of investing the extra money so gained or in saving to start a business, not that there’d be any kind of business left to start.
We will be faced with the loss of our economic freedom.
This will be a major crisis and I suspect it’s already started.
Capitalism, free enterprise, will have destroyed itself.
It will be a socialist’s dream: no rich, no poor, no individualism. Everyone equal and equally miserable.
so no sir, I no longer cheer technological “progress” and I am on strike when it comes to using it.
And sure, maybe it’s futile to resist—but it’s the principle of the thing.
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