Posted on 06/08/2016 6:21:13 PM PDT by SamAdams76
aybabtu
Zero Wing
CATS Engrish 1989
;-)
It’s been a while
No Zig
This is definitely not something that I advocate, but if you have a world in which machines mine iron ore, produce steel, manufacture cars, drill for oil, refine oil, and dispense gasoline -- then you can build a Communist world in which no one works, no one owns anything, no one has money, no one buys anything, but people have "stuff".
I think more automation/less jobs leads us right into more socialism/communism. Lack of money won't be a factor for getting "stuff".
Again: Not where I would want us to go, but it sure looks like we're heading there -- 94 million Americans not in the work force, and government subsidies for all kinds of people all across the land. It will get much worse; because it can.
I think you are greatly underestimateing randomness, stupidity, inertia, and normalcy bias.
My Dad worked there from the '50s to the late '80s and my Cousin worked there from the late '80s until 4 years ago. Lack of innovation and ability to do things wasn't the problem so much as not doing much because it might not be "nice" to the "special" people....
It seems strange that when I read this article today it triggered a rant. Last night I lay awake thinking about technology and “progress” and how it has affected our jobs and lifestyles since the 50’s.
Is it better? The answer is no…it’s far worse.
Back in the 50’s men were the “breadwinners” and mom normally stayed home and raised the kids. Manners and morals were learned from both mom and dad and every male was expected to leave home after graduation from high school and start their paths into the world. Manners, morals, the work ethic, abiding the laws and rules of our country and institutions, and the goals of financial independence from the family along with a strong education from our public schools back then, made the generations up until the mid-60’s the greatest in American history.
My mind wandered back to the days when every town and city of any size had its own telephone company office, electric company office, utilities department, and a whole host of retail and department stores. In these stores worked local people. For instance: In a large department store you had local managers, their staff, clerks, sales people, inventory stockers and a whole host of other people from other local businesses providing logistical support along with services such as plumbing, carpentry etc. All of which had local people working for them and the chain of interaction between all local companies and the support of all of the people who worked for them.
Unemployment was not a problem. If you wanted work…there was work. It might not be what you like but the job was there.
All of this came to mind last night after I went through the misery of trying to terminate all of the utilities and auxiliary services to a house I own and sold yesterday. Note: I’ve not had the need to turn on nor terminate any local utilities in a very long time so what comes was a real “eye opener” to me and is the basis of this article. WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL OF THE LOCAL JOBS? Why is it impossible to simply walk into the utility office and have the service terminated? Where are they physically located? What happens if you don’t have a computer to correspond with them with? How can you possibly talk to someone who can’t speak understandable English? And (last but not least) how the hell do you even get to the correct department in the first place?
After this experience I got to thinking about the old days and how simple everything was and it dawned upon me the damage that technology has done to our society and local jobs and businesses. Going back to the local stores, the people who worked there and the “spoked wheel” of local interaction with all local companies and service companies, I suddenly realized that with each company that either “digitized”, centralized and moved their offices and service centers overseas KILLED local businesses along with the complete destruction of the “spoked wheel” of interaction and support among local people and businesses.
In the old days I could walk into the electric utility building, walk up to a counter and pay my bill or make changes to my services. It took about 5 minutes with no miserable experiences. Same with all of the other small offices and businesses it was necessary to visit to do business. Take the electric utility business for example: 1 manager, 1 secretary/bookkeeper, 1 general laborer, 1 clerk and the needed services performed by outside sources. That was 4 people who were employed at the electric service company used in the example. Of course larger cities had much larger figures. With the new-age technology in communications ALL OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO JOB. Worse yet, no personal service and support exists there any longer.
I lay there awake thinking about this and how we hear of Jobs, jobs, jobs, and how the government is going to bring them back. HOW? And what kind of jobs? Government? Minimum wage? “Make work” jobs? The fact is that the jobs have been digitized and sent overseas in both manufacturing and in general business activities.
Since the 60’s we have destroyed our own small towns, services on all levels, morality, the work ethic, and the jobs that used to support hard working families. Sure, technology has made many things easier for us but in many cases destroyed the fabric of our society. For example: Take TV for example. It used to be that in the old days everyone went to the movie theatre and everyone met and knew each other. It was a social bonding of each town and actually was the glue that held many in contact with their neighbors and friends. With the introduction of TV back then they stayed home and soon did not even know the neighbors down the street any longer.
Today it’s even worse for technology has totally decimated the social web we used to know. For example: cell phone users prefer to TEXT rather than speak on a telephone (a wondrous device that allows an individual to actually have TWO WAY vocal conversation with someone). Is something wrong here?
What this rant comes down to is that with each advancement of technology comes a decrease in both professionalism, personal service and attention, local jobs and the collapse of social interaction (real face to face).
Now, I’ve blown off steam and have to gird myself to try to call the electric company to terminate my services and hope I can speak to someone who has the mastery of the English language. I don’t think the bad experience I had yesterday will change today.
You stated: How will people buy stuff with their primary source of income gone?
Our government is working on that problem now by taking even more money out of the checks of working people to give to those who don’t work. It’s a novel idea and I think it’s called welfare.
They have plenty of expendable cash now to add to the “under the table” money they get elsewhere.
Enjoy the future!
In particular, the article predicted electricty wod get cheaper...and without explaination declared that solar power would cause this to happen. This does not match reality at all - where electrical rates are increasing, and surely would continue to increase if we all switched to electric cars as the article predicts.
Meanwhile in Kingsport, where much of the chemistry of Kodak film was at work, there was a realization in say 1992, that something was afoot.
The chemical works including Tennessee eastman, Carolina Eastman and Texas Eastman were spun off to stockholders as Eastman Chemical Co. Eastman no longer makes all the stuff it once did to support Rochester and is a thriving Chemicals company
In Rochester, the parking lot of the HQ office is showing weeds in the expansion joints and in Kingsport there is a spanking new glass clad office building. The Rochester mentality is gone and architectural splendor is on display
Some one was looking far ahead
You need to buy the flavored coffee you like, try a French Press coffee maker.
Yeah, really not looking forward to self-driving motorcycles. Or cars for that matter.
I'm wondering... what makes you think the robots won't be better and cheaper than you?
It was my understanding that Kodak owned their own cattle ranch to provide the collagen they were using. I guess they sold the place.
You'd think that, but there are issues. Let's say that you have a novel that you wrote back in the day using MS-Word 1.0. You've done a really good job on keeping up with your files, and managed to successfully transfer from 5.25" floppies, to 2.5" discs, to CDs, and now to a micro-SD card the same size as your pinky fingernail. Now, it's 2016 and you'd like to re-read and perhaps modify the file. How do you do it? MS-Office won't read it. Fortunately, OpenOffice might, but you'll likely lose some formatting information.
Same thing will eventually go for various file formats. For pictures, JPEG is a lossy format so you've already lost some fidelity if you don't store your data in their raw format. I figure you'll see more and more cameras and other devices go to lossless compression. However, you'll have to be sure that the format is well documented, because if you want to read the file 50 years from now, even if you've faithfully transferred the file over time without losing the data due to file corruption, you're going to need a program to read it. My advise for images is to go with a lossless format, and every few years think about whether or not you need to convert it to something new. With luck you won't lose any data in the conversions, though it's pretty likely you will. For instance, will your conversions know about, or be able to handle EXIF information? One would hope so, but there are no guarantees.
The real shame with a lot of people's data is that they do a lousy job of keeping track of it, and backing it up. I can't tell you how many people that I know that have lost everything when their hard drive crashed. Hopefully they'll have some of that stuff stored in 'the cloud', but there are no guarantees for that either, unless you're paying for it. What happens to that cloud data when someone dies? Can you even get to it?
There are tons of issues surrounding access to data of all kinds that people aren't really thinking about.
Already happening my friend.
MANY under 30 people I personally know can not get pregnant, including my daughter-in-law and many women in her social circle.
Oddly several of these young women had one pregnancy early in their 20's then nothing.(Including DIL who had 2 pregnancies then absolutely nothing after 5 years of trying.)
Add to that the wussification of most young men.
The Georgia Guidestones® boldly declare their goal of depopulating the planet by 2050. Toss in a little CWII action and things get lonely fast.
Port protectors.
ROTFLMAO!
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