[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')As for your "robot tax", it is nonsense. First of all, there are very few machines that justify the name "robot". Dishwashers, washing machines, weed whackers, and powered lawn mowers for example are appliances or tools - but they rendered domestic human servants obsolete. Once you have a good definition of "robot" my engineering brethren will design non-robotic machines that perform the same tasks without the robot tax. It would also be a non-productive and silly thing to do - if a human form robot can do a task better and cheaper, it should. Nor should it be necessary to re-design the machine into a less efficient form to avoid a robot tax.

[diemos]

It's always tempting for the elite to declare the problems of the poor are not their problems.

You should ask Marie Antoinette and the Tsar how that worked out for them.

[mmasters]

Too many people isn't the problem exactly, it's too many low level people. The low level people outnumber the high level people at least 10 to 1 (and that's being generous).

The thing about low level people is they want to live like the high level people.

Add to that too many low level people living in a democracy can lead to a majority that is out of touch with reality and elects people like Obama (a low level person who masquerades as a high level person).

Another factor is common sense, only about 1/3 of the people in the US have it (mostly people that voted for Trump). The rest are lost in ideology.

I think the best thing you can do if you're a high level person is to insulate yourself from the rest of society by making a lot of money (as it's going to get a lot worse out there).

[KaiserJeep]

All I have to say about automation is that those jobs which can be done by machines today are already lost. The replacement of humans with machines was the whole topic of the "Obsolete" thread I linked to earlier.

Possibly half of the people employed today are working at jobs that COULD be automated, and most will be in time. But in some industries, capital equipment cycles are long, plus some businesses are themselves obsolete and fading, and never will get automated.

I'm not suggesting I know how to run an economy with 25% employment and 75% unemployment, only that somebody better figure that out soon.

I'm also not sure how the oil peak figures into this. The demand for oil has been pretty steadily averaging about 2.5% annual gain over a long period, driven by population increases and people upgrading to the Middle Class. The decline in conventional oiil fields is higher than that, but we have the shales and the fracked oil making up more and more. The bounds of that are between 9 and 90 years, with the most likely impact around 2050.

But the decline of the Middle Class may well make an oil crash softer and further off. People without cars consume less oil.

[JimBof]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mmasters', 'T')oo many people isn't the problem exactly, it's too many low level people. The low level people outnumber the high level people at least 10 to 1 (and that's being generous).

The thing about low level people is they want to live like the high level people.

Add to that too many low level people living in a democracy can lead to a majority that is out of touch with reality and elects people like Obama (a low level person who masquerades as a high level person).

Another factor is common sense, only about 1/3 of the people in the US have it (mostly people that voted for Trump). The rest are lost in ideology.

I think the best thing you can do if you're a high level person is to insulate yourself from the rest of society by making a lot of money (as it's going to get a lot worse out there).

[KaiserJeep]

Baha, you have not read my signature, I see. I am network node 2016-933, tertiary adjunct to Unimatrix 001. I was assimilated on April 1, 2016 and upon that date I was the 933rd major network node added in the year 2016. I expressed it in BCD in the signature.

I also have had a solar roof since 2010. My modest overproduction of grid energy offsets all my electrical use and some of the natural gas, since PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) sends me a combined electric and gas monthly bill. Since there is a time-of-day variable electric rate here in the Golden State, plus mandated net metering, and I produce grid energy during the prime rate period, I get maximum return for my batteryless grid-attached system.

I also have not filled the tank on my Wrangler since some time in November 2017. I am down below half, and will need to do so soon. However for a few years my personal consumption has been below 100 gallons annually. (The wife still commutes to her job and fills her tank every couple of weeks.) However, now you know why I have not purchased that Tesla EV yet ... the payback period would be over a century, at least until gasoline blows through the $100/g price milestone.

The carrying of cell phones is step 1 in your assimilation. Soon you will be visited by a DNA sampling drone. Then once your cloned components have been grown in the vat, an assimilation crew will partially disassemble your current body and reassemble you in your cyber form.

All cell phone users have been scheduled for assimilation. Some are higher priority than others.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'I') also have not filled the tank on my Wrangler since some time in November 2017. I am down below half, and will need to do so soon. However for a few years my personal consumption has been below 100 gallons annually. (The wife still commutes to her job and fills her tank every couple of weeks.) However, now you know why I have not purchased that Tesla EV yet ... the payback period would be over a century, at least until gasoline blows through the $100/g price milestone.

[Newfie]

KJ,

I think I get where you are coming from above HOWEVER you need to realize that certain topics are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE and it is extremely difficult in this short form written format to assure your posts are not misinterpreted. In short, the allusions to the Nazi Death Camps teeters on, or crosses, the line of sensibility for many folks. Such rhetoric will likely prompt attacks and drag an already sensitive topic far off from where you intended. Just the image will inflame some folks beyond all reason. Such diversions would be in no ones interest and would surely result in hard feeling.

Thanks for listening.

[Newfie]

I think that this issue, how to use spare time and how to value your personal contributions, could be viewed in a religious/cultural context.

The Indian cast system can be viewed as a solution to the problem. Tanada’s fictional solution apportioned jobs by birth day of week. The cast system apportions jobs by your caste. Ida Pheifer describes how English ladies complained of the hoard of servants they were REQUIRED to hire. She noted that the impression in Europe was that the English were being lavish show-offs by having such large staffs. But when she spoke to the English ladies she found that the cast system insisted one class to set the table, another to cook the food, another to wait and clear the table, and another to wash and fold the table cloths and napkins.

If you look at this like a biologist and ask “What is the usefulness of this adaptation?” the answer that comes out is “To assure each caste has some useful role in society.” This adaptation “evolved” (social evolution) to deal with otherwise superfluous people.

Now take early North America, by contrast. Here the Puritan Work Ethic took hold because there was a dearth of manpower. Everyone had to do his upmost to survive. During the colonial period until industrialization we adapted to this low manpower situation and it became part of our culture.

It is interesting that Ben Franklin, in negotiations with England strenuously argued the colonies would pose no industrial threat to the homeland as long as cheap arable land survived, and it seemed limitless at his time. So he saw industrialization as a means by which displaced farmers could find second rate but acceptable employment.

We are developing subcultures within the USA adapted to low productivity life styles. One could point to urban ghetto lifestyle as such an adaptation.

One way to look at the elite/poor split is to identify the elites as those adapted to the Puritan Work Ethic and the poor as those adapted to the emerging reality of low productivity. This would explain a lot of things such as why poverty is so tenacious.

In this explanation both the Right and Left are clueless and neither group understands the underlying dynamics, or the future. Pushing the hard work solution will frustrate and agitate those adapted to a less prosperous life style without offering a genuine upwards path. The left has a less clear agenda for social/economic improvement that seems to rely upon government largess, which antagonizes both ends of the economic spectrum without offering a credible solution. It just blames TPTB.

I’ve no solution either, just trying to understand the dynamics.

[mmasters]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JimBof', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mmasters', 'T')oo many people isn't the problem exactly, it's too many low level people. The low level people outnumber the high level people at least 10 to 1 (and that's being generous).

The thing about low level people is they want to live like the high level people.

Add to that too many low level people living in a democracy can lead to a majority that is out of touch with reality and elects people like Obama (a low level person who masquerades as a high level person).

Another factor is common sense, only about 1/3 of the people in the US have it (mostly people that voted for Trump). The rest are lost in ideology.

I think the best thing you can do if you're a high level person is to insulate yourself from the rest of society by making a lot of money (as it's going to get a lot worse out there).

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'I') think that this issue, how to use spare time and how to value your personal contributions, could be viewed in a religious/cultural context.

[Newfie]

Yes, trickle down.

I think there a number of valid ways to learn look at this issue, some better than others.

I find it facinating to understand human motivations, even if they scare and sometimes disgust me. And since I’m (mostly) human it is a journey in self discovery.

[ralfy]

Those were rogue nations much earlier.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'Y')es, trickle down.

I think there a number of valid ways to learn look at this issue, some better than others.

I find it facinating to understand human motivations, even if they scare and sometimes disgust me. And since I’m (mostly) human it is a journey in self discovery.

[diemos]

In Japan the retail staffing levels are astoundingly large compared to the US and it's driven by social solidarity and giving people an opportunity to contribute rather than the US drive to automate or offshore everyone out of a job in the name of maximizing profit.

[Newfie]

Tanada,

No disagreement.

What does not make sense is pushing automation and then not planning to deal with the newly unemployed population.

There are consequences.

[Darian S]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')A BMI is just a hand out, it engenders no level of self respect because it is simply charity. You should not be ashamed of accepting charity if you need it to get by, but you should neither be proud of living on the dole. A stupid menial job you do to earn a living is nothing to be ashamed of, and you are at least in theory earning your place in society in the process.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Darian S', '
')Once humanity has full automation there is no need for the rest of the population to perform any physical or mental task to survive. All that is needed is regulation of reproduction to reduce the population and increase the true wealth of all.

[Darian S]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t's much easier to spout socialist theories and dreams about how poor people deserve wealthy people's money than to make such a system work. It's also easy to claim that the "elite" don't earn their wealth -- so why don't the poor just go get a job with a giant salary tomorrow since it's so easy and takes no work?