[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'I')'ll just add...

I read that 80% of our economy is service based... I can't see how that can be maintained. Can we all get paid to wipe each other's asses?

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'U')m, people have been complaining that machines and technology would take away all our jobs since the Industrial Revolution began.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', ' ')Ever heard of Luddites (the original ones)? If they were right we'd have run out of jobs for humans to do long ago.

[Troyboy1208]

God Oily had to come in here and ruin this thread...

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'U')m, people have been complaining that machines and technology would take away all our jobs since the Industrial Revolution began. Ever heard of Luddites (the original ones)? If they were right we'd have run out of jobs for humans to do long ago.

[hillsidedigger]

Nah. Having 'lots-o-kids' forces people to desperately work hard for minimal money and that's good for the economy, right?

[shortonoil]

[b]Six[b] said

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ow long before the Japanese make a robot that can flip burgers at McDonalds? Probably sooner than you think.. right now, they're working on robots that can work as CNA's to help care for their aging population.

[shortonoil]

[b]Six[b] said

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ow long before the Japanese make a robot that can flip burgers at McDonalds? Probably sooner than you think.. right now, they're working on robots that can work as CNA's to help care for their aging population.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Wow Pup, great points.

The corporate disaster you described could have been the IBM Global Services division (disaster) I worked in for about 17 years, until I chucked it in mid '07.

It's just amazing to me. IBM went from a company which had "pay for performance" as the center of its culture, and apparently meant it, to the sorriest bunch of managers from finance repeatedly beating the few people who could actually DO anything for not doing EVERYTHING, until very few of the good employees had any meaningful motivation left.

Instead of rewards for performance, it went to rewards for looking good and being politically correct, and layoffs - including training your replacements from India, Brazil, etc.

But here's the really sad thing. In the short run, at least, it appears to be WORKING. 90% of the folks they outsource jobs to are clueless and/or lazy, but they are CHEAP. IBM is one of the few companies whose stock is back to pre-crash levels (aided recently by the falling dollar).

I still expect that within another 5 years or so, enough of the actual talented people will have left for retirement or in disgust -- and there won't be enough to keep earnings looking better by shifting to dramatically cheaper (but relatively unproductive) labor. Plus, who will actually be around to solve the really TOUGH problems that do occur from time to time when the veterans have all flown the coop? (Maybe by then some robot will write and maintain all the software).

From your descriptions, and "White Collar Sweatshops", a great book about white collar work in America -- I have to presume this kind of situation is VERY common.

[hardtootell-2]

I absolutely agree with what Pup says about the sad state of innovation. I have worked in large companies and have been the target of the anti-innovation crowd. It is ugly. These sad days companies make their technical employees sign these absurd intellectual property rights agreements which lay claim to every innovative idea the employee will ever have. It is obscene. IEEE has attempted to get legislation in place to prevent this.

http://www.todaysengineer.org/2008/Jun/ ... gnment.asp

Large companies are not innovative! In Canada, most Universities do not teach innovation in their engineering schools. The intellectual property landscape is confusing and intimidating if you are not well heeled or sponsored.

Once a society or company can no longer depend on the exploitation of natural resources, innovation is a possible economic solution, unless that golden goose is already dead

[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')he microprocessor revolution is different from the industrial revolution.. in the industrial revolution, workers were still needed in the factories.

[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'R')obots have replaced workers on factory lines, and we now even have surgical robots.

How long before the Japanese make a robot that can flip burgers at McDonalds? Probably sooner than you think.. right now, they're working on robots that can work as CNA's to help care for their aging population.

[shortonoil]

I once had another consultant that I worked with at GE Canada tell me; "If you are going to invent something new around here it had better be something like a transitor, or they'll burn you at the stake!" Inovation is dangerous to the status quo. Entrance cost are huge and growing larger as our technology matures. Few managers are willing to jeperodize their positions on something new - no matter how revolutionary it may be.

As we approach the end of the fossil fuel age, this mind set bodes ill for the development of the new technologies that we will need to substitute for the waning entrenched methodologies. The status quo has too much invested to allow competition, and the necessary competition is unlikely to come about without them. The status quo controls the majority of the remaining capital reserves.

It appears that much of the present system will have to collapse before steps are taken to inititate a monetary/production/distribution system for a new social order. That will most likely place us into something like a mini dark ages for many decades.

[shortonoil]

I once had another consultant that I worked with at GE Canada tell me; "If you are going to invent something new around here it had better be something like a transitor, or they'll burn you at the stake!" Inovation is dangerous to the status quo. Entrance cost are huge and growing larger as our technology matures. Few managers are willing to jeperodize their positions on something new - no matter how revolutionary it may be.

As we approach the end of the fossil fuel age, this mind set bodes ill for the development of the new technologies that we will need to substitute for the waning entrenched methodologies. The status quo has too much invested to allow competition, and the necessary competition is unlikely to come about without them. The status quo controls the majority of the remaining capital reserves.

It appears that much of the present system will have to collapse before steps are taken to inititate a monetary/production/distribution system for a new social order. That will most likely place us into something like a mini dark ages for many decades.

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'R')obots have replaced workers on factory lines, and we now even have surgical robots.

How long before the Japanese make a robot that can flip burgers at McDonalds? Probably sooner than you think.. right now, they're working on robots that can work as CNA's to help care for their aging population.

[hardtootell-2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonoil', 'I') once had another consultant that I worked with at GE Canada tell me; "If you are going to invent something new around here it had better be something like a transitor, or they'll burn you at the stake!" Inovation is dangerous to the status quo. Entrance cost are huge and growing larger as our technology matures. Few managers are willing to jeperodize their positions on something new - no matter how revolutionary it may be.

.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')he microprocessor revolution is different from the industrial revolution.. in the industrial revolution, workers were still needed in the factories.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonoil', '[')b]Six[b] said

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ow long before the Japanese make a robot that can flip burgers at McDonalds? Probably sooner than you think.. right now, they're working on robots that can work as CNA's to help care for their aging population.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Homesteader', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'I') hope you get the point. At some point you will have to have large numbers of humans building and designing robots. If robots became as ubiquitous as cars, flipping our burgers and washing our cars, you would have a vast industrial sector dedicated to building and designing robots, with millions and millions of humans employed in the design, manufacture, distribution, financing and maintenance of these robots.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'W')hat makes you think those software jobs will be in the US? Fat chance.. India and China most likely.