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Roger Iliff's avatar

Perhaps in the rise of the USA populists and violence we are already seeing the beginning of the implosion of society due to the rising inequality and the song of angry men.

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DougAz's avatar

I'm 68 and a geek grad from 3 letter school. On the DARPANET in 72. Seen all the tech evolution from mainframes to DEC to PCs to laptops to phones. Saw how PC based solid modeling like Solid Works replaced drafters in automotive as engineers did more and most of the whole design and analysis of parts and subsystems.

I love Noah Smith.

My observation as an active participant over 50s years in this topic follows.

A. Yes, automation eliminates jobs. Drafters, admin/secretaries, travel agents.

B. Totally agree that the variable cost of IT amd automation is incredibly low

C. Physical products still require component manufacturing, tooling, assembly and test.

D. Unfortunately the Apple et al determined that China wae an easier route than US labor (it's competitive here in Arizona, plus automation) would probably raise an iPhone variable cost by one dollar. Or 2. Meaningless actually

E. The long arc of allnof this is interesting to me:

Conclusion: Not enough work is very very bad. Coupled with today's lower work ethic in under 35 yr olds, it's gonna be a huge problem.

Meanwhile labor has 2 core issues.

1. Struggle forna living wage

2. Struggle for Healthcare payments

Solutions:

A. National Healthcare. Saves $2.5 Trillion annually of non value. Move from 20% GDP back to 10% GDP.

B. This allows worker mobility to optimize jobs and equally allows startups to hire a BigCorp talent afraid to not have Healthcare.

C. Mandatory lower working hours. Overtime is illegal. Minimum wage $20/hr.

Productivity to infinity is 1 person making 500 million cell phones in a Foxconn factory. With millions unable to be supported.

Sustainability requires deliberate UN-Productivity.

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