

Automating production at China factory reduces 80% of workforce - vtry
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120627PD210.html

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RedwoodCity
Products get cheaper due to automation, so people buy more stuff. Laid off
workers eventually become robot technicians or designers. Some may never adapt
but the same be said for any western country that has lost factories to the
east.

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msg
Can someone put this in context? Is this an inkling of things to come? I'm
curious about how the trend toward automation, away from human labor, will
affect unemployment and disaffection in China.

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smackfu
My understanding was that it is strictly a numbers game: workers are used when
they are cheaper than robots, and vice versa.

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sboak
circle of life

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angdis
Not so much a circle. More like an arrow. Pointing downward. This isn't going
to end pretty in the long term.

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yock
Why? When did it become a universal truth that human labor must be employed in
producing the widgets we consume? Throughout history human labor has been
replaced by automation. Some pain is always involved, but society eventually
repurposes that human labor to more efficient uses of their skills.

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angdis
By the same token, I don't think it is a universal truth that human labor will
_always_ be able repurpose itself and/or do so in a way that doesn't involve
tremendous human suffering.

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yock
It always involves some amount of suffering. Entire generations of people have
found themselves in a life dedicated to an obsolete skill. Does that mean we
should limit the use of, say, printing machines so that people may be
gainfully employed manually copying books?

What you're suggesting seems to be to limit innovation for the sake of
comfort. A society that buys such a line of thought is far more doomed than
the one who may or may not innovate themselves obsolete.

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angdis
Hey, I am not suggesting there's a solution-- let alone even suggesting that
we preserve jobs by "limiting innovation" (if that could even be done). All I
am trying say is that there had better be something hard thinking about what
will happen to people whose jobs become obsolete in large numbers. If recent
history is any indication, it seems that we're NOT headed towards increasing
the size of the welfare state. Instead we're seeing larger and large rifts
between the haves and the have-nots. That's a serious problem and not one that
has an easy solution.

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taligent
I hope all the people who were so critical of Foxconn are prepared for the
consequences. From what we've seen Foxconn were so rattled by it that they are
investing massively in robotic automation. To the detriment of hundreds of
thousands of poorer workers and the millions that they impact.

This ignorance and arrogance on the part of mainly Western countries to judge
places they've never visited really needs to stop. Yes we need to maintain
basic human rights. But we also need to be mindful that one man's exploitation
is another man's livelihood.

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Ralith
It sounds like you'd prefer that rote labor not be automated. Should the
potential for a post-scarcity society be abandoned because it costs a few jobs
in the short term?

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vladd
In order to live and avoid starvation, people require a minimum amount of
income. There are two things they can use to produce income: work and assets
(i.e. house renting).

As automation continues to elevate the standard of employable "work", there
will be a lot of people that don't have the required education to be
employable, nor sufficient savings to get an education, nor enough assets to
generate sustainable living from them.

I'm all for the benefits of automation, but we should have a solution for the
above scenario before saying it will be all roses and sunny days. What do we
do with these people? Are we willing to get them to an upper level of
knowledge via free education supported by higher taxation? Are we going to
guarantee minimum income levels or a minimum set of assets to every person to
be able to sustain themselves while being educated?

Those are difficult questions, and in a changing world where it's not enough
to want to work in order to find a job, answers are needed...

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mmatants
As countries get richer there is more and more affordable education. In other
words, higher job productivity from those who can get jobs means higher
contributions to help those who can't.

And even if one doesn't have a high-level education, being "poor" in a
developed country affords a better lifestyle than being "middle class" in that
very same country a few decades ago. In other words, the same minimum wage
dollar buys many times more goods. The cost savings spread everywhere - hence
post-scarcity.

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horsehead
And now other countries start doing the same as the US did 100 years ago. Soon
they'll be outsourcing jobs too, though IDK to whom. Soon there won't be any
cheap labor as the rest of the world catches up!!

Or maybe super poor countries will start being better off .... hmmm

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hkmurakami
The next destination for labor is Africa.

I'm really interested to see what happens after that though, when there is
comparatively little wage arbitrage opportunities remaining.

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heretohelp
>I'm really interested to see what happens after that though, when there is
comparatively little wage arbitrage opportunities remaining.

Post-labor economies driven by efficiency improvements from technological
advancement.

Most of the western world lives dissipatively save for a cohort of knowledge
workers fighting for prestige and social proof. (You already see this in the
startup industry with those who have enough money to retire on.)

Those that don't adapt to the non-necessity for everybody to be working will
experience tumult.

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mtrimpe
What do you mean by dissipatively?

My dictionary hasn't caught up with your vocabulary yet ;)

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heretohelp
Imagine what most people would do if they no longer had to work to survive.

Sit around, watch TV, etc.

<http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dissipative>

Specifically: "To indulge in the intemperate pursuit of pleasure."

Contains a more...nihilistic edge than hedonism though.

