
American Men Heading for 25% Unemployment by 2050 - mwksl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/26/larry-summers-a-disaster-is-looming-for-american-men/?tid=hybrid_collaborative_1_na
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justinlardinois
This was posted a few days ago, discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12584747](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12584747)

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VertexRed
There's no point in commenting there since the thread is dead.

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marak830
Normally I'd agree, but there are some good arguments for every side there.

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triMichael
Bad logic and flawed data extrapolation in the title and graph. You can't
extrapolate percentages linearly over large amounts, otherwise by the year
2550 there will be 125% unemployment. As usual, relevant XKCD:
[https://xkcd.com/605/](https://xkcd.com/605/)

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pboutros
I don't think the findings are all the flawed -- you see similar %'s in other
developed economies. It's not like Lawrence Summers just extrapolated the data
and relied only on that!

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triMichael
I edited my comment to say title and post. After reading a bit more thoroughly
I realized he doesn't blindly use the graph data. But that title on the post
is sure misleading! I guess the article title "A disaster is looming for
American men" was a bit too vague for HN, but I think the replacement title is
flawed.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Why American _men_ specifically? Is it that women tend to be in careers that
are less under threat in the next 34 years? Or, are they similarly affected
here?

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justinlardinois
I asked the same question the last time this was posted. Discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12585129](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12585129)

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VertexRed
I really wonder what people will work with in the future with both the AI and
human population advancing rapidly. Jobs will be taken over by robots at the
same time as more mouths will have to be fed.

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return0
More mouths will be fed. The robots will still do the work for humans, in fact
a lot more work. The questions is how to best distribute the wealth instead of
concentrating it.

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VertexRed
But what will the humans be working on while the bots take care of it all?

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skizm
[https://xkcd.com/605/](https://xkcd.com/605/)

