Will technology replace jobs?

Discussion in 'Technology' started by knowname, Sep 7, 2011.

  1. perusing my Facebook feed (which I do about 500x a day :|) I came acrossed this http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete/index.html?hpt=hp_c1 at first it caught my eye cuz I'd heard the post office was in trouble but it brings up some other interesting points. Will we ever come to a point where there are no more (or very few) jobs and what would we all do with that free money? Wait no that's not the question but... well my brain just broke. Read the article and see what I was gonna say..
     
  2. A society where machines do all of the boring manual labor and humans are left to intellectual pursuits sounds pretty appealing.
     
  3. Replace jobs? Yes, but it should create new jobs along the way. Technology has been eliminating and creating jobs since the beginning of time. Before there was fire there were people who would warm your hand by rubbing them together really fast. After fire was invented those people lost their jobs. They had to move on to new and better thing and they did.
     
  4. It also sounds like a really high unemployment rate.
     
  5. This thread made me think of this. It's a video of a classic 90's British comedy called One Foot in the Grave. It's basically a story about a grumpy old man (Victor Meldrew, played perfectly by Richard Wilson) who has a legendary catchphrase, "I don't believe it!". Pretty much anyone in England over the age of 25 used to watch this back in the day. This episode was all about Victor being made redundant and being replaced by "a box on a wall".

    And yes, the theme song was written and sung by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame.

     
  6. I doubt they'd ever COMPLETELY replace us. At some point communication is the very basis for everything.

    It IS just like Arma's video, just wide-spread. Can we survive just not doing nothing?? Won't we go crazy doing that? How will money be distributed and why are we so messed up right now? When will be the day when we can eat all our food, live in all our houses (instead of building them instead fix all those 50 yr old dams that's about to break), stop hiding the cure for cancer?

    At some point I just think this stupid article is asking for the secret of life and one person was never meant to provide that. My head asplodes just thinking of it.

    no world of machines is a world for me. Plus how would we get there? we'd have to pretty much blow everything up, we're too dependant as is.