Comments on: More thoughts on robots and the future

By: David Foster

David Foster — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:43:54 +0000

Interesting example of an application of robotics here: sorting and sterilizing surgical tools.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 23:30:27 +0000

Right now the MPAA is waging war on individuals the entire world over, attempting to protect their monopoly over musicians and other artists. It is a war waged with more money and effect than the war against international piracy.

The internet has made it so that the old idea of property no longer applies. The monopoly and multi billion dollar industry that people built up over the last few decades, sees a threat in the form of bit torrents, video and music sharing, etc. It is not so much the lack of profit that they wish to avoid, as their profits are decreasing for a very different cause (incompatible ethics and aesthetics from producer to audience), but the fact that certain organizations like the MPAA suck out more than 50% of the profits generated by the individual creativity of artists. They are much like lawsuit lawyers that get 90% of the multi million dollar damages, without having to pay taxes on most of it. The middle men somehow gets more than the victim, producer, and government combined. No, what they truly fear is the ability of the internet to cut out the middle men entirely, by connecting the artist directly to their paying audience, and thus destroy the monopoly or even need for middlemen like the MPAA.

The Left’s power is composed of many different members with their own interests and economic slave plantations. A key reason why people have yet to be effective in fighting the Left in this country is because they continue to see the Leftist alliance as a united organization of a single purpose and demographic. It really isn’t. The Leftist organization has members who actually hate each other and have equal and opposite goals, but they find it convenient to ally together to defeat America as a whole or in part, before they decide who gets what afterwards. Meanwhile, it doesn’t hurt them to be able to use the Left’s power to keep their slaves on the plantation and to recapture escaped ones.

Devx, as for sustainability, it probably will be.

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:42:45 +0000

Ymar, you said: whereas smuggling and gray markets tend to trade in things to avoid taxation or to get things that are not normally allowed to the peasant class by consumption laws. These consumption laws will be known under the name "Sustainability".

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:38:58 +0000

Technology increases the free time of a civilization’s people. That results in an increase in the standard of living. However, those who were economically dependent upon the greater demand for services and goods when a civilization didn’t have the luxury of having a machine clean your clothes, find themselves marketed out. They then must be retrained, which requires funding and support from someone.

The Left’s preferred solution to this cyclical problem is simple. They will reserve the gross majority of technology and standard of living improvements to a specially chosen group of people: the rulers and their supporters. Everyone else will have their resource consumption limited by regulated consumption quotas. Those who are out of work due to a disruption in the markets, will be given direct or indirect employment by the ruler’s dummy corporations or state affiliated branches of enforcement. An organization always needs enforcers. Even the private sector sees the work of “repo men” on occasion. There’s even a reality show by a similar name and subject.
Whenever a new invention may come about, such as the washing machine, that allows the servant class more freedom and more idle time on their hands, producing a disruption in the demand for certain jobs, the ruling classes will see fit to limit the application of this new invention to only be used and produced by certain classes of people.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:28:35 +0000

The Gray Market is a more accurate term than the Black Market. The BM seeks to trade in goods that are specifically illegal or banned, whereas smuggling and gray markets tend to trade in things to avoid taxation or to get things that are not normally allowed to the peasant class by consumption laws.

By: David Foster

David Foster — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:29:20 +0000

Note also that there are cases where the impact of automation has been overstated, or excessive reliance has been placed on automation technologies. During the 1980s, Roger Smith of GM famously spent billions of dollars on robotic factories...which didn't really work all that well...while Toyota, while by no means eschewing robots, chose to focus more on the improvement of work processes and the better use of human abilities. I understand that also during the 1980s, the Bureau of Labor Statistic predicted a declining employment profile for air traffic controllers because of expected high automation in the field. It didn't work out that way, partly because of the failure of the software project known as the Advanced Automation System ("the greatest debacle in the history of organized work") and partly because the work of a controller is less roboticizable than the BLS analysts apparently thought it was. Actually, there has in recent years been a controller *shortage*.

By: Elysse

Elysse — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:01:10 +0000

I’m also starting to worry. I’m not a lawyer but a medical technologist. I remember when I was still studying, I had to spend hours in the library to research, draw the specimens we see in the microscope. Now, the students can do all of these in their tablets.
But what worries me more is that hospitals are using higher technology machines and the need for manual counting is decreasing. Now they have machines where you can just place the specimen and a reading will be given. Manual counting and checking will be done only if the results are extremely abnormal. I’m scared that medical technologists will soon lose their jobs, and the demand might go a lot lower in the future. Hoping that it won’t happen.

By: Danny Lemieux

Danny Lemieux — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:30:22 +0000

Michal, I believe that we are already there. I know of many immigrants and tradespeople that operate “cash only”, don’t declare income and collect benefits based on their low-declared incomes.

By: michal

michal — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:48:50 +0000

what interests me more than technology changing the market place, is whether or not the US is going to develop a wide spread alternative market system (black market) for goods and services.
It is a human nature to avoid excessive regulation and taxation.
Anyone notice businesses or services that are offering to cut out the state or Federal gov’t?

By: Danny Lemieux

Danny Lemieux — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 01:50:34 +0000

Except one of the side effects of the technology revolution is that kids no longer are willing to get their hands dirty.