[GGG]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Did you even read what I wrote? Are farmers not already using tractors? This is about preventing further automation. If a farmer is employing someone to drive that tractor, it would make them the decision to replace that worker with a self driving tractor a lot more difficult for them to make. Protecting jobs is important in a consumer driven economy.



If 100 thousand jobs are replaced by machines to make businesses more efficient, how does this expand the economy? If McDonalds eventually becomes fully automated, their cost savings on labour do not get put back into our economy, because even if their business expands they are not creating more jobs, they are just taking in more money. This doesn't only apply to automation, look at the oil and gas industry. All of these people out of work because these companies decided while they could still operate here at a reduced profit with the price of oil where it is, they could make more money drilling elsewhere, so they completely crippled our economy in the process by laying everyone off. I'm not suggesting that they would not have made the same decision even with higher severance pays, but it would have been a bit more of a deterrent. It creates an environment where companies can still make money here, but not so easily leave the people who helped them make all that money in the dust when they decide it's a slightly better return on investment elsewhere.



No one is advocating the smashing of machines, but people need to realistically view the threat of expedited automation. Technology is moving too fast these days, if we eliminate jobs at a faster rate than we create new ones what do you think wI'll happen?

If unions were the reason that Calgary didn't have automated garbage pickup trucks earlier, what changed? Garbage collectors still have a union, so if they had this power to prevent it, why would they all of the sudden change their minds? Sorry, most of your posts here show you have a fairly well informed point of view on things, but this comment is just nonsense, especially if you know and take into consideration how the city and it's labour unions work.

As for the freeing humans from labour created society comment, when did this happen exactly? Last I checked there was still a large percentage of the workforce working in manual labour jobs. The ones most recently "freed" who are sitting at home or on the street wondering what they are going to do now probably wouldn't like this society that is being created.

Your arguments are identical to the Luddites. You are falling victim to a goldilocks argument where the current level of automation is good but anymore is bad. So why are tractors good but self checkouts bad?

Economies expand with efficiency because eiter the price of goods drops which allows more consumption or profit increases allowing more investment. How you distribute this win fall can be debated but to say that efficiency doesn't drive expansion ignores 6000 years of society.

When did humans become freed from labour? Slowly over the last 6000 years. From manufacturing to farming the amount of human energy required to do anything has dropped significantly. We used to have a 16hr 7 day per week work day in hunter gatherer societies. 7 X 12 was common in the industrial revolution. We now work 5x 8 with oil companies in boom times down to 4.5 X 8.

In fact one of the solutions to automation is to change the maximum hours of work down to say 32 so we share the limited jobs available. This can happen because the efficiency of the economy has lowered the cost of goods to allow for less labor to be required to survive.