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Originally Posted by AltaGuy
It's a rosy picture. I agree with it though. Inequality is so structural, always has been. The effect of automation on living standards is the real question.
Thomas Piketty really nailed it. Cliff's great post above sounded just like him.
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Yeah, my concern is that the concentration of capital Piketty has analyzed + the acceleration of automation = an era of disparity and mass insecurity that we haven't seen in over a century.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!
The article this factoid comes from goes on to suggest it was the iPhone that actually replaced Kodak and Apple employs just over a gazillion people who collectively make more money that Kodak could ever imagine. The same Economist article gives two sides of the story and suggests the truth is in the middle...namely we likely will net more job opportunities via automation but will be required to adapt to them quicker. I think that's kind of the main point. If you want to think automation is going to snatch your baby up you can. But historically that's not what happened and currently that's not what some people think will happen. Also we used to wonder how we were going to replace baby boomers in the work force. Is that no longer a concern?
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The article also points out that the people who are most concerned about automation are people who actually work in tech (and realize how few jobs it represents), and the people who are more optimistic about the future are historians, who figure that because new technologies have always created lots and lots of new jobs in the past they will continue to do so in the future.
Reasonable people can disagree on which outlook they find more persuasive.