"eople have no right to hold out for the job of their dreams while they are on unemployment benefits - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Valnar;44915765]While companies do tend towards automation there are probably some automatons that are held back by the possible backlash of "destroying jobs". How do you think people would react to McDonald's announcing an automatic burger maker? How about Starbucks implementing automatic kiosks for coffee (automatic coffee kiosks already exist and they are pretty cool)? I don't doubt that these big companies are putting R&D but I do think they have pause over actually implementing them.[/QUOTE] Well first off i don't think anyone is going to say that companies are destroying jobs that way since the media has painted them amusingly to be the job creators. How would people react? I would assume just fine, sure old people would be even more scared and confused by all the new things but what are they going to do. Have an example [URL="http://www.cnet.com/news/mcdonalds-hires-7000-touch-screen-cashiers/"]this was 17th of may[/URL] Now while this isn't going on around everywhere at the same time to such an effect the more automation is done this will sort of force even more automation by all the companies in the fast food sector (that can afford it) if they want to stay competitive since it *should* bring down the price a lot since less wages have to be paid.

[QUOTE=Valnar;44914604]Why should people have to take just any job they get? The whole idea of the classic need for a job is growing increasingly archaic. A shit-ton of minimum wage jobs could become fully automated in the matter of a few years, but no company will do that because they will be labeled job destroyers. So we have people wasting their lives doing crap jobs because there is this deeply ingrained societal idea that everyone needs to work in order for society to function, and if you don't work you're labeled as some sort of leech. It's abysmal.[/QUOTE] This is why I love studying to be an automatician :v: I know that my job would in theory be the last human job in the world as automation replaces more and more mundane tasks.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;44915322]This post deserves to be published somewhere better than Facepunch.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Angua;44915335]Yea that was well spoken.[/QUOTE] Hey thanks guys. I could have formatted it better though, but when I try to edit it it won't let me, so it's staying as is. [QUOTE=Oscar Lima Echo;44916273]This is why I love studying to be an automatician :v: I know that my job would in theory be the last human job in the world as automation replaces more and more mundane tasks.[/QUOTE] I think it's safer to say that your job would be the last job anyone [B]has[/B] to do, but people will willingly do all sorts of things. But that would be our greatest day, wouldn't it? A day when people could do what they want to do, not what they have to do.

[QUOTE=FlakAttack;44916883] I think it's safer to say that your job would be the last job anyone [B]has[/B] to do, but people will willingly do all sorts of things. But that would be our greatest day, wouldn't it? A day when people could do what they want to do, not what they have to do.[/QUOTE] I honestly don't believe that will ever happen. There will always be shitty jobs, and there will always be people whose work is worth less to a business. Until the day everyone has the exact same physique, skills and knowledge, there will always be differences.

[QUOTE=Oscar Lima Echo;44917055]I honestly don't believe that will ever happen. There will always be shitty jobs, and there will always be people whose work is worth less to a business. Until the day everyone has the exact same physique, skills and knowledge, there will always be differences.[/QUOTE] Oh well here's still waiting for that basic income. Calling it will happen before 2034, unless something [B]REALLY [/B]unexpected happens. Like a global ban on all computers or some other cataclysmic event.

[QUOTE=FlakAttack;44916883] I think it's safer to say that your job would be the last job anyone [B]has[/B] to do, but people will willingly do all sorts of things. But that would be our greatest day, wouldn't it? A day when people could do what they want to do, not what they have to do.[/QUOTE] They were dreaming of that fifty years ago and it never happened. Automation doesn't give people more free time for leisure, it allows fewer people to do the same work, and it allows the company to cut everyone else loose. It's right there in the data: wages are flat, and productivity is up 400%. The end-state of automation is a few people who are spectacularly wealthy, and everyone else is starving and killing each other for the few jobs that remain.

[QUOTE=Angua;44917262]Oh well here's still waiting for that basic income. Calling it will happen before 2034, unless something [B]REALLY [/B]unexpected happens. Like a global ban on all computers or some other cataclysmic event.[/QUOTE] We'll more than likely see 30 hour standard work weeks before we see basic income. What is with Facepunch's recent boner for basic income anyways.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;44920063] What is with Facepunch's recent boner for basic income anyways.[/QUOTE] I suppose it's an attractive idea for an entire generation of people just now coming to terms with the fact that we're going to be denied a productive career that pays a living wage.

I could bet I'd have been employed these past 2 years if it weren't for the dole - I am looking for work but the only help I've had from gobcentre or work programme surmounts to that weekly £56, which if anything only makes it easier to slack off on seeking employment. It enables dossing to a ridiculous extent especially when the staff don't give a shit, which around here is a given (in my experience they're ridiculously condescending, and as far as I can tell are just there to earn their wage, not actually help people). Of course there are people who need it, but there needs to be case-by-case review and you know, actual enforcement of their rules; They ask for bi-weekly evidence you've been searching for jobs, demand that you attend work programme or any training course they put you on, you're meant to have meetings with your jobcentre advisor. I did none of that. If they asked me for a jobsearch, I'd just give a shitty excuse, say I'd bring it in next time, with £110 on its way in to my bank - 90% of the time they didn't though. I stopped going to the work programme a year ago (Which demonstrates their total lack of communication), they're less useful than the jobcentre its self and that's saying something. Never had meetings with my advisor either. I just stopped going in because like I said, that "free" money makes it all the easier to just rest on your laurels, which to someone with low levels of motivation can only be detrimental. If it were up to me, JSA wouldn't exist in its current state. At least I was actually looking for work - if they had proper, regular checks in place the real dossers wouldn't get on in the first place; I'd either have been jumping through their hoops or got myself off it, even better employed a lot earlier.

[QUOTE=Valnar;44915765]While companies do tend towards automation there are probably some automatons that are held back by the possible backlash of "destroying jobs". How do you think people would react to McDonald's announcing an automatic burger maker? How about Starbucks implementing automatic kiosks for coffee (automatic coffee kiosks already exist and they are pretty cool)? I don't doubt that these big companies are putting R&D but I do think they have pause over actually implementing them.[/QUOTE] Hiring humans to flip your burgers is still cheaper than developing and maintaining a robot. Besides that, robots can't provide service at the moment. You'd lose customers if you replaced your humans with a touch-screen interface. Big industries [i]can[/i] spin replacing workforce with robots in a positive light. It's never about destroying jobs; operating and maintaining the robots creates new work, and the already employed people can be given more meaningful work (like providing better service for the customers) now that robots are doing all the menial labour. There's also the absurd notion that making good food requires a human. Eating and making food is often a social thing, and food can be made with "love". You can't get rid of that preconception so easily, so I'd guess the food industry isn't going fully automatic anytime soon, even if we have the technology.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;44920063]We'll more than likely see 30 hour standard work weeks before we see basic income. What is with Facepunch's recent boner for basic income anyways.[/QUOTE] Well if the population amount continues to grow as it is or if it even stays as it is, along the current rate of technological progress. We're looking at hundreds of millions of permanently unemployed angry and frustrated people in one corner so if something isn't going to be done these starving probably massively indebted masses might just start doing something about it and that's probably not good for anyone and will end up with loads of dead people and plenty of burning cars. Sure a 16 hour work week should have been implemented like 60 years ago to make sure this never happens but since that didn't occur we're in the current predicament where there literally aren't enough jobs and there will be even less at an ever increasing pace due to automation and corporations cutting jobs. Basic income, depending on how it is implemented would work as a hotfix for this. Unfortunately these changes would have to be political and for a number of reasons my trust in these [I]fine [/I]elected leaders is somewhat low, certainly it depends from politician to politician but with people like Stephen Harper, Tony Abbott and David Cameron in charge they're only some of the openly bumbling fools, i'm sure there's plenty of dirt behind most of our political leaders. Talking about incompetence they really aren't, these are smart very well educated people who know precisely what they are doing, which is far worse in my opinion.

[QUOTE=SexualShark;44911301]speaking of unemployment you should be on it you cunt[/QUOTE] When politicians lose their job because they do it badly they never need to worry about money again, they already secured all the benefits and a nice pension. Not to mention their exorbitant salary while they were in office guaranteeing them a large pool of money they can save and invest. When other people lose their job, for any reason, and can't find another one they get bitched at by politicians for being lazy.

[QUOTE=Angua;44925075]Well if the population amount continues to grow as it is or if it even stays as it is, along the current rate of technological progress. We're looking at hundreds of millions of permanently unemployed angry and frustrated people in one corner so if something isn't going to be done these starving probably massively indebted masses might just start doing something about it and that's probably not good for anyone and will end up with loads of dead people and plenty of burning cars. Sure a 16 hour work week should have been implemented like 60 years ago to make sure this never happens but since that didn't occur we're in the current predicament where there literally aren't enough jobs and there will be even less at an ever increasing pace due to automation and corporations cutting jobs. Basic income, depending on how it is implemented would work as a hotfix for this. Unfortunately these changes would have to be political and for a number of reasons my trust in these [I]fine [/I]elected leaders is somewhat low, certainly it depends from politician to politician but with people like Stephen Harper, Tony Abbott and David Cameron in charge they're only some of the openly bumbling fools, i'm sure there's plenty of dirt behind most of our political leaders. Talking about incompetence they really aren't, these are smart very well educated people who know precisely what they are doing, which is far worse in my opinion.[/QUOTE] Population growth as a factor of increasing unemployment is irrelevant. As our baby boomers retire and in-line with the ageing population in general (population growth in most of the western world is unsustainable without immigration), we'll need more aged care workers and lots of them. Not just healthcare workers, but other services such as entertainment will see a boost as these people who find themselves out of a job and on the pension and will move around and try different things. They might pick up golf for example, and you need people to maintain the golf courses. Automation and mechanisation have been around for at least a hundred years, but for those hundred years employment has been mostly stable. Although less people can now do more per person in primary and secondary industry, automation and mechanisation can not be as easily applied to tertiary industry, where the tasks that need to be done are often not repetitive for example. We're still trending towards tertiary industries and it will continue that way for some time. The future of employment isn't doom and gloom, we'll still have stable employment in the long term.

One of the many truths I despise the most is "You have more chance of getting a job if you have a job." As I send CV after CV after CV for years since I had left college, checked over by my careers advisor, only to not get one single reply for two and a half years. Oh yeah and I'm broke. I'm pretty much fucked.

Why waste time working some bullshit job when you could be spending time gaining experience and skills in areas you want to? If you work at McDonalds for example, every hour you give them, is an hour that you don't spend getting closer to your goal, and is an hour you don't spend living your dream. I'd rather people have a job they enjoy. That way they don't hate the time they spend there. It also means that they don't try to purposely sabotage their company and/or services or products they offer. It's not possible for everyone though to do this though. I'm very fortunate to be able to only be poor as fuck until I finish my education enough to start making a decent living off it. Some people gotta do some bullshit work their whole life, because they can never afford and find the time to do what they want. It's really fucking shitty. They totally should get unemployment benefits though. I don't know how it works everywhere, but over here, you get the benefits because you're actively searching for a job, and you don't have one now. I think this is fair. Because everyone should have their basic needs met. But if you're healthy and able, you should be using your time to help yourself and others. That's simply a part of life.

[QUOTE=GeeOhDee;44928572]Why waste time working some bullshit job when you could be spending time gaining experience and skills in areas you want to? If you work at McDonalds for example, every hour you give them, is an hour that you don't spend getting closer to your goal, and is an hour you don't spend living your dream. [/QUOTE] When you're working 40 hours a week at an exhausting shit job, you don't have time or energy to pursue anything else. The "take any shit job, just stop wasting tax dollars" logic is a poverty trap. Say you compromise and start working at McDonalds. That means putting other things you might do on hold, because you're barely making enough to survive. You're miserable all the time, and can barely get off the sofa as a result. Several months go by, you miss out on opportunities you otherwise might have gone after, and then the biggest and most recent item on your resume becomes McDonalds. Then, as such things usually go, your manager fires you for a trumped-up reason because you started asking about raises or health benefits. Now you're shopping around for jobs, maybe in the field you wanted or used to work in. But now, all your knowledge is a year out of date, and the only recent and relevant work experience is McDonalds. Nobody shows any interest in you, so you compromise again. Burger King uses a lot of the same equipment, and you get a job easily, but for a little less money. Now you're starting over in a worse position, and you run through the cycle again. Another two years go by, and you get fired for a trumped-up reason because a kid five years younger than you got promoted to manager instead of you, and he doesn't like having a resentful old dude on the staff. Now your real knowledge is 3 or 4 years out of date, and your resume is all fast food. Nobody in the position to hire you for a real job will even answer a followup call, because your resume goes straight into the shredder next to the secretary's desk. You think about going back to school, but a few years of living on fast food wages has cleaned out your savings, and any extra assets are long since sold. It's just not financially possible anymore. Sighing in resignation, you fix your hair and walk into the Taco Bell... I really can't describe in enough detail how much I despise the conservative bullshit about bootstraps and personal responsibility and taking the first job that gets you off the dole. Real life isn't that simple, and a "temporary" job can quickly drag you into poverty for the rest of your life. Maybe it's not quite as disastrous as falling into long-term unemployment and getting blacklisted from ever working again due to discrimination, but I think it's worth a few more pittance unemployment checks to give people at least a slight chance of getting a job worth having.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;44926801] [B]Automation and mechanisation have been around for at least a hundred years, but for those hundred years employment has been mostly stable.[/B] Although less people can now do more per person in primary and secondary industry, automation and mechanisation can not be as easily applied to tertiary industry, where the tasks that need to be done are often not repetitive for example. We're still trending towards tertiary industries and it will continue that way for some time. The future of employment isn't doom and gloom, we'll still have stable employment in the long term.[/QUOTE] I'm afraid that while this has indeed been the case for the past century it won't be for long, mostly because when one job is eliminated the people get out get re-educated and get another job and while this will hold now and in the future to a certain degree the sheer amount of jobs that can be partially automated or fully automated is staggering and most of it will come more or less at the same time. Let's have a quick run down shall we? All jobs relating to logistics transportation, taxis and public transportation excluding maintenance. Most service industry jobs such as cashiers, plenty of health care jobs, most IT help jobs so i suppose most service industry will remain somewhat unmolested when it comes to things entertainment and media. Of course 99% of the secondary sector, who doesn't have at least a partially automated factory now really needs to step up their game, good thing those sweatshops are starting to get on it. Most of the primary sector too could be entirely automated and i believe will be during the coming decades. And as much as the idea of human race composed entirely of blogging lawyers suing each other for minor infractions is amusing i'm afraid that too is something that can and will be hit by robotics. So unless a 4th sector (unless 4th sector is already taken by like ngo's) just appears at some point i don't really see where all these eventually displaced people can go. Also stable employment is barely a thing anymore and i don't think it will fix itself with coming decades. And while it is so that the baby boomers will start to retire soonish, the retirement age is being pushed back pretty much globally and most pensions aren't that incredible so i dare say that for now at least many pensioners will probably remain in the workforce in one way or another.

The creation of jobs in automation is a side effect, not the goal.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;44929281]When you're working 40 hours a week at an exhausting shit job, you don't have time or energy to pursue anything else. [/QUOTE] This makes me angry because shouldn't the people willing to put more time and energy into getting a job deserve it more? You're not entitled to a great job. Seriously. I fucking worked at McD's, 45 hours a week. I'd come home, shower, and spend 5 more hours working on my portfolio. I did this for 9 months, living in my parents basement. I felt lucky to at least have a place to stay of course. Let's not forget a lot of businesses don't even require a college degree. I know mine doesn't. When you say "you're miserable all the time, can barely get off the sofa" that's something that prevents you from getting hired anyways. No one wants to work with someone who didn't give it their all.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;44929281]When you're working 40 hours a week at an exhausting shit job, you don't have time or energy to pursue anything else. The "take any shit job, just stop wasting tax dollars" logic is a poverty trap. Say you compromise and start working at McDonalds. That means putting other things you might do on hold, because you're barely making enough to survive. You're miserable all the time, and can barely get off the sofa as a result. Several months go by, you miss out on opportunities you otherwise might have gone after, and then the biggest and most recent item on your resume becomes McDonalds. Then, as such things usually go, your manager fires you for a trumped-up reason because you started asking about raises or health benefits. Now you're shopping around for jobs, maybe in the field you wanted or used to work in. But now, all your knowledge is a year out of date, and the only recent and relevant work experience is McDonalds. Nobody shows any interest in you, so you compromise again. Burger King uses a lot of the same equipment, and you get a job easily, but for a little less money. Now you're starting over in a worse position, and you run through the cycle again. Another two years go by, and you get fired for a trumped-up reason because a kid five years younger than you got promoted to manager instead of you, and he doesn't like having a resentful old dude on the staff. Now your real knowledge is 3 or 4 years out of date, and your resume is all fast food. Nobody in the position to hire you for a real job will even answer a followup call, because your resume goes straight into the shredder next to the secretary's desk. You think about going back to school, but a few years of living on fast food wages has cleaned out your savings, and any extra assets are long since sold. It's just not financially possible anymore. Sighing in resignation, you fix your hair and walk into the Taco Bell... I really can't describe in enough detail how much I despise the conservative bullshit about bootstraps and personal responsibility and taking the first job that gets you off the dole. Real life isn't that simple, and a "temporary" job can quickly drag you into poverty for the rest of your life. Maybe it's not quite as disastrous as falling into long-term unemployment and getting blacklisted from ever working again due to discrimination, but I think it's worth a few more pittance unemployment checks to give people at least a slight chance of getting a job worth having.[/QUOTE] This is a damn good post. You know, it's actually ridiculous that the same politicians who want minimum wage to stay low -- resulting in people who work full-time on minimum wage not being able to support themselves -- are also saying that people on welfare should just take any job they can find. Yeah, go ahead and take the jobs that we're making sure you can't support yourself on.

[QUOTE=Glitchman;44931949]This makes me angry because shouldn't the people willing to put more time and energy into getting a job deserve it more? You're not entitled to a great job. Seriously. I fucking worked at McD's, 45 hours a week. I'd come home, shower, and spend 5 more hours working on my portfolio. I did this for 9 months, living in my parents basement. I felt lucky to at least have a place to stay of course. Let's not forget a lot of businesses don't even require a college degree. I know mine doesn't. When you say "you're miserable all the time, can barely get off the sofa" that's something that prevents you from getting hired anyways. No one wants to work with someone who didn't give it their all.[/QUOTE] Even if you never rest for a second, working 45 hours a week at McDonalds is 45 hours a week wasted. Imagine how much further you would be in life if you had spent those 1735 hours gaining experience, skill, knowledge, etc. in the areas that you wanted to. So it's not about these people being lazy. If you work an average of 6 hours a day, that is still 6 hours lost every day. You're not progressing at all during this time.