AP: Technology destroying jobs faster than it's creating them.

[Razgovory]

In Brain's Brave Neofeudalist World, they're also severely outnumbered.

Automatic weapons.

Yeah, those aren't exactly rare or expensive.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm not so sure.  That wasn't really the case with the Anarchists.  Sure, they had some kind of political ideal, but the practical effect of their movement was all about the murders.

The Anarchists were bored suburban dilletantes.  We're talking about a scenario in which the great majority of the world's population face imminent starvation.  The # 1 priority becomes digestible calories.

[Neil]

I'm not so sure.  That wasn't really the case with the Anarchists.  Sure, they had some kind of political ideal, but the practical effect of their movement was all about the murders.

The Anarchists were bored suburban dilletantes.  We're talking about a scenario in which the great majority of the world's population face imminent starvation.  The # 1 priority becomes digestible calories.

In that case, the rich get eaten. But given that we live in a world where almost noone goes hungry, I don't think that's a plausible scenario.

Besides, I was talking about the Anarchists.

[Ideologue]

The laws are made by the rich.

There has been talk of such. With the tories in power though it won't be coming to pass any time soon.

Typical Mining Union thinking. 

Unpaid internships provide employers a low-cost way of mitigating the information asymetry inherent in the labor market.  One would think at a time of record unemployment rates folks would be trying to reduce the barriers to job creation, not raise them.

You realize that people willing to work, literally, for free is one such barrier to job creation, right?

Fwiw, the law already does regulate internships--they are not supposed to be free labor, and such work is in fact unlawful--and a big percentage of "internships" do not meet muster, but are generally left unchallenged because of bargaining power asymmetries.

[Ed Anger]

Somebody just got an Alberta boner.

I'm just saying...  Doesn't that sound like a world you'd want to live in?

Oh yes.

[DGuller]

It's easy to hate lawyers, until you need them to defend you against a frivolous lawsuit.

[garbon]

Seems like that would make one hate them more.

[Neil]

Seems like that would make one hate them more.

Indeed, and that's the point.  Lawyers are like witch doctors.  If you don't give them your money, they'll put a curse on you:  The curse of the lawsuit.  Paying a lawyer is like paying a gangster for protection in that he's protecting you from himself, and that the lot of them should be killed.

[Josquius]

The internship only lasts 3 to 6 months?  That seems manageable for people who are not rich.  I mean you do not have massive college tuitions so it looks massively easier and cheaper than steering an American kid to a top job.  Seems like you guys have a sweet deal from where I sit.

The housing costs are not so sweet though.

Even supporting oneself for 3 months in a new city can be hard when you've no money coming in.  Often people literally can't even afford to get to job interviews if they're far away. One of the retarded points of our system is if you're trying to better yourself by going into education or doing an internship then you become inellegiable for unemployment benefits even.
That's not to say things are totally impossible. I've seen stories about guys who manage to live in super low cost hostels, intern by day and moonlight at a minimum wage job by night. But if there are multiple interns at a company but only one job at the end of it would a guy having to do such really be at his best？

[DontSayBanana]

The perception of "haves" and "have nots" is a social construct.  "Haves" tend to end up that way because the have-nots have an inherent power vacuum.  Money might win the war, but charisma earns money to win it.  If the trust in "haves" breaks down enough, they will be dethroned.  No amount of money can substitute for an inability to lead.  See: Syria.

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah, those aren't exactly rare or expensive.

What does it matter how much something costs when a person has nothing to offer for it?  Remember we're talking about a world in which labor has zero value.

[Razgovory]

Yeah, those aren't exactly rare or expensive.

What does it matter how much something costs when a person has nothing to offer for it?  Remember we're talking about a world in which labor has zero value.

Okay, are these people naked and starving?

[Ideologue]

But will it adjust this time?  It cannot, in any conventional means.  I see no road ahead that puts those made redundant by technological progress back to work in a meaningful sense.  The service sector existed, and existed in much its modern form, well prior to deinudstrialization--it was an obvious outlet.  But where is the fourth sector to which we should look?

I don't see why not.

Let's leaven this discussion with some actual facts and data.  Seasonally adjusted employment levels in the United States stand at 143.3 million as compared to a pre-crisis peak of 146.6 million, but sharply from the 138.0 million pre-crisis trough.  This looks a lot like a regular, if rather sharp business cycle downturn effect - if there is some broader job-destroying trend going on, it isn't showing up in the data.

The data is a little more supportive of the technoscare story if we look at a long run employment rates.  Employment rates of working age men in the US is now at 72%, which is a record low.  But it is up from the post-crisis trough of 71% and not that far off the cycical trough of 76.5% in 1983.  What if we include women? Then the number is 67% for 2012, as compared to 66% in 1983.  That would suggest again that what we seeing on jobs is still simply a nasty business cycle effect, which is in the modern era is more balanced genderwise.

You're leavening the discussion with facts and data not pertaining to the question posed.  I actually agree with you for 90% of this--the current crisis is a failure of aggregate demand due to massive private sector deleveraging, which in turn was caused by massive wealth destruction (really misallocation) in the popping of a series of asset bubbles.

It is not, directly, primarily or even significantly due to technological unemployment--however I think there might be some good research to be done in correlating automation and offshoring (which is similar to automation for us, but dissimilar in that using foreigner serfs at least creates wealth and expands markets somewhere, however minimally and dismally) with the stagnation that seems to have been one of the root causes of the increased private sector borrowing in the first place (the other being a financial sector that should have been decimated like a Roman legion of old).  I mention this because while employment may have held somewhat steadier than you'd expect, if you expect total disaster, it is also fact that the jobs which have replaced and are replacing manufacturing and office work are not the same kind of jobs with the same stability and the same compensation.  Household income is practically flat since like 1985 or something.  And that there are even relatively fewer shitty jobs today does signify a problem.

But, anyway, my immediate concern is not the cause or even the outcome of the current crisis but the inevitability of human labor's replacement.  You didn't answer the question--what jobs will we do when everything that can be translated into machine instructions is?

A delicate question to pose you is to what extent your perception is being shaped by your own experiences.  The legal business is not necessarily representative of the economy as a whole.  A distinguishing characteristic of the post-Carter US economy was the rise in the FIRE sector of the economy, a rise that accelerated in Clinton's second term and the Bush years.  There is reason to believe that the FIRE sector simply grew well beyond the point of rational sustainability and that the present job losses in that sector represents a return to normalcy, and not some much broader trend of technological hollowing out.

On these points--indeed, the legal business is not, although I find the field interesting (for reason besides the obvious ) in that the trends shaping, and devastating, the legal market are more pronounced here but may not be unique.  Degree/license overproduction is occurring in a lot of professional and paraprofessional fields--pharamacy schools are following law schools, for example; more surprisingly, albeit anecdotally, biology and other science departments; I've even heard that nursing schools may be generating a glut, but this is far from confirmed.  Much of this can be blamed on business cycle and misallocation (which is still disastrous for those misallocating, I'll add).  But what's happening seems to be adding up to a highly educated mass of young people and nowhere to put them--and youth unemployment is much higher than established folks, moreso than is historically normal.  If this is the case, if the a large percentage of people are being misallocated, this suggests more than a business downturn that will eventually be made better.  This suggests structural change that is shutting those already outside the structure out completely.

But I could be wrong.  This could be ordinary effects of a recession.  I can speak with a lot more certainty about the legal field, which could be a special case of massive overproduction brought on by a unique combination of a famously greedy profession, government ineptitude, feckless liberal arts majors, and tasks uniquely suited to automation.  (On the other hand, I appreciate that without computerization of the workplace, my job would not even exist, at least in its present form--and it would be far less tolerable without the other computers I use to keep me from going mad with boredom!  But there is no compelling reason to believe a sufficiently well-programmed computer could not likewise do my job, and without any need to listen to music or podcasts.)

Anyway, I think I'm still on firm ground to posit that:  even if large-scale technological unemployment is not here, it must be coming.  I can say this with a great degree of certainty because technological improvements, since the industrial revolution, have always reduced the need for human labor.  If the demand for human labor is less than the aggregate labor offered by the economy, wages will on average fall and will in fact approach zero because there won't be jobs to put unneeded labor to use.  This is especially true as hard limits to human capabilities are reached and fewer people are qualified or even have the intellectual capacity to perform the tasks that still have a demand for human labor.

[CountDeMoney]

You didn't answer the question--what jobs will we do when everything that can be translated into machine instructions is?

Repair and maintenance.  In twenty years' time, all high schools will become vo techs.

[Tonitrus]

You didn't answer the question--what jobs will we do when everything that can be translated into machine instructions is?

Repair and maintenance.  In twenty years' time, all high schools will become vo techs.

And thus we shall be become maintenance-slaves to our robot overlords. 

At least, until machine instruction allows them to perform maintenance on themselves.  Then we die out, and the Terminators take over.