Technological unemployment is (almost) here

[Rassah]

This will happen only if the unemployed will be killed but not the bourgeoisie and tech elite (as history shows, it is very unlikely).

It doesn't matter who gets killed. Fewer available employees = higher paying jobs.

Do you really think the Internet will continue working and/or Bitcoin/TOR/anonymizers won't be blocked after revolutionary forces will take the power!?

Of course! The more the powers fight it, the more decentralized it will get, until the only way to block it is to stop it at the source for every anonymous person using it. Besides, the powers will very quickly lose all their power shortly after they cut off all their citizens' porn.

[1715695409]

1715695409

[1715695409]

1715695409

[1715695409]

1715695409

[1715695409]

1715695409

[1715695409]

1715695409

[giantdragon]

The more the powers fight it, the more decentralized it will get, until the only way to block it is to stop it at the source for every anonymous person using it.

Bitcoin won't work if the Internet will be fragmented.

Besides, the powers will very quickly lose all their power shortly after they cut off all their citizens' porn.

Porn is already blocked in China, and what?!

[Rassah]

Bitcoin won't work if the Internet will be fragmented.

Why would it be fragmented? We already have the technology to roll out a global mesh net. Its just that no one wants to use it yet.

Porn is already blocked in China, and what?!

And people can still easily get porn in China?

[giantdragon]

Why would it be fragmented? We already have the technology to roll out a global mesh net. Its just that no one wants to use it yet.

I don't know exactly, but I think it will be virtually impossible for ordinary citizens (not the corporations or governments) to maintain worldwide mesh network.

And people can still easily get porn in China?

Tech-savvy geeks may be, but vast majority of the ordinary people won't be able to bypass China's great firewall (solutions "from the box" like TOR bundle don't work here).

[giantdragon]

Interesting facts from the recent U.S. jobs report - while total labor force participation rate rose slightly, for the white men it have fallen. I can assume that only crappy jobs with minimum wage have left (automation has lesser impact on service jobs now, but it won't last forever). Some whites can think these jobs are not even worth for them so simply drop out from the labor force if they have some other income to live (parents, disability benefits, wife's job etc). However in long term it is disastrous because white men traditionally was a core of the middle class and their drop out from the labor force can cause severe downward spiral (because this demographic group used to buy goods and services from labor intensive industries - homes, cars, luxury etc).

[Rassah]

Tech-savvy geeks may be, but vast majority of the ordinary people won't be able to bypass China's great firewall (solutions "from the box" like TOR bundle don't work here).

You're from China? I Thought TOR bridges that you add to the TOR bundle made it work?

[giantdragon]

You're from China? I Thought TOR bridges that you add to the TOR bundle made it work?

No, I am not from here. But if you will make some research you will find that Chinese authorities frequently update blacklist of the TOR nodes and bridges, so you have to know some hidden bridges to be able to connect to the TOR network from China.

[TCraver]

Of possible interest to those posting to this topic:
      https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=430364.new#new
It's a very preliminary proposal for an altcoin that would generate a guaranteed income for anyone.

This would do an end-run around governments and the whole "Tax some to pay others" mess.

Nobody of the capital owners will accept these altcoins IMHO.

Why do the capital owners accept dollars?  They are a useful medium of exchange between themselves, and they can pay workers with them.

The same will be true for the guaranteed coin, plus it has a number of positive economic advantages.   (Near zero inflation, deflation only at the rate of economic growth per capita, much faster money velocity.)   The only thing it can't do, is act as a store of value - for which the capital owners have plenty of alternatives.

Or are you just assuming that capital owners would be suspicious that somehow they're getting robbed, if a lot of other people are suddenly better off?

[giantdragon]

Or are you just assuming that capital owners would be suspicious that somehow they're getting robbed, if a lot of other people are suddenly better off?

Corporations like Apple and Google have tons of cash in savings but nevertheless dodge paying taxes even at the current tiny rates.
Do you really think capitalists will suddenly start sharing profits voluntary?!

[giantdragon]

My outcome is the only possible one.

What is your outcome? I cannot find any your messages in this thread!

[kjj]

My outcome is the only possible one.

What is your outcome? I cannot find any your messages in this thread!

He's just posting nonsense in random threads to bolster his post count.  Probably planning to send a bunch of PM spam, or run some sort of scam.

[giantdragon]

I have just remembered about interesting stance Kazakhstan's Central bank took about Bitcoin.

Dalenov has also stated that should bitcoin adoption increase, there would not be any work for bankers, suggesting that the move has more to do with job protection in the country than bitcoin’s violation of any existing laws.

http://www.coindesk.com/kazakhstans-central-bank-ban-bitcoin-protect-bankers/

In some way it is true that Bitcoin can eliminate enormous army of useless banksters and some of them behave right as Luddites in the past.

[bitaxed]

Your reasoning is fallacious: what you can achieve by automating a production process does not necessarily correspond to what the market needs! Even if you are able to automate something does not mean that your process is sustainable in the long run.

Future generic robots cannot compete with specific machines used for automating the production. Generic robots are slow and expensive. If your highly automated factory does not deliver what the market needs, you are broke (e.g. saturated market). Such machines cannot be easily adapted to perform a different production. In any case, creating new machines or adapting the existing ones, you have a plenty of human work to do.

You want the Government (banks) to print money in order to create a fake income for people. In this way people have the money to buy goods produced by machines. Thanks to this brilliant idea (planned economy), machines' owners (banks) does not run out of business and they can continue to govern you. Nice solution, but what is the problem?

[giantdragon]

Future generic robots cannot compete with specific machines used for automating the production. Generic robots are slow and expensive. If your highly automated factory does not deliver what the market needs, you are broke (e.g. saturated market). Such machines cannot be easily adapted to perform a different production. In any case, creating new machines or adapting the existing ones, you have a plenty of human work to do.

Nevertheless, generic robots will work faster than human workers and cost less than their wages.

[bitaxed]

Yes, ASIMO is cheap and work great http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dKPkL2oto0 (joke). Reality check: human labor is essential for running programmable industrial robots as well as high speed production lines. Without considering how many people work to build them. Usually, automation creates unemployment, but it is more a problem of reallocating people in new jobs (I think this is THE problem...). In free market, fully automated mass production can lead to mass unemployment that means less consumers and company failures. Government intervention is necessary to run big corporations, this is why big corps pay politicians. In this sense free market fails... it fails in keeping dinosaurs alive.

[CalibrataBG]

I give you the best solution ever!
Let's kill most of the people (like the OP says "useless") on the planet!

[giveBTCpls]

We need an RBE (resource based economy). Is this or death. Cryptocurrencies may be a good transition, but they ultimately solve nothing.

[giantdragon]

I give you the best solution ever!
Let's kill most of the people (like the OP says "useless") on the planet!

I think anti-capitalist fighters will put you on the top of enemy list who deserve to be shot! 

We need an RBE (resource based economy). Is this or death. Cryptocurrencies may be a good transition, but they ultimately solve nothing.

Absolutely agree! NONE of the free-market/capitalist solutions able to solve coming problem!

[BitOnyx]

I just love the way there are totally not a single data based on actual statistics in first post. Such theories are close to some fantasy dystopia than actual economical expectations. There is rather big difference between machine that speed up producing certain product but still need human to control/maintain/upgrade/program/clean/fix and machine that would do everything for us. I've read some Dick books recently and at some point he points out what would happen when main computer would crush and there would be no living human able to reboot it or something. I don't think Dick were thinking about himself as economist, but i guess he just loved to point out some paradoxes. Well... not to mention it is rather distant future. If you would show ipod to someone who lived 200 years ago, that person would freakout, same as we would in his position but another 200 in the future. 

I also love when someone is using graph to show something without any numbers inside. It is great way to show something is scientific, even when it isn't.

[giantdragon]

I just love the way there are totally not a single data based on actual statistics in first post.

I have posted a lot of statistics in this thread, e.g.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=318001.msg4441504#msg4441504

There is rather big difference between machine that speed up producing certain product but still need human to control/maintain/upgrade/program/clean/fix and machine that would do everything for us.

The TU problem will start emerging far earlier than full automation be achieved. Many economists agree that some tipping point exists, after which number of jobs created by technological change will be less than jobs eliminated (more simplified - you need just 10 workers to develop/manufacture/fix robot which replaces 1000 jobs). Studying various stats, I could presume that this point was already passed in about year 2000, so in the long run real income for median worker will continuously fall and public anger rise.