Welcome login | signup
Language en es fr
OccupyForum

Forum Post: Jobs are becoming obsolete

Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 2:10 p.m. EST by rbe (687)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

If we can acknowledge this, then we can have a conversation about where to go from here. Companies know this, but are afraid to tell the general public.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201109/are-jobs-we-know-them-becoming-obsolete

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Z8TR4ToNs

21 Comments

21 Comments


Read the Rules
[-] 2 points by debdaveandpets (34) from Ironwood, MI 13 years ago

Please use credit unions because one person one share in the credit union. Also try to buy from cooperatives like ocean spray. co-ops are good because one person can not control it again one person one share, the 1% could not be that if most all companies were cooperatives, start buying, working, and banking with cooperatives and credit unions, if most of us do the power of the 1% will shrink. This would help solve lot of capitalism's problems of the 1% owning most of the capital, excuse the pun. Please copy and pass this message on!

[-] 1 points by Heylo (14) 13 years ago

We do need a new economic model. People should have the right to wholesome food healthcare and a proper home as human beings.

[-] 1 points by MossyOakMudslinger (106) from Frederick, MD 13 years ago

"Jobs are becoming obsolete"

Man that is the truth.

But there is still some opportunity in a jobless downturn. A Small business with low start up costs and overhead is a possibility. I don't how banks are doing with SBA loans but they have probably choked off that credit too. Again we are in a position where you have to do it completely on your own.

[-] 2 points by rbe (687) 13 years ago

I agree, but the at the same time, a lot of small businesses can't compete with established corporate powerhouses.

[-] 1 points by pissedoffconstructionworker (602) 13 years ago

Anyone interested in this topic needs to read this e book (free DL)

http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/

[-] 1 points by rbe (687) 13 years ago

Thanks for posting that. I was going to as well. Very good, informative book.

[-] 1 points by pissedoffconstructionworker (602) 13 years ago

Yeah, it really opened my eyes, especially his discussion of possible big picture economic models in a totally automated world.

[-] 1 points by SunShine777 (6) 13 years ago

One Question..... Obama has had CONTROL for 2.5 years of both houses..... THEY ARE THE LAW MAKERS....

WHY ARE YOU NOT at the WHITE HOUSE....

And WHY are you NOT holding OBama Accountable ???

[-] 2 points by rbe (687) 13 years ago

First off, I didn't vote for Obama, so I'm not a typical Obama fan, but I do give him credit for trying to start a conversation about this several months back. He mentioned something along the lines of "ATMs, etc are contributing to high unemployment" and he was criticized heavily by both sides of the aisle. It was labeled a gaffe. http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2011/06/14/obama-blames-atms-high-unemployment

I think people are at Wall Street more for symbolic reasons. They are mad at our overall economic situation and view Wall Street as a powerhouse in that regards. Also, the income disparity is more evident on Wall Street than in any other sector. Plus, I think people are overall fed up with traditional politics and believe there's another solution.

[-] 1 points by technoviking (484) 13 years ago

Jobs is. Just a minor grammar point.

Android is the new hipster fad.

[-] 2 points by rbe (687) 13 years ago

Huh? Jobs is becoming obsolete? What?

[-] 1 points by stray (219) from Philadelphia, PA 13 years ago

I think this truly is the discussion we need to be having. A lot of the jobs that went away aren't coming back. So... now what?

[-] 2 points by rbe (687) 13 years ago

I think we are currently in the early stages of a transition phase from one type of economy to the next. A resource based economy may be a good idea, or at least some sort of starting point. Have you heard of that? Here's a link to a video on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDhSgCsD_x8

It's not perfect, but it could be beneficial to us.

[-] 1 points by angelofmercy (225) 13 years ago

You make yourself a job , or go find another one that is still around.

[-] 1 points by rbe (687) 13 years ago

Demand creates jobs. Creating jobs for the sake of creating jobs is insane.

[-] 1 points by rbe (687) 13 years ago

We are talking about automation doing away with human labor, and you're going to post an article of a guy that gets paid to wear t shirts as if that is indicative of a new labor movement? So everyone has to come up with faddish niche ideas to earn a living? So we're facing a future of bland schemes to get by?

[-] 1 points by angelofmercy (225) 13 years ago

So no one should educate themselves for any kind of job at all ?

[-] 2 points by rbe (687) 13 years ago

Yes, people should still educate themselves for jobs because it's not happening overnight. But, I think if we acknowledge that companies are moving away from human labor, then we can figure out a way to control the transition to best benefit humankind.

[-] 1 points by derek (302) 13 years ago

Also on this theme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

http://knol.google.com/k/beyond-a-jobless-recovery

http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

From 1964: http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm "The fundamental problem posed by the cybernation revolution in the U.S. is that it invalidates the general mechanism so far employed to undergird people’s rights as consumers. Up to this time economic resources have been distributed on the basis of contributions to production, with machines and men competing for employment on somewhat equal terms. In the developing cybernated system, potentially unlimited output can be achieved by systems of machines which will require little cooperation from human beings. As machines take over production from men, they absorb an increasing proportion of resources while the men who are displaced become dependent on minimal and unrelated government measures—unemployment insurance, social security, welfare payments. These measures are less and less able to disguise a historic paradox: That a substantial proportion of the population is subsisting on minimal incomes, often below the poverty line, at a time when sufficient productive potential is available to supply the needs of everyone in the U.S. The existence of this paradox is denied or ignored by conventional economic analysis. The general economic approach argues that potential demand, which if filled would raise the number of jobs and provide incomes to those holding them, is underestimated. Most contemporary economic analysis states that all of the available labor force and industrial capacity is required to meet the needs of consumers and industry and to provide adequate public services: Schools, parks, roads, homes, decent cities, and clean water and air. It is further argued that demand could be increased, by a variety of standard techniques, to any desired extent by providing money and machines to improve the conditions of the billions of impoverished people elsewhere in the world, who need food and shelter, clothes and machinery and everything else the industrial nations take for granted. There is no question that cybernation does increase the potential for the provision of funds to neglected public sectors. Nor is there any question that cybernation would make possible the abolition of poverty at home and abroad. But the industrial system does not possess any adequate mechanisms to permit these potentials to become realities. The industrial system was designed to produce an ever-increasing quantity of goods as efficiently as possible, and it was assumed that the distribution of the power to purchase these goods would occur almost automatically. The continuance of the income-through-jobs link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand—for granting the right to consume—now acts as the main brake on the almost unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system."

One alternative, social security from birth, and then people can earn more if they want to through jobs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

[-] 1 points by rbe (687) 13 years ago

Good links!