Reasons For The Recession Part 4: Technology And The Overachievers

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Reasons For The Recession Part 4: Technology And The Ov...

Posted by quincy0191 Promoted 425 days 13 hours ago 1891 views

Business / Jobs Economy | 7 comments |

Stumble it!

This is most likely the last in the series. I had an idea for a fifth one, but I forgot it and this wraps it up pretty nicely anyway.

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Scumbag, on 12/27/2008 9:05:15 PM
Total Posts: 266, Joined: 6/30/2008

Good read Quincy. How do you see the world making towards the ideas say in the venus project. How do those old ways (that are bleeding to death) get stopped?

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finalflash, on 12/29/2008 4:29:34 PM
Total Posts: 370, Joined: 5/16/2006

@quincy

just click the edit link right beside the comment link. Then you should be able to change the title I think.

As for the article, that might work for a while, but in the end it will just create a lot of bureaucracy and make everything inefficient. What normally happens when all this mechanization takes place is that a large majority of the workforce gets employed in the Quaternary industry, which is mainly R&D and high level things. The US population should be at that stage, but somewhere along the line they stagnated, and just stopped progressing. This is why so much of your high level human resources are imported through H1B visas. Most kids want to be movie stars and rappers and singers and dancers and in sports, because these jobs pay 100x more for less effort than a guy working in a science lab. If the country puts more effort on these kinds of industries like the sciences, engineering or tech, you can all have good jobs and still have machines do the work for you. Yet now too many people are competing for shitty jobs and fairly useless ones like sports or acting. Those that do not succeed (there are a lot of them) will then fight for scraps at the bottom of society, because the sciences, engineering and tech take a lot of time and effort.

Also, spreading the wealth happens through taxes. You tax the rich guys more than the poor guys in order to fund public projects that aid everyone. This gives everyone the same national park and the same roads and highways but with greater contributions from the more wealthy. Yet if you reduce the taxes on the wealthy to 0%, chances are they aren't going to donate 30% of their income from the goodness of their hearts. No one would really, except for the extreme generous (not many of these ppl around). Some people have a problem with this because 10 cars and 2 big screen TVs in every room is a necessity for them to survive, but I'm fine with that even though I am in the upper class. I know I wouldn't be donating 30% of anything if I didn't have to, partially from laziness and partially from greed.

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jd8coke, on 1/21/2009 6:10:26 AM
Total Posts: 3769, Joined: 2/5/2006

finalflash wrote:
@quincy

just click the edit link right beside the comment link. Then you should be able to change the title I think.

That only lets you change the comment, you need an Editor or an admin to edit the article for you.

Email Bulshoy@shoutwire.com

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RUSTYshackleton, on 1/21/2009 3:35:42 PM
Total Posts: 168, Joined: 4/27/2006

bashed... im afraid i didnt get to the end of this editorial because after reading:

"We can genetically modify corn and clone sheep, but we can't manage to feed all our citizens even with these improvements"

1 - genetically modified crops don't all have higher outputs and shorter seasons, they require increasingly strong, and toxic, pesticides.

2 - wtf has cloning sheep got to do with anything? there is no useful commerical application.. do you think its suddenly become difficult to get sheep to fuck? theyre not pandas ffs.

3 - back to GM crops. If you think GM crops are a solution to world hunger you are fucking retarded.

aside from the fact that they cost more to cultivate because of the expensive pesticides required, the american corporations that own the patents ensure that the seeds are good for one use only... thats one season.

The problem in the developing world isnt that natural crops arent good enough, its that they dont have access to modern farming machinery, they suffer from poor irrigation etc. and to make matters worse, GM crops outprice the very people they could *possibly* help.

Im gonna revisit what i said when you did your first article:

YOU KNOW FUCK ALL ABOUT ECONOMICS.

If you want to write this sort of thing you need to go back to school, or at the very least you need to grasp basic economic principles... which after reading your previous eds you clearly have no clue about... i recommend you read 'the undercover economist' by Tim Harford, great book.

you make sweeping statements about technologies role in industry, and particularly on immigration and employment, that are outright wrong, and where on earth you pulled figures like '25% population is required for necessities [thus making 75% of the labour force redundant in use]'.. dont even get me started.

stop writing this trash.

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quincy0191, on 1/21/2009 6:03:28 PM
Total Posts: 374, Joined: 4/14/2006

^1. Genetically modified crops are actually created to produce their own pesticides and resist disease while increasing output and arable land (crossbreeds can survive in more areas than the traditional varieties meaning mountains, deserts, etc can be farmed to some extent)

2. Cloning has no commercial application YET, but what if we find a "Jurassic Park"-esque situation where we can revive an extinct animal or use it to modify an existing organism to make it more useful for people? Besides, the point of that example is a measure of our scientific prowess; if we can do things that amazing, why is it so hard to feed more people (because we're greedy bastards, that's why)?

3. GM crops and crossbreeding are a solution to world hunger. Modifications to the wheat crop have resulted in INSANE increases in production and saved millions from starvation. I can't find the goddamned article I read but I swear I will and I'll edit this.

Oh, and the guy that did all the modifications for wheat expanded it worldwide.

Yes, lack of access to modern machinery and poor irrigation are both problems. Genetic engineering allows you to create plants with more output that use less water and are more easily harvested.

As for my own education and knowledge of economics, I pretend no expertise on the subject. All I am doing is looking at what has happened and what could have caused it. Find me two economists who agree on all the causes of any financial problem and I'll shut up. I've heard supposed experts say that the exact same event is going to lead two totally different ways, or that a problem is caused by two totally different things, or that the same thing is simultaneously hugely important and completely insignificant.
So my contention is my views and logic and education are pretty much as good as anyone's. Maybe you don't think so. That's fine.

Would you like to suggest what I said that was wrong? Or are you going to say that I'm wrong, and that's it?

Most of my information is pulled from my Work, Labor, and Social Justice class, including that statistic. Basic facts about immigration, technology, and the 10-25% stat are from there, and the extrapolations are my own. But let's think about it. Everything I said is logical. Colleges are graduating more students than ever, and how many people are REALLY employed in getting you water, food, shelter, transportation, and electricity? Very few (and transportation COULD mean mass transit, which lowers it even more).

Anyway, you can bash it to hell if you want, but that's my opinion and apparently some people like it.

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BlackShadow, on 1/22/2009 5:13:32 AM
Total Posts: 227, Joined: 5/14/2006

if anyone cares search for operation venus i believe it was. Honestly i think mechanizing all if not most of the jobs out there would be a good thing. because then that could leave people to the job of fixing those machines or finding a more productive job say maybe farming to increase available food and possibly lowering the price if not eliminating it. We would probably have a much healthier life style anyway, if we were all spending time on perfecting ourselves and not our job ethics, and not caring what others thought of us. I think that by finally conceding to allowing mechanization of most if not all jobs, would REALLY allow us to make our future like it should be. I think in terms of technology we are a bit behind. I think there are many things they are holding back.
They fear chaos, people want to see that technology they don't want to hide from it. Plus I am sure by giving in to machines, we could finally stop worrying about how we are going to pay for this or that, because the price is so high because the workers have to get paid who helped make, or harvest that item. Oh well that's a future of a dreamer anyway. But regardless a possible future we could have if only someone would just realize ..that oh we are making a mistake by ignoring this.

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Dominion, on 1/22/2009 3:44:32 PM
Total Posts: 281, Joined: 4/22/2006

mechanizing jobs? heh may not be such a good idea. It's bad enough that half the world is full of 'unproductive' people who, lets face it, take up a lot of space on the planet (South America, Africa, etc.) and don't do much in terms of social contributions but when you've got over 300 million people (in America) that have lost jobs due to mechanization that's over 300 million people with SHIT-ALL to do other than perpetuate and impress their trivialities on the people around them and what happens when people have shit all to do? Assholery ensues. Maybe even a war or something.

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