The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Robots will do your job by 2045

Interesting article.

A couple of notes: first its interesting he made the reference to the chess matchups, where humans using computers beat the best humans and the best computers. It was actually a couple of amateur chess players.. who wrote a very usable interface. The key was they figured out a very efficient and *usable* way to interact with their chess program, which IIRC was just an off the shelf chess program on a laptop.

Second note: That type of adaptable economy has been discovered, but errors in thinking and political interest groups have combined to pull us away from it. He should pick up some Hayek or Bastiat sometime, no doubt would find it enlightening.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21...o-country-ready



I am not so sure about highest-skilled workers part.

Well moreso than to the ditch diggers and burger flippers anyway.

The article has a point regarding education, but the always tricky question is how to transform govt money in education into the kinds and quality of education that will be helpful.

Instead of a BLS (Basic Living Stipend) as the author suggests, I would prefer a universal education stipend if anything. Mostly do away with "public education" which I consider a colossal failure and replace it with a public grant system especially at lower grades, and scaling up to performance based at collegiate levels. (maybe not as much of a failure as having no public education would have been, at the time it was implemented - my point being not to eliminate all public from education but rather fundamentally change the way it is implemented).

If there was a very large pool of disposable money for education, then we would see a lot more capable people competing for that money. I think one of the great challenges of the 21st century is figuring out, and gaining public acceptance of, mechanisms whereby the Hayekian model and purpose of market economics (that is, markets and demand signal to the economic world at large which things are actually desired and needed, how badly, and of what quality and amount ) with a social contract structure that enshrines a more Rawlsian conception of equal opportunity.

Public education might be a colossal failure, but private education system is thinly disguised loot&pillage that only coincidentally happen to provide education.

Back to the topic - what use does highly educated unemployed people would be? By systematic design, only top 10% will have any job security. Sure, they will be more qualified top 10% and we will do better internationally as a result, but this is not the problem we are trying to solve.

The problem is: What to do with the bottom 75% that simply not needed on production side?

You are dealing in how things have been, not how they could be. Some private education has been as you say - but in the context of the current educational environment. Also, some private education has been quite effective.

Most public education I would say is thinly disguised loot and pillage as well. It sometimes, happens to provide some level of education. But that people like yourself come to an assumption that there is nothing for the "bottom 75%" to do, as opposed to "we have not figured out what bottom 75% will be doing, yet. But they will figure out something or be able to acquire the skills to provide value in return for value" is in fact something I attribute directly to extremely poor public eduction.

Many people have a difficult time being agile in the employment marketplace because our crappy education does not prepare them to be agile, and finding time/finance to be agile as adults is still something our society struggles with. Also as an aside, private education night classes/CEC/Massive Online Edu/etc have been probably more effective than anything else in helping alleviate the problem.

There will always be things to do, and ways to provide value as long as people are able to adapt to what the greater market needs. Education is a catalyst for that type of adaptation. If we expect people to adapt to changing market environment, we do need to make sure the tools by which people are able to do so are made available.

I for one do not buy into the "there will be nothing to do" line of thinking. When I hear that, I interpret it as the speaker saying "I do not know what the employment scenery will be like, I just know it will be different and since jobs that exist today will not exist tomorrow therefore that means there will be no/fewer jobs". Which I view as needlessly pessimistic and quite short sighted. 75% permanent unemployment will only occur if public forces contrive to stifle market dynamics.

I disagree with your "our education did not prepare them to X" argument. I think more accurate description would be "some people are not intelligent enough to be sufficiently agile" and "public system fails some people". My bet that intersection of these two groups is very significant.

The "75% permanent unemployment will only occur", the revolution will arrive way before that point. I am not talking about this in revolution as positive change, I am talking about destabilization of social order and possible collapse or extreme segmentation of our society.

Do you have a war chest big enough to move into gated fortress compounds with private guards once starving mobs turn suburbia into cannibalistic hell? I am concerned that I do not.

See I think you just underrate people too much and what they are capable of. While raw intellect will always play a factor, I see most peoples advantages and/or limitations as being in the way they think more so than their max thinking capacity.

I also hold max thinking capability to be informed by education particularly early education, and not totally determined by genetics.

But I do see now why you do and cannot trust any liberal market system to work. If you hold only a very small portion of the population as being capable of even tying their own shoes, then I suppose the natural humane response is some sort of totalitarian system of perpetual bread and circus.

I was reading Forbe's article on Baltimore, and it occurred to me that this is in everyone's future.

These are just canaries in the coal mine, weakest members of society pushed down by a global trend.

Inescapable poverty -> Police brutality to keep it from spilling over -> Riots followed by more crackdowns -> Even less opportunities for impacted communities.

Another data point - global manufacturing jobs are down.