IMO, we are at the end of the "steam engine cycle" of political party control.

[CK_John]

The current cycle was based on the ability to hire/fire or be agent of labor. The party with the most control of labor was dominant.

We are now at the start of the "post productivity(robot) cycle" which will be based on keeping a mass population civil, i.e. not killing each other when there is no jobs or income.

The voters are way ahead of the current parties and the sooner we face these new problems and develop new structures the voters will return.

[Recursion]

1. The post-scarcity society will indeed be interesting (nt)

[CK_John]

2. Yes, I see Greece now as a model of the US in 2-3 yrs and the current middle east

as a transition model where currently most of the population are street vendors.

[Odin2005]

4. Rememinds me of the Depression, when...

...unemployed people were selling apples on the street. Hoover, being the clueless idiot he was, said that they were doing it because it was more profitable than having a "real" job.

[Odin2005]

3. It seems like people are in denial about technological unemployment.

Probably because dealing with the issue runs up against centuries old cultural assumptions about work being good and more work being better. People, men especially, are raised to believe that if you do not work at least 40 hours a week you are lazy and morally deficient. This mentality is so entrenched that we even create make-work jobs for the severely mentally disabled so they feel "productive" like "normal" people.

A case in point is a 33yo Libertarian poster on another message board I post on who hates the idea of concepts like a 25hr work week because his self-image as a good human being is completely tied up with a workaholic mentality.

Ironically, this mindset was originally a positive development. It had it's origins 1,500 years ago with early Western Christian monks glorifying work as godly and they opposed themselves to the "idleness" of the aristocracy. The monks were the hard-working pioneers of the Medieval West, founding new communities, clearing forests and draining marshlands, and developing clever new devices to increase productivity.

[CK_John]

5. We have to start looking at 6 week wilderness camps for young adults . IMO, we need to

do outdoor things to get away from technology and in the interim reduce SocSec to age 50yrs.