My kid's generation doesn't really have a shred of hope, does it?

[HughBeaumont]

Between all of these articles on how Automation is going to destroy at least 40% of blue collar, retail, industrial and manufacturing jobs in the coming decades and how AI poses a serious threat to take over a decent percentage of white collar work within the next two decades, I'm just not getting why anyone should even bother trying if there's no hope to be had.

So much doomsday . . . and let's use that word, DOOMSDAY . . . talk. It's simply depressing.

It's depressing because while some of you think this is going to lead to some grand progressive Elysium where we'll finally move beyond the idea of a person's success being tethered to how gainfully they're employed, I see it quite differently.

I see an America that's NOT moving past "Protestant Work Ethic". I still see an America that's NOT moving beyond "Plantation Mentality". I still see an America that still believes the "Horatio Alger" nonsense. I see an America that still buys into Republican economic and social positions (even people who say they're "Democratic&quot . I see America that wants to patrol bathrooms but not boardrooms. I see an America that thinks paying workers 8 dollars an hour is unaffordable, but paying a privileged scion eight thousand dollars a minute is perfectly OK. We're expected to just "rugged individualize" our own way in life, and that's simply THAT.

In this robot-run future, I'm seeing "Dystopia". I'm seeing a wealth-demanded and enforced CULL. I'm seeing biblical catastrophe and disaster. I'm seeing wealthy and upper middle class people that will never stand for "PAYin FER LAZY BUMS THAT SHUD BE WERKIN!!". I'm seeing a corporate controlled nation that's going to leave millions to fend for themselves, and those millions won't even know what they should be fending for since most every tangible subject they'll be studying will offer them either no employment or having thousands of people apply for each low-paying job.

Love will not win out in the end. America has never been about love. Americans think life is one big competition, and if you're not actively kicking someone's ass and taking what they have, it's YOUR fault. If one looks around, there's obviously plenty that NEEDS done, but without public or private dollars backing it, it's not going to be accomplished.

So in this inevitability, what should I tell my kid? Give up?

Nobody's giving me a reason to tell him otherwise.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Snap out of it!

[Hortensis]

8. No kidding. We spent $13+ billion on Halloween

each of the last few years. And, as it happens, most of that WAS spent by our "kids" on their kids.

We have chances, opportunities, and wonderful ways of being we ain't ever used yet. So serious problems will require us to stop and think about what the hell are we doing. That's hardly the worst thing that could happen. I'm guessing it's the best, given what we've brought ourselves to.

[lewebley3]

70. We have a great deal of Hope we have Hillary: she is almost always

successful at everything she does: and she has always worked for
the American people. The rich white kids that want free college,won
t get their wish, but the poor and the elderly will be protected.


Also given the choice for the GOP, they may now want to come
to the table of compromise and dump the Tea baggers.

[tom_kelly]

83. Oh, my. n/t

[Hortensis]

85. Yes. Virtually all our Democratic candidates are

steps in the right direction, i.e., they believe in working together through our governments to fix problems too big to tackle any other way. I only say "virtually" because there must be a dud or a few out there somewhere.

Btw, I sorta doubt "rich white kids" are greatly concerned about how college is paid for, but in any case, there are a number of ways to go at it as long as the end product is education readily available to all who want it. Hillary and Bernie are on the same side on this.

[lewebley3]

90. Agreed: Hortensis: but I am done with ST. Bernard: holy then thou routine

[LiberalElite]

157. "Done with St. Bernard" (sic) - something tells me

you've been "done" with him since he announced.

[stonecutter357]

178. i have been "done" with him and his bro's since he announced.

[Baobab]

91. Where do you get this 40% figure? Also, people should understand jobs are not just going away

Hillary wants to globalize services- 70% of all jobs, so wages in many fields will fall to world average levels and Americans may find it harder to support themselves lacking jobs. however business will get more profitable, and corporations from official developing countries will get special carve outs and affirmative action.

What is your kids level of education? Are you wealthy?

Statistically, these are important.

Also, if they have degrees, what is their degree in? If they have an MS or better, in a technical field like engineering or a PhD in the sciences, and have published unique work, that's good.

If they are defense contractor or a stockholder in military industrial complex, they might see gains under HRC.

If they are just starting out or if you don't have a lot of money to educate them through to a advanced degree, they might do better in Europe.

Its clear that if Hillary or real estate developer Trump wins, the US is likely to go into a rent extraction phase where the middle class will be under attack by means of trade deals that put corporations everywhere in the world on the same level playing field. They will get new legal rights to sue the taxpayers to force changes in laws, for example, getting rid of domestic regulations seen as trade barriers.

For example, the parts of the ACA that people like will be framed as a market access barrier or trade barrier and may have the effect of keeping out foreign insurers and foreign hospital chains and doctors and their employees. Which is banned.

Make no mistake about it, Hillary will bring in foreign firms and workers triggering jurisdiction, its already a done deal going back decades, and once that happens things like guaranteed issue, being as they were after 1998, will be struck down ACA is definitely new regulation after 1998, so it violates standstill and likely would be framed as a trade barrier and like Glass-Steagall was, it would be repealed.

Same thing in other service sectors like education.

[lewebley3]

98. Hillary has not been in power for 16 years: Clinton's created 22m jobs and

Last edited Mon May 9, 2016, 12:21 PM - Edit history (1)

pulled 7.4m people out of poverty: Hillary is not an ideologue :
she will work with her party: The Clinton's raised taxes on the rich
and they1993 budget they passed without a single GOP vote, was one
of most progressive budget's since before Reagan.


Hillary is has no association at all with Trump: Trump is a trust fund billionaire: He
has never worked for anyone but himself!

Hillary has been working for the American people for 30 years: we don't have
to guess about what is important to her: we know she is fighting for all the American people!

The ACA is saving lives: that is what is important: not your tea bagging left wing theories!

[Baobab]

139. The ACA is saving the insurance industry's "life" but its killing Americans by locking in a failed m

model of horrible provenance.

which has repeatedly failed

http://www.pnhp.org/states_flatline/State%20Health%20Reform%20Flatlines%20IJHS%20-%202008.pdf

Also, re: Trump:

[lewebley3]

239. Hillary and Obama's goals was to save lives with ACA: not destroy

insurance companies. That is would need a great deal more
votes in congress and the Dem's don't have them.


If you think that Obama could have destroyed the insurance
companies you are crazy. That is what I don't like about
Sanders.

[Baobab]

234. But she's a NEOLIBERAL and she wants o GLOBALIZE services- 70% of all jobs

In her mind, Americans make far too much, given the global situation.

She sees people who are willing to work for a quarter as much as she wants to get them in here.

After all, they come from poor countries. She sees that as justifying a huge ripoff, by stealth.

You can read about this, its easy to find.

Here, see Page 278-279 of this document: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETTRADE/Resources/C13.pdf

You'll see.

[lewebley3]

236. Hillary is not a No liberal: She is a democrat: She works for

the American people and what her party can get votes for:

Hillary doesn't subscribe to any ideologue thinking, she works toward
the party goals. (which is caring and sharing politics)

Hillary get things done; she moves the ball forward for her team with
the help of team.

Sander's people would forfeit the game and take a lost if they were not
contented everything from the start: and if they didn't win every time
they would just not show up for any games the are quitters at heart,
Hillary and Dem party are not quitters they are fighters.

!

[Baobab]

248. I'm sorry lewebly3, you're really wrong on this one- Do you want to know the truth?

I would be happy to call you on the phone and sit with you showing you thing after thing which proves that we're dealing with a global assault on the things we all need to get by - an attempt to take over the future world and lock it into bad choices, for corporations.

thats going to hurt the people of this country tremendously- To them, we're all failures because we werent able to get advanced degrees- like they did- and so

they want to replace us with other people who do have advanced degrees from developing nations who will work for a quarter as much.

thats how they justify it to themselves, they claim to be helping these poor countries - so called "economic integration" .

the grand scheme through the WTO is called "progressive liberalisation" but in this context its better described as irreversible privatization.

What should we do. We need to figure out a better way to bring both us and the developing nations up at the same time, and heal the wounds (they have been promising them these jobs for 20 years) while rejecting these schemes which are written into these FTAs. All the FTAs need t be dumped and new ones written- we need new leaders who have hearts and souls who are not narcissists.

[lewebley3]

255. I don't need lecture on socialism: I am Democrat: and so is Hillary

[Baobab]

256. I am a Democrat too and an honest one, unlike HRC

You are in a state of ignorance and there are things you need to know to make an informed decision, for example, about the Clinton-era General Agreement on Trade in Services deal.

Which is like a global attack on public services for corporations. Against all of our best interests.

Her health care plan was a cover up to hide GATS.

And at least a million people have died from being denied care while our country is kept in limbo. Their solution is to throw our doctors and nurses under the bus by globalizing health care, which will also result in the loss of everything good in the ACA due to the "standstill" and associated "rollback" clause in the WTO GATS additional Understanding on Financial Services signed in 1998. That deal also led to the repeal of Glass-Stegall Act which then led to the 2008 World Financial Crisis.

[Baobab]

235. The ACA is a cover up to hide TISA which is making health care UNAFFORDABLE for good

It carves our broken health care model in stone. or attempts to.

Europeans are terrified of it, Americans have been kept in the dark and we dont even know about it. Thats how screwed up things are here.

I would never lie about this to anybody here.

I used to be a hillary supporter. Not any more. I realized that I had been fooled, i was missing something really important.

The 1990s trade deal that was one of the worst policy mistakes ever.

Its already caused MAJOR disasters for the world, like the 2008 finacial crash- the seeds for that were planted in 1998 ...

Do you want to know the rest? This is in part what Obama and Elizabeth Warren were really arguing about.

[lewebley3]

237. No the ACA is saving lives

[whatthehey]

108. I always love the DU hypocrisy on companies

A huge ratio here cry that the corporations are rigging the system to extract every shred of wealth from the people and hoard it as retiained profit.

But roughly the same ratio, with some identifiable loud champions in common, gleefully predict a massive crash in a stock market the value of which is based entirely on the future earnings expectations of those same corporations.

Both simply cannot be true. If you believe corporations are not just trying to grab every penny of profit possible (which they sort of by definition are) but are also so much in control of politics and society that nothing can prevent them doing so, the the only rational and even potentially life-saving course of action is to cut the cable, phone, fast food, leisure, even education (because there's going to be no jobs why bother?) funds and throw every dime you can scrape up into an SP500 index fund and take a slice of all that profit-taking yourself. How else can you survive in a future where the corporations have all the money? People do know they can buy just about every significant corporation out there, right? Sure Soros and the Kochs will have far more shares and get far more gains, but if their stake goes up 20%, our much smaller stake does the same thing, guaranteed.

Forestalling the most likely doomer fantasy response, even if there comes a time when all demand for corporate production ceases because nobody has a job to buy anything anymore, all that retained profit must go somewhere. When Apple stops selling IPhones because the fanbois are all out of work, the shareholders will still have the equity of those trillions in offshore retained profits.

[DonCoquixote]

114. forestalling

"
Forestalling the most likely doomer fantasy response, even if there comes a time when all demand for corporate production ceases because nobody has a job to buy anything anymore, all that retained profit must go somewhere. "

Yes, China, Dubai, and the smaller little corporate Bordello countries where the smaller (but richer) amount of the wealthy can live.

[whatthehey]

115. Which does not change the ownership of that equity

If you think corporations are going to get all the money, isn't getting a piece of the corporation the only way to protect yourself?

[DonCoquixote]

116. Cackle

Do you really think that your stock will protect you? Look, the rich own most of the stick, and they are very good about squeezing those are not majority shareholders out of it. The illusion America loves is that somehow becoming a Millionaire will protect you from Billionaires, whereas now, even the Millionaires are finding themselves benign fed on, mostly due to getting hosed in investments that lo and behold, were only propped up why wall street voodoo.

[airplaneman]

198. Ain't that the truth.

Minority stockholders are pigs to be slaughtered. Majority stockholders have rigged the game and get out before the minorities are allowed to get eaten and game the system to their benefit only. The more I have studied this the more it is obviously a rigged game. Just look at Enron. All the officers sold there stock before it collapsed. Workers were forbidden from selling before it crashed to zero.
-Airplane

[newthinking]

162. You are speaking researched facts. Not sure if most have caught up

nor spent the time to understand what our corporate leaders are putting in place.

The thing is they see this as ultimately the way to "nirvana". The "market" is supposed to take care of everything in the end. It is ultimately a kind of religious thinking (and many of the "managing elite" are involved in fundamentalist Christianity in one way or another).

[Baobab]

164. its a road to economic disaser because so few will have jobs and those jobs that do exist will pay

almost nothing, literally, (food) because of increased competition.

If we follow the Clinton trade liberalisation agenda, we'll see an economic implosion due to job loss. There is no way we can compete with developing nations on wages.

[emsimon33]

166. Well said.

[Arugula Latte]

126. What is she going to do "for the American people"?

She's scolded people for wanting "unrealistic" things like affordable healthcare and affordable college. Yet she is always happy to spend trillions on a worthless war.

So, I'm not really feeling the Hope. I'm getting a distinct "Nope" feeling.

[HughBeaumont]

128. Yes, somehow nations with not even near the GDPs we have can do this for their people.

But it's unrealistic to think that we CAN. Because reasons.

. . . . but hey, aircraft carriers. And more largesse money for the Kochs, who are worth 40 billion APIECE. But no universal health care for you. Or you. Wellpoint and Death Panels, bitches.

[malthaussen]

179. Economics of scale might play a part...

... it's rather easier to subsidize, say, health care for five million people than 330 million, especially when those five million have a bonus from sharing profits from North Sea oil. It's rather easier to provide free college education for "all" when only a moderate percentage of the people expect to go to college. I don't find that there is enough discussion of this question, though I tend to think that it is something that could be overcome.

-- Mal

[Arugula Latte]

194. I don't buy that argument. We have a much bigger population base to pay the taxes to support this.

Also, if corporations actually paid taxes, we'd be swimming in money.

Also, we prioritize subsidizing military contractors to profit off worthless wars and weapons systems and running countless obsolete military bases all over the world. And we pay billions for corporate welfare. If even a fraction of this was diverted, we'd be able to cover college and healthcare for all.

[HughBeaumont]

216. Just think how much we'd be swimming in if the CHURCHES paid taxes.

You know, those entities that dictate moral politics and are allowed to hand out pamphlets that espouse political position based on The Bible . . . . but they don't get taxed. Because, again, reasons.

[Arugula Latte]

251. I'm with you 100 percent. Religion is one giant grifting racket.

[lewebley3]

188. We have affordable healthcare the ACA: Thanks Obama

[Arugula Latte]

193. It's not affordable for millions of people.

People choose plans with very high deductibles in order to pay the monthly premiums. We should have just expanded Medicare to cover all. But of course we had to please the insurance company masters. Hillary would never, ever push for single payer like Bernie would. She's all corporate, all the time.

[Baobab]

140. The poor wont be protected until after they are destituted, to prevent "Crowd Out"

Read up on competition policy, thats how it works.

[U4ikLefty]

160. Let me put on my boots.

It's getting high in here.

[eridani]

173. if you call getting Social Security cuts "protection" n/t

[lewebley3]

186. All Dem's and Dem party work to defend SS: Its the GOP that want it cut!

[eridani]

197. If you choose to stay ignorant of the Catfood Commission, that is on you n/t

[lewebley3]

230. Its the GOP that have said SS is in debt: and the Dem's protected SS

Last edited Tue May 10, 2016, 11:31 AM - Edit history (1)

[eridani]

253. The The Catfood Commission attempted to cut Social Security. Get a clue! n/t

[Octafish]

215. HughBeaumont is awake.

You should study his OP until it makes sense to you.

[Buzz Clik]

217. Ya, that is clearly the problem: my reading ability.

It is out of the question that Hugh is being hyperbolic and hysterical.

Right.

[Octafish]

222. No, ignorance is your problem, Buzz Clik.

You brag about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511889497#post18

[Buzz Clik]

224. Damn! The Sanders crowd is especially pissy this morning.

You guys finally coming to grips with what's happening out there?

[HughBeaumont]

225. OK. It's ALL going to work itself out. No need for any sort of discussion or anything like that.

Rugged Individualism is going to solve the problems caused by Rugged Individualists. Amazing.

Don't listen to the "Commies", though . . .

[Buzz Clik]

226. Your OP reads like a suicide note.

Maybe you can become part of the solution.

[HughBeaumont]

227. I don't have the pay grade to be part of a solution.

I'm considered part of the "lunatic fringe", with silly notions of "economic fairness", "environmental awareness", "Human and labor rights for all" and "higher education and health care that doesn't cost the same as a home mortgage".

You want a solution? Start by not chain-tethering a person's well being to how gainfully they're employed. Maybe then more independence and entrepreneurship could flourish?

And how's about getting out of the 1980s thinking of only doing what's right for board members and major shareholders? Which, I might mention, is a corporate CHOICE and not a LAW like everyone thinks it is.

I know, I know . . . TL;DR. Fuck.

[Buzz Clik]

228. Dude, you are working out some shit that has nothing to do with me.

I am sorry you feel this way. Truly.

I won't bother you any more.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. It's a completely different paradigm, that's for sure.

It is so hard to compare generations, because they are so colored by history when our parents had us, as is the case when we had them - the differences in social norms and structure, the politics, the economy.

As a 60 year old, from poor parents, they had little interest in my activities or school - they were worried mostly about making ends meet and caring for their own parents - so we all just went out to play, and went to school to work hard. My school decisions were based on getting as good an education as possible, and job that would provide for my family. We did well - first real success story (educationally and financially) in our family. Biggie is that I could work part time in a grocery store and have enough to pay for my first car - and for my local college education (233 dollars a semester for my BA in chemistry and biology - which allowed me to go to Dartmouth for my PhD - and they paid me with a teaching stipend). I ended up with a good job in pharma, ability to support my family, retired with health benefits and a 401K.

Then we had our kids, got involved in their school, met the teachers, took them to sport and music lessons and events. They are in a world less focused on career - both my girls chose different paths, but neither have jobs that even approach the income I made - and that income hardly goes near what mine did. I can't see either with a house, or a really good paying job, job security, retirement account - it will be a daily/weekly/monthly struggle for them both, from where it looks from here. Income hasn't kept up with cost.

They are each happy in their own way because the times they grew up in - the social environment - the expectations - were and are different - apples and oranges when compared to mine and my wife's. I think they will find their own way, but it won't nearly resemble the course my wife and I took - or could it - we are all so unique, and so many variables color our experiences and expectations.

Not even thinking the rancid politics right now, and horrendous income inequality and all of the other inequalities, it is the environment that makes me the most concerned for the future - and for their lives. I do think they will be faced with unique challenges - but they are growing up in and around it, and it will be as normal for them as it becomes shocking to us.

My two cents, anyway.

[HughBeaumont]

3. Wealthy people and governments have the power to change the planet.

The operative word being "have".

Wealthy people choose to build private island enclaves "just in case" and governments give money to people that don't need it to automate industries that supposedly need repeat business to survive. Unless, that is, there's a way to make it work WITHOUT people buying products. I don't know of that way, maybe they do.

It's a given that our children are going to be working until they're gurneyed out; "retirement" is a word of the past, that's for rich people from now on. I'm just wondering what they'll be working AT. Products and services need to be purchased for businesses to survive. That requires disposable income. Entry level jobs are going the way of the dodo.

What's to even stop AI lawyers . . . an entity that can access thousands upon thousands of cases/precedents from the Harvard Law Library or the Library of Congress, algorithmically propose a case and defend it?

Nobody cares or talks about it beyond this board or on tech blogs. It's all assumed that the status quo is going to remain in place. The reality is, the wealthmongers are slowly and methodically already plotting their way out.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. yes. well, thanks for your thoughtful OP - which allowed me to reflect on your words.

[HughBeaumont]

13. And your post also.

When one thinks about it, Saving the Environment and creating green sustainability just might BE the way out for them.

But dollars need to back it. You can't pay your bills volunteering, much as corporate America wants it to be so.

[certainot]

43. here's some more about dollars

at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, deregulation, hate, and swiftboating

and why things seem so hopeless - democratic feedback has to get past that

[HughBeaumont]

47. . . . and it isn't just radio . . . .

How we still entertain a notion of a "liberal media" that has no less than TWO dedicated Republican propaganda arms in Faux News and CNBC and a junior one in CNN is beyond me. Even MSNBC is venturing down the moderate track.

[certainot]

66. i think talk radio is uniquely harmful in a number of ways

and i summarized some of it here at republiconradio.org

in most parts of the us there are no free easy alts while driving or working- it is a classic PSYOPS with a massive near captive audience of 50 mil /week

the for other media, while limited (in large part policed by talk radio - ask republican reps who try to compromise, or weatherpeople who mention global warming), there is always an alternative a click or page turn away.

not so with rw radio - it is a well protected monopoly, and now it has birthed trump

[newthinking]

165. News "Narration" is growing and will be far more powerful (and destructive)

War news is already heavily narrated.

What right wing radio was to the last 20 years Media narrative operations will be to the next 20.

[certainot]

69. and if the left stops allowing these 90 universities to

keep endorsing 268 limbaugh stations it will finally collapse

whether the unis act or when, all it would take is a few protests at some of these unis pointing out the absurdity of their support for global warming denial, racism, and trump, for instance, and advertisers will flee

[merrily]

102. No it isn't, but that poster posts only about talk radio.

[lewebley3]

71. Hillary and the Dem party have the power to change the planet

[Scootaloo]

109. For example?

What are some of Clinton's plans to change the planet?

[rhett o rick]

169. Too bad they seem intent to change it so they get more wealth.

You know in your heart that the wealthy want more and more and more. If people die, they think it's just too bad. At some point, we will have to throw them off the throne to help keep people from dying from poverty. Curious, do you support moving more money to the wealthy? Clinton/Goldman-Sachs does. I hope you wont try to say that the wealthy are really going to help the poor. That would be completely delusional.

The banks cried and got $5 trillion moved from the 99% to the 1% and Clinton supports that. You can't support the 1% and the poor, which do you choose? I am betting you won't say.

[lewebley3]

187. Wealthy people have always run the country: it not new: FDR

and Hillary were and are Dem's because they believe in sharing and caring
politics. Hillary could have a lot more money if she were not working
for the American people.

The banks got away with what they did because Sanders supporters were
to go to vote for Gore: Sander supporters are Nader supporters full
of themselves. If Gore had been in power or any Dem we wouldn't have
had 911 or war

Bush crashing the economy is the result of GOP cutting taxes and deregulating:
the did the same thing under Hoover and Regan:

[bhikkhu]

33. No, its been the same paradigm for over 100 years

100 years ago a significant amount of farm labor was being replaced by machines. Over 50% of our population was involved in farming, we had a very high birthrate and a very high immigration rate, what were all those people going to do? 60 years ago we had a significant amount of the population involved in manufacturing and still a high birthrate, but the planet was rapidly industrializing rapidly, exports were declining and imports of cheaper good was on the rise; what were all those people going to do? 40 years ago we had a very large number of office jobs, but predictions were that computers were going to make much of that irrelevant...and so forth.

Good news is that college attendance rates are at an all time high, our manufacturing output is still very high, our birthrate is very low, our economy is stable, new technology and challenges tends to create new industries and jobs, and an educated and motivated workforce tends to get the job done. Inequality here is not good, but that's skewed by how rich the rich are, not by how bad our median wages are (stable for 40 years).

I have to go to work now or I'd write more.

[malthaussen]

42. You can take it back farther than that.

The Enclosure Act. The Luddites. The invention of the steam engine and the beginning of the industrial revolution, which prompted Adam Smith to write The Wealth of Nations specifically in an attempt to answer the question "what am I going to tell my kids." (he failed)

The optimists are always going to take the "we'll muddle through somehow" position, the technology optimists will assert "we'll figure it out when we have to," and absent a world-spanning disaster that wipes out all human life on the planet, we will doubtless just keep on keepin' on. But what the shape of the future world will be, is a matter of imagination.

-- Mal

[bhikkhu]

161. One thing I've learned from studying history in detail

is that there is always some world-changing challenge to face or disaster in the works, even in relatively peaceful or static times, whether in 13th century Prussia or 16th century France; anytime, anyplace, if you look at the politics and social history, people and problems go together. If there is no real problems, then they are invented (think of all the religious conflicts through the ages). Every generation seems to find its feet and identity by overcoming something or other the last generation left to them. It would be nice if we could just fix everything and leave nothing for the kids to solve, but its never that way.

[global1]

5. Yet We Spend Billions Of Dollars On & Always Find A Way Of Paying For Elections....

but we can't afford social programs; or fixing our crumbling infrastructure; or healthcare for everyone as a right; or to send our kids to school without saddling them with a life of debt. It's a sad, bad & mad world we're leaving for our kids.

[HughBeaumont]

93. Pretty soon, we're not going to have a choice BUT to address infrastructure and societal issues.

Problem is, those who run America always believe we HAVE a choice and almost always choose to make the WRONG one.

We needed to address infrastructure issues 10 YEARS ago. Maybe THAT'S the hope . . . that a second and more extensive WPA can update our nation to badly needed 21st century solutions. They talk about defense; our best defense comes from rebuilding our nation.

As far as health care goes, between candidates (and even DU posters) that think it's an unattainable pipe dream, Republican-controlled State Legislatures and governorships and Big Pharm lobbyists by the truckload in Washington, I'm not optimistic that's going to see the light in my lifetime.

[Dont call me Shirley]

152. Elections are cheap compared to the money lavished upon war.

[Nay]

6. This is exactly my view of how the next 30 years will unfold. I have no idea

what to tell my 9yo grandson, who's going to be in the middle of it. He's really, REALLY smart, so maybe he'll figure something out, but damn. I know how you feel.

The most disgusting development over the last 40 years has been the wholesale adoption of Republican bootstrap shit by nearly all Democrats. This is simply the triumph of evil! They're getting rid of every job any normal person might be able to get, but it's still your fault you don't have a job! And yes, there's plenty that needs to be done, but since most of it benefits people in general, our masters see no need to work on that.

As far as a cull, I've seen that coming for a while, too. Maybe it IS the only way we can truly stop the runaway CO2 train, but gee, could we at least have had funded, free birth control for the past 40 years, like all the environmentalists suggested? NOOOOOO. It's more fun to watch 'em die like flies. People disgust me, frankly.

[tk2kewl]

12. I have an 8 year old son

I'm scared shitless of what he may face

[Bettie]

18. I have three sons

15, 13, and 7. I fear for their future.

I also worry that teaching them to be honest and kind is the wrong thing. Seems to hinder more than help these days.

[CrispyQ]

59. Yours is the saddest post of the day.

I also worry that teaching them to be honest and kind is the wrong thing. Seems to hinder more than help these days.

I heard some lyrics recently, something like, 'you see my kindness as a weakness,' & I thought, "I'm so glad I don't have kids/grandkids." What a sad world.

[Bettie]

117. It makes me sad

that being both honest and kind has worked to their detriment already in school.

But, on the plus side, my eldest son, at 15, heard some boys talking about having sex with a girl in their class.

First, he said that they are all too young for that, then, he pointed out that calling a girl a slut because she's had sex while being just fine with guys doing the very same thing shows that you are an asshole.

He got in trouble for saying "asshole".

I told him he was just fine and I am very proud of him for standing up for his friend.

[HughBeaumont]

53. "the wholesale adoption of Republican bootstrap shit by nearly all Democrats."

+1,000,000.

Yeah, I'm being called a nutter for bringing up concerns about what our kids are going to do in the face of a reality where a greedy oil-igarchy promises to eliminate jobs by the thousands. But Democrats are now becoming economic Republicans and Republicans are now the Batshit Insane Party and that's perfectly OK. Thanks. THANKS for the big menu.

[lewebley3]

89. Completely not true: Its the Democrats that have been fighting the GOP:

Its Sanders supporters that voted for Nader: and are now attacking
Hillary that don't do anything to help fight the GOP: they don't vote!



.

[tk2kewl]

111. keep telling yourself that

the DLC/Third Way counts on your believing it

[Go Vols]

118. Yep

"Obama says he'd be seen as moderate Republican in 1980s"

[tk2kewl]

142. Listen, "Liberal..."

Tom Frank explains it much better than I ever could

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017366906

[lewebley3]

73. You listen to many left wing tea baggers on the radio: We have a great furture

with Hillary and fighting Americans: there is no hope with Sanders.

[HughBeaumont]

101. Yeah, maybe she can tell me the benefits or detriments of job offshoring.

Depends on which one of her faces we listen to.

[lewebley3]

120. Hillary is not responsible off shoring jobs: The Weather is also not her

responsibility either: maybe you think she is responsible for you too!

[HughBeaumont]

122. Never said she was. Only said she supports it. Or doesn't.

Guess it depends on who she's addressing.

Either way, championing job loss for short-term profit is wrong. Offshoring is a Republican trait, not a Democratic one.

[Baobab]

144. Google "GATS Mode Four"

Bill signed the GATS 'agreement' in 1994

[lewebley3]

231. There were no job losses under Clinton: only Bush: Just a fact

[Baobab]

233. The negotiations have been going on for 20 years!

seriously..

And the developing countries are pushing for the long promised jobs very hard

Also, TiSA.

[lewebley3]

240. Negotiantions are always going on every day forever! moot point

[Baobab]

241. I'm not lying and you are ignoring an all important fact

See the real reason why they are privatizing schools here

[lewebley3]

243. The GOP would like to privatize everything: Not Dem's

[Baobab]

246. PLEASE REALIZE THIS: BILL CLINTON

SIGNED US INTO THE WTO
WHICH ATTEMPTS TO PRIVATIZE
THE WHOLE WORLD
IRREVERSIBLY

Wake up - open your eyes!

[TheKentuckian]

214. Oh so now the climate is "the weather" now?

What other people like the "logic" that "well...it's snowing outside, so much for global warming, huh"?

[Baobab]

143. They wont offshore, they will liberalize..

They import subcontractors whose employers they pay very little to.

The lowest bidding corporation from 48 countries gets it.

Special consideration goes to corporations from least developed countries (LDCs)

Poor countries. Their employees may be from better off families in poor countries.

[snooper2]

7. Why would you want your kid to work in a factory job or the like?

How about getting training in HVAC repair and a state license to work. Or how about the goal of having his/her own roofing company. Or how about becoming a vet. Or, maybe something that requires some type of skilled education?

[HughBeaumont]

15. FOR WHAT HOUSES? FOR WHAT PROFESSIONS?

For a roof and HVAC, one needs to be able to afford a HOME or an entity that requires these things. That requires disposable income, which is soon going to be a scarcity in a world where there's too much month at the end of the money. Student loan debt alone is going to shackle young people before they can even make a start.

This idiotic notion that higher education demands mortgage-level cost is the FIRST thing that needs to be done away with if we're going to have any kind of life to give the next of kin.

I see many young people going into vet tech as a career. Again, though, I don't see costs to start that going down. Isn't it true that medical schools in general only accept 1-2% of the applicants (who are, by and large, smart and rich kids)? From what people in the field tell me, veterinarian education is in some cases more difficult to get into than med school is.

[snooper2]

20. Um, you do know that Associates Degree are not that expensive...

And I see you are preparing for the end of the World, no homes, everyone on streets...In that case I recommend-


My Patriot Supply, I think you can put Glenn Beck's name in for a discount


https://www.mypatriotsupply.com/Articles.asp?ID=480&Click=289618&gclid=CjwKEAjwgbG5BRDp3oW3qdPiuCwSJAAQmoSDFqyIoZi9VDCUXSFL2Fcc1y337hsygz6e_Lyv2AGVARoCoMDw_wcB

[HughBeaumont]

22. I see. It's now hyper-batshit Repubilcan to be concerned about our children's futures.

I guess corporate greed and their need to offshore/automate every job except their own is going to go away in time.

I guess political parties WON'T be nominating reality star carnival barkers to the highest office of the land in the future.

I guess the cost of living IS going to go down and wages will go up. Eventually.

[KPN]

65. Actually, it's the reverse. Now a huge share of the

So called Democrats here at DU are hyper-Republican in their view of the current and future economy, and as you said adherence to to "rugged individualism." The New Democrats have hi-jacked the Party while the rest of us naively went along and even voted them into power.

That'S why it is so important to note vote for the lesser of two evils. We need to take a stand.. i'm voting for individuals, not the Party ... and I'll be writing Bernie in as a protest vote if I must. It's the only ammunition I have at 5 his juncture.

[freebrew]

88. We were blackmailed into voting...

for these New 'Democrats', as we weren't given a real choice.

It's even more difficult to understand how * got into office, twice.

Election tampering, disallowing voters, losing ballots.
All of this still goes on. And many here are celebrating it.

I have seen this board go from progressive to regressive in a matter of months.
Laughable how many contortions some here go through to justify support for an obvious republican plant.

[jwirr]

76. Before 1980 homelessness was not such a big problem. But

it happened.

Today we are watching as the cost of living in big cities is to the point that many ordinary people can no longer live there. This seems to be a trend that is moving across the country. Even in our small communities the rents are way up for several years ago. It is not beyond the belief that a lack of housing and not need for roofers could be a part of our future.

[HughBeaumont]

87. What is it, there's now NO place in America where 40-hrs/wk earning minimum wage gets you a roof?

And now 40% of American workers are now making LESS than the inflation-adjusted minimum wage of 1968?

Swaths of America believe the current Federal minimum wage is too HIGH. That it's just an "arbitrary number that needs to be subject to the market rather than by TEH FED" or some shit.

That homeless problem, as with a LOT of economic problems, has roots in the Reagan administration when they defunded HUD, which closed mental institutions and sent veterans and others into the streets.

[Baobab]

244. that is why they are globalizing all those fields. they claim we have a labor shortage!

So they want to irreversibly bring in what could become a huge number of very highly skilled guest workers.

All those young people should have been richer- So they could work for almost nothing like the others can.

Sorry, game over, you lose, America!

[HughBeaumont]

247. Anyone who thinks we have a "labor shortage" in this country . . .

. . . yeah, I instantly don't take that seriously.

The only "shortage" we have are of workers who are 25-35 years old AND have 15-20 years experience AND are polyglots AND know minimum 8 programming languages AND have minimum Masters Degrees AND are willing to work for 35k a year or less.

[Baobab]

245. people without jobs cant have pets- So training to care for nonexistent pets is not smart

I would not go into medicine because of TiSA which is going to allow cross border recognition of medical licensing. To preserve the tiered system they are going to bring in very low paid foreign doctors and nurses. Also, likely they will ship poor people overseas for care.

Also, once it becomes world trade the ACA will be challenged to the WTO because its a change enacted after 1998 which is not less regulation, it violates the standstill clause of the WTO Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services. So the WTO will void it. Community rating too. So then we will have lost the two things which ACA was supposed to bring us but we will be stuck with a lock in due to having allowed market access to foreign fims who will then get a irreversible entitlement to go on selling to that market forever- which will prevent single payer forever.

[zalinda]

51. You do realize that not everyone has these type of skills?

Do you also understand that not every kid gets the same breaks as your kids? For example, my kid couldn't train in HVAC repair, because he more than likely need a driver's license and he can't get one. And while his vision may be good enough to see some major problems with HVAC, would he be able to see the smaller ones? And, then would he have the motor skills to fix those problems?

His high school testing said he should be a butcher? A butcher? They never even took into account his physical limitations. If I had the money to find out what he really could qualify for, he probably would have a job now, maybe even a career. You forget that there are many jobs out there that the poor are not even aware exists, so how could they prepare for them? With a factory job, at least he could take a bus or carpool (you would be surprised how many jobs require a drivers license when they don't even drive on the job). With a factory job, he could figure out how he needs to control his body to perform a certain task over and over again.

Until you are in a situation which limits what you can do, you will never understand what we lessers have to go through.

Z

[mahatmakanejeeves]

63. "His high school testing said...."

Famed for its unerring predictive abilities.

[Humanist_Activist]

132. Are those jobs going to be magically immune from automation? n/t

[Baobab]

145. Those kinds of jobs are bargaining chips in a global game, you're an idiot if you dont think they

will be traded away. Teaching and health care first, also accounting, IT, energy, and so on.

I know for a fact that contracting for infrastructure projects is on the trading table.

[Skittles]

151. there was nothing wrong with factory work

and some of it did involve skills

[tenderfoot]

167. What's wrong with factory work?

Can't your fragile body handle such stress?

[tk2kewl]

9. found my way to this story through a DU post...

http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Sorry to say, I have a difficult time seeing things differently than you.

[NightWatcher]

10. I'm tempted to show the Mad Max series to my 5 year old as a documentary and training aid

just so she'll be ready and know how to stay alive after we do whatever we're going to do to this planet.

[CrispyQ]

27. "...the Mad Max series to my 5 year old as a documentary and training aid..."

DUzy.

[RKP5637]

11. Sadly, our politicians do not address the future of the US in these areas. We are clearly

moving toward a jobless society. I studied that in economics decades ago. The professor I had spent a lot of time on this topic. Many saw what would be happening if one extrapolated current trends then into the future. Politicians are often riding on the seat of their pants, because often they are in a balancing act trying to prop up current economic conditions, and then some just don't care as long as they and their cronies are being well served by the economic system.

One significant problem with America IMO is it has always been about competition and often cooperation toward a better country takes a back seat. And, of course, the "Protestant Work Ethic" is destroying the US, as the masses are always fed the garbage that their financial situation is all of their fault.

I am hopeful the youth of today will flush out the old system's modus operandi. What I do see happening in the future are large upheavals in the status quo as millions and millions more get displaced. Often, white collar workers, for example, thought they were immune to all of this. Now, many are finding they can be easily displaced.

My observations are often little seems to happen in America without a major crisis. I think we will see a major crisis in the future that might avoid a dystopia.

If I were young today, I would try to find a career path that might not be easily displaced. I would also try to live frugally for the time being until some of this starts to settle out. I think many millennials are trying to do this.

[Triana]

14. Why having kids is a BAD BAD idea right now.

Not sure what people are telling their kids or should tell them - but anyone who hasn't had any, probably shouldn't. It's a bad place for dogs, much less humans.

[maryellen99]

17. My husband and I couldn't have kids to fertility/medical issues

We wanted them but now due to climate change and craziness in the world, I'm relieved but still sad it didn't happen.

[jwirr]

84. I remember my two aunts who

could not have children. They turned their maternal interests toward the children around them that needed help. I cannot tell you how much they helped me.

I don't think they spent even one day feeling sorry that they did not have a child of their own - they had a lot of children.

[Triana]

92. Excellent!

Wonderful people, your aunts.

[emmadoggy]

99. Similar situation here.

20 years ago, we really wanted kids, but were struggling with infertility. It took a while, but 14 years ago our twins were born. This was all before I knew much about climate change and only shortly into the GWBush debacle. I was pregnant when 911 happened.

It didn't take long to see what a shitstorm we were in and once I found DU, my eyes were opened to so much - the biggest of which was climate change.

Now, I'm f'ing terrified for my kids and their futures. If I had known in 2000 what I knew by around 2004, I may have strongly reconsidered having kids.

Finances are a struggle for us. We have no idea how to get them through college other than them being buried in debt the second they start out in the world - like so many others.

When I look to our future and my kids' future, I don't see much sunshine, peace, or joy. Only lots of struggle, chaos, and fear.

When people talk about wanting grandkids, I always say that I would be perfectly fine with my kids remaining childless if that's what they choose (in reality, I would prefer it.) Just yesterday, my daughter mentioned off-hand something about wanting 4 kids. I told her I would be ok with her not having ANY, if that's what she chose. And I sadly pointed out some of the realities of the costs and struggles involved, as well as the world situation. It was depressing, but I felt like I should be honest with her.

[HughBeaumont]

19. Everyone wanted me to have a second one.

Never really had a first, someone already did the work for me Still wouldn't trade him for the world.

Yeah, getting fired in 2001 put the kibosh on that nonsense. I'm not even getting how A kid gets clothed, fed, educated and (thanks to runaway corporate greed) a life beyond our confines, let alone multiple ones. My generation (X) might be the last to be able to retire, and trust me, it's not going to be a comfortable one.

And then you see all of these doomsday articles . . . AI this, robots that, job offshoring this, one-sided free trade that . . . .

I'm just not seeing what they DO. Capitalism is not going to solve the problems it creates/created. Universal Basic Income is not going to solve this either . . . with no revenue thanks to no jobs and wealth/corporate selfishness and greed, how does it get FUNDED?

No one even bothers to talk about these things. We just think "it's all going to work out somehow".

Well, what if this time, it doesn't??

[Katashi_itto]

16. Think it will be a Bladerunner/Rollerball future as Climate change slowly erodes our ability to make

real changes in regards to mankind continued existence.

The Oligarchy wont do anything until it affects their profit margin and then it will be to late.

[PasadenaTrudy]

21. Glad I didn't have kids..... nt

[Helen Borg]

23. Tell your kid to learn how to fix robots!

[HughBeaumont]

29. I tried.

BELIEVE ME I TRIED to steer him towards robotics when he was like nine. "Seriously, LEARN THIS, because it's going to be your future!!"

Just never caught on.

[CrispyQ]

32. Said the user Helen Borg.

Oh, the irony.

[malthaussen]

46. Susan Calvin would be better.:) n/t

[CrispyQ]

24. Anytime I suggest a minimum guaranteed income on Facebook,

this is the response I get:



EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Americans have been successfully brainwashed to believe that we are all rugged individualists who made it on our own & if you didn't make it, it's cuz you didn't work hard enough.

[HughBeaumont]

35. THIS. Cannot stand this utter stupidity.

It's mentality like this as to why you see "Donald Trump: Republican Nominee".

People like this are the ones that refute science and history to believe bullshit fairy tales and they're not worth my time. Curt memes aren't going to solve the problems Capitalism creates.

I get the same thing on notions that we should raise the minimum wage. I got a few nutters on my feed that think the minimum wage (a real-dollar buying power LOSS in 2016) is somehow too HIGH.

[CrispyQ]

52. We've lost total sight of community.

We value the individual completely over community. Our communities have become incredibly exclusive & the internet hasn't made that better.

"If Colonel Sanders isn't going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to, and I for one am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers." ~Bill Maher

[The2ndWheel]

80. Well we really like individual choice

We like to be able to move wherever we want. We like to be able to learn anything we want, and go on to do anything we want. We like to let people wear or color their hair any which way. We don't like conformity. No person should be held down by where they're from, who they are, or what family they were born into. Yet we want people to sacrifice at least a little of their own good for the greater good.

We want the best of both worlds, without the downside to either one. If we live in a finite reality on a finite planet, we can't have everything.

[ronnie624]

45. People who post such nonsense are clueless.

The principle of shared risk is the method for social organization found throughout the animal kingdom. It is very clearly a biologically derived phenomenon.

We 'owe' ourselves whatever a majority of us decide we 'owe'.

[CrispyQ]

54. Nicely stated!

[malthaussen]

50. It's not just an American phenomenon.

For example, in traditional Nipponese culture, you started out indebted to society for your very existence. Which I do believe our corporate overlords would love to accomplish here, but haven't quite, yet.

-- Mal

[raouldukelives]

72. The only thing I feel entitled to is a stable and survivable climate.

One where the current flora and fauna that occupy the world, continue to occupy the world.

Anyone working against that, is working against the only thing any religion says that I am entitled.

There are only atheists on Wall St.

[The2ndWheel]

86. The world doesn't owe you anything

We conflate the world and human civilization though. The world also doesn't owe us the ability to maintain human civilization either.

[Live and Learn]

254. No, the world doesn't but SOCIETY does. Society is basically a contract that the people agree to.

When enough people stop agreeing, the contract can be voided.

[closeupready]

96. No offense meant by this, but if posting to social media is all you do

in favor of your ideas, then you're not going to get anywhere. Look at DU, how effectively which messages posted here have changed minds!

I'm souring on social media lately, and becoming pessimistic about America's future. If I were starting over, I'd try to forge a different path. Times in the US are going to get MUCH worse over the next few years, and I don't think we are going to recover our status as sole superpower, and we may even see our region of influence shrink dramatically.

[nxylas]

175. Yep, the solutions are there

All that's lacking is the will to implement them.

[pampango]

25. FDR showed the way. Progressive countries today listened. It still works BUT

you are right. It only works if you listen.

[HughBeaumont]

100. Europe adopted the FDR Bill Of Rights to their people's benefit.

We adopted 1984 and Atlas Shrugged as our instruction manuals.

[Ishoutandscream2]

26. Hugh, your posts are always thought provoking and spot on

nt

[Fumesucker]

28. It's changing the graduation card business...

[HughBeaumont]

37. I remember that one.

Made me sad. My kid's now in college and is thinking about getting a welding apprenticeship.

Of course, he needs to ATTEND the programs LCS is offering, which is kind of hard since he works and goes to school.

[Blue_Adept]

30. Nature's correcting itself in regards to us

So, it's best to just enjoy the ride.

[Orrex]

31. Well, look at the bright side. Neither does your generation.

The main difference is that society is now somewhat less inclined to live in denial about it.


[font color="white"]XXX[/font]
[font color="white"]XXXXXX[/font]
[font color="white"]XXXXXXXXX[/font]
[font color="white"]XXXXXXXXXXXX[/font]

[HughBeaumont]

39. Theoretically.

Our great presidential menu doesn't really give me much hope that they ARE.

And we're (at least Ohio is) STILL putting Republicans in office because cowboys, he-men and generals. Or something.

[malthaussen]

34. Have a nice cup of soma.

There's Soylent Green for supper.

I wouldn't venture to advise you on what to tell your child, I'll just observe that life is an exercise in denial.

-- Mal

[1StrongBlackMan]

36. Is depressive nihilism a new progressive principle? It certainly seems so. ...

My millennial daughter is quite hopeful for, and working hard to meet, her future.

I think it has something to do with the parents.

[sufrommich]

38. +1. nt

[Sheepshank]

41. My daughters are seeing the world differently than I saw it

and are planning thusly.

I am just not cut from the same cloth as the gloom and doom naysayers...I'm just not.

[1StrongBlackMan]

57. So true ...

I'm, sometimes, amazed that she, actually, heard what we had been telling her, her whole life ... and watching her apply that which fits her plan; well, moving in different directions, on others.

[HughBeaumont]

44. It's not me, it's the reality from corporate America and technology.

Should I just pretend "progress" and "doing more with no useless eater meatbags" ISN'T happening?

Should I just pretend that these alarmist predictions aren't already coming to fruition and we have nothing but pie-in-the-sky theories and conjectures to solve them?

[sufrommich]

48. No,it's you. You don't really have to scare the shit

out of your kids with lectures about dystopian fantasies. What kind of parent even thinks of doing that?

[HughBeaumont]

58. If we're hunting for "fantasies", try "depending on Capitalism to solve the problems it creates."

I don't know, will there be an abundance of jobs post-automation, which is already happening and will only get worse as they get older?

Will America wake up any year soon?

[1StrongBlackMan]

64. I am, well past, thinking that DUers have an unacknowledged need for Xanex ...

Now, I'm convinced Thorazine, and a restful stay, is in order.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7810408

[1StrongBlackMan]

60. "Progress" occurs and people adapt. There are plenty of careers that cannot be automated ...

well ... not until we reach The Jettsons level of automation.

[CrispyQ]

67. Have you & your kids ever discussed the possibility of a societal breakdown?

We're living an unsustainable life style that is catching up with us. Have you talked to your kids about this & if so how? What are their thoughts on climate change? Do they think it will impact them greatly?

I'm asking out of curiosity & don't mean to be confrontational. I don't have kids & am sooooo out of touch with young people.

[1StrongBlackMan]

75. Only when we watched the Mad Max franchise ...

You realize that people have these same "end of life as we know it" every generation (or so), since the Stone Age, right?

And, typically, it is the aging generation, coming to terms (or, not) with their mortality and/or lamenting their unfulfilled dreams, leading the discussion.

[CrispyQ]

78. Thought we'd have a convo, but guess not. -nt

[1StrongBlackMan]

110. What???

[CrispyQ]

138. Apologies on the slang: convo = conversation

Your response seemed dismissive. "You realize..." And then you chalked it all up to aging generations.

Obviously you don't have as grim an outlook of our future as I do & I hope you're right.

[1StrongBlackMan]

141. I know what "convo" meanings and I wasn't being dismissive ...

But ... You are correct. My outlook for our future is not grim. I have confidence in the strength and resilience of (wo)mankind.

[Turin_C3PO]

121. Climate change is a real issue though.

It's something that will change the way we all live (and sooner than scientists previously predicted) if we don't do something fast. That's not doom and gloom, it's just our current reality.

[1StrongBlackMan]

124. True ...

But I was asked if I ever discussed the possibility of a societal breakdown? We're living an unsustainable life style that is catching up with us.

As bad as what's coming, I doubt my daughter will see climate change related societal breakdown.

[Ghost Dog]

146. Unless effective plans are made and executed, ie. business does not continue

as usual, societal breakdown, not just disorder, will inevitably accompany climate change.

[1StrongBlackMan]

147. True; but, to the point of the question and my response ...

not in my daughter's lifetime, unless she lives a very, very, very long time.

[hatrack]

183. I hope you're right, but things are moving very quickly

They're already seeing coral reef loss from ocean acidification that they'd projected for 40-50 years in the future - and it's happening now:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127100923

NCAR is projecting substantial losses in oxygen in the world's oceans by the 2030s, and associated losses in populations of fish and, well, everything in the ocean, and that's 15 years from now:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127100718

In the Arctic, an area of sea ice the size of New Mexico melted in four days - in late April. They're seeing sea ice loss rates initially projected for 2075 - 2100 - happening now:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127100913

[airplaneman]

201. and then there is planetary omnicide by 2031

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2015/02/warning-planetary-omnicide-between-2023-and-2031.html

-Airplane

[Viva_La_Revolution]

113. my boys and i joke about being prepped for the zombie Apocalypse when we add to

the earthquake supplies or learn a skill that could transfer to survival situations. We're all adults now, but it helps with the scary feelings still.

[jwirr]

40. Well put. I don't talk to my kids about this either. For the

same reason - I do not know what to say to them.

But about a week ago I listened to a video (do not know the link) about the jobless economy. It talked about exactly what you are talking about and suggested a route. I am buying the book for my whole family to read.

Read: "People Get Ready" by Robert McChesney and John Nichols. They tell us point blank that it is we the people who have let this happen by our silence and the either we start fighting back or we end at the place you have described. Unfortunately, nominating Hillary is the opposite of fighting back but a lot of us tried.

[Hestia]

49. I dunno, read this blog post and maybe come to a different conclusion

Yes, it has CT, which is interesting in his posts; he also discusses a different mythology/spiritual viewpoint that some may not be familiar with. Just read it...

http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2016/04/lucifers-technologies-deal-with-devil.html

[Lizzie Poppet]

55. Their only real chance is a break-up of the Union.

Even then, they'll have to be in one of the emerging regional polities that actually adopts a non-oligarchic sociopolitical model...not all will.

Hail Cascadia.

[Maedhros]

252. I'm in. When do we start?

All joking aside, it's getting harder and harder to stomach having our political reality dominated by voters half a world away. Why the hell do we need to live under policies dreamed up by Senators and Congressmen from LA, MS, AL, GA, FL, SC, NC, TN, KY, OH, IN, DE, MD, VA, WV, etc.? Their values are so, so, so very far away from those of the West Coast...

[LibDemAlways]

56. While on a walk, I once passed a father and his

adolescent son. The dad's words of wisdom that I happened to catch were, "Son, the essence of life is cruelty. Always was. Always will be."

[HughBeaumont]

62. I think the reason we tell this to our kids

. . . is to convey the notion that, collectively, it doesn't have to BE this way.

Then again, it depends on who's doing the telling.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

61. I have an 18 year old brother and I'm full of hope for him

Yes, industry will change as it always does but new opportunities will arise as well.

[LanternWaste]

68. If you tell them as much and convince them as such, then you are correct-- no hope.

If you tell them as much and convince them as such, then you are correct-- no hope.

"Nobody's giving me a reason to tell him otherwise..."
Oddly enough, many parents think that the very existence of their children would be reason enough.

[6chars]

94. Great comment

[Hestia]

74. Basically, what the article discusses, is there has been no tech advances and to not put all

our eggs in one basket, i.e., we still need people in the Humanities. Silicon Valley is driving the conversation but actually there are less high tech jobs than there were 30 years ago and no new breakthroughs:

One science journalist wrote 20 years ago of the End of Science and recently took stock of his predictions and found they held up quite nicely:

Our descendants will learn much more about nature, and they will invent gadgets even cooler than smart phones. But their scientific version of reality will resemble ours, for two reasons: First, ours… is in many respects true; most new knowledge will merely extend and fill in our current maps of reality rather than forcing radical revisions.

Second, some major remaining mysteries—Where did the universe come from? How did life begin? How, exactly, does a chunk of meat make a mind?--might be unsolvable.

So far my prediction that there would be no great "revelations or revolutions"—no insights into nature as cataclysmic as heliocentrism, evolution, quantum mechanics, relativity, the big bang--has held up just fine.

And here he makes the same diagnosis of the state of the scientific world that many other principled insiders are making:

In some ways, science is in even worse shape today than I would have guessed back in the 1990s. In The End of Science, I predicted that scientists, as they struggle to overcome their limitations, would become increasingly desperate and prone to hyperbole. This trend has become more severe and widespread than I anticipated.

[Agnosticsherbet]

77. Welcome to the first annual Hunger Games

May the odds be ever in your favor.

[Cary]

79. "Future Shock"

I remember that movie going around when I was in high school, and my home room teacher (who was insane but still insightful in so many ways) scoffing and saying that "future shock" is nothing new. There is always future shock. And too I am reminded by my first day of Economics 101, reading Samuelson. Samuelson said that there was one and only one hard and fast fact and that is that absolutely everything will change.

Yes, we can produce more and more with fewer and fewer people and this is going to produce changes of all kinds. But don't make the same error as "conservatives" and Ayn Rand cultists. Don't over value the supply curve. The supply curve has no value whatsoever without the demand curve. If you can produce a zillion widgets for 1 cent, you would never produce any if no one could buy them.

All you're talking about here is the breakdown of the current system. It's true that we could end up in a Hunger Games scenario but what's the actual benefit of that to anyone?

There is plenty of hope. Change isn't always bad. I have some confidence that my kids can be smarter than I was.

[HughBeaumont]

81. We're absolutely needed to buy services and products. Capitalism doesn't continue otherwise.

Try telling the top beneficiaries of Capitalism (or, as we practice it, re-branded Feudalism) that.

That's what I'M wondering: is there some magic formula as to how this all continues if no one has any income to buy anything or the prospect to earn it?

Historically, people who have said "change is good" weren't the ones negatively affected by it.

[Cary]

97. If you're asking me ...

my guess is that the capitalist model doesn't survive.

A lot of things from Star Trek have come to fruition. As silly as it may sound, I'm thinking that's where we are going if we somehow manage to survive as a species. You walk up to a machine and ask for whatever you want. The distribution of scarce resources is no longer an issue.

[malthaussen]

180. It deals with the unnecessary people.

The continual difficulty of society is the question of what to do with the excess people, those who are surplus to the needs of those who have the power. Having us kill off each other has always been a popular method. Right now, within the U.S., the "let 'em die" school is not fully organized, and thus we have no institutional means of eliminating the excess. We are warehousing them in prisons, at a rapidly-accelerating rate, but that is only a partial solution. Letting them die in the streets is also only an ad hoc solution. Dystopian futures such as "Hunger Games" and the like advance the idea of organized, institutional means of disposing of the unnecessary.

-- Mal

[Cary]

185. Too pessimistic for me

I advocate for the weakest people in our society and nothing I see conforms to your assessment.

[Chan790]

82. These kinds of Malthusian projections have repeatedly occurred...

we're not all dead, obsolete or hopeless yet. It's inevitable that we will need a smaller and far more different workforce...the same thing was true of now when it was said 30 years ago, the same 200 years ago when it was said 180 years ago. When that time comes, the changes that have to occur to keep society upright will occur.

Society is a far more adaptable enterprise than we give it credit for...I feel like an idiot to quote Jurassic Park but "Life finds a way."

[Shoonra]

95. About that "Horatio Alger nonsense"

Hardly anyone today has actually read a Horatio Alger book and thinks its all Sunday School warm fuzzy talk about hard work being rewarded. In actuality, no. Alger's books were about dirt poor boys who were forced by circumstances to take the lowest, most dead-end jobs (such as shoe shining) - and by pure dumb luck and by showing great physical courage and strength in a brief moment of crisis (e.g., a runaway horse, the ice on the pond breaking beneath someone), saving the life of the richest man in town or his daughter and thereby being made his son and heir and never having to work hard again.

Here's what I see in the heart of the great metropolis: I see people - mostly men, but some women and some couples - living in alleys, living in sleeping bags, or blankets, or rags last laundered so long ago I don't want to examine them closely. Some look old. many look sickly or malnourished. They are vulnerable to the weather, to every sort of illness, to marauders and psychopaths. Even crazy people don't want to live like that. The system has failed them, and it has told them that they are the failures.

[malthaussen]

181. Yep

The real theme of the Horatio Alger books was that winning the lottery is cool.

-- Mal

[hatrack]

184. *SNORT*

Thank you!

[AuntPatsy]

103. Yes they do but it won't be easy for them..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017366698

Disobedience- title of video, a must watch

[redwitch]

104. Tell him there IS hope!

And to fight like hell. We'll help. I have 2 sons in their 20's. I would never tell them to give up.

[JackInGreen]

105. Get into programming

And software/hardware engineering, that's what I've told mine. He's thankfully doing prep courses now

[PeteSelman]

106. Have them learn a trade.

We're always going to need electricians, steam fitters, plumbers and the like.

A liberal arts degree is costly and worthless.

[Go Vols]

127. Yep

The Ironworkers Union is begging for help.

Ironworker Facts

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted a 22 percent increase in ironworker employment opportunities from 2012 to 2022.

Although my 27 yr old kid is 500 miles away,he is doing quite well in the Union.

[My Good Babushka]

107. But our children do have hope

I try to think of my great grandparents working in coal mines and steel mills as low paid immigrants. They probably couldn't imagine things getting better either, private police officers were coming into their homes and beating them up, but then they did. They got better.

[struggle4progress]

112. .

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

119. People have been hyperventilating about this since the end of feudalism

Whatever will become of the lowly serf without his benevolent Lord of the Manor?

"Futurists" have been propagating utopian and dystopian nonsense for centuries.

[Ace Rothstein]

123. Something is going to have to be figured out.

Who is going to buy all of these products made via automation if nobody is working?

[Arugula Latte]

125. Global Warming ...

so ...

Not a cheery outlook.

[fred v]

129. Off to Greatest Threads!

Major K&R.

[840high]

130. Very little hope. What should

I tell my grandsons?

[sulphurdunn]

131. For thousands of years

the message from the top of the pyramid has always been that the way things are has been ordained by gods or nature or markets or something, that it is supposed to be that way and that resistance is not only futile but evil. In our time the CEO is the new king, but the relationship remains the same. Corporations are just the new pharaohs, but far less stable or useful, and their reign will be measured in decades, not millennia. Have a little faith in your kids.

[felix_numinous]

133. I am encouraged by the green movement

and permaculture, and people who are involved with building Earthen homes, and going into alternative energy. The government has become fat and top heavy, climate change will make much of their operating practices obsolete pretty fast. They cannot keep up with climate change mentally or in practice, which is just a fact of nature.

These are hard times and likely worse times are ahead, but if people plant food forests, practice green living and build in sustainable ways, perhaps we will have a chance in some areas. This has become my hope

[GOPblows431]

134. It sure seems like it sometimes

But I'm sure there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. Or so I hope.

[Baobab]

249. No, their tunnel goes to a very dark place. Thats what the trade deals are setting up, a world where

this "cult" of theirs gets to hide the growing anundance under layers of fake scarcity- for example, pitting groups of people against one another in competition for the shrinking number of jobs - thanks to automation productivity is soaring upward very quickly- Thats good- and we've all earned it.


But the change which will likely lead to a world where fewer and fewer people need to work is causing the panic reaction in the very wealthy who are trying to lock down the future-

They want to trap the world into their death cult- they deciding who wlll live and who will die. the trade deals are removing compassion and removing human values from the global dynamic systematically, just as they have systematically dismantled the whole new deal programs - making them all FTA-illegal.

Quietly. thats what HRC is the representative of, that ideology.

And its profoundly wrong.

[riderinthestorm]

135. My kids grew up on the farm where the changing climate is experienced intimately

I never had to tell my kids anything. They can see it and feel it.

We also provide homegrown veggies to two local food banks. The ever increasing line waiting to come in and the astonishing need for more and more food is very, very sobering - my youngest has been moved to tears on more than one occasion.

I have no answers for them really. I do my best to lead by example. I live a very environmentally sustainable life-style and have raised them similarly. Im active in anti-war efforts, GOTV, and my local environmental group which is primarily organized around anti-fracking efforts but we've also worked on groundwater and habitat preservation efforts.

I encourage them to become connected to their communities because sooner or later that's going to matter, a lot.

[HughBeaumont]

136. Hope we get more finance guys on board with this.

It's catching the ears and eyes of a few. And it's not going to just hit millennials. It's going to hit victims of age discrimination in corporate America. It's going to hit the middle/working/poor classes currently employed. no disposable income means no additional business.

[cleanhippie]

137. Have your kids focus on skills required for infrastructure and green energy, and they'll be fine.

Anyone holding on to the idea that manufacturing jobs are ever coming back from overseas cheap labor markets are insane.
We are a service based economy now, so focusing on that, or the imminent need for infrastructure overhaul and green energy construction will provide quality incomes for future generations.

[Sunlei]

148. You're being spammed by internet/social media it's depressing you & family.

You've gotten this far in 'life' and done ok? I would never tell any kid to 'give up' , that will depress them for sure.

[HughBeaumont]

149. Actually . . . . this mostly comes from DU itself.

Search the word "automation" in GD. You'll see.

[Sunlei]

156. robot and automation fears, I see what you mean. DU is social media too.

Personally, if I was a kid I'd look forward to robot repair, software or building them. The trend has always been to automate as much as possible, it's more efficient. I think some of this mass depression will pass once the primary is done. I find it is a much nicer World to ignore twitter, emails and facebook. Happy Trails.

[Dont call me Shirley]

150. And you didn't even mention how fucked up the environment will be from global warming.

One thing for sure, humans are creative, adaptable, ingenius especially when faced with calamity. The evidence of the compassion and survival of the human race abounds. Teach your children the basic necessary skills to survive in the natural world and they will respect you for all their life. Teach your children cooperation, kindness and compassion and they will honor you forever.

[hunter]

153. Properly cooked, the wealthy can be quite tasty.

[LuvLoogie]

154. Like someone said up thread, "Snap out of it." You don't get to show despair in front of your kid.

You have to do it one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, one day at a time--and trust that there are enough people doing the same.

I get those days, too, over my two young daughters and the world they will be left with. Sometimes I look at them and say to myself, "What did I do?"

You stay in the moment, and hug your kid, and keep pushing.

[CK_John]

155. Your kids need to learn to weld, all genders. Welding for art and for utility

will protect them from an IT future.

Be careful of their eyes and be sure they have a good trainer, not some backyard jack of all trades.

[Bonx]

196. Les get everyone welding. Welding is good to know when things need to be welded.

Welding.

[Rass]

158. Look forward to an energy evolution

Some day, electricity will be so abundant and cheap it will not be worth metering. How can I claim this with a reasonable amount of certainty? Because there are scientists and engineers probing the secrets contained within the Sun and they are making progress.

These are not your average researchers. They are exploring a solar model that is different from the one described in textbooks. The model they are looking into is referred to as the Electric Solar Model and it has the potential (pun intended) to change everything we thought we knew about the Sun.

Imagine a source of fusion power that is initiated with basic electricity and chemistry. No radioactive material or waste involved. This is the main consequence of an electric Sun.

The Internet brought us the information evolution, we are overdue for an energy evolution. Teach your kid to be a problem-solver.

[HughBeaumont]

174. Another advantage: Oligarchs can't own and control it like they can with oil and water.

Potential for businesses everywhere.

[whereisjustice]

159. Family - something only for rich people, the rest of us doomed to subsistance living...

Health Lobby wants all your money

Education Lobby wants all your money

Housing Lobby wants all your money

Food Lobby wants all your money

Corporate Lobby wants you to work for free

You have to pick one. You can't have more than one.

[Thespian2]

163. Not to worry...

according to Nestle, the world's supply of fresh water to grow food will soon be gone...perhaps as early as 2030...

[Hydra]

168. IMO, 50/50 doom or utopia

We are currently on track for a mass culling. We could also see the current re-rise of OWS lead to a future where all of us share in the bounty rather than just the top 10%.

It will be exiting to be involved with...or fatal.

[OnyxCollie]

170. "I gave up hope and it worked for me!" -George Carlin

[DrBulldog]

171. I gave my kid Plan B.

When she turned 18, we got her Canadian citizenship, thanks to her Canadian mother. She will now always have that option.

[eridani]

172. The end of work means we have to have another economy

--founded on a guaranteed minimum income. You just can't have fewer and fewer people making more and more stuff and then tell the displaced workers that they can't have any stuff.

[nxylas]

191. Yes, it's not automation that I fear

It's the failure of human consciousness to adapt to the reality of automation. For most of human history, it has made sense to tie income to work (I use here the definition that "work is anything you don't want to do&quot , because otherwise the work wouldn't get done. In the coming decades, that may not be true. There's some debate about the limitations of AI for work that requires abstract thought, but there will almost certainly be robots to do the really shitty jobs, rendering it unnecessary to pay people to do them. However, I have a horrible feeling that people will still be insisting that "you gotta earn your keep" for decades, maybe even centuries after it ceases to be true in any meaningful sense.

[Snarkoleptic]

176. The Jetson's model didn't account for elites gobbling up automation cost savings.

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-late-great-american-promise-of-less-work-1561753129

Funemployment, staycations; these words have crept into the national lexicon as a cultural coping mechanism. Americans who are actually lucky enough to have a job here in the early 21st century are working their asses off to keep them. So what happened to the push-button world of leisure that Americans of the 1950s and 60s were told was just around the corner? Politics.

Once a key component of the American Dream, George Jetson’s button-pushing 3-hour workday has been unceremoniously tossed to the gutter in favor of a half century of increasingly dystopian futures. After World War II, Americans were told that if they worked hard and played by the rules, a technological utopia was just over the horizon. Somewhere along the way, this most American of promises was twisted into a joke about silly, entitled Spaniards and the lazy, crepe-munching French. Progress became a function of working more, not less.

Want to spend more time with your family? Maybe you’d like to take a vacation and show Junior the Baseball Hall of Fame? Move to France, you hippie! I’m sure your kids will love the Baguette Hall of Fame! You’ll stop working when you’re dead! It’s the American way!

[ileus]

177. We look, we see, we want.

That's why so many of us support Bernie, he's going to take from the 99% and give to us. There's enough wealth Private, and corporation out there to where none of us have to work again. All we have to do is have the balls to elect people who will demand it, and take it. The only kicker is we have to trust it'll be distributed properly

protestant work ethic is so 1900's...It doesn't have to be that way, not here...not in America

[REP]

182. My generation grew up under threat of nuclear war and Reagan

We weren't the "duck and cover" generation; we're the fallout shelter one; the one that had teachers explain how close we lived to to sites that would be bombed and our chances of survival.

Then we had Reagan, went to college and tried to find jobs while AIDS was slaughtering our friends.

Every generation has things that suck. We move on.

[NickB79]

189. We are bearing witness to a new mass extinction event that humanity caused

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/20/sixth-mass-extinction-study/29028887/

The Earth's sixth mass extinction is already underway — and humans are the driving force behind it, according to a new study.

"Recent extinction rates are unprecedented in human history and highly unusual in Earth's history," according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. "Our global society has started to destroy species of other organisms at an accelerating rate, initiating a mass extinction episode unparalleled for 65 million years."

Researchers used "extremely conservative assumptions" to determine extinction rates that prevailed in the past five annihilation events. Still, they found the average rate of vertebrate species lost over the past century was up to 114 times higher than normal.

We've become as damaging a force to this planet as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

So yes, I definitely understand your despair. I have a 6-yr old daughter, and it tears my heart out when I think of what she'll see and experience over her lifetime. Browsing the LBN and Environmental forums here, you realize it's all happening faster than any computer models or scientists predicted. All the worst-case scenarios are coming true, and doing so 25-50 years sooner than first thought. Sea level rise, forest fires, droughts, glacial melting, disease spread, etc, and things like the Paris Accords are bandaids on a sucking chest wound at this point, as long as we burn billions of tons of fossil fuels each and every year.

I've come to accept the fact that a good portion of human civilization will likely collapse in my lifetime, democracies and law replaced by tribal warfare and climate refugees like we're already seeing in Syria, Yemen and Somalia. All I can now for my daughter is to raise her to be as resilient and strong as possible, and keep myself strong for her so I'll be there to do all I can for another 50 years. The only thing that keeps me semi-sane is knowing I have the skills, land and tools to be fairly self-reliant, close to a small city that has a very large number of similar-minded, Green-movement-style families and a liberal college campus for support, in a state (MN) that will see far less damage from climate change as most other parts of the world for the next century.

[whistler162]

190. Said in the 1800's, 1900's rinse repeat

every previous generation says it about the next one/

[Phentex]

195. Yep. Every single one does this...

it's gloom and doom and end of times. Maybe things have gotten worse in some ways. In other ways, some things have gotten better. But one thing that hasn't changed is someone declaring how much worse the next generation will be.

[yurbud]

192. basic income for everybody, not just trust fund babies.

[GulfCoast66]

199. Good God,

I have come to believe that if DU members were somehow transported back to 1779, 1862, 1933 or 1943 a healthy percentage of them would commit ritual suicide for all to see because they could not handle the situation.

If you think things are really bad now, try reading some history. You will see that despite some bumps along the way we are continually heading to a more progressive future. Perhaps not as fast as l like, but faster than at any time in history.

With the attitude you seem to have, keep your mouth shut around your kid. I guarantee he or she will be way more optimistic about the future than you.

[tralala]

200. Weird how people's expectations change with the world around them!

So weird!

[HughBeaumont]

204. PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT.

History was horrible because there were no advancements in technology to make it better.

Information and knowledge are why there are no more Hitlers. Political and societal isolation creates a North Korea.

Unfortunately, that same information and knowledge threatens to send the useless eater meatbags to the streets and our coffins with no lifeline to be had. No income means no products and services purchased which, in turn, means NO BUSINESS.

Do tell . . . are corporations going to get LESS greedy and profit-batty? They want labor to buy from them but not work FOR them. If they could offshore or automate any job except their own, they would. If corporations don't get out of this 80$-90s thinking of pleasing the major shareholders first (a choice, NOT a law), I really don't see any other way America survives. I really don't see how your precious capitalism survives. It's an anachronism. It's not going to save itself from the problems it created and continues to create.

Are all of these wealthy board members going to say NO to the cost savings of event-driven algorithms? Tell me, how does a small business compete with the likes of Amazon and Wal Mart? How does monetary backing for a small business happen when we continue to waste money on corporate welfare, pork and useless oil wars?

OH, and have you seen who we think is a good idea to run America? The Ryan Congress? The McConnell Senate? DONALD FUCKING TRUMP AS A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE??? A "progressive future"? REALLY?? This isn't just a "bump", this has the potential to be a goddamned fucking cock-up so monumental that it will send human, civil, labor and voting rights back to the 20th century.

So don't sit there and tell me to be optimistic when my fellow "Americans" give me no reason to be. We keep sending fuck-up after bought-and-paid-for fuck up to Washington and continue to do so despite having the worst shit-bad record when it comes to issues domestic and foreign, all because voters want to believe stories and narratives from Australian Reaganites and wingnut carnival barkers on cable TV. There is going to be NO progressive future at the rate we're going now. This party, to the contrary, is leaning ever more to the right, not the left.

[GulfCoast66]

208. I can tell

That you are pretty down on things right now so will not engage in any sarcasm nor try to convince you things are not so bad.

I hope in the future you get to see your kids happy and successful. Telling them they can be is a big part of making it happen.

Take care.

[braddy]

202. Service plumbers will be around for quite a while.

[silvershadow]

203. I think we will have no choice but to move toward a guaranteed basic income. nt

[BlindTiresias]

205. Your assessment is essentially correct.

The people saying we will just plow through this with grit and determination are part of the problem, because they are insisting on an individual solution for a structural problem. Individuals who say that automation is exactly the same as industrialization are also incorrect and economically as well as politically illiterate. The problem with this position is twofold: First, automation is distinct from simple industrialization in that industrialization multiplied productive efforts but still demanded a large body of labor, automation has no such problem as the core phenomenon of automation is exactly the removal of this body of labor while simultaneously multiplying productive efforts. Secondly, even if we grant that humans will still have a large place in an automated economy the question of what to do with the wealth generated by these productive enterprises is entirely a political one. On average, life got much worse for most people after industrialization and it was only through organized resistance and violent action that gains were made to make the economy more livable for people. We have no such resistance today as the left has been broken and the post-left liberals have essentially signed on to the same economic theories as the right wing. That itself bodes ill of harnessing automation in a positive way and, at this point in time, suggests a greater likelihood that things will get more darwinian and the elite will double down on the existing ideology that preserves their power.

I will also note to everyone saying it is "not that bad" because some jobs will exist: Look at how much we were hurting with 10% unemployment. Now imagine 20% permanent structural unemployment and, at best, a diminished welfare system marked by perennial lockdowns, controversies, instability, and an increasing amount of gatekeepers to ensure only the "worthy poor" are getting their pittance. Let us extend that further to 30 or 40% structural unemployment and combined harried temp work. It does not matter if some people can find work, obviously this is the case, but as a society we will be torn apart by an automation that is not being managed by political forces, rendering any individual solution simply a mix of desperation, blindness, and the same individuated greed that enables this phenomenon.

[HughBeaumont]

209. +1,000.

Finally, someone who gets it.

Industrial progress temporarily displaces, but when one technology led to a new industry, labor went right along with it.

With robots and event-driven algorithms . . . ain't no labor going anywhere but the boneyard. Game OVER.

"Retirement" will be a non-existent notion soon.

[Demsrule86]

206. No I disagree

Every generation faced their challenges. My kids are in college or working...and doing fine. Stop feeding your kids a steady negative news diet. I turned off my TV and told my kids...if your Grandma could support 7 people in the 30's on a secretary's salary, you can make it today. Look for opportunities. It has always been hard when you are starting out. i don't understand people who are all depressed...do what you can.

[anigbrowl]

207. No. Give up, it's hopeless, doom doom gloom doom

Actually you're suffering from Mean World Syndrome, which is the opposite of Just World Syndrome, where people think everything is tickety-boo despite evidence to the contrary. Things are not so bad as you have convinced yourself they are; you're somewhat depressed and letting it color your judgment.

I'm not being flip here, I suffer from chronic depression and I have to do erality checks on my own opinions all the damn time because my emotions are not a reliable guide to reality.

[hfojvt]

210. do you see things?

Or do you imagine things?

Do you really see those monsters in the closet, or do you just fear that they are there and thus make them real in your head.

Consider this "America has never been about love. Americans think life is one big competition, and if you're not actively kicking someone's ass and taking what they have, it's YOUR fault."

Who exactly are you talking about? Me? I am 54. Do you think I have spent my life kicking peoples' a$$es and taking what they have? Or do you think that if I have NOT, then I muse have been on the other side, getting my a$$ kicked and losing what I had?

No doubt America has a number of hard driving people who claw their way to some higher position and other people who operate either outside of the law or right on the edge of the law, but there are also many more who are just hard working, and are even giving of their time, energy, and money. We kind of expect other people to do what we do, maybe, is that too much to ask? For people to get a job, and then to show up at the job with a decent attitude and work fairly hard?

What I see, for all you want to wag your finger at people who have that attitude, is that there are many people with jobs who don't feel like they should have to work. It seemed like a generational thing too. A couple of old guys, three of them were very good workers, in spite of their age, they were working rings around a younger generation of slackers.

It just so happens that I spent this last weekend, Friday and Saturday, working both days to raise money for charities. Drove 80 miles and worked 13 hours on Friday and ten on Saturday, and there must have been hundreds of people doing similar actions at the Speedway. There were over twenty just with our club.

I think you are looking at the wrong part of the glass.

[HughBeaumont]

212. So here's where I ask "What are YOU talking about"?

You think this is some "Monsters in the closet" fantasy from some paranoid tin-foil hat whack job that thinks the sky is falling like Chicken Little?

THIS IS REALITY and America damn needs to wake up to it and FAST.

Look up "Automation" on DU. You'll find links to several dozen articles that highlight this permanently displacing process, all with the same alarmist tone that it likely warrants.

An excerpt from post 205 that explains just WHY we should worry says it best:

The problem with this position is twofold: First, automation is distinct from simple industrialization in that industrialization multiplied productive efforts but still demanded a large body of labor, automation has no such problem as the core phenomenon of automation is exactly the removal of this body of labor while simultaneously multiplying productive efforts. Secondly, even if we grant that humans will still have a large place in an automated economy the question of what to do with the wealth generated by these productive enterprises is entirely a political one.

And if we're relying on politicians or corporate America to quell this or assure there will be new industries to replace the old ones (which is 20th century thinking), that's pretty much telling the arsonist to be responsible for putting out his fires.

The problem is a structural one expected to be solved by a rugged individualist or three. It's not happening.

[hfojvt]

229. worry accomplishes nothing

Wringing your hands and wailing about some miserable future is kinda silly. All it does is diminish what is real - the present - because of problems that are still just imagined, predicted. Of course, people do get paid apparently to write stuff about "future shock" sometimes even making really good money to stir people up. Future shock, you may remember was written in the 1970s.

If these people are able to predict the future, I would like some good stock picks.

I looked at what you said about the PRESENT and the PAST. Things which do NOT require speculation.

And your view there was very dark. As if my parents, grandparents, uncles, grand uncles, myself, my siblings, and so on spent their life kicking peoples' a$$es and taking what they had. I find that to be a dark and exceedingly pessimistic view of what was, some of which I experienced.

So, you have a dark view of the past, and you claim that worried predictions of the future are "reality".

I don't buy it. Seems like a bunch of cynicism designed to justify and attitude of "why should I work, why should I try?" and then, having given up, will proclaim, "it is impossible to make it in America, the American dream is dead."

Myself, I say that the California dream - deserves to die.That dream is, we will all be rich, very quickly (by finding gold). The American dream should be - we should live together as family, caring about each other.

[randome]

238. Reality is that if you're into IT and you're mobile, you will never be without a job.

The American Dream hasn't died, it's simply undergone evolution. The previous American Dream was to marry, have two 1/4 kids, own a house and retire on a pension. But that was the dream of last century. Not this one.
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[LannyDeVaney]

211. I'm deliberately not reading any comments to this thread, so my answer is heartfelt and uninfluinced

Adapt. Progress. Hard words for people our age - but our past is WAY different than our kids. This is a reality that has existed for generations. Everyone eventually reaches the "get off my lawn!" mentally. Me included (age 49)

Who dreams the machines? Who designs the machines? Who engineers the machines? Who build the machines? Who repairs the machines? Who supervises the machines?

It's evolution - and living creatures are the subjects.

[TheFarseer]

213. I'm pretty much picturing Soylent Green

Hot, polluted, warehousing the poor, eating the poor because there's not enough real food. The only way to win is to amass some stock and hope that works out, I think.

[Act_of_Reparation]

218. You should read about the Luddites, who ran around destroying machines in the early industrial age.

They were wrong, too. You both can span the generational divide and be wrong together.

[HughBeaumont]

220. The Luddites were wrong because labor migrated with change brought on by industrialization.

For example, carriages led to automobiles, trains and planes. Labor went with it because you needed people to build them. You still needed people to drive combines, cranes and tow motors.

Not so with automation. Production increases, labor decreases until eliminated altogether. Batch jobs don't even require a person to push a button. Automated factories and warehouses are just the beginning. Seen the videos of home construction robots? Restaurant kiosks? How many white collar jobs are at risk? "Robots don't make mistakes, sleep, eat, whine about raises or safety and especially don't need health care". "YEW WANT $15 an hour? HERE'S YER KIOSK REPLACEMENT!! HAW HAW HAW" (that thinking, by the way, is found on DU as WELL as Yahoo and FB. Funny position to take from, you know, one who still has to work for money).

Oh RIGHT, I FORGOT. Robots also don't PURCHASE. Try reasoning with the people who run things, though.

Multiply that by thousands of industries and millions of jobs. Combine that with stagnant to decreasing inflation-adjusted wages attempting to pay for always-increasing necessity costs (e.g. how does a millennial with $25-$50k in debt buy a house? Or a reliable car? Or yet another costly trip to college?). Oh, and throw in a political climate that's still clinging to "earn yer keep" mentality and thinking we just need a lot more "Bush-o-nomics" and a lot less "SOSHULISM".

The math doesn't add up and this is not "just going to work itself out" like it did in the past.

YOU are the one that's wrong.

[Act_of_Reparation]

221. TL;DR

[HughBeaumont]

223. TL:TSTC.

Messages aren't worth a shit unless they're in tiny absorbable factoids. You know who thinks along those lines, right?

You know, there is such a thing called "Hide Thread" if all you're capable of contributing are insults.

[BlindTiresias]

232. You are being extremely uncharitable in your argument.

The person never advocated for a destruction of automation. What they are essentially arguing is that automation by itself will benefit a small class of people, exactly the same as industrialization did. What you do with the increased productivity has always been a political problem. Remember: the industrial capitalists did not concede safety regulations, better wages, reasonable working hours, or access to education out of the kindness of their hearts.

[Act_of_Reparation]

242. Yep. I'm being uncharitable with the person screaming about "culls" and robot doomsdays.

If you say so.

Remember: the industrial capitalists did not concede safety regulations, better wages, reasonable working hours, or access to education out of the kindness of their hearts.

If I may ask a serious question: why do you guys do this?

Every time there is a discussion of this sort, some dimestore revolutionary climbs on top of a soap box to rattle off some mundane shit we all learned back in the sixth grade. Remember the labor movement had to fight for the aforementioned rights? Do you think I forgot, or that I never knew in the first place? It's pretty condescending, in either case.

[BlindTiresias]

250. I mention it

Because if the question of how technology is used is a political one then it can go either direction, meaning the OP's fears are not groundless doom but a possible reality of automation without political forces molding it into a form that benefits most people. Those things that were fought for were never guaranteed, and the dismissive attitude you took would suggest you think that technology benefits people in a linear and deterministic fashion.

[Octafish]

219. We the People need to fire the secret government.

Otherwise, Capitalism's Invisible Army will continue to use their positions and do whatever it takes to maintain itself and most no one will ever notice. This includes the installation and removal of Presidents. Ask Jimmy Carter about Big Oil and the Safari Club.

The television is chock full of violence, sideshow for news and LCD entertainment 24/7/366 full volume. Most Americans with jobs are getting run ragged where they work doing the work formerly done by two and three employees that they don't have time or energy to find out what's what and who's who. They are so busy

The idea that the poor are to blame for their circumstances is now entrenched in the Democratic Party -- Hi, Pete Peterson! Hi, Mr. Koch Brother! Thanks for the money! It's promulgated on television and hate radio, through think tank and lackademia, and now as official policy, seeing how little mention is given to the New Deal, let alone the creation of public works. Thank Goodness for the Inte