Unless the party gets rid of the "Automation deniers"

[CK_John]

how do they expect to get anywhere with the working class who knows the jobs are not coming back.

Elon Musk: Robots will take your jobs, government will have to pay your wage

Computers, intelligent machines, and robots seem like the workforce of the future. And as more and more jobs are replaced by technology, people will have less work to do and ultimately will be sustained by payments from the government, predicts Elon Musk, the iconic Silicon Valley futurist who is the founder and CEO of SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX.

According to Musk, there really won't be any other options.

"There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation," says Musk to CNBC. "Yeah, I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen."

Read More:

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/elon-musk-robots-will-take-your-jobs-government-will-have-to-pay-your-wage.html

[Yavin4]

1. There will always be work for humans to do.

I've witnessed the introduction of computers into the workplace, and it increased my workload by leaps and bounds.

[DetlefK]

4. For the umpteenth time: Computerization and Automation are completely different phenomena.

A computer is a tool. It doesn't work without a human.

A robot is no tool. A robot can work without a human and is a worker on its own.

And when a company has the choice between a human worker (who needs salary, breaks, toilets, light, clean air, workplace-safety-measures, anti-suicide-nets on the roofs...) and a robotic worker (who needs none of those), whom do they hire?

[LonePirate]

6. As the rust belt showed us, the work is changing faster than some can learn it.

[TheBlackAdder]

16. And they vote for the party aligned with the premise of the State of Nature and Survival of Fittest.

[Wiseman32218]

2. I remember the silly statement,

computers will help to make us go paperless!!

[Horse with no Name]

3. our paperless system in our office

we go through 3 boxes of paper a day...lol

[Wiseman32218]

10. To cut down on my consumption I get all bills electronically

but that does not stop everything. Even my credit union sends me garbage I do not need. I just hope their encryption does not allow my personal info to be hacked by the commies like Putin.

[Ilsa]

5. I heard that the youngest children today will probably never

Learn to drive a car. Automobiles will all be automated now that safety is so much better. How many million truck drivers, taxi drivers, etc, will that put out of work? What will people learn to do to earn a living?

[sarah FAILIN]

7. It doesn't matter

They will blame dems and draw their government checks for whatever support they're getting.

[OrwellwasRight]

11. What does that even mean?

The government does not provide an adequate living for people who are out of work. In many states, if you are single with no dependents, you are not even eligible for welfare (Texas, e.g.). But keep mocking the not-so-well-off. That will get them to vote Democratic.

[sarah FAILIN]

20. That's the way reps are around here

We are a very poor state. 75% of the students get free lunch which is a good indicator of the poverty level. Lots of people are on disability for their "nerves" and food stamps to feed the kids, but they are not interested in democrats who are too "liberal" for their tastes and give too much taxpayer money away (ignoring that they are themselves on government assistance)... I've heard this time after time from people that would rather shoot their own foot off than vote dem. My county had 3,730 votes for Hilary and 32,734 votes for Trump. They are not interested in going democrat when they have more fun sitting around griping about them.

Adding that no matter what really causes them to be out of work, it will be a dems fault.

[TubbersUK]

8. I remember the 1960's

and reading how the white heat of technology would soon turn us into a leisure society.

Every one I know is now working longer and harder than ever.

[OrwellwasRight]

12. That's because in the 1960's the assumption was

that as you became more productive and able to produce the same in less time, you'd keep your same pay and just work less. Thus, more leisure.

Instead, the ownership class has gleaned virtually 100% of the benefits of increased productivity, so people have to worker harder just to stay in place economically.

[TubbersUK]

13. Yes n/t

[teach1st]

9. When conservatives administer a universal basic income (UBI)

From Forbes, 6/4/16

Which brings us to the calculation of how we can indeed afford a UBI. Charles Murray is in the WSJ today:

In my version, every American citizen age 21 and older would get a $13,000 annual grant deposited electronically into a bank account in monthly installments. Three thousand dollars must be used for health insurance (a complicated provision I won’t try to explain here), leaving every adult with $10,000 in disposable annual income for the rest of their lives.

...

The UBI is to be financed by getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, housing subsidies, welfare for single women and every other kind of welfare and social-services program, as well as agricultural subsidies and corporate welfare. As of 2014, the annual cost of a UBI would have been about $200 billion cheaper than the current system. By 2020, it would be nearly a trillion dollars cheaper.

[TexasBushwhacker]

17. I do think we'll have to move towards UBI at some point

But I don't think that $833 per month (10K/12) would be enough to support a disabled or elderly person who can't work at all, unless they get assistance for food and housing.

Currently, the US is spending almost $10K per person (including children and young adults under 21), so charging each adult $3K for health insurance won't begin to cover it.

It's no surprise that Murray is trying to get by on the cheap. I believe in UBI and universal healthcare, but even with people working some to supplement that basic income, UBI will be more expensive or programs like food and housing assistance will still have to exist.

[mythology]

14. Would that be the working class that just voted for Trump promising to bring jobs back?

Yes automation is coming. But I suspect much like previous paradigm altering technologies, we will eventually adapt to this one. Whether it's through a universal basic income or through new jobs that we haven't yet thought of, the only constant is that change is inevitable.

But I'm not sure using Elon Musk is the best person to go to for perfect vision about humanity. He also believes that it's a billion to one chance that we are living in reality as opposed to a simulation.

[Crash2Parties]

15. And conservative Xians implore them to have as many babies as the woman can bear...

[KamaAina]

18. We may need a version of the CCC.

Elon is already working on colonizing Mars. Closer to home, there's lots of space on the sea.

[gulliver]

19. Shrinking government. Fighting for buggy whip jobs. Republicans cause the problems.

True, the time may come when there is no valuable work for humans to do. But that's not now. Look around at all the things we could be doing. Flint and other cities could be getting new water pipes. We could be replacing power plants with solar. We could be extending high speed Internet to everyone everywhere in the country. We could be cleaning up, beautifying, restoring.

Why can't we? Because we don't put human-centricity and virtuous living first. We are simply insane, and Republicans are by far the worst.

We let abstractions like capitalism, socialism, markets, small government, sacrifice, and hard work screw up our thinking. We fetishize these and other ideas that we barely understand, each choosing their own favorite corner of life to over-emphasize. The result is deadlock, a systemic inability to cooperate writ large. Again, it's just crazy.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

21. What ever will become of the lowly serf without the benevolent Lord of the Manor?

Why is this the first social and economic change that society won't be able to adapt to?

Farm enclosure put more people out of work that anything else in history, 250 years ago, probably never to be surpassed. Somehow the world didn't end in 1800.