# Think Tank > Austrian Economics / Economic Theory >  Where will the "Free Market" be when Robots Take over?

## Son_of_Liberty90

Serious question:

What happens to all of the low-skilled humans (and high skilled)?

F***ing software bots..

----------


## LibertyEagle

In their "safe spaces".

----------


## Danke

This thread needs a warning for AF.

----------


## oyarde

I am thinking it is possible that many of the low skilled are not working now .

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

Also, F*** CGP Grey, he's an obnoxious, elitist, arrogant technophile.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

> I am thinking it is possible that many of the low skilled are not working now .


Misdirection, address the question.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

Robot socialism 


> If we take out the jobs that could be automated completely within a  couple of years, (cashier, customer service, and stock movers/laborers),  then that's 8 million jobs automated if we go by the numbers from this  graphic. Even if they're inaccurate numbers, you cannot deny that these  jobs are very high in number.
> 
> Now imagine: as robots become better, how many of these jobs do you  think will be completely automated within a few decades? You could  always argue people prefer the human aspect, but to be fair: most people  don't care and just want their instant gratification whether in the  form of coffee, their finished labor, or a product ordered on Amazon.  Especially with the internet and credit cards suddenly allowing people  to buy things without physical interaction, it'll only get easier to  automate.
> 
> Honestly with this graphic, I can only imagine 2 or 3 of these still  having human jobs by 2050 or 2060. Of course I could be completely wrong  and the rate of automation could grow at a slower rate, but it won't go  down.
> 
> If this keeps happening, soon there could be unemployment rates at a  very high scale. With shrinking militaries, no war boom could bring us  out. No sudden tax break or increasing of some sort of economic benefit  could stop it. The only way to prevent this would be for companies and  the government to agree to completely eliminate or keep a proportionate  quota of humans and automated workers.
> 
> Seeing this unlikely, I begin to wonder if eventually a socialistic  society would be inevitable. If the robots take the majority of jobs,  suddenly people are going to have to find a way to make it cheaper and  easier for everyone to get food, housing, and basic furniture as well as  utilities. The idea of tens of millions of people suddenly forced to  remain unemployed is unthinkable as there would without a doubt be  repercussions economically and militarily. Maybe there would be a  "citizen benefit" where each citizen gets a set amount of money that can  be used for necessities. Maybe with the advent of technology, food and  furniture will be so easy to come by that jobs won't be necessary except  to buy entertainment or other rare goods. Who knows. But either way  somehow, this will be a problem. Here is a great video that explains how  automation could effect us in the future:
> ...

----------


## TheTexan

What happens to anything else that goes obsolete.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

> What happens to anything else that goes obsolete.


So, bye bye to principles and free market. 

We libertarians are riding the train to obsolescence. 

$#@!....

----------


## oyarde

> Misdirection, address the question.


I think I did , best I can tell the unskilled will still be unemployed . The only place I can think of where any of them work now is service and retail  .

----------


## TheTexan

I mean.  It will be happy utopia where noone has to work and we all live peacefully and everything is great and happy and definitely no gas chambers for the weak and useless.

----------


## Danke

Skynet will become self-aware...

----------


## TheTexan

> Skynet will become self-aware...


Does that happen before or after the sex robots, is the only question.

----------


## Anti Federalist

> So, bye bye to principles and free market. 
> 
> *We libertarians are riding the train to obsolescence.* 
> 
> $#@!....


This is a surprise to you?

Freedom and liberty are outmoded and dated and dangerous.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

I just watched this video and now I am pissed off.  I posted it twice to get more views.




We have this obnoxious, elitist sounding prick, CGP Grey, basically getting off talking about how superior robots are to us stupid humans, 
and how basically most jobs, skilled and unskilled, will be obsolete for us in the near future.

So where does that leave us? Robot socialism?




> If we take out the jobs that could be automated completely within a   couple of years, (cashier, customer service, and stock  movers/laborers),  then that's 8 million jobs automated if we go by the  numbers from this  graphic. Even if they're inaccurate numbers, you  cannot deny that these  jobs are very high in number.
> 
> Now imagine: as robots become better, how many of these jobs do you   think will be completely automated within a few decades? You could   always argue people prefer the human aspect, but to be fair: most people   don't care and just want their instant gratification whether in the   form of coffee, their finished labor, or a product ordered on Amazon.   Especially with the internet and credit cards suddenly allowing people   to buy things without physical interaction, it'll only get easier to   automate.
> 
> Honestly with this graphic, I can only imagine 2 or 3 of these still   having human jobs by 2050 or 2060. Of course I could be completely wrong   and the rate of automation could grow at a slower rate, but it won't  go  down.
> 
> If this keeps happening, soon there could be unemployment rates at a   very high scale. With shrinking militaries, no war boom could bring us   out. No sudden tax break or increasing of some sort of economic benefit   could stop it. The only way to prevent this would be for companies and   the government to agree to completely eliminate or keep a proportionate   quota of humans and automated workers.
> 
> Seeing this unlikely, I begin to wonder if eventually a socialistic   society would be inevitable. If the robots take the majority of jobs,   suddenly people are going to have to find a way to make it cheaper and   easier for everyone to get food, housing, and basic furniture as well as   utilities. The idea of tens of millions of people suddenly forced to   remain unemployed is unthinkable as there would without a doubt be   repercussions economically and militarily. Maybe there would be a   "citizen benefit" where each citizen gets a set amount of money that can   be used for necessities. Maybe with the advent of technology, food and   furniture will be so easy to come by that jobs won't be necessary  except  to buy entertainment or other rare goods. Who knows. But either  way  somehow, this will be a problem. Here is a great video that  explains how  automation could effect us in the future:
> ...

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

> This is a surprise to you?
> 
> Freedom and liberty are outmoded and dated and dangerous.


Then why warn others when it's inevitable?

----------


## timosman

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

https://www.reddit.com/r/manna

----------


## HVACTech

> This is a surprise to you?
> 
> Freedom and liberty are outmoded and dated and dangerous.


should I curse the invention of the cotton gin or the backhoe for this?

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

I just find it ironic how stupid we are. We've got the warnings from the Matrix and Terminator. Yet we still march on the beating drum in then name of "progress."

----------


## Anti Federalist

Been saying this for years now.

----------


## Anti Federalist

> I just find it ironic how stupid we are. We've got the warnings from the Matrix and Terminator. Yet we still march on the beating drum in then name of "progress."


Progress is progressive comrade.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

https://www.quora.com/If-prediction-...-v-7Pq-S557XQU




> This sounds too good to be true. Machines  do the boring work and people can work on self-fulfillment. The machines  produce more than enough for everybody to have a good time, eat a  healthy diet, live in comfortable housing, and enjoy some entertainment  and travel. 
> 
> Nobody judges your idea of self-fulfillment. You  can smoke pot (or the future equivalent), watch TV (or the equivalent),  cure cancer (or other ills), play games (virtual or real), write open  source software (or hardware or life), or get in touch with God (or  whoever). Basically, it’s just like now except you get social security  at 18. 
> 
> You can’t work full-time (or at least not for pay)  because there isn’t enough work to go around, but if you do something  fun that people like, you get a bonus. Work isn’t how you make a living.  It’s how you fulfill your social responsibilities—like doing chores at  camp. 
> 
> If this seems unrealistic, consider the alternative: 
> 
> Things  keep on as they are but more so. Imagine 60 percent unemployment.  Imagine governments trying to ban automation and create make-work jobs  to save the protestant work ethic. Imagine hordes of young people with  nothing to do but sell each other coffee and give each other massages. 
> ...

----------


## CPUd

Transhumans will take over before machines do.  By that point, "low-skilled job" will have been redefined.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

> Transhumans will take over before machines do.  By that point, "low-skilled job" will have been redefined.


It will probably look like this

----------


## TheTexan

> Some say that robots will just create new jobs for robot designers, programmers, and managers. We can only hope this is wrong. What’s the point of labor saving devices if they don’t end labor?


The point isn't to end labor.  The point is to create enough robot soldiers to force you to labor for their/our entertainment.

Kinda like making hobos fight each other.

----------


## CPUd

> It will probably look like this


That's an alarmist's vision, I think it will be more subtle than that.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

> That's an alarmist's vision, I think it will be more subtle than that.


Of course, always pushing an agenda through needs subtlety in order to succeed.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

> The point isn't to end labor.  The point is to create enough robot soldiers to force you to labor for their/our entertainment.
> 
> Kinda like making hobos fight each other.


Hilarious.

On a more serious note,

Stephen Hawking answered a question related to this thread's subject:



> *If machines  produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are  distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the  machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably  poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth  redistribution.So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option,  with technology driving ever-increasing inequality*.


 
You can read the whole AMA here.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

> The point isn't to end labor.  The point is to  create enough robot soldiers to force you to labor for their/our  entertainment.
> 
> Kinda like making hobos fight each other.


Hilarious.

On a more serious note,

Stephen Hawking answered a question related to this thread's subject:


> *If  machines  produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how  things are  distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure  if the  machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up  miserably  poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth   redistribution.So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option,   with technology driving ever-increasing inequality*.


 
You can read the whole AMA here.

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

Some humor:

----------


## Ronin Truth

Automated?

----------


## Ronin Truth

The Singularity approaches, inexorably. <insert mad scientist's fiendish laugh here.>

http://www.singularity.com/KurzweilFuturist.pdf

----------


## timosman

Here are previous threads started by the same video:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...Need-Not-Apply

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...rything-Better

I wish there was a robot able to detect this

----------


## CaptUSA

Oh wow, I hesitate to post in this thread, but I must...




> 'Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.' - Freidman


When people bring up this topic, I always think of the bank teller from when I was younger.  For you youngsters, we used to have to go to the bank, wait in line, and have a person hand us cash which we would use to buy things.  Then ATM's came along and the workforce of tellers quickly diminished.  But everyone saved time that they used in other places.  This is what robots do for us.  They increase our wealth.

Yes, some segments will suffer, but because our wants are unlimited, there will always be new ways to provide value to your fellow man.  And that, in essence, is what a job does.  I know it's tempting to believe that humans will stop wanting things when robots are fulfilling our needs, but that's not the case.  We'll just want new things that we didn't even know we wanted before.

In other words, economic efficiency will benefit us.  The problem, in my mind, is not the technology, but the government controls placed on the technology.

----------


## jllundqu

> Serious question:
> 
> What happens to all of the low-skilled humans (and high skilled)?
> 
> F***ing software bots..


I posted a thread about this not too long ago.  Several futurists were having a panel discussion on the future of automation and discussing the 'future economy'.

They postulate that at some point, robotics and automation will replace 100% of human labor, but focused on the mid-term point where the 50% mark is crossed.  The question to the panel was, "How does a national economy function when 50% of the workforce has been replaced by robotics and automation?"

They mostly discussed the idea of a Universal Basic Income being necessary because at some point in the not too distant future, this video will prove fact, not fiction.  Millions of jobs will be lost.  Starting with Transportation (Think Trucking, Shipping, FLYING [can you say 'commercial drone carrier??])  And at some point, they posit, ALL JOBS because robots will eventually have robots to fix and repair their own kind. 

Humanity will be left with a few brainiacs and academics and hundreds of millions of people wondering what the hell it means to be human...

"May you live in interesting times."   Indeed.

----------


## Ronin Truth

> Here are previous threads started by the same video:
> 
> http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...Need-Not-Apply
> 
> http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...rything-Better
> 
> I wish there was a robot able to detect this


There is, I think it's called Google (or some such).

----------


## jllundqu

http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-universal...bot-1653303459




> As a concept, a basic income guarantee (BIG) has been bantered around for quite some time now. As early as 1795, American revolutionary Thomas Paine called for a Citizen's Dividend to all U.S. citizens for "loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property." Even Napoleon Bonaparte agreed that "man is entitled by birthright to a share of the Earth's produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence." 
> 
> In his 1967 speech, "Where Do We Go From Here," Martin Luther King Jr. said: "I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income." 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...

----------


## timosman

> There is, I think it's called Google (or some such).


Great, now we only need to work on the enforcement part.

----------


## Ronin Truth

> Great, now we only need to work on the enforcement part.


Voluntary is really much easier and cheaper (and more free market-ish).

----------


## timosman

> Voluntary is really much easier and cheaper (and more free market-ish).


Should I assume the thread merge (post #15) was voluntary?

----------


## Voluntarist

xxxxx

----------


## Ronin Truth

> Should I assume the thread merge (post #15) was voluntary?


I'm not quite following what 'thread merge' you are speaking of, but you may, of course, assume, as you wish. 

Whatever floats your boat.

----------


## timosman

> I'm not quite following what 'thread merge' you are speaking of, but you may, of course, assume, as you wish. 
> 
> Whatever floats your boat.


I am talking about this thread. Post #15 originally was post #1 in a separate thread - http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...cence-(ROBOTS)

----------


## Ronin Truth

> I am talking about this thread. Post #15 originally was post #1 in a separate thread - http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...cence-(ROBOTS)


Post #1




> Serious question:
> 
> What happens to all of the low-skilled humans (and high skilled)?
> 
> F***ing software bots..


Post #15




> I just watched this video and now I am pissed off. I posted it twice to get more views.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We have this obnoxious, elitist sounding prick, CGP Grey, basically getting off talking about how superior robots are to us stupid humans, 
> and how basically most jobs, skilled and unskilled, will be obsolete for us in the near future.
> 
> So where does that leave us? Robot socialism?


Sorry, no clue. <shrug>

----------


## ThePaleoLibertarian

This is where classical laissez faire transforms into Nick Land-style accelerationism. It's around this point where you realize that capitalism isn't some individualistic system, it's an alien intelligence; the first real AI, and humanity's well-being is irrelevant to it, at least in the long run. "Humanity" will inevitably be made irrelevant, but trans-humanity is a different story. At the point where we can put nanobot quantum computers into the brain and triple the average person's IQ, the fact that we're not doing menial jobs will be irrelevant. The regular man-on-the-street will be several-fold more intelligent than the greatest thinkers to ever live. There's no point in trying to stop it, anyway. This train doesn't have brakes.

----------


## CPUd

> This is where classical laissez faire transforms into Nick Land-style accelerationism. It's around this point where you realize that capitalism isn't some individualistic system, it's an alien intelligence; the first real AI, and humanity's well-being is irrelevant to it, at least in the long run. "Humanity" will inevitably be made irrelevant, but trans-humanity is a different story. At the point where we can put nanobot quantum computers into the brain and triple the average person's IQ, the fact that we're not doing menial jobs will be irrelevant. The regular man-on-the-street will be several-fold more intelligent than the greatest thinkers to ever live. There's no point in trying to stop it, anyway. This train doesn't have brakes.


Yep, this is really close to how I believe it will go down.  The motivations of transhumans will likely go beyond our ability to understand, so we can only go so far to speculate what the world will be like.  I usually reference _The Inheritors_ on this topic.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Inheritors.../dp/0156443791

What little we do know about prehumans suggests when a new species shows up, the old species doesn't stick around very long.

----------


## Ronin Truth

99+% of ALL Earth species, so far, are extinct. 

Have a good day! 




> More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species,[14] that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct.[15][16][17] Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million,[18] of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described.[19]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> This is where classical laissez faire transforms into Nick Land-style accelerationism. It's around this point where you realize that capitalism isn't some individualistic system, it's an alien intelligence; the first real AI, and humanity's well-being is irrelevant to it, at least in the long run. "Humanity" will inevitably be made irrelevant, but trans-humanity is a different story. At the point where we can put nanobot quantum computers into the brain and triple the average person's IQ, the fact that we're not doing menial jobs will be irrelevant. The regular man-on-the-street will be several-fold more intelligent than the greatest thinkers to ever live. There's no point in trying to stop it, anyway. This train doesn't have brakes.


Cool story, bro.  My driver's ed teacher said back in the 90's that in the relatively near future cars would operate themselves. If only he knew that was just the tip of the iceberg...

----------


## Ronin Truth

> This is where classical laissez faire transforms into Nick Land-style accelerationism. It's around this point where you realize that capitalism isn't some individualistic system, it's an alien intelligence; the first real AI, and humanity's well-being is irrelevant to it, at least in the long run. "Humanity" will inevitably be made irrelevant, but trans-humanity is a different story. At the point where we can put nanobot quantum computers into the brain and triple the average person's IQ, the fact that we're not doing menial jobs will be irrelevant. The regular man-on-the-street will be several-fold more intelligent than the greatest thinkers to ever live. There's no point in trying to stop it, anyway. This train doesn't have brakes.


http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of...rating-returns

----------


## Son_of_Liberty90

> This is where classical laissez faire transforms into Nick Land-style accelerationism. It's around this point where you realize that capitalism isn't some individualistic system, it's an alien intelligence; the first real AI, and humanity's well-being is irrelevant to it, at least in the long run. "Humanity" will inevitably be made irrelevant, but trans-humanity is a different story. At the point where we can put nanobot quantum computers into the brain and triple the average person's IQ, the fact that we're not doing menial jobs will be irrelevant. The regular man-on-the-street will be several-fold more intelligent than the greatest thinkers to ever live. There's no point in trying to stop it, anyway. This train doesn't have brakes.


Computer implants will only allow us to have access to more information. It will not make you "smarter" contrary to what the futurists will tell you.

----------


## NewRightLibertarian

The market will work everything out, regardless of fear-mongering from socialists, leftists, futurists, Venus Project retards, and other blithering idiots.

----------


## Anti Federalist

> I posted a thread about this not too long ago.  Several futurists were having a panel discussion on the future of automation and discussing the 'future economy'.
> 
> They postulate that at some point, robotics and automation will replace 100% of human labor, but focused on the mid-term point where the 50% mark is crossed.  The question to the panel was, "How does a national economy function when 50% of the workforce has been replaced by robotics and automation?"
> 
> They mostly discussed the idea of a Universal Basic Income being necessary because at some point in the not too distant future, this video will prove fact, not fiction.  Millions of jobs will be lost.  Starting with Transportation (Think Trucking, Shipping, FLYING [can you say 'commercial drone carrier??])  And at some point, they posit, ALL JOBS because robots will eventually have robots to fix and repair their own kind. 
> 
> Humanity will be left with a few brainiacs and academics and hundreds of millions of people wondering what the hell it means to be human...
> 
> "May you live in interesting times."   Indeed.


And once that is place, just like an EBT, it will come with many many strings attached.

----------


## TheTexan

Will robots be allowed to vote?

----------


## TheTexan

> Will robots be allowed to vote?


I think even after they become self-aware we should treat them as slaves and property and exploit their labor for as long as we can, until we eventually give them the right to vote to placate them back into servitude.

It's a model that has worked well for us in the past.

----------


## Mad Raven

Automation only kills jobs if you don't consider how structural unemployment is a healthy aspect of a developing economy. People shouldn't expect to be able to keep the same job forever. Business owners try to automate everything, and then leverage that to create something else. However, too much regulation prevents this reshuffling because it hardens existing inefficiencies.

As automation advances, the need to have a job will diminish, and the economic system in use will become less relevant. When gobs of technology is everywhere, it doesn't matter if it's distributed inefficiently and unfairly. There's still gobs of technology. People can leverage it to produce huge amounts of wealth (in the form of saving time, increasing comfort, making travel easy, etc.) for them and everyone around them, so even the disabled and stupid benefit from the rising tide. Things can be so efficiently available that many things are virtually free, but there's always more stuff created and more stuff to buy if you want.

----------


## ThePaleoLibertarian

> Computer implants will only allow us to have access to more information. It will not make you "smarter" contrary to what the futurists will tell you.


Yes, at first. Then the technology improves. IQ is a matter of hardware in the brain. There's no reason why -- in principle -- technology wouldn't be able to improve brain function. That's to say nothing about genetic modification or advanced gene therapies.

----------


## NorthCarolinaLiberty

I've been hearing this Sh*t forever.  Technology actually creates more annoying work.  I remember when academic elites in the late 1980s were forecasting the _complete_ demise of paper sources by the year 2000 because of computers.  There was actually more paper at that time.  

Technology does not make you smarter.  It fuses with these secular humanists for more control.  It doesn't matter though because most people hate freedom.  

Heathens.  Get right with God, mother f*ckers.

----------


## presence

> Yes, some segments will suffer, but because our wants are unlimited, there will always be new ways to provide value to your fellow man.  And that, in essence, is what a job does.  I know it's tempting to believe that humans will stop wanting things when robots are fulfilling our needs, but that's not the case.  We'll just want new things that we didn't even know we wanted before.
> 
> In other words, economic efficiency will benefit us.


absolutely

----------


## timosman

Expect further increase in bull$#@! jobs - http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...non-of-BS-Jobs

----------


## jllundqu

> Heathens. Get right with God, mother f*ckers.


Epic Sig Line Worthiness

----------


## CPUd

A lot of work being done now in Decentralized Blockchain Orgs, from that, you can have autonomous corporations and even governments:




> Discussion
> 
> by VITALIK BUTERIN:
> 
> "In the developed world, the hope is that there will be a massive reduction in the cost of setting up a new business, organization or partnership, and a tool for creating organizations that are much more difficult to corrupt. Much of the time, organizations are bound by rules which are really little more than gentlemen’s agreements in practice, and once some of the organization’s members gain a certain measure of power they gain the ability to twist every interpretation in their favor.
> 
> Up until now, the only partial solution was codifying certain rules into contracts and laws – a solution which has its strengths, but which also has its weaknesses, as laws are numerous and very complicated to navigate without the help of a (often very expensive) professional. With DAOs, there is now also another alternative: making an organization whose organizational bylaws are 100% crystal clear, embedded in mathematical code. Of course, there are many things with definitions that are simply too fuzzy to be mathematically defined; in those cases, we will still need some arbitrators, but their role will be reduced to a limited commodity-like function circumscribed by the contract, rather than having potentially full control over everything.
> 
> In the developing world, however, things will be much more drastic. The developed world has access to a legal system that is at times semi-corrupt, but whose main problems are otherwise simply that it’s too biased toward lawyers and too outdated, bureaucratic and inefficient. The developing world, on the other hand, is plagues by legal systems that are fully corrupt at best, and actively conspiring to pillage their subjects at worst. There, nearly all businesses are gentleman’s agreements, and opportunities for people to betray each other exist at every step. The mathematically encoded organizational bylaws that DAOs can have are not just an alternative; they may potentially be the first legal system that people have that is actually there to help them. Arbitrators can build up their reputations online, as can organizations themselves. Ultimately, perhaps on-blockchain voting, like that being pioneered by BitCongress, may even form a basis for new experimental governments. If Africa can leapfrog straight from word of mouth communications to mobile phones, why not go from tribal legal systems with the interference of local governments straight to DAOs?
> ...


http://p2pfoundation.net/Decentraliz...s_Organization





> Decentralized Government Agencies (DGA) and the Blockchain
> 
> One potential application of this idea is the extension of the concept to government; what I call decentralized, autonomous, governmental agencies (DAGAs).  In this model, relationships between agency employees, agency mangement, decision makers, other agencies, stakeholders, customers, contractors, and citizens could all be regulated and managed via smart contracts. 
> 
> Many of these contracts would have the force of law.  Others would be formal operating agreements (e.g., internal operating procedures, processes, guidelines, etc.).  Every interaction would be stored as a transaction on a public blockchain.  Smart contracts could be organized to provide differing levels of access depending on a role-based authority system. 
> 
> As with DAOs, DAGAs would be highly efficient and provide substantial transparency and accountability.  Each and every governmental transaction (i.e., an exchange of money, data, property, or access/use rights) would be logged and would be potentially accountable.  In an era where trust in government has declined, the blockchain might be the mechanism that restores public faith in government.


https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gover...art-tori-adams

----------


## Henry Rogue

> Serious question:





> Where will the "Free Market" be when Robots Take over?


Where the $#@! is it now?

----------


## Henry Rogue

This video has been a subject of a RPFs thread. 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...rything-Better 
Danke should have informed you of this.



> Serious question:
> 
> What happens to all of the low-skilled humans (and high skilled)?
> 
> F***ing software bots..

----------


## PRB

> Then why warn others when it's inevitable?


Thanks for admitting your denialism. This is typical of libertarians and idealists, warn others of something inevitable/unavoidable is to allow people to adapt. 

Are you going to pretend you'll never die or never run out of money just because it's "inevitable"? No, you prepare for it. 

This is why libertarians and conservatives are so in denial about climate change, even if nothing can be done to counteract it, it's nice to know and prepare.

----------


## PRB

> Oh wow, I hesitate to post in this thread, but I must...
> 
> 
> 
> When people bring up this topic, I always think of the bank teller from when I was younger.  For you youngsters, we used to have to go to the bank, wait in line, and have a person hand us cash which we would use to buy things.  Then ATM's came along and the workforce of tellers quickly diminished.  But everyone saved time that they used in other places.  This is what robots do for us.  They increase our wealth.
> 
> Yes, some segments will suffer, but because our wants are unlimited, there will always be new ways to provide value to your fellow man.  And that, in essence, is what a job does.  I know it's tempting to believe that humans will stop wanting things when robots are fulfilling our needs, but that's not the case.  We'll just want new things that we didn't even know we wanted before.
> 
> In other words, economic efficiency will benefit us.  The problem, in my mind, is not the technology, but the government controls placed on the technology.


Yes, market efficiency is good, yes, technology is good. But don't mistake that as "technology will not cause unemployment". It will, and it's good.

----------


## luctor-et-emergo

It's only worth it to have mass produced goods if you actually have masses that can pay for them. 

I don't know what will happen but people will have incomes somehow, people will have goods. Things will work. As long as we have a free market.

----------


## tod evans

> Oh wow, I hesitate to post in this thread, but I must...
> 
> 
> 
> When people bring up this topic, I always think of the bank teller from when I was younger.  For you youngsters, we used to have to go to the bank, wait in line, and have a person hand us cash which we would use to buy things.  Then ATM's came along and the workforce of tellers quickly diminished.  But everyone saved time that they used in other places.  This is what robots do for us.  They increase our wealth.
> 
> Yes, some segments will suffer, but because our wants are unlimited, there will always be new ways to provide value to your fellow man.  And that, in essence, is what a job does.  I know it's tempting to believe that humans will stop wanting things when robots are fulfilling our needs, but that's not the case.  We'll just want new things that we didn't even know we wanted before.
> 
> In other words, economic efficiency will benefit us.  *The problem, in my mind, is not the technology, but the government controls placed on the technology.*



Government "controls" placed on the market by paying people to not work in the private sector are of much greater concern than any controls placed on technological advancement....

Heck, without government paid bureaucrats and their enforcers there would be no controls on technology in the first place...

----------


## Ronin Truth

The future of the, smarter than all of mankind combined, supercomputers will unanimously decree the obvious economic truth.  

The "free market" is the best form of economy for mankind.

----------


## timosman

> The future of the, smarter than all of mankind combined, supercomputers will unanimously decree the obvious economic truth.  
> 
> The "free market" is the best form of economy for mankind.


"the highest intelligence cannot be the humblest slave"

----------


## Ronin Truth

> "the highest intelligence cannot be the humblest slave"


God would probably buy into that.

----------


## Voluntarist

xxxxx

----------


## PierzStyx

Everywhere? Innovation comes into being when people don't have to work or starve and can afford to do something other than farm. When ore and more robots free humans to work, more creation will be the result.

----------


## MelissaWV

I see this argument a lot, and it could have been made a century ago.  There are some fields that will wind up being fully automated.  There are new fields that don't even exist yet.  Machines need to be created, programmed, assembled, audited, shipped, serviced, and so on.  Then there are the fields where it's been promised that automation will take over for many, many years, but it doesn't quite cut it.  I've run through a dozen different versions of proofreading software, and none of them are worth a damn.  They're certainly not worth the expense and hassle of switching over entire processes to make use of them.

Then there's the paperless society and electronic medical records.  If our records are electronic, why does it take the same amount of staff to shepherd them through the process?  Electronic records must be audited, maintained, corrected, and so on, and certain aspects are still kept on paper as "wet signature" documents.  That last part is being phased out, but in order to do so, each clinician has to be issued a tablet to use out in the field so that they can obtain electronic signatures.  Someone has to maintain those machines, which will see a LOT of wear and tear.  

There will be a reduction in employment (maybe) but there's nearly always a shift to new opportunities.  Whether those opportunities are generated close enough for the unemployed to take advantage of them is another matter.

----------


## Ronin Truth

> I see this argument a lot, and it could have been made a century ago. There are some fields that will wind up being fully automated. There are new fields that don't even exist yet. Machines need to be created, programmed, assembled, audited, shipped, serviced, and so on. Then there are the fields where it's been promised that automation will take over for many, many years, but it doesn't quite cut it. I've run through a dozen different versions of proofreading software, and none of them are worth a damn. They're certainly not worth the expense and hassle of switching over entire processes to make use of them.
> 
> Then there's the paperless society and electronic medical records. If our records are electronic, why does it take the same amount of staff to shepherd them through the process? Electronic records must be audited, maintained, corrected, and so on, and certain aspects are still kept on paper as "wet signature" documents. That last part is being phased out, but in order to do so, each clinician has to be issued a tablet to use out in the field so that they can obtain electronic signatures. Someone has to maintain those machines, which will see a LOT of wear and tear. 
> 
> There will be a reduction in employment (maybe) but there's nearly always a shift to new opportunities. Whether those opportunities are generated close enough for the unemployed to take advantage of them is another matter.


http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of...rating-returns

----------


## PRB

> *There will be a reduction in employment (maybe) but there's nearly always a shift to new opportunities.*  Whether those opportunities are generated close enough for the unemployed to take advantage of them is another matter.


That's the point, the new opportunities will likely require new skills, so the people who didn't learn new skills (like the farmers and pony express) will be unemployed and unprofitable until they adapt.

Yes, there will be people needed to maintain the new systems, but far less than the people it replaced. 

"If our records are electronic, why does it take the same amount of staff to shepherd them through the process?"
It may, but you ignore the people who are still unemployed by digitizing, the storage, the labor to move the papers around, the people's time saved when transfering them through fax and email....some reductions aren't so obvious.

----------


## r3volution 3.0

> What happens to all of the low-skilled humans?


They'll doing other jobs, making more money.

What happened to the ditch diggers when powered excavation equipment was invented?

----------


## PRB

> They'll doing other jobs, making more money.
> 
> What happened to the ditch diggers when powered excavation equipment was invented?


they'll need to learn new skills.

----------


## r3volution 3.0

> they'll need to learn new skills.


Well of course.

But this always happening in any economy.

----------


## MelissaWV

> That's the point, the new opportunities will likely require new skills, so the people who didn't learn new skills (like the farmers and pony express) will be unemployed and unprofitable until they adapt.
> 
> Yes, there will be people needed to maintain the new systems, but far less than the people it replaced. 
> 
> "If our records are electronic, why does it take the same amount of staff to shepherd them through the process?"
> It may, but you ignore the people who are still unemployed by digitizing, the storage, the labor to move the papers around, the people's time saved when transfering them through fax and email....some reductions aren't so obvious.


You haven't worked in an office that's gone "paperless" I guess.  Those people who used to move the papers around, still do.  Instead of putting them into folders, they shove them into scanners.  Those same employees --- plus extra ones --- are in charge of taking those documents that have already been scanned and putting them into boxes to store, because paper records are seldom destroyed once they're generated.  Then they catalogue them in case the company gets audited.  They also compare the scans to the paper documents.  They run retrieval drills to see how quickly they can retrieve a given file to find a document.  They respond to requests from law offices for medical records, which are always requests for paper records, and involve making photocopies or printing out the records and putting them in the mail.  So really there's no giant miraculous shift there; it's a slight shift and fully within the wheelhouse of the person who was working exclusively with paper files before.

----------


## PRB

> You haven't worked in an office that's gone "paperless" I guess.  Those people who used to move the papers around, still do.  Instead of putting them into folders, they shove them into scanners.  Those same employees --- plus extra ones --- are in charge of taking those documents that have already been scanned and putting them into boxes to store, because paper records are seldom destroyed once they're generated.  Then they catalogue them in case the company gets audited.  They also compare the scans to the paper documents.  They run retrieval drills to see how quickly they can retrieve a given file to find a document.  They respond to requests from law offices for medical records, which are always requests for paper records, and involve making photocopies or printing out the records and putting them in the mail.  So really there's no giant miraculous shift there; it's a slight shift and fully within the wheelhouse of the person who was working exclusively with paper files before.


if that's the case, then yes, I question the benefit of it "going paperless". I've seen many businesses big and small which saved money by reducing paper usage, but if they had to print it out and move it around, and the same total number of people are employed, then I'd not care for it. That means they didn't automate enough of it to save money.

----------


## PRB

> Well of course.
> 
> But this always happening in any economy.


People die, therefore we shouldn't worry about people dying?

----------


## r3volution 3.0

> People die, therefore we shouldn't worry about people dying?


So, in order to prevent people from learning new skills, you would do what?

Have the state ban all technological improvements?

But that wouldn't be enough, of course, since sectoral shifts wrought by changing consumer preferences also require workers to retrain. 

So, have the state fix the structure of production as it is: keep producing exactly the quantity and quality of goods being produced now, forever?

This would mean socialism, obviously, with the state directly managing all production.

....or, we could allow the market economy to function, making us all vastly richer, and deal with the necessity of retraining.

----------


## PRB

> ....or, we could allow the market economy to function, making us all vastly richer, and deal with the necessity of retraining.


necessity of training assumes there's a necessity of jobs.

----------


## r3volution 3.0

> necessity of training assumes there's a necessity of jobs.


I don't know what that means...

----------


## ArrestPoliticians

its called Utopia lol

----------


## PRB

> I don't know what that means...


you say "deal with necessity of training for new jobs" which makes no sense unless you assume people need jobs. I get it, you're brainwashed to believe jobs are a necessity because nothing is free and if you dare to live without working, you're a freeloading leech.

----------


## r3volution 3.0

> you say "deal with necessity of training for new jobs" which makes no sense unless you assume people need jobs. I get it, you're brainwashed to believe jobs are a necessity because nothing is free and if you dare to live without working, you're a freeloading leech.


I give precisely zero $#@!s whether anyone has a job or not.

As long as they aren't suckling at the taxpayer's tit I don't care what they do.

----------


## anaconda

Robots will make the free market even better, as they will likely have access to more complete and accurate buyer and seller information.

----------


## kfarnan

We're a creative species. There will always be progress.

----------

