From: trminlxGARBAGE@bitstreamnet.com
In article ,
Sourcerer wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Nov 2003, ghost wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > In article ,
> > Sourcerer wrote:
> >
>
> > >
> > > A bit more than 10 years ago there was a thread here (it was one of the
> > > first I posted to) about technology and jobs. The subject was what to do
> > > about all the people who can only do 'low level' jobs, since technology
> > > was and would continue to relentlessly eliminate them. The subject was,
> > > could you educate and train such 'low level' workers to do 'high level'
> > > work, who are likely to be uneducatable and untrainable. What to do
> > > about the coming masses of the unemployed?
> > >
> > > The thread exposed the class and political antagonisms in the group, but
> > > what is on-point here was the assumption that highly skilled jobs in
> > > technology would expand forever. It never occured to them that their
> > > jobs would 'run away' to India, or that newer technologies would
> > > obsolete them, mocking their smug satisfaction in their once elite
> > > skillsets, their bright economic futures. I wonder how many of them got
> > > sacked the past 3 years?
> >
> > That's incredibly naive of them. Especially since the same thing
> > essentially happened when we moved from computers using punch cards and
> > cylinders to computers using hard drives of various sorts.
> >
> > The biggest mistake someone in a tech field that is still looking to
> > grow or evolve is assume their current skill set will last for very
> > long. An Elite skill set only remains so as long as the tech it is the
> > set for remains the De Facto "Kind Of The Hill". After that it's just
> > another skill set in the tool box.
>
> They were naive, and very condescending to "low level" workers and
> unions. But it was understandable why they were the way they were -- and
> they were right in the short term. But by 1997 the change winds were
> blowing thru 'hi tech' and the internet.
Everyone can be right in a short term situation. Problem is people don't
look beyond short term and they're the ones who usually get crunched.
You almost have to look ten years down the road in order to be viable
player in the job market - it's a gamble when you do that but better
than saying "Oh yeah, I'm fine I know computers and stuff."
And I don't think it's understandable why they were that way, I think it
was a case of not knowing what went before them. Major technilogical
change accompanies a loss of workers needed to get the job done.
> Another interesting aspect (at least to me) is what might have happened
> to the usenet people (The Babble Brigade) who used to task us here --
> the folks who thought usenet was "the net". Many of them were unix admin
> types. We told them about the changes coming to their "the net" due to
> Windows hegemony and little things like the WWW, but they would just
> babble about 'immanent death of the net predicted' and the like. News
> admins, of course, never die, but the rest -- I suspect they became web
> designers or Starbucks droids. Perhaps they now hang on yahoo groups.
> Andrea Chen runs a pet shoppe in California.
>
> > Personally I think a "Bubble Gum Crisis" or "Armitage" (where robots do
> > take over mundane jobs of all sorts) world is far away at best, but that
> > doesn't mean the tech won't evolve at least a little.
>
> Technology will develop in unimaginable ways and some of technologies we
> read about in cp sf are not impossible and are in stages of
> developement. The problem is that robots don't buy things, people do.
> For that, people need money. For that, people need jobs. At least in a
> market economy. Jobs may "go to" India or China from the west and that
> pressures the west to find ways to get money to their people. But it's
> not such a great deal for Indians or Chinese. Once you apply technology
> to peasant economies, the peasants get unemployed and move to the cities
> (or the dumps around them) where jobs are scarce relative to their
> hundreds of millions. The net result of technology is to eliminate jobs,
> not create them. The few new jobs created by new technologies will not
> satisfy the demand for jobs.
I've often wondered when the companies will move factories back to the
US in order to actually put money into the market they draw from so
relentlessly. Eventually someone will have to realize they can't support
an economy with everything outsourced and the only potential buyers or
Retail Workers with minimum wage jobs who live four to a one bedroom
apartment because they can't afford rent on their own. It's a scray
prospect to think about. No industry have unlimited growth.
> Ten years ago, in that thread, they thought the unemployment problem was
> limited to people with 'low skill' levels, but now it is everybody.
>
>
>
> Btw, did you install a newsserver for archiving articles? I recollect
> discussing that with you some years ago.
No, still archiving manually for the momen .. I have a massive build up
of saved articles in a very unorganized manner .. we're getting around
to it, it's pretty low on the list. Even lower now that I'm one of the
Home Owner brigade.
Eventually I will have a server. Really.
~/~ Sometimes I forget to pray I'll make it through this fucking day ~/~
www.accanthology.com ~/~ www.bitstreamnet.com
take out the GARBAGE to email.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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