quote:
There is a long-view and a short-view answer to this.

The long-view is for us to reliably predict the fields that will offer better opportunities for sustained employment, and to work with high schools and colleges to encourage students to go into those fields. This isn't hard to do, but, for some reason, it's not happening now.

The short-term view is to try to match up people in fields that are getting phased out, with fields that need more workers. For example, manufacturing workers have skills that can probably be easily transistioned over to working offshore, or to working in an oil refinery or checmical plant. There will be some need for re-training, but it should not be an insurmountable amount. Of course, this is going to require people to be flexible in where they live, etc.

As far as how to pay for all this re-training, I think that will be shared by public colleges and universities (which ultimately means the taxpayers) as well as the industries which need the workers. For those of you who feel the government should not spend money on this, I'd rather the money be spent on this than on welfare and unemployment. (and as much as some of you want it, getting rid completely of welfare and unemployment is not going to happen, so we better learn to use it more wisely).

You guys are missing the OP's point. We're on the cusp of a different world, a paradigm shift.. What do you do when there are no jobs to be retrained for, when Everything can be done better and more efficiently by machines, from assembly-line work to truck driving, to architecture, to engineering, to medicine.

That's a hypothetical question now. It may be very real in the next 15-20 years. There will be a place for a few humans for the forseeable future, but instead of a department with 20 human engineers, you may have a department with two or three, supervising a process that's mostly automated. What happens to the other ones? When a machine can do an engineer's job, WTF is left for humans to train for?

3 ...

Report Post

Posted by kingbob

Sorrento, LA

Member since Nov 2010

67302 posts

Posted on 7/30/14 at 2:59 pm to Jim Rockford

quote:
When a machine can do an engineer's job, WTF is left for humans to train for?

I don't know...porn? I guess that industry might eventually just replace everyone with sexy robots, though, so who knows.

0 ...

Report Post

Posted by TigerFanatic99

South Bend, Indiana

Member since Jan 2007

27876 posts

Posted on 7/30/14 at 3:11 pm to Jim Rockford

quote:
You guys are missing the OP's point. We're on the cusp of a different world, a paradigm shift

I don't think we are missing the point. I think we disagree that somehow in the immediate foreseeable future that there will be a complete lack of jobs for anyone.

Beyond that, Greed. There will always be someone who needs to KNOW that he is getting everything he can, and as long as there are humans around to do something, there's more capacity to do whatever.

This post was edited on 7/30/14 at 3:34 pm

0 ...

Report Post

Posted by Korkstand

Member since Nov 2003

28746 posts

Posted on 7/30/14 at 3:31 pm to Jim Rockford

quote:
We're on the cusp of a different world, a paradigm shift.. What do you do when there are no jobs to be retrained for, when Everything can be done better and more efficiently by machines, from assembly-line work to truck driving, to architecture, to engineering, to medicine.

Assembly line work has been phasing out in favor of machines for a century now, hasn't it? But there might be more assembly line workers today than there were 50 years ago, because we keep inventing new things that require human hands, and we're making more shite. Truck drivers? They're probably fricked, but if your only skill is driving a truck then you fricked yourself. Architecture and engineering I think will always require humans, because some creativity is required. Medicine probably could eventually be done entirely by machines, but I think people will always prefer humans in these roles.