Here is how China deals with minimum wage

Most of your posts make practical sense. This one does not.
There have been discussions on NPR lately about State Govs. wanting to raise gas taxes, because fuel prices are (temporarily) falling. They featured remarks by ( I think ) the Gov. of NJ, saying that they need to raise the fuel tax so that they can have "adequate" roads. He said "we can't afford good roads, but we can raise the level to adequate".
YOur thinking about embedding guidance devices is good, but that would involve costs that come long after the money is found to bring everything up to adequate, at least.
Now, back to my first post in this thread....
What will be left for people to do? We can't all be maintenance techs.
One of the biggest and most immediate problems we have with inner city unrest already is the lack of jobs for youth to aspire to and obtain. Automate virtually all of the middle class blue collar jobs, and it will only exacerbate that whole issue. It will eliminate most of the opportunities that small business now has to establish and function.
It will usher in a whole new socioeconomic paradigm, where every corporatocracy has to be a welfare provider.
The whole idea of mass automation makes better sense for a post apocalyptic world, where there aren't enough people left to perform all of the needed tasks to keep the survivors comfortable. Peculiar that the apocalypse it deals with could well be the civil strife that automation caused.

 

Ten years ago I couldn't talk to my phone and have it type my words either. If it can be done, it will be done.

 

That is where the good jobs will be. Some things will just become more replaceable like today where it is easier to buy a new phone instead of having one fixed but even the machines that fix things will also need fixing.

I have been in computers for 4 decades and automation for 3 decades and there will always be a place for programmers, repairmen, and creative thinkers.

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Whaaaa? I thought all you progressives brag about how you are the only ones that are for progress! Beware of what you wish for.

 

And in it's place it has the potential to create hundreds of thousands more.

In fact there has never been a technological revolution that hasn't created more industries than it replaced. They've all helped our economy for the better.

 

There is no fate but what we make.

 

At the moment this is a complete gimick. You think some classy restaurant is going to hire robots to do the service anytime soon? Or some bar somewhere? Most restaurants in fact are not going to do this even if there is money savings there simply because it's tacky. Most restaurants like a little style. This place looks like a cheap carry out place. I can see those types of places buying robot servers. I can't see my local Italian restaurant buying robot servers anytime soon.

 

Then our hands will be free for even more complex work. You think we could have a GMO food industry before we invented the cottin gin?

You think we could have had as big of a cell phone industry if the internet hadn't vastly improved our global communication tech?

As our tech improves so does our ability to do more complex tasks that were impossible before.

 

There you go, it will start somewhere and economics will dictate where. Higher end restaurants or little mom and pops probably not.

 

People ever keep whining about how cleaning the floor at mc. donalds is below their expectations so why complain if robots do the dirty jobs...

 

Why do some people have such a irrational fear of the progression of the market? Even the Amish, who live in the way you seem to prescribe, don't do so out of fear of technology. They do it out of a desire to have a connection with God. They don't refuse to drive cars because they are afraid that simple minded Jebbediah will only ever be qualified to carve buggy whips and shoe horses.

Innovation is a very important part of the strength and success of the market. Technology creates efficiency. Technology expands access, and opportunity. Technology furthers the human experience.

The great thing about the market is how completely integrated it is. As the auto industry became more and more automated some manufacturing jobs were eliminated. Some markets for older technologies were negatively impacted. (Poor Jebbediah's buggy whip emporium hasn't had a walk in client since 1912). But benefit is that the auto industry supports a vast market of goods required for its production. Refined metals, textiles, plastics, fuels, transportation all profited from the increased demand of the auto industry. The auto industry also improves a vast market of goods because of its existence. When Henry Ford revolutionized the production of vehicles, he created a market in which people could travel further to find profitable work. They could deliver their products to consumers further away in far less time. People could be more productive because they could spend less time travelling.

The same thing goes for efficiency in other sectors of the market. If robot waiters means it costs the industry less to deliver food to the table that's a good thing. It means less expensive food. Who does that help? It helps people who have trouble affording food served by actual people. It helps people who support the robot manufacturing industry in the same way that improvements in the auto industry improves the industries that provide its resources. Farmers can potentially sell more food, someone has to transport the food, someone has to manufacture the robot, and the parts for the robot, and refine the metal for the robot, and mine the ore for the robot...etc...

 

That's an opinion, frankly. I think the jury is still out on technology furthering the human experience.

Erm, industries have shown historically that changing production costs does not always specifically equal a reduction in consumer prices. Games Workshop, who creates table top and board games, previously switched from metals for their creations, to mold injected resins, which they claimed lowered production cost.

In turn, they went ahead and increased the consumer sale price.

Reduction in production cost doesn't always mean the consumer will pay less. Having robots in lieu of human waiters, imho, reduces the human experience. Interaction with people, as we're social creatures, is far more valuable to me personally then saving .50 on a fast food burger.

What's even less valuable to me is someone changing the work force to a bunch of robots and NOT reducing the price. I guarantee there will not be an umbrella reduction in prices due to this.

 

Maybe we'd all be better off attempting to club mammoths over the head with large sticks? Ridiculous.

The makers of your board game charge in line with the value of their product. If the value does not match the price, consumers will get their board games elsewhere. Obviously the value of their product is not determined by the material used in their game pieces. And the reality is, other game manufactures DO compete based on the materials used in their production. We're not talking about specific products here. We're talking about an industry. If one restaurant raises the price of their plate after installing robot waiters, I'll guarantee you there will be 10 entrepreneurs chomping at the bit to figure out how to win consumer of that plate over with their own product. Price is one of the things they will use to compete with. If robots make that possible, then plate prices will drop.

The market is complex. Change is often hard to predict. That's why it's best to allow individual freedom to make these changes, and not attempt to dictate these changes centrally. One individual choice has much less potential negative impact than one centrally mandated choice.

The reality is, no one will ever know the total impact of robot waiters. Even after such a thing took place it would be impossible to trace every positive and negative change within the market. Man is not omnipotent. We just like to think we are.

 

Do you support these practices?

Don't get me wrong, he is free to choose this, I wouldn't stop him.

But not everyone is going to be able to get a highly technical college degree, or a sought after trade.

And as more of these jobs are replaced, more and more people are going to go hungry and homeless.

And those people are the ones that will resort to more drastic measures once things get bad enough.

 

Ultimately, next to nothing. As technology improves, as robots improve (to the point of being physically indistinguishable from humans), as nano-tech improves, there will be no reason for any human on the planet to labor. Which is both good and bad. Imagine a life where you can do whatever you want, without the necessity of having a "job". OTOH, how does we have an economy where human labor is not required?

 

Only becuase the right keeps trying to enlist them in our wars on the abstractions of crime, drugs, poverty, and terror.

 

Said the team of cave-men who's job it was to drag in the kill once faced with the convenience of the wheel.

 

I think its the future of all McDonalds for all hours of the day.

Humans are the cause of the problems, and in the future, there will be no employees, only business owners.

 

This is the first step to eugenics/selective breeding, genocide, and peasant extermination. The rich/elites can't continue to support the peasants they have forced into government dependency/induced poverty any more.

 

Really? You can't foresee the day when farms run entirely based on computers and environmental monitors? When doctors are replaced by computers and nano-tech which can both diagnose and cure virtually any health problem? When waitresses are replaced by robots that look and act like female humans, but never need a bathroom break and don't have drama with their boyfriends? Because I can.

 

It is called a paradigm change. Death and destruction have always been predicted. It is true, some things go away but new opportunities always arise.

 

I'd still prefer to deal with a competent, smiling REAL person any day of the week. Newer generations glued to their phones, who think texting is friendship, and personal interaction is more comfortable when you don't have to be next to the person, will be the downfall of mankind. And I'm recently 40=)

If our future is like the Cab driver in Total Recall(Arnold version), oh boy, hehe.

 

Only a fool thinks that's a good idea. Who's going to be able to afford to eat in restaurants besides robot engineers and distributors? Do you think that billions of unemployed people around the world are going to sit meekly in a corner or will they go on a murderous rampage because they are jobless and have no incomes?

 

...and what will people do?

 

Well, since the owner of the restaurant believes he will be saving money in the long term, and still has to compete with other restaurants in the area I don't think his menu prices are going to go up drastically if at all.

 

I think you are right.

Eventually many, many jobs and industries are going to go this route. Dont need health Insurance, Robots are never late, never need a lunch break, never call in sick, never have issues with their cars, never need time off for pregnancy or jury duty...and the list goes on.

It's coming everywhere it can IMO eventually.