Don't Blame Technology For The Shrinking Middle Class
By tovarichpeter Follow Thu, 12 Jul 2012, 11:13am 571 views 10 comments
In South San Francisco CA 94080
Watch (0) Share
Quote
Permalink Like Dislike Viewing Comments 1-10 of 10 Last » See most liked comments
|
Premium member tovarichpeter is moderator of this thread. |
Follow
Befriend (8)
203 threads
4,403 comments
Davis, CA
Why not? Technology has created a lot of WASTE in every sense of the word. Time wasted filling out nonsense TPS reports for one thing.
Follow
Befriend (9)
410 threads
4,107 comments
Baltimore, MD
Vicente says
This comment is extra funny when you used to work at a bank as a programmer.
Follow
Befriend (8)
203 threads
4,403 comments
Davis, CA
If people knew half of what goes on in bank programming, they'd bury their cash in Mason Jars.
In my current job we now have to fill out time accounting, with everything accounted for in 15 minute increments. We never used to have to do this pointless bean-counting, until someone decided that with our new software it was "practically free". Eventually they relented to my requests and included a category for "time accounting" so now I log a 15 minute interval where I do nothing but enter that data every day.
Follow
Befriend (4)
52 threads
4,416 comments
Corning, NY
Premium
Hmmmmmmmm...yeeeeaaahhhhhhh...
Follow
Befriend
228 threads
2,748 comments
Vicente says
Yea, like we are sitting here, mindlessly typing on this forum, instead of working. See how technology has made us more productive!!!
Follow
Befriend (8)
203 threads
4,403 comments
Davis, CA
Call it Crazy says
At least here, I am THINKING and connecting with someone, on a voluntary basis at my own pace.
In my place of work they require us to all hang out in a chat room. It was endlessly distracting to work flow. Productivity for me went down. I just silenced the thing and assume if there's an actual work item requiring my attention someone will yell over the cubes or pick up a phone. I look at it once in a great while just so I can lob pithy comments.
Follow
Befriend (5)
7 threads
228 comments
Belgium, WI
Premium
Vicente says
I have the opposite problem. Sitting here and thinking is an addictive entertainment that distracts me from the less mindful labors I 'should' be doing.
But damn! it sure is fun. ;-)
The problem with being self-employed is that the boss is an asshole and the employees are lazy.
Follow
Befriend (5)
7 threads
228 comments
Belgium, WI
Premium
I'll go with a combination of Star Trek and ClusterFuckNation on this one:
Star Trek, Insurrection: "We believe that when you allow a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man."
James Howard Kunstler: "Efficiency is the straightest road to Hell."
We live in a world where we have replaced the usefulness of labor with technology and (for the most part) oil.
As the cost of oil keeps going up and people are unemployed, there are only a few on the fringe tapping into the pool of labor that was freed up by technology. Most of our 'leadership' in business and government are still trying to continue the policy of replacing the usefulness of people with anything but people.
There's a cool video (I don't have the link) of a giant progressive die press in a Chinese factory, where 6 people sit INSIDE the die of the press and shift parts around while it operates.
The video was originally promoted to show how the Chinese abuse their workers in dangerous conditions. I think it shows that they still have some small respect for people being useful in a process.
Here:
Follow
Befriend
93 threads
431 comments
Kent, WA
John Bailo's website
That article is inane.
If the dollar is high its for a good reason...meaning our goods and services are of greater value than those of other nations.
Lowering it just so we can bring back sock factories doesn't sound like a 21st century development strategy to me.
If manufacturing comes back it will because the domestic economies of Asia rise to the point where those workers can command higher wages. At that point, labor in the US again becomes valuable. I think that is already happening.
Follow
Befriend (5)
7 threads
228 comments
Belgium, WI
Premium
John Bailo says
Sock factories wouldn't be bad. At least people need socks. The problem is the blanket blind thinking that economists use to encourage ANY manufacturing, as long as it makes the numbers look good in the immediate sense. There is no in-depth consideration of the available resources, future needs, or geopolitical effects of Invisible Hand Job policies.
People don't need jobs. It's nice if they have jobs to keep them off the bungee cords, but our food is produced by less than 2% of the population, we already have too many houses taking up useful land space, and the stores are filled with shiny, noisy crap.
Most people could be fed and clothed and domiciled and we could take away their cars and boats and motorcycles and other wasteful junk and save the materials for things our children will need in the future. Especially people who work for the government: where you're average day is spent trying to justify why you are there by hiring more people to fill out paperwork or build new offices.
The enormous waste of resources just so that people can feel like they are just like everyone else is fascinating to me. Especially when most are complaining about the systems that allow them to have so much time to complain.
Take any large group (say, 1000 people) and drop them on a frontier, and they would establish work and entertainment and society and life and death and everything they need (some would probably die in the process). In 'civilized' society, however, they are mostly helpless while they wait for the system of systems to accommodate their needs.
Somewhere in that difference lies keys to the value of trade, politics, money, resources, and people.