The end of the term is upon us and sadly that also means the end of this.
In the past several posts we have covered the advances that are being made and the side effects that are happening and up coming. In fact I have a partially complete post about life advancement that is happening that I will cover briefly here.
In the next five years it should be trivial to repair your DNA/RNA and add several decades to your life as it very literally stops the body's aging process. There is also a process being tested on mice to repair issues aging causes to ones brain. So in addition to all of the other things happening people are going to be living even longer.
So what can we do to solve this?
Some advocate more or less having governments pay corporations to employ people. Germany currently does this during economic down turns and Bill Gates is also an advocate of it in another form.
Personally I feel the simplest solution is called Basic Income.
How basic income works is that everyone in the nation would receive a basic yearly "salary" from the government. This would cover the basic costs of existing and supporting you. Also required for this concept to work we would need a single payer health coverage like lets say Canada or the UK.
But if you wanted to have access to money beyond this you could still of course work. So what would happen is say you are a programmer who is making 80,000 USD a year. Well lets say Basic Income was set to 30,000 USD a year. When you went to pay taxes the first 30,000 of the 80,000 would be strait up eaten by the government to repay your basic income. After that you would see about 1/3rd the rest go to taxes. So you end up with something like (80,000-30,000)*.66 would be what you get to keep so about 33,000 USD.
Now that doesn't sound like much, you just went from making 80,000 USD to 33,000 USD after taxes. However you need to add that 30,000 you were initially given back into it and hey 63,000 looks not to bad. In fact current tax rates for 80,000 would be around 25% after taking an assortment of things into account. Guess what 25% of 80,000 is? Hey its 60,000 USD, so even after the "heavy" taxation under basic income you would be making 3,000 more a year.
Now one problem with this is just like what it is attempting to solve. With Basic Income you no longer need EBT (food stamps) , Section 8 housing, TNAF, Medicaid, VA, Ect. All current social support programs would be redundant and pointless so they would be completely cut. Which also saves tons and tons of money not having to support the infrastructure associated with these programs. But what about all the people that infrastructure employs? We have now just made them jobless. Which isn't as bad as it could be but is still not so great.
No one really has come up with a solid solution to the coming problems and maybe no one will. But I feel that of the options we currently are tossing around Basic Income would end up being the easiest and best to use in our transition from a resources scarce society to a unlimited one.
Thank you for your time and good luck during these amazing but frightening times.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Something Fun
This will be a deviation because I'm a abit weary of the doom and gloom. I need to go over some things that were previously mentioned anyway. So time for some fun.
3D Printing. You may have heard of it but lets pretend you haven't even if you have.
Almost everyone has seen Star Trek or is at least familiar with the concept of the Replicators within the show. If you aren't, then you are missing out. In short they are machines capable of creating objects from base elements on demand.
3D printing is the same concept however not currently as advanced. These machines take a material and build new objects out of the material from the ground up. I was going to embed a small GIF of this so you could see but Google is not cooperating so here is a link instead.
While 3D printing is amazing there are several downsides that exist.
One of the biggest ones is materials. Right you most 3D printers use resin a hard plastic like material , other machines exist that work with metals and even biological materials. The problem is you need a different machine for each type of material and this is exasperated by the fact that the machines are rather expensive. The other large barrier of cost has over the past several years has gone from being tens of thousands of dollars for even basic models to you can get an equivalent machines for only ~100$ today. So costs are coming down , but still rather high overall.
An advantage at least is on the software and computing side there has been a massive surge of support to the point of where even in Microsoft Windows 8 and higher you will find built in support for 3D printing.
Even with all of these limitations amazing things are currently being made daily with these devices. Some recent examples go with drugs , rocket engine parts, body parts, food, organs, and sadly even weapons.
As this technology becomes more accessible and advanced the decade old question of "would you download a car?" because less ridiculous when discussing piracy because well you could. In fact companies like GameWorks are already running into this. GameWorks produces figurines to be used in an assortment of manners but now you can just download the files to replicate these items at home with a 3D printer. So what happens when you can do this with almost anything?
3D Printing. You may have heard of it but lets pretend you haven't even if you have.
Almost everyone has seen Star Trek or is at least familiar with the concept of the Replicators within the show. If you aren't, then you are missing out. In short they are machines capable of creating objects from base elements on demand.
3D printing is the same concept however not currently as advanced. These machines take a material and build new objects out of the material from the ground up. I was going to embed a small GIF of this so you could see but Google is not cooperating so here is a link instead.
While 3D printing is amazing there are several downsides that exist.
One of the biggest ones is materials. Right you most 3D printers use resin a hard plastic like material , other machines exist that work with metals and even biological materials. The problem is you need a different machine for each type of material and this is exasperated by the fact that the machines are rather expensive. The other large barrier of cost has over the past several years has gone from being tens of thousands of dollars for even basic models to you can get an equivalent machines for only ~100$ today. So costs are coming down , but still rather high overall.
An advantage at least is on the software and computing side there has been a massive surge of support to the point of where even in Microsoft Windows 8 and higher you will find built in support for 3D printing.
Even with all of these limitations amazing things are currently being made daily with these devices. Some recent examples go with drugs , rocket engine parts, body parts, food, organs, and sadly even weapons.
As this technology becomes more accessible and advanced the decade old question of "would you download a car?" because less ridiculous when discussing piracy because well you could. In fact companies like GameWorks are already running into this. GameWorks produces figurines to be used in an assortment of manners but now you can just download the files to replicate these items at home with a 3D printer. So what happens when you can do this with almost anything?
Monday, November 10, 2014
The High
In the previous blog how technology is affecting what is considered the lower tier job market.
So how about the high? What even is the high?
Most would define high end jobs as ones who require education or a high skill threshold. People also tend to consider these safe. How many of us have heard the mantra "go to college, get a good job, have a good life"?
These days that is increasingly untrue. The largest thing that seems to be affecting this is the fact the high is shifting and sadly mostly downwards. I'm going to draw somewhat from personal experience here for an example.
In times past the a basic computer support job was worth about 20 dollars a hour and today it still does hover there give or take five dollars. Most people are pretty happy with that, heck the entry pay of eleven to thirteen seems to thrill people today. However those twenty dollars in the year 2000 have the same purchasing power as about twenty eight dollars today. So pay if you’re lucky is stagnant or unlucky and dropping for the same level position.
Why is that?
Just like the low end this is becoming more and more automated. You see this in your life directly by the digital voice systems that walk you through basic trouble shooting.
A more indirect method is troubleshooting trees. When I started at dell we actually had a fairly good interview process and you needed at least an understanding of how the machine worked. At this point they are capable of hiring pretty much anyone. The reason for this is after years of effort they have a pretty good troubleshooting tree. This allows them to grab nearly anyone off the street and put them on the phones. In fact we did have several employees who did not even own a computer on the phones that were transferred from other departments.
You know what is even more interesting? Frankly we didn’t even need people on the phones as a digital voice could handle the tree system just as well as any human could, perhaps better. On top of this if customers actually listened to the prerecorded message, they would find that a great many in fact almost all their issues can be self diagnosed by the machine and it will automatically order the correct parts for replacement if needed.
That being said you do still need more advanced people for odd issues, new issues, and so on. However you don’t need nearly as many of them. Now you have a situation where you can pick and choose and even pay less since you will have more people attempting to fill these slots than there are slots.
We have what was once considered a safe job, even considered a good job, and now anyone can do it and the wages are being driven to nothing. This unfortunately is not unique and is spreading across a great many industries.
Consolidation in general is a huge issue on the high end as well, perhaps even more so than the low since it saves so much more money.
A good example of this is my sister’s husband. Last we talked I believe he said he works maybe ten actual hours a week. The rest of his time is spent waiting on data and setting up meetings to discuss the data. This isn't even a tech industry job we are talking about either and nor is he management. It is also not unique and is happening to many jobs as things become more efficient.
So even the traditionally skilled and educated jobs are subject to the same shrink we are seeing with the entry and unskilled jobs. Once again while some new areas are being created and blooming, such as programming, we really are not seeing many options open either. That all being said I would venture to say they are still safer.
Reference
http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
So how about the high? What even is the high?
Most would define high end jobs as ones who require education or a high skill threshold. People also tend to consider these safe. How many of us have heard the mantra "go to college, get a good job, have a good life"?
These days that is increasingly untrue. The largest thing that seems to be affecting this is the fact the high is shifting and sadly mostly downwards. I'm going to draw somewhat from personal experience here for an example.
In times past the a basic computer support job was worth about 20 dollars a hour and today it still does hover there give or take five dollars. Most people are pretty happy with that, heck the entry pay of eleven to thirteen seems to thrill people today. However those twenty dollars in the year 2000 have the same purchasing power as about twenty eight dollars today. So pay if you’re lucky is stagnant or unlucky and dropping for the same level position.
Why is that?
Just like the low end this is becoming more and more automated. You see this in your life directly by the digital voice systems that walk you through basic trouble shooting.
A more indirect method is troubleshooting trees. When I started at dell we actually had a fairly good interview process and you needed at least an understanding of how the machine worked. At this point they are capable of hiring pretty much anyone. The reason for this is after years of effort they have a pretty good troubleshooting tree. This allows them to grab nearly anyone off the street and put them on the phones. In fact we did have several employees who did not even own a computer on the phones that were transferred from other departments.
You know what is even more interesting? Frankly we didn’t even need people on the phones as a digital voice could handle the tree system just as well as any human could, perhaps better. On top of this if customers actually listened to the prerecorded message, they would find that a great many in fact almost all their issues can be self diagnosed by the machine and it will automatically order the correct parts for replacement if needed.
That being said you do still need more advanced people for odd issues, new issues, and so on. However you don’t need nearly as many of them. Now you have a situation where you can pick and choose and even pay less since you will have more people attempting to fill these slots than there are slots.
We have what was once considered a safe job, even considered a good job, and now anyone can do it and the wages are being driven to nothing. This unfortunately is not unique and is spreading across a great many industries.
Consolidation in general is a huge issue on the high end as well, perhaps even more so than the low since it saves so much more money.
A good example of this is my sister’s husband. Last we talked I believe he said he works maybe ten actual hours a week. The rest of his time is spent waiting on data and setting up meetings to discuss the data. This isn't even a tech industry job we are talking about either and nor is he management. It is also not unique and is happening to many jobs as things become more efficient.
So even the traditionally skilled and educated jobs are subject to the same shrink we are seeing with the entry and unskilled jobs. Once again while some new areas are being created and blooming, such as programming, we really are not seeing many options open either. That all being said I would venture to say they are still safer.
Reference
http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
Sunday, October 26, 2014
The low and middle
So according to tracker stats some of you are reading this by choice which slightly amuses me and makes me question how you spend your time. But onto the rambling, lecturing, ranting even perhaps? As a heads up this one is going to be kinda long compared to the others.
Thanks to automation many simple tasks no longer exist or exist by the grace that paying a human is cheaper than creating a machine or piece of code. Two prime and modern examples are food services and manufacturing.
In food services wonderful devices like this exist. These devices will most of the time create exactly what you want without any issues, complaints, or other problems that can come with humans. The downside is these machines are expensive and complicated depending on the food type.
Manufacturing has the same issue. Before it was economical to ship manufacturing overseas we used machines here to automate it and now even China is looking to automate it's workforce because they are becoming to "expensive".
Lets ignore the rest of the world for now. These two job categories are traditionally held by two groups within the US, the uneducated or the young. For now lets focus on the what would be considered the uneducated. Also for our purposes we don't really care the why or how of why they are considered uneducated merely that they fall into the classification.
Historically people considered uneducated will pick a job and work their way from bottom upwards which up until recently worked pretty well. Lets take McDonalds for example. You could start out a cashier and eventually learn all the stations then move onto shift supervisor and then eventually store manager and depending perhaps even higher. Same with manufacturing you could start out cleaning and spend extra time helping and learning let say a milling machine and then progress into running the milling machine and then perhaps higher.
Now in both these instances lets say you stop at shift manager and milling operator. At both points you aren't making amazing money and you will never be considered rich but you've learned marketable skills and can count on decent living. This was lets say normal fifteen years ago and even possible a decade ago. However these days I would venture both are hard pressed to find.
Lets take the shift supervisor in fast food first. In my experience a large part of their job is scheduling and stock. Before the advent of the massive interconnectivity and computers in general this job actually required skill and depending on the company and level of automation still does. However at many companies this is all handled by computers with a human to just manually adjust, check, and input corrections. So ability and skill are of little to no consequence and anyone can do it. This lowers the pay, rolls the position into another, or removes the position period.
For the milling operator well they pretty much don't have a future. Either the job has been outsourced or more likely just completely automated by a robot. If they do still happen to be around they wouldn't be directly controlling one device and would be supervising the operation of multiple devices.
So technology is starting to remove or at least lower the pay of much of what used to be entry unskilled jobs and what would be considered skilled but uneducated jobs. As technology advances this will even apply to things like plumbers, electricians, who are in the middle ground between the classifications but are definitely skilled labor.
What is worse is unlike in the past there are no clear replacements for these jobs. The technology that is condensing the workforce for once is not also expanding it. Not that it isn't creating new jobs , it certainly is, however its not creating enough to replace the amount taken and nor are all of the new jobs created of the same level as those taken away.
So what are people to do? Move into what are classified as educated jobs? Is that even feasible? Are they even safe?
Thanks to automation many simple tasks no longer exist or exist by the grace that paying a human is cheaper than creating a machine or piece of code. Two prime and modern examples are food services and manufacturing.
In food services wonderful devices like this exist. These devices will most of the time create exactly what you want without any issues, complaints, or other problems that can come with humans. The downside is these machines are expensive and complicated depending on the food type.
Manufacturing has the same issue. Before it was economical to ship manufacturing overseas we used machines here to automate it and now even China is looking to automate it's workforce because they are becoming to "expensive".
Lets ignore the rest of the world for now. These two job categories are traditionally held by two groups within the US, the uneducated or the young. For now lets focus on the what would be considered the uneducated. Also for our purposes we don't really care the why or how of why they are considered uneducated merely that they fall into the classification.
Historically people considered uneducated will pick a job and work their way from bottom upwards which up until recently worked pretty well. Lets take McDonalds for example. You could start out a cashier and eventually learn all the stations then move onto shift supervisor and then eventually store manager and depending perhaps even higher. Same with manufacturing you could start out cleaning and spend extra time helping and learning let say a milling machine and then progress into running the milling machine and then perhaps higher.
Now in both these instances lets say you stop at shift manager and milling operator. At both points you aren't making amazing money and you will never be considered rich but you've learned marketable skills and can count on decent living. This was lets say normal fifteen years ago and even possible a decade ago. However these days I would venture both are hard pressed to find.
Lets take the shift supervisor in fast food first. In my experience a large part of their job is scheduling and stock. Before the advent of the massive interconnectivity and computers in general this job actually required skill and depending on the company and level of automation still does. However at many companies this is all handled by computers with a human to just manually adjust, check, and input corrections. So ability and skill are of little to no consequence and anyone can do it. This lowers the pay, rolls the position into another, or removes the position period.
For the milling operator well they pretty much don't have a future. Either the job has been outsourced or more likely just completely automated by a robot. If they do still happen to be around they wouldn't be directly controlling one device and would be supervising the operation of multiple devices.
So technology is starting to remove or at least lower the pay of much of what used to be entry unskilled jobs and what would be considered skilled but uneducated jobs. As technology advances this will even apply to things like plumbers, electricians, who are in the middle ground between the classifications but are definitely skilled labor.
What is worse is unlike in the past there are no clear replacements for these jobs. The technology that is condensing the workforce for once is not also expanding it. Not that it isn't creating new jobs , it certainly is, however its not creating enough to replace the amount taken and nor are all of the new jobs created of the same level as those taken away.
So what are people to do? Move into what are classified as educated jobs? Is that even feasible? Are they even safe?
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Ah tangents
Lets put "free energy and matter manipulation" behind us for now and look at some things closer to home.
In the past several centuries and earlier there have been technology shifts and the general consensus is that each time the workforce and economy shifted and adapted around it and overall was better for the whole.
While not a technology shift lets look at a recent example most are familiar with.
In manufacturing a few decades ago as shipping became cheaper and the world became more connected it became cheaper to relocate simple manufacturing to other countries. As of about a decade or so ago I would venture to say the majority of non technological and military related manufacturing was relocated outside the us both simple and complex. Many thousands upon thousands lost their jobs or the jobs were phased out and not replaced when the current occupant retired.
While that is horrifying, it is no different than what has happened previously and the market shifted to compensate. While these jobs no longer existed new ones opened up in various areas to compensate.
So why are we even bothering to talk about this then? How is this related to the economical issues outlined in the previous post? Won't things will just continue to keep shifting like they have since human history began? Unfortunately not it seems by many predictions.
Within the last half century we have seen major advances in automation thanks to computers and the technologies they make possible. It was even predicted by many that at this point we would not be working or would have a very small workload at this point and devote most of our time to leisure. This has not happened for better or worse thanks to a huge increase in new fields. We however have seen several interesting things happen that have never happened before and while interesting they may not exactly be good.
Next we shall look at modern services and manufacturing.
In the past several centuries and earlier there have been technology shifts and the general consensus is that each time the workforce and economy shifted and adapted around it and overall was better for the whole.
While not a technology shift lets look at a recent example most are familiar with.
In manufacturing a few decades ago as shipping became cheaper and the world became more connected it became cheaper to relocate simple manufacturing to other countries. As of about a decade or so ago I would venture to say the majority of non technological and military related manufacturing was relocated outside the us both simple and complex. Many thousands upon thousands lost their jobs or the jobs were phased out and not replaced when the current occupant retired.
While that is horrifying, it is no different than what has happened previously and the market shifted to compensate. While these jobs no longer existed new ones opened up in various areas to compensate.
So why are we even bothering to talk about this then? How is this related to the economical issues outlined in the previous post? Won't things will just continue to keep shifting like they have since human history began? Unfortunately not it seems by many predictions.
Within the last half century we have seen major advances in automation thanks to computers and the technologies they make possible. It was even predicted by many that at this point we would not be working or would have a very small workload at this point and devote most of our time to leisure. This has not happened for better or worse thanks to a huge increase in new fields. We however have seen several interesting things happen that have never happened before and while interesting they may not exactly be good.
Next we shall look at modern services and manufacturing.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Who needs oil?
So spring boarding from my last post. Makes me wonder how
free energy will affect things.
Right now we get power from solar, gas, coal, oil, and so
on. This is in turn turned into power and by products. The process employs
hundreds of thousands if not millions of people directly and indirectly.
Fusion pretty much runs off of elements easily harvested
from the ocean and other places and is pretty much unlimited as far as humans
are concerned. It should be as far as we are aware completely environmentally
clean and friendly unlike every single one of our current power sources besides
solar and maybe geothermal or theoretical heat differential stuff. This is of
course ignoring the creation of the devices in which case all devices become environmentally
unfriendly. So after the initial investment and upkeep costs fusion is
effectively free energy compared to all other sources and perhaps most
importantly to people one of the safest.
Another facet of this proposed reactor is it is very small
compared to a traditional power source of its magnitude. Instead of having
central power plants we will only need to replace the distribution sub stations
that already exist in cities with minimal overhaul of the grid. Whereas current
alternatives will require a massive grid overhaul and what some consider
intrusive smart meters.
So now at this point we have put several industries out of
business or drastically reduced their scope. But there’s still oil right?
Batteries are not getting drastically better in the foreseeable future. Vehicles,
planes, boats, and other devices have pretty long cycles too. Also many by
products are created from oil such as plastics. Well maybe not, remember in the
last post where the navel figured out how to turn sea water into jet fuel? It
would be conceivable that within a decade that technology will be refined and
made public. So conceivably in your garage you could have a device you dump a
cup of water into and get gas out of and well there goes a fair amount of the
oil industry.
So now we have to deal with untold millions now unemployed,
micro fusion plants spread throughout the city, and water while important
becoming a good deal more so.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
The Begining
So I have outlines and ideas and things written down but starting is always
difficult. So lets go with this.
The posts here will be mostly about technology and how it interacts with social issues when its relevant.
For example something I ran across a few days ago that looks rather amazing is the promise of commercial fusion in about a decade from Lockheed.
People have been working on this for decades and the projects currently in existence barely break even on energy in and out. All the claimants so far stating positive output have never been able to prove anything. While Lockheed is also scant on details they have never once made a release they haven't backed. Actually to quote someone else "I think them and DARPA about the only two groups who could release a press release announcing "We invented Warp Drive." and I 'd be inclined to believe it.". Another interesting thing I think might support it is the Koch brothers are pulling money out of oil and reinvesting it elsewhere.
Alone this will be absolutely world changing. Combined with other technologies, such as the Navy's new ability to produce jet fuel and other hydrocarbons from water using electricity, it will be very interesting to see what we move onto since we essentially will have free energy in whatever form we care to use.
The posts here will be mostly about technology and how it interacts with social issues when its relevant.
For example something I ran across a few days ago that looks rather amazing is the promise of commercial fusion in about a decade from Lockheed.
People have been working on this for decades and the projects currently in existence barely break even on energy in and out. All the claimants so far stating positive output have never been able to prove anything. While Lockheed is also scant on details they have never once made a release they haven't backed. Actually to quote someone else "I think them and DARPA about the only two groups who could release a press release announcing "We invented Warp Drive." and I 'd be inclined to believe it.". Another interesting thing I think might support it is the Koch brothers are pulling money out of oil and reinvesting it elsewhere.
Alone this will be absolutely world changing. Combined with other technologies, such as the Navy's new ability to produce jet fuel and other hydrocarbons from water using electricity, it will be very interesting to see what we move onto since we essentially will have free energy in whatever form we care to use.
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