"because the way we automated things was also low-skill"
When you make the low skilled unemployed, you can fill the prisons with them. Even hire some mid skilled folks to keep an eye on them.
What you do with an excess of mid to high skill level people is a mystery, we have no historical record to copy. You can put some in prison, but the prisons are already full and expensive, so need a new path. SSDI is getting too expensive.
We seem to be trying, "Let them eat cake". Hmm I wonder via historical analogy what could possibly go wrong with that?
> When you make the low skilled unemployed, you can fill the prisons with them. Even hire some mid skilled folks to keep an eye on them.
Until we realize that automated machine gun turrets are better at the job.
> We seem to be trying, "Let them eat cake". Hmm I wonder via historical analogy what could possibly go wrong with that?
Well, it's going to be a bloody mess if we let this trend continue the way it is going now.
Note that we, the "high-skill job sector" people, won't be shielded from the effects in any way. Our jobs might be safe for a long time, but there might come a point soon, when all our low-skill family members and friends are suddenly without a job and are depending on us for food and shelter. So we can't turn our backs on the issue; the worst-case scenario will hit us hard anyway.
Or maybe not. Not to drop the docs but my current employer depends on median joe 6 pack sending us a couple bucks a month and our revenues have dropped more or less in tandem with median joe 6 pack's permanently declining household income.
(edited to add, its hilarious reading the financial press doing everything they can to come up with an explanation for our declining revenue other than "Americans are becoming poorer". It must be the internet. Oh wait we actually make money off how we use it, um it must be fuel prices. Err whoops we don't actually use fuel. Well, it must be bad astrological symbols or something. Anything other than admitting failure of the economic system, J6P has less money = we have less revenue)
If you think about the likely effects of the 1% having all the money and everyone else having to barter or do without, some fields like some financial sectors wouldn't have much impact, whereas providers of entertainment, food, and medical care for J6P would be utterly annihilated. Doesn't matter how highly skilled the last employed IT worker was before he got downsized along with everyone else.
When you make the low skilled unemployed, you can fill the prisons with them. Even hire some mid skilled folks to keep an eye on them.
What you do with an excess of mid to high skill level people is a mystery, we have no historical record to copy. You can put some in prison, but the prisons are already full and expensive, so need a new path. SSDI is getting too expensive.
We seem to be trying, "Let them eat cake". Hmm I wonder via historical analogy what could possibly go wrong with that?