If technology makes human labor obsolete...?

Frank Apisa · Feb 20, 2016

eohrnberger said:
So labor is the only definition of 'work' that you can imagine. That's going to have to adapt.

So you are using a blue collar, manufacturing definition of labor, in a world that's much different from the world that defined those terms.

Things are changing, and have been for quite a long time already, where the world's nations are moving from a manufacturing centric economy to a knowledge based economy. Right along with that change is the change in demand from blue collar labor to knowledge based occupations (typically office and white collar).

The education is moving in that direction already (which schools don't have some exposure to computers?). The workforce is moving in that direction already, right along with the jobs (it used to be that each job posting came with requirements for familiarity with MS Office), now it's pretty much assumed.

So perhaps the disconnect here is using these older definitions in a world that doesn't match them anymore?

Listen to What if, Eo. He is dead on the bulls-eye...and you are not even hitting the target.

eohrnberger · Feb 20, 2016

Frank Apisa said:
Listen to What if, Eo. He is dead on the bulls-eye...and you are not even hitting the target.

Well, that's according to your opinion. Opinions differ.

Consider this:
At one point in time the largest segment of humanity worked in the fields, hard manual labor. Then the industrial revolution happened, and the vast majority of this large segment of humanity moved from the country side working on farms to the cities and working in factories. Survived that OK. And it's also quite recent in some places. China, for example, has made this adaptation in around 1 to 1 1/2 generations (or less), so very quickly.

Now it's the information revolution, and there's a similar sized change underfoot. You expect that humanity will be any less adaptive?

I have confidence that it'll work out, work it's way through the system, or society if you will, and it'll be OK, as humans are the most adaptable species on the planet, and have already demonstrated their adaptability to large scale and large changes in their society and economy, and actually coming out ahead.