[cmcd]

During the industrial revolution hard labor jobs transitioned to maintenance work for the machines. The problem is as we improve at automation the need for non-technical maintenance decreases.

A small team of engineers can displace thousands or tens of thousands of workers without creating any new opportunities.

[jnwatson]

So has Microsoft Excel. We’ve already eliminated millions of desk jobs with IT. What is particularly special about factory jobs?

[mrb]

«A small team of engineers can displace thousands or tens of thousands of workers without creating any new opportunities.»

A corporation that did that would have significantly increased its profits, and this new wealth is often (not always) indirectly redistributed to society. For example the corporation could increase its production (ie. hiring more workers), or increase salaries/bonuses, or increase stock buybacks (therefore benefiting stock owners whoever they are), or spin off new business units, or decrease the prices of their products/services to further improve their competitiveness (hence benefiting customers), etc. Rarely does a corporation sit on piles of cash doing nothing (one notable counter-example: Apple.)

[hinkley]

At some point, and there are arguments to be made that this point was 'After World War II', industry is capable of producing far more products than the public actually needs. You take out children, the elderly, stay at home parents, and the average person is productive for maybe a third of a lifetime, so being able to produce enough for 3 people is actually necessary.

What happens when you can produce enough for ten? What do the other 70% of people do? Make products nobody actually needs, using up raw materials. That's what we've done since the War and we decry all the waste. You can't have it both ways.

What happens when you can produce enough for 15? 20? 100? In theory that means leisure time in heaps for everyone. In practice we don't have societal structures that actually allow that to happen. You will not receive a week's pay for 6 hours of work. You will not be accepted by your neighbors and peers for working 6 hours a week. Or zero.

You're meant to be doing something. We enforce this with microaggressions on people we've literally just met.

[wolco]

It frees up a population to do other work. A small team of engineers can create a platform that creates something new to work on. Second life clothing shop for example that would not exist without machines displacing humans.