[flukus]

Problem is most unemployed people don't have the specialized skill set to contribute to these projects and those that do aren't unemployed. The unskilled labor these projects require has mostly been automated over the last 100 years by robotic tools like excavators.

Basically every problem we used to be able to throw manpower at now has similar automation and the same sorts of projects would now be done by far fewer people. Any modern new deal would have to look very different to the old one.

[awillen]

I won't even pretend to know enough about construction/infrastructure to know what's required to work on it, but there have got to be jobs that can be created that don't require technical skills. I've been reading that lots of people are now going to national parks because other stuff is closed, and they're leaving lots of trash - hire people to pick it up. Roads have potholes, and I can't believe that fixing those requires that specialized of a skill set.

And even for some of the things that are most efficiently solved with specialized skills and equipment, if there's a way to do them less efficiently by unskilled people, that's fine, since overspending on labor is totally fine if not desirable in this context.

[tomschlick]

> I can't believe that fixing those requires that specialized of a skill set.

No but it does require manual labor and a lot of people consider it beneath them these days to do that. Couple it with many people getting paid more to be on unemployment than they made while working and its a recipe for laziness.

[baddox]

So where are all the automatic bridge-building machines? Isn’t our bridge infrastructure famously poor?

[extradesgo]

Right. The automation nuts are wildly disconnected with reality.

[flukus]

Of course there's no single bridge building machine, but most of the work in bridge building is done by a collection of machines, usually with human specialists operating them. It's not the 1920's and most digging is done by an excavator instead of a human with a shovel, most cement is delivered by a truck humans mixing it onsite. As much as possible will also be prefab.