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by kamaal
4520 days ago
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>>There will come a day though, when only a tiny fraction of the population will be "neccessary" to create what the world produces. It will be interesting to see how society realigns itself and evolves when so few people need to do traditional (economic) work. We are already there, and we seem to be doing just fine. I guess only ~3% of US population today works in farms compared to >70% a century back. The only thing is work keeps changing. People have better things to work on. That has always been the trend since mankind even existed. If the effort required to produce something goes down, prices too go down significantly. |
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We're not there yet.
>The only thing is work keeps changing. People have better things to work on.
By definition, as long as we have better things to work on (which are valued by our economy), then we haven't arrived at the point about which I'm speaking.
Technology is moving at an accelerated pace. What automation and tech can do is moving up the skill ladder and replacing more jobs than before. In addition, a globalized workforce/economy means we are reaching a scale that is giving us ever-increasing efficiency and per-worker productivity. This is why we are seeing the beginnings of a very stubborn structural unemployment and stagnant wages over the last couple of decades.
But, we are just starting. And at some point, a much smaller percentage of what we produce will require humans. When that happens, the "better things to work on" won't fit the current economy's definition of value that is worthy of compensation. That is, it won't go to the production of goods or services for which people are willing to pay.