Outstanding article must read.

[gottatrade]

The article says basic research is good.

NASA is a outfit that does that. They do basic research that industry can exploit, to improve our lives.
It seems they should use that model more often for something useful, like medicine or energy. Nanotechnology is the next big thing, they should be building microscopes to help that along instead of telescopes to see if there is a bigger moon around Uranus.

 

[brooklyn_3p3]

Nice site
Thanks for sharing with us

 

[Misthos]

Quote from Daal:

With all due respect nitro, your argument is a bit flawled. Your terrible scenario where robots produce everything and everybody loses their job is actually excellent for the world. Lets say bots start to farm, manufacture, perform surgeries, clean, etc. This would lead to a tremendous growth in output(after all that is the only case where most people would lose their jobs), what would happen to prices in this situation?MV = PQ, this is equivalent to P = MV/Q, Q is output, the more output the less the price. Everything will be massively cheap, we are talking bums on the street being able to afford health care. Futhermore the robot industry would boom, programming, engineering. Plus dozens of new industries that would arise from this 'new world', which ones?I dont know, but capitalism shows that there is ALWAYS new industries. Plus plenty of existing industries will continue to exist(and growth more with all the new cheap labor), no one will watch a romantic comedy with a T-800 and Angelina Jolie

Its quite possible that the only way to can get most people fired in a modern capitalist open economy is to increase output so greatly you essentially make the average person an overnight millionarie(through massive output induced deflation). These numbers are speculative but sets the idea

Daal - I disagree with your views. You say that increased productivity in this "utopia" of robotics would benefit everyone - but that's only if the government/economy in question was a communist one. After all, if property rights are in private hands, then only so many people would own the means of production - the robots and land. What happens to the others that own nothing? The "useless eaters?" What do they do to earn their meals?

Nitro - Jeremy Rifkin addresses these concerns in his book "The End of Work."

 

[Daal]

Quote from TGregg:

Somebody wrote a novel based on such a society - where mass automation made goods so plentiful that they cost next to nothing and people did not have to work if they did not wish.

That is a possibility. If the bots are so advanced and efficient to the point they unemployed most of the population(and apparently cheap because they are being so widely used) , the government(who will be taxing all the bot industry, maybe even with windfall profit taxes) can give loans to every citizen so THEY can buy their personal farmer bot, doctor, cleaner, etc. People wouldn't have to work anymore. Heck Buffett and Gates could give free bots to people. Standards of living would reach levels unimaginable, no starvation, no famine, etc. Of course we will still have to figure out how to stop them from nuking the White House or something

 

[Daal]

Quote from Misthos:

What happens to the others that own nothing? The "useless eaters?" What do they do to earn their meals?

In a world where robots can produce everything so easly and effectively you earn your meal by buying your own bot, who them will make it for you.
The government, charity and your savings can help you purchase it. Futhermore the people selling bots still need to, watch baseball, hookers, soap operas, psychological advice, learn to sing, whatever

 

[Sodajerk]

Quote from nitro:

So is the ultimate answer that this country is doomed even if we innovate, because the thing that generates lots of jobs on the order of hundreds of thousands per innovation is the actual manufacturing of the end product?

The rewards of innovation go mainly to the owners of the intellectual property (IP).

 

[bidask]

wrong. it goes to the people who can copy it and produce it more cheaply.

Quote from Sodajerk:

The rewards of innovation go mainly to the owners of the intellectual property (IP).

 

[Sodajerk]

Quote from bidask:

wrong. it goes to the people who can copy it and produce it more cheaply.

Which is whoever holds the patent, copyright or trademark that they earned through the labor of their innovation. All others get busted for piracy, which isn't cheap (or shouldn't be).

 

[fkbsuhites]

according to the unamerican retard right, funding NASA is "Socialism".

It will take a decade to right the ship because for the better part of the past decade we made the mistake of allowing the unamerican retards on the right dictate how the govt. operates

Kind of serves us right to be in the predicament we are in. The punishment for abdicating responsible govt. to the dumbest of the dumb is we ended up with a functionally retarded president who spoke with God on matters of state. Turns out it was Satan he was speaking to.

Quote from gottatrade:

The article says basic research is good.

NASA is a outfit that does that. They do basic research that industry can exploit, to improve our lives.
It seems they should use that model more often for something useful, like medicine or energy. Nanotechnology is the next big thing, they should be building microscopes to help that along instead of telescopes to see if there is a bigger moon around Uranus.

 

[SNBthetrue]

In my own view the best thing to open the innovation gates is to open the space to private investor by removing nasa !