Robots are coming for your job

[FA_Q2]

Mrs. Clinton says that if elected she is going to put a lot of coal miners out of work. She says that she will put them to work in tech industries. Which could be true for some of the younger coal miners.

A century ago, we employed 50 percent of our population in agriculture to feed our nation.

Now, due to the wonders of technology, it only takes about 3 percent of our population to feed us, and they are producing more food than in all of human history.

What would you make of someone decrying the loss of agriculture jobs who felt we needed to employ 50 percent of the country on farms?

You'd say there were seriously misguided, yes?

It's the same thing with these demagogues and manufacturing.

Let's travel back in time 60 years...

FARMER: What will my toddler son do when he grows up if he isn't going to be a farmer, dad blast it?

PSYCHIC: (*peers into crystal ball*) Your son is going to be in charge of the maintenance for satellite uplink/downlink terminals at Verizon.

FARMER: What's a satellite, and WHAT THE HELL IS A VERIZON!?!

PSYCHIC: I don't know, but if I were you, I'd be whipping him with a switch if he doesn't get straight A's in mathematics and science.

FARMER: Will he be handsome? Will he be rich?

PSYCHIC: Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see...

Well I guess all the unemployed can go to robot factories and help create and train their replacements. There was a difference 50 or more years ago, the industrial revolution made jobs for those who didn't want to stay on the farms. There were mill jobs for those who couldn't or wouldn't be educated. Most of those jobs have dried up. So what that leaves are the service industry which leads to wage stagnation. Why do you think they just want to give everyone a raise to 15 dollars? They want to do that to try and save their failed "free" trade agreements. Or more to the point, redistribute wealth, the old fashioned way, taking it.

I am putting you in the 80 percent bracket who assume their jobs are not the ones to be replaced.

Think about it, do we really need stock brokers? What do they do that a robot can't do better (computer)? Doctors? Step into this machine and it will tell you what is wrong with you and if you government sponsored insurance will pay for it. Sheetz already has automated food service where the customers works for the company for nothing. Same with self-serve gas stations. Bank tellers? Why when we have ATMS and smart phones?

"Your son is going to be in charge of the maintenance for satellite uplink/downlink terminals at Verizon."

Imagine telling a farmer that 60 years ago. You couldn't, because you had no way of knowing that kind of job and that kind of technology and that company were even going to exist.

But you could prepare for that kind of future. And someone obviously did prepare the way for that future, because here we are.

We need to keep being forward looking, not bemoaning lost horse and buggy jobs.

I fail to understand why, every single time this is brought up, it has to be framed as though the mere discussion is 'bemoaning' anything. The discussion is valid, important AND forward thinking.