Karen, do you also seek out full service gas stations, instead of pumping your own gas? My point being that losing jobs like gas station attendant and check out cashier to automation is not a bad thing. Those attendants and cashiers will likely find better jobs. So not to worry. :)
Karen, do you also seek out full service gas stations, instead of pumping your own gas? My point being that losing jobs like gas station attendant and check out cashier to automation is not a bad thing. Those attendants and cashiers will likely find better jobs. So not to worry. :)
I do miss a full service gas station. The attendant filled the tank, washed the windshield, checked the oil all the while exchanging pleasantries and news about the going’s in our community. Does that give you an idea of my vintage? ;)
It may be true that attendants and cashiers will find a better job. My question is what constitutes a better job? Until we as a society establish a level playing field for employees and embrace Environmental Protection the “better” part is yet undefined.
I’ll bet I’m older than you. I remember when gas was 30 cents a gallon :) I had a favorite gas station attendant, too, he was great at doing all the stuff you list. As for automation and jobs…55 years ago I worked on a truck farm. Right about this time of year, we’d start picking potatoes. A tractor pulled the harvester, which dug into the row as the tractor drove, and scooped up potatoes, vines, rocks, weeds etc onto a chain conveyor. A bunch of us stood on either side of the conveyor as the chain wizzed by, and picked out everything but the potatoes, which dropped into bushel baskets at the end of the conveyor. Every once in a while somebody would get injured, a cut, or a broken finger. And our backs and legs ached badly by the end of the day. Yesterday on my Instagram, a small farm I follow posted a Reel of their new automated potato harvester in action. No people picking weeds or rocks, they are replaced by automated arms. That’s progress. I would never go back to picking rocks and weeds.
No reason to go back, nor can we as a practical matter. But we are charting our life, not watching a movie, so looking ahead is in order. Imagining the future is only an educated guess and life is full of surprises. Yet cautiously and observantly, identifying reliable patterns from the past, we can make better than random guesses about the future.
New technologies are rooted in this process, and so too "wisdom", individual and national requires it. So far projections of waste gas induced global heating have proved to be a pretty good map, mostly underestimating the pace of the changes. It seems to me we need to be examining all supportable possibilities in order to influence best outcomes.
I recall hearing over 50 years ago the number of patchcord telephone operators that would be needed to operate the US telephone network as it then existed, and it was absurdly huge. Huge racks of clattering electromechanical relays had taken over that function, since replaced by microprocessors. That's a very good thing. There is no incentive to go back. Performing that function by hand would require an army of employees, but doing useless work, and doing it more slowly and less accurately.
That said, digital technologies are developing at an accelerating pace. Replacing far more skilled job categories will surely be possible. Should we just take on faith that worthwhile jobs will emerge from unprecedented developments? Who gets to decide how society will adapt? Just entrusting ultra-wealthy "Job Creators" to create meaningful (or any) jobs for employees that they would rather shed has not worked very well for all of the people so far, and it is not unthinkable that future circumstances may tend to make this worse. Fortune favors the prepared mind.
Karen, do you also seek out full service gas stations, instead of pumping your own gas? My point being that losing jobs like gas station attendant and check out cashier to automation is not a bad thing. Those attendants and cashiers will likely find better jobs. So not to worry. :)
I do miss a full service gas station. The attendant filled the tank, washed the windshield, checked the oil all the while exchanging pleasantries and news about the going’s in our community. Does that give you an idea of my vintage? ;)
It may be true that attendants and cashiers will find a better job. My question is what constitutes a better job? Until we as a society establish a level playing field for employees and embrace Environmental Protection the “better” part is yet undefined.
I’ll bet I’m older than you. I remember when gas was 30 cents a gallon :) I had a favorite gas station attendant, too, he was great at doing all the stuff you list. As for automation and jobs…55 years ago I worked on a truck farm. Right about this time of year, we’d start picking potatoes. A tractor pulled the harvester, which dug into the row as the tractor drove, and scooped up potatoes, vines, rocks, weeds etc onto a chain conveyor. A bunch of us stood on either side of the conveyor as the chain wizzed by, and picked out everything but the potatoes, which dropped into bushel baskets at the end of the conveyor. Every once in a while somebody would get injured, a cut, or a broken finger. And our backs and legs ached badly by the end of the day. Yesterday on my Instagram, a small farm I follow posted a Reel of their new automated potato harvester in action. No people picking weeds or rocks, they are replaced by automated arms. That’s progress. I would never go back to picking rocks and weeds.
No reason to go back, nor can we as a practical matter. But we are charting our life, not watching a movie, so looking ahead is in order. Imagining the future is only an educated guess and life is full of surprises. Yet cautiously and observantly, identifying reliable patterns from the past, we can make better than random guesses about the future.
New technologies are rooted in this process, and so too "wisdom", individual and national requires it. So far projections of waste gas induced global heating have proved to be a pretty good map, mostly underestimating the pace of the changes. It seems to me we need to be examining all supportable possibilities in order to influence best outcomes.
Totally.
I recall hearing over 50 years ago the number of patchcord telephone operators that would be needed to operate the US telephone network as it then existed, and it was absurdly huge. Huge racks of clattering electromechanical relays had taken over that function, since replaced by microprocessors. That's a very good thing. There is no incentive to go back. Performing that function by hand would require an army of employees, but doing useless work, and doing it more slowly and less accurately.
That said, digital technologies are developing at an accelerating pace. Replacing far more skilled job categories will surely be possible. Should we just take on faith that worthwhile jobs will emerge from unprecedented developments? Who gets to decide how society will adapt? Just entrusting ultra-wealthy "Job Creators" to create meaningful (or any) jobs for employees that they would rather shed has not worked very well for all of the people so far, and it is not unthinkable that future circumstances may tend to make this worse. Fortune favors the prepared mind.
Wish we had been a little more prepared for the last 6 years.