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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Does Automation Take Jobs Away?
Organization: The Armory
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 21:13:27 GMT
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In article <310lq6$k3o@tribune.usask.ca>, Henry Choy <choy@cs.usask.ca> wrote:
>R. Mark Adams (ma690188@mbcr.bcm.tmc.edu) wrote:
>
>: Hey- let's take the politicial discussion over to one of the talk.politics
>: groups.  comp.sys.robotics is one of the _few_ high-information, low-noise
>: usenet groups, and I am sure that I am not the only one who would like to
>: keep it that way.  The original poster and the first few that followed did
>: a great job of being informative and interesting, but the recent deluge of
>: political diatribe would be better located somewhere else.
>
>Some people have their own perspective, but it's getting rowdy. It's
>time to summarize:
>
>- machines replace some people by doing their jobs
>  - machines are like a burgeoning population of high quality workers;
>    people have to be more competitive to keep their jobs but machines
>    usually win
>- machines cause change due to their flexibility and power
>  - people have the power to do new things
>  - different people jobs are started
>- many people benefit from machines, but some people need to adjust
>  - adjustment requires education and hard work
>  - machines cost some people
>  - people need to be prepared to adjust; people must know how to be
>    directly indepedent of other people
>  - people cannot be complacent and rely on machines to solve every
>    problem because
>    - machines currently cannot solve every problem
>    - even when machines can solve almost every problem people have to
>      decide what they really want
>  - people have to accept during their adjustment that machines are staying 
>- our status depends on machines
>  - high population and scarce resources cause problems that need
>    machines to solve
>  - humans cannot achieve global harmony without machines
>  - machines can cause problems but so can empty handed people
>  - machines extend personal ability in ways you can't hire people to do
------------------------------
And like the image of the cruel shortsighted "BAD" nerd, you have ignored
the problems of the strictly human side of the equation, functionally
demanding that people without the wherewithal to adapt simply diappear from
your equation. You forget that people who cannot adapt will simply turn to
barbarism with you as the victim!
-Steve

>        Henry Choy                       "Math class is hard" - Barbie
>e-mail: choy@cs.usask.ca                  I AGREE!
-------------------------------
You must simply be too lucky in your life to fathom despair and poverty.
Heaven help you if your ass if against a wall some night. You won't have
time for your calculator to "figure" your way out of THAT one!!!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

