/sci/ - Science & Math

Op thinks there are enough smart Americans for all of them to become engineers.

If you make threads on 4chan you probably don't have a new/original/coherent/relevant view point for the world to take to heart.

>mfw OP doesn't realize this already happened 25 years ago.
As unions gained power, almost all US manufacturing was either automated or exported. That obviously didn't shift all work into engineering (if it took as many engineers as it took factory workers, what would be the point?) But instead it shifted a lot of work into the service industry, and allowed for the expansion of that industry.

>>3098929
I hope you realize we are already number on in automation and everything else, and despite how far we are falling we are still the number one economy on the planet.

The problem will not be solved by investing in being number one in something. We did that. We solve the problem by continuing the growth we had, rather than stifling it.

>>3098949
>Implying anything I said was new.

R. Buckminster Fuller made a call for automation in "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth"

>>3098968

Exactly how do you continue growth on a path that isn't sustainable...

Yeah but we're running out of oil, those robots sure do take up a lot of energy

plus this will make the unemployment problem way worse, where will everyone work?

>>3099008

That's kind of the problem right now anyway. Even the service sector jobs are being replaced with automation. Most grocery stores and some retail outlets, like walmart, allow you to check out your own items.

>>3099008
Solar and nuclear should be able to handle the majority of our energy needs.

>>3099022
>nuclear can handle the majority of our energy needs.
Fixed.
Solar is not viable for another decade or so atleast.

>>3098968
>No 1 in automation

Sir, Japan would like a word with you. Please schedule this appointment ASAP and bring some GM employees with you for more lulz.

>>3099030
Last I checked, we still had enough oil to last more than a decade, and nuclear power plants still took time to construct. We're talking about future plans here.

>>3099012
This isn't a problem. The more things are automated, the more the economy can expand into new services that can't yet be automated. It increases the wealth. Automation is a wealth-multiplier.

>>3099008
Most people won't work. Won't even need to work.

Step 1: Build Robots
Step 2: Fire the guys who built those robots, and build better robots.
Step 3: With robots doing all manual labor, blue-collar workers will conveniently huddle under bridges and die
Step 4: PROFITS FOR THE MONEY GOD

>>3099044

machines fixing machines running on machines that provide energy that just never runs out

wait, i think ive seen it somewhere, that fucking utopia world preached by a hippie

no one would have to work!! what will all the people do you think about that for a moment

because i know what im doing - im smoking drinking reading and fucking.

can your machines handle 7 billion people doing this?

This is poorly thought out.

Workers still need to know how a job is done, so a robot can be programmed to do that job.

Who is going to maintain the robots? Other robots? Who maintains the maintaince robots?

There is actually a shortage of labor for factory work in the USA. Because the workforce now lacks a general vocational education because dumb fucks like you discouraged people from getting that education when they had the chance.

But you don't know that because you pretend your glancing knwoledge of a topics talking points is actual insight.

>Implying the rich assholes who control the world will let the bottom 99% enjoy the fruits of automated labor when it hasn't even decreased the cost of a car
Keep dreaming, proles.

>>3099064
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."

>If America wants to become an industrial power again

>implying America is not still the world's top industrial power

>>3099064
Other maintenance robots repair the maintenance robots, obviously. Who treats the doctors?

>>3098929

So you want to subsidize robotics research? Last I checked the west still believes in a free economy so if automation is cheaper than exporting labor to Asia than companies would do that. A large portion of manufacturing is automated but it's still very expensive in comparison. The problem is that some Asian countries violate the human rights of their laborers and thus can manufacture goods cheaper. It's not like a factory making apple products get squat compared to apple anyway.

>>3099076

you'd be shocked to see how scared doctors are of letting other doctors treat them

>>3099075

We have 10 years tops.

>>3099082
If your maintenance robots fear being repaired, something is wrong.

>>3099083
China's bubble collapses in 5 at most.

>>3098929

OP, while I'd like to agree with you, this doesn't benefit America. By doing this, you put more workers out of jobs. It works counter to what you believe it would.

>>3099084
Johnny 5 no disassemble!

>We need to invest in automation the way we invested in the space race.
sure thats cool

>only this time, have industry do it for us
yea... no, you expect private business to take on the costs because you want them to. HAHA good luck with that.

>>3099067

Grow up imbecile.

That tin foil hat isn't actually doing anything.

>>3099084

no, my point is this - humans make errors, and we know how to fix them

you can't teach a machine that

world in which machines build machines and if broken down are fixed by other machines etc etc until everything is a machine is impossible

you have to go down to fusion and atomic cells - and then you will realize, you already live in such a world - your body and everything around you is atomic machines

>>3099089

China is now pulling back the free market allowences it used to get to the level they are at.

So I agree with you.

>>3099079
1. government funds academic research into robotics/automation
2. eventually new technology from the research gets to the point where it IS cheaper to do automation than hire poor asians
3. ????
4. profit

dont you understand this is the reason the govt funds shit like this in the first place?

>>3099064

Maintenance robots can either repair themselves or be repaired by other maintenance robots.

I agree with the idea that automation is the future, but I'm of the opinion that the real power of automation will be when specialized factories become generalized factories. When you have machines that can assemble anything, from a coat hanger to a car to a computer chip, the need for large factories essentially evaporates. Why move tons of the finished product when you can build things on site and effectively reduce your shipping costs by a factor of ten or more. Why stock a huge store when people buy online anyway and you can pass the savings along to undercut your competition?

This level of automation will put a lot of people out of work, however, and that's ignoring all the other forms of automation (such as, say, automating fast food restaurants) that will put millions out of jobs.

The future's not going to be easy. It's gonna kick society in the chest. The only upside to this is that brand names become worthless when some guy has a blueprint that a local fabricator store can print for a small fee, which you can buy and use for a tenth what the corporate version costs. Might not be as good, but it works, it costs a fraction of the price, and you can make a new one if it breaks.

>>3099092
Man, they don't have to be perfectly repairable or last forever. They don't even have to be recycleable as long as there are mines and garbage dumps.

They just have to last long enough to get significantly more work out of them than it takes to build and dispose of them.

>>3099099

> Doesn't know what a bubble is.

>>3099092
I'm not sure what your point was.

>>3099044
That's where you're wrong. Automation increases the wealth, but you still need to work to have a stake -- to have something to trade for a share of the wealth. They wouldn't increase the wealth if most people could stop working, so it's fortunate that they cannot.

>>3099099
I actually admire what they've got set up now.

They've managed to get almost all of the scary new middle class's money heavily invested in some quite nice, mostly vacant housing which is built far in excess of what the working class Chinese can actually afford.

So when that bubble bursts, and the housing prices drop through the floor, that middle class that threatens the political elite goes broke, and the working class gets a big standard of living upgrade in terms of affordable, good quality housing.

It's like they're actually planning a comfortable retirement from a brief career in capitalism.

I'd just want them to invest in more industry automation purely because it benefits the furthering of mankind, don't give a fuck what to those on the factory floor.

Next stage, I want to see some robots doing some design...

American industry is the most automated in the entire world.

OP confirmed for ignorant idiot.

>>3099126

>Bubbles, Bubbles everywhere.

>>3099126

Wait, you admire them for this?

>>3099099
[citation needed]
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd like to read a citation on that.

Regardless, I think it's wrong to suggest that China is a "bubble" (apart from the housing bubble in the coastal cities). There is enormous untapped rural potential, due to their enormous human and mineral resources. They won't be peaking until 60-100 years.

>>3099149

You mean the fact that Chinas economy sure as fuck looks like a capitolist one on many levels, or the fact that the Chineese government is now arresting people for the same free market practices they allowed?

I cannot find the article that I read a few months ago, but it discusses the dramatic shift.

A little history of why "automating everything" isn't the answer.

A little over 100 years ago, Europe was filled with craftsmen to make shit. People in these specialized trades were highly skilled. And it took them ages to produce expensive one offs.

The USA didn't have the same level of craftsmen. So some genius decided he could make a machine to do the precisions work and train some idiot to run the machine. This obviously worked extremely well. Lots of standardized stuff was made quickly and cheaply.

As shit got more complex, the level a worker operates at rose. So the education system changed to reflect that, educating Americans to get good jobs at factories with the proper skills.

Then a few decades ago, some idiots started spreading the notion that this vocational education was somehow shameful. So people started to get educated in nothing. Now few people have a good vocational education. Most people with a "higher" education don't even work in the areas they studied in to get that degree.

The result, we now have an army of people with expensive and worthless pieces of paper (you know it as a diploma) who cannot get a job because no one who is hiring gives a flying fuck about what you have to offer. At the same time we have a labor shortage because a lot of job require a vocational education that people just don't have.

We have high unemployment and a labor shortage at the same time. And it is thanks to the condescending and retarded thinking of people like the OP.

Any of you here who are pursuing a higher education to get a good job are going to be surprised when you attempt to enter the labor market and find out it doesn't work the way you were sold on.

>>3099143
I admire the elegance of it, in a "You magnificent bastards!" kind of way.

It might be bad for China the country of a billion-some mostly decent people, but it's good for China the entrenched political elite who LIKE owning a billion-some mostly decent people.

>>3099164
There are quite a few articles about this issue. Threre's a Foreign Policy article in particular that seems like the one you're looking for.

>>3099126
This is not how bubbles work. And seeing as the poor have an even larger portion of their earnings tied up in commercial real estate, a crash would be disastrous for them.

>>3099168

Skilled trades are really the way to go for anyone who doesn't want to work in things like science/engineering. We need more plumbers, electricians, stone masons, etc.

I've seen so many people go to university for degrees they don't want and will never use more or less just because it's what everyone else does. Meanwhile, I'm at a college, getting useful skills, and I'm already doing on-the-job training doing media production. It's what I want to do, I love doing it, I can make a living doing it, and, more to the point, when someone asks me "What can you do?", my answer will be something besides "Well, I got this Bachelors at X University."

Is it for everyone? Fuck no, nothing's for everyone except breathing air and drinking water. However, getting trained in a skill you enjoy will bring you more happiness and wealth than spending four years bored to get a piece of paper that qualifies you to do secretarial work.

>>3099164
I mean that China is backing off the free market strategies that has been making it so successful. I hadn't heard about them backing off. Arresting people for what specifically?

>>3099201
>This is not how bubbles work.
In what sense?

That the people who have invested in stuff that nobody can afford somehow don't lose all their money?

That the stuff they invested in building magically vanishes in a puff of smoke, rather than getting dumped on the market at ridiculously low prices? Or perhaps they pick the apartment buildings up from China and carry them to other countries to sell off?

>the poor have an even larger portion of their earnings tied up in commercial real estate
I think you might be having some trouble with this concept of "the poor".

>>3099206
>spending four years bored to get a piece of paper
I'm a college drop-out. I only went to university for two years, got debt and no degree, and it was still the best experience of my life.

It's worth it for the social opportunities alone.

>>3099130
Most people won't be able to work, even if they wanted to.

We would have to give money away to keep the economy working the way it works right now.

Part of the issue with our current economy is that all the wealth is concentrating at the top and going nowhere else.

This isn't sustainable. As you pay the working and middle class less and less money, they have less and less money to spend on your products. Corporations want to pay their workers as little as possible, but just assume every other corporation will continue the status quo.

What will happen instead is every corporation acts like miserly buggers, they don't pay very good wages to their employees, and then they become shocked and horrified as profits go down month after month, wondering where it all went wrong.

The economy doesn't function if people cannot actually afford to buy anything.

>>3099218
NOPE.jpg

The poor put more of their earnings in their houses. The rich and middle class are able to diversify their investments, and as a result would suffer less should the bubble burst.

And what, pray tell, would happen to said working class once housing construction slows down? Would there be as many jobs available to them? A real estate bubble affects everyone, not just the middle and high class.

>>3099168
>This is like a history I'd expect to read in one of those retarded creationist textbooks -- except a version from the former soviet union.

For once a recommendation thread i agree with.

..and all the fears of people losing their jobs to automation i believe to be myth. There is a lot of work to keep those machines running properly, and educating the general population will be quite an easy task.

>>3099237
>The economy doesn't function if people cannot actually afford to buy anything.
The economy doesn't need to function if the technology's good enough.

Human power consumption is about 100 watts. You can cut that down if you remove the non-essential bits, like arms and legs, digestive and respiratory systems (it simplifies things greatly to just remove waste products from the blood and process them back into nutrients). Allow another 100 watts for running a simulated-world interface, and connection to the internet.

So you're plugged into the matrix for about 200 watts (a solar panel and some batteries) as your total living expenses, sealed capsule, closed chemical cycle, and enjoying a richness and diversity of experiences we in our time could scarcely imagine.

"Hey guys, did you notice when the economy stopped working?"
"I can't talk now, I'm too busy simulatedly fucking my way through all of the celebrity sex symbols of the 20th century in chronological order!"

So yeah, at some point just moving into the holodeck becomes an option.

>>3099237
>Most people won't be able to work, even if they wanted to.
Not true. If that were true, it would have happened 100 years ago, when we started automating farms in earnest. It's completely untrue for the reasons I've already stated. Demand rises to meet whatever goods and services can be supplied. No one thought they needed cell phones 100 years ago. New industries are spawned exactly when labor is freed up by automating existing but necessary work, like farming or assembly/welding/etc.

>Part of the issue with our current economy is that all the wealth is concentrating at the top and going nowhere else.
It sounds like you need to turn of MSNBC.
>As you pay the working and middle class less and less money
This isn't happening.
>Corporations want to pay their workers as little as possible
And workers want to make as much as possible, they meet where supply meets demand, just like in every financial transaction.

>>3099265
>The poor put more of their earnings in their houses.
The poor DON'T HAVE HOUSES.

The middle class haven't invested in THEIR OWN houses, but in GIANT VACANT APARTMENT BUILDINGS.

>And what, pray tell, would happen to said working class once housing construction slows down?
In communist China? I guess after they move into the giant vacant apartment buildings, instantly doubling their standard of living, and praise the glory of Mao, they do whatever the hell the state wants them to do.

>>3099326
Yes, they do. They're just not situated, for the most part, in the CBD of coastal cities, and their housing's much more modest. Have you ever even been to China?

>In communist China? I guess after they move into the giant vacant apartment buildings, instantly doubling their standard of living, and praise the glory of Mao, they do whatever the hell the state wants them to do.

OK, that's just stupid. Unfounded speculation. Not gonna bother.

>>3099353
Americans?

>>3099326
By the way, who thinks of measuring standard of living just by the assets individuals hold?

>>3099216
Hmm... I think Wen Jiabao alluded to something similar a few months ago at the NPC's annual meeting.

>>3099345
You apparently think somehow that due to the terrible surplus of mid-range apartment buildings that's being constructed, countryside peasants are going to lose their houses and end up sleeping in ditches while the urban working poor will be out wandering in the streets.

I can not rightly apprehend the confusion of ideas that would lead to such a conclusion.

Just because the mortgage securities bubble in the USA lead to a lot of foreclosures (and consequently, let us not forget, a lot of very reasonably-priced housing coming onto the market) does not mean that the construction investment bubble in China is going to lead to mass homelessness through some mysterious process inherent to all bubbles.

>>3099356
I don't recall there being an accurate metric used for quantifying standard of living, but the BLS uses CPI as a leading indicator.

>>3099377
Sigh. Let's try this once more. You are ignoring my point.The poor take out mortgages as well. They will still have to pay them when the bubble bursts. When the bubble bursts, many working class people will be out of work. because there aren't as many construction projects and manufacturing jobs. And during volatile market conditions, credit is harder to come by. This affects their income and standard of living.

Hey, OP

What happens if a solar flare hits earth and wipes out all the power?

http://boingboing.net/2010/02/15/robot-factory-builds.html
robots building robots
The future is here!!!

Too late. You're getting flooded with Mexican mestizos and the future of your United States is inevitably something like Brasil do Norte ... mongrelized Ashkenazi Jewish/White/E.&S. Asian elites living in high-walled compounds amidst hordes of dopey squat peasants with double-digit IQs. The future of real production (lol at "ideas economy") belongs -- unfortunately -- to the chinks, which is a shame because they're incapable of real innovation. Hart-Cellar Act, Civil Rights Act, and general multi-kulti faggotry doomed industrial civilization ... not entirely a bad thing.

>>3099407
>Sigh.
I guess when you've been caught being really, really stupid, there's nothing to lose by trying to pretend that you've been completely misunderstood by rather dim-witted people and are exasperated but will try to patiently explain how you were right all along.

It's not a mortgage bubble in China. It's not a credit bubble. It's a construction investment bubble. The poor in China do not have good access to credit. The working class (as distinct from the peasant class) are not, in general, paying mortgages, but living in substandard apartments near their places of employment.

If you aren't being completely random here, and have actually been to China yourself (as you tried to imply), I think you have the low end of the middle class mixed up with the poor, and the actively employed members of the middle class mixed up with the working class.

>>3099435
Since when did I say that a mortgage bubble existed? I merely said that the poor take out mortgages as well, and they will be significantly affected by a housing crash. Recall the post you responded to: "credit will be harder to come by". And you seem to think that mortgage and credit bubbles are mutually exclusive with a construction bubble - it isn't. Guess how price to income ratios factor in these cases, and how they incite people to take out mortgages. And for the record, the poor often take out loans through unofficial channels because of their credit history.
Nice job cherrypicking my posts, by the way. I like how you're not even talking about jobs now.

And for the record, I go to China 3 times a year, ever since I was 13. I speak the language, my father being of Chinese descent. Happy?

>>3099479
>I go to China 3 times a year, ever since I was 13. I speak the language, my father being of Chinese descent. Happy?
Ah, this explains how you would form strong opinions of what China as a whole is like based on glimpses of the lifestyle of its recently emerged middle class, at least.

You don't know shit about the overall situation in China. You pretty much just assume it runs mostly like America (or whatever first world country you're living in), because the part you've visited doesn't seem too terribly different.

Also: underage b& detected, still taking international family trips three times a year. So I guess you've been to China 6 times now?

>>3099479
>the poor in China take out mortgages.
data to support this?

How much does the average manufacture worker cost in the USA? 32 dollars.
How much does the average manufacture worker cost in Germany? 48 dollars.
What country is the second largest exporter in the world after China? Germany.

The lie that the USA can't compete with semi-slave labour from China serves very well to CEOs who are getting rich at the expenses of the destruction of the american industry. The religion called libertarianism is destroying america.

>>3099509
Nope. I only went once with my family. The other times were to study and for business purposes. And I come from a third-world South Asian country, and my family wasn't by any stretch of the imagination, rich. Your presumptuousness is unfounded. Is mudslinging all you can do at this point?

>>3099511
It's all in Chinese, unfortunately. But "mortgage slaves" are commonplace in the country.

>>3099283

>I would expect to see you homeless on a street corner clutching your communications degree wondering what you did wrong. It isn't your fault, you did everything marketing told you to do.

>>3099525
You are slightly delusional. Germany is a much more export-oriented economy than the US. Along with China, they are one of the most export-oriented countries in the world. And yet US total exports are virtually tied with Germany's.

>>3099556
I have a computer science degree, and I'm very successful, but thanks for your concern.

>>3099570
Scientist? Izzat you?

>>3099588
no.

>>3099562
> You are slightly delusional... And yet US total exports are virtually tied with Germany's.

Yes, I'm slightly delusional, especially when I take in account the fact that the USA population is almost 4 times bigger than the population from Germany and the american GDP is almost 4.5 greater the the german one.

>>3099594
Yes, and the US GDP is over 4x larger.

>>3099570

>have a computer science degree
>does 0 computer science

>>3099593
Oh. nvm then.

Well, I'm off.

Here's some recommended reading for those who are interested:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/5_myths_about_the_chinese_communist_party

http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/03/chinas_national_peoples_congress

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/06/china_s_america_obsession?page=0,1

>>3099543
I don't believe that these "mortgage slaves" are "poor". A country in which the poor could get mortgages would be a very wealthy country, which China is not.

>>3099610
I do over 9000 computer science. Thanks again for your concern.

>>3099614
There were programs in place to encourage home ownership, especially for the poor - recently scrapped by the govt a few months ago. And they're able to get mortgages, but on tougher financing terms, having to pay higher rates.

>>3099614
There were programs in place to encourage home ownership, especially for the poor - scrapped by the govt a few months ago. And they're able to get mortgages, but on tougher financing terms, having to pay higher rates.

>>3099651

I see you have not heard of the housing bubble.

>>3099525

Germany is still a fascist state in a lot of ways, as you pointed out.

>>3099099

> free market
> china

Oh you.

I had this idea, but it's more complex than just automating shit and training everyone to be engineers.

>>3099821
>>3099839
>>3099832
fuck off you retarded tripfag.

>>3099853

Hello, socialist.

STFU with your played out old bullshit. Innovation and creativity motherfuckers!