• @ImpossibilityBox
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    131 year ago

    And the second that it is economically viable the companies will be dumping their bricklayers/carpenters down the drain and replacing them with computer controlled construction methods.

    • Flying Squid
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      61 year ago

      When will it be economically viable to dump all the people who have to set up the equipment and all of the people who have to do everything but make the basic structure? Is this ‘house set up and entirely built by robots down to the light fixtures with no human intervention’ a near future proposition?

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        When was it economically viable to replace hand-sewn lumber with lumber mills?

        Then they went and made portable electric saws. What a world!

        And then electric drills! And laser levels!

        Remember paper ledgers and abacuses? Ever hear of Microsoft Excel?

        We keep making tools that always increase productivity and reduce time and cost. It’s Constant incremental progress, and on a large scale it’s great because it frees up (human) resources to focus on new industry and technology, which furthers the CIP. On the micro scale, there may be a small number of temporarily displaced workers as jobs shuffle around and workers re-skill.

        But at this particular intersection of technology, we are at a pretty bad spot. We are on the verge of massive progress in multiple industries, and wealth has concentrated in the elite classes. “Temporarily displaced workers” won’t have the capital to re-skill or invest their own resources into new industry. This is bad.

        • Flying Squid
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          31 year ago

          When was it economically viable to replace hand-sewn lumber with lumber mills?

          When they did it. Because they could process a huge amount more lumber. I’m not sure I understand.

          • @[email protected]
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            41 year ago

            what they are saying is that in the past, technological leaps meant increases in productivity and generally freed the displaced workers into new careers, but this time the sheer scale of change that is imminent doesn’t leave time for that. it’s going to be bad

        • Flying Squid
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          51 year ago

          I’m stuck in the past because that’s not an economically viable thing to do within the foreseeable future?

          Would I be stuck in the past because I said I don’t think people are going to be commuting by personal jetpack any time soon?

    • @sleepy555
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      31 year ago

      Yeah, like how blacksmiths can’t find any work these days anymore. It’s heartbreaking.

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        There are artisan blacksmiths that probably make bank doing custom jobs like blades and ironwork gates and other such artistry.