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Old 2011-08-18, 06:17   Link #15881
ganbaru
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Originally Posted by Vexx View Post
Its not a new system (mathematic region of stability) that scares me... its the transition period of instability/chaos/madness/pain.
You are expecting something like a new Middle Age , right?
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Old 2011-08-18, 07:04   Link #15882
Sugetsu
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Originally Posted by synaesthetic View Post
This is why I say we need to start heavily moving forward into space development and research, not just "some companies" but the whole country, as a nation! Government, business, engineer, scientist, student--we need the kind of fire lit under our asses we had during the Cold War.

Let's forget about arguments about capitalism vs. socialism vs. any other -ism and let's focus on the bigger issue--our nation is aimless. America has no purpose, unless you consider knocking around Third World nations as a "purpose" (I don't).

We, all of us, as a nation, as a whole, need something to focus on, a goal to achieve, something to do. A massive, government-led space development initiative, with R&D farmed out to all of our wonderful aerospace firms would be economic gold. Get the ships built, get some gear up there and start bringing people up there!

It'd create new industries and job markets overnight, and come on. Nearly everyone would fall all over themselves to be a menial laborer on a low-orbit station or space colony... if it meant we got to go to space!

Forget "drill, baby, drill" and go with "build, build, build"... IN SPACE!
As long as our whole society is based on individualism, money and greed. We better stay in this planet. We don't want to go throughout the cosmos expanding our aberrated culture and behavior.

Besides the first thing we would do in space is start fighting over the best mining spots and silly stuff like that.
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Old 2011-08-18, 07:35   Link #15883
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Hopefully though, we can evolve to develop Newtype powers and understand each other better (Sorry, i'm watching Victory Gundam right now...)
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Old 2011-08-18, 08:32   Link #15884
Solace
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
No, we don't have mass unemployment. Unemployment rates have floated in and around the 5-10% range for the last 100 years. Even now the US still only has unemployment of 9%. The top unemployment rate I know of was actually back in the 30s, when unemployment rates hit 20-30%. Now that was mass unemployment. We don't yet have that. There hasn't been any kind of historical growth in unemployment over the last 200 years, it's gone down as much as up.
This isn't understanding the data, it's just quoting it. You have to look at how the numbers break down. That average you see (9%) hides the actual unemployment rate which is MUCH higher. The Department of Labor uses clever tricks like "seasonally adjusted" (meaning what was the weather like basically) to tweak the numbers. You holding two jobs? That's considered two people holding a job each. You in poverty and working 10 hours a week cleaning toilets? That's a job. They also don't count certain, rather key segments of the population, like say......the so called "discouraged worker", people who probably would like a job if they hadn't already been searching for over a year. From the horses mouth:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Labor Statistics
Does the official unemployment rate exclude people who have stopped looking for work?

Yes; however, there are separate estimates of persons outside the labor force who want a job, including those who have stopped looking because they believe no jobs are available (discouraged workers). In addition, alternative measures of labor underutilization (some of which include discouraged workers and other groups not officially counted as unemployed) are published each month in The Employment Situation news release.
The sample size they use, while ample (60,000), is hardly representative of the overall population (remember the US has over 300 million people). It's good for getting idea of economic health (which barely qualifies as comatose), but the Labor statistics are the perfect example of why you cannot and should not take reported numbers at face value, even if they come from a "reputable" source.

Without an absolutely massive stimulus project (I mean something bigger than FDR's New Deal and WW2), you are not going to "fix" unemployment. Can you get more people working? Yes. But there will still be many out of work or underemployed, and after you are done building all of that infrastructure (the easiest and most benefit from an investment/return analysis), keeping all those newly employed people from going back out of work will be a challenge. Although austerity isn't smart either (it's one of those "sounds good, but in practice hasn't worked out so great" things), we've reached the peak of the modern Capitalist economic system. Now we're just hitting the bumpy plateau where finite resources (people and earth) clash with infinite growth expectations. The bubbles get bigger, the crashes get worse, until you have nothing left.
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Old 2011-08-18, 09:22   Link #15885
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrTerrorist View Post
Russia shows off Sukhoi T-50 stealth fighter

You know, it kinda looks similar to the F-22 Raptor.
All it needs is an airshow to test the ejection seat system at.
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Old 2011-08-18, 09:50   Link #15886
ganbaru
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Attackers from Egypt kill 7 inside Israel

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...08-18-10-41-08
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Old 2011-08-18, 10:22   Link #15887
DonQuigleone
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Solace View Post
This isn't understanding the data, it's just quoting it. You have to look at how the numbers break down. That average you see (9%) hides the actual unemployment rate which is MUCH higher. The Department of Labor uses clever tricks like "seasonally adjusted" (meaning what was the weather like basically) to tweak the numbers. You holding two jobs? That's considered two people holding a job each. You in poverty and working 10 hours a week cleaning toilets? That's a job. They also don't count certain, rather key segments of the population, like say......the so called "discouraged worker", people who probably would like a job if they hadn't already been searching for over a year. From the horses mouth:



The sample size they use, while ample (60,000), is hardly representative of the overall population (remember the US has over 300 million people). It's good for getting idea of economic health (which barely qualifies as comatose), but the Labor statistics are the perfect example of why you cannot and should not take reported numbers at face value, even if they come from a "reputable" source.

Without an absolutely massive stimulus project (I mean something bigger than FDR's New Deal and WW2), you are not going to "fix" unemployment. Can you get more people working? Yes. But there will still be many out of work or underemployed, and after you are done building all of that infrastructure (the easiest and most benefit from an investment/return analysis), keeping all those newly employed people from going back out of work will be a challenge. Although austerity isn't smart either (it's one of those "sounds good, but in practice hasn't worked out so great" things), we've reached the peak of the modern Capitalist economic system. Now we're just hitting the bumpy plateau where finite resources (people and earth) clash with infinite growth expectations. The bubbles get bigger, the crashes get worse, until you have nothing left.
I was looking at the same website as you, and you're wrong.

They calculate unemployment rate by asking a series of questions, and determining from your answers your status under their system. Unemployed are (understandably) only those who are currently seeking employment, and if you have searched in the past 4 weeks for work, and not engaged in work for the previous week that person is considered unemployed in the survey. They don't count jobs, they count people. And they make explicity mention of eliminating overlap

It makes sense to exclude people who have not engaged in paid work, and not searched for employment because then you'd end out including housewives, people who can't work due to disability and people working on family farms into unemployment statistics, which would make things absurd. There is no other real way to distinguish someone being "not in the labour force" (those not searching for work) and those who are, in fact, unemployed.

And the seasonal adjustment thing is fine as well, otherwise we'd have difficulty interpreting the statistics due to actual seasonal fluctuations, mainly the cessation of farm work in winter, and the large number of former students entering the labour pool every may on graduation.

Finally, it's not their job to say whether someone is underemployed. They're just reporting the unemployment rates. Janitorial work may be unpleasant and poorly paid, but it still counts as work. There's another department that reports detailed employment statistics.

Furthermore they can make more accurate assessments after the census, which does report labour status/occupation.

And my point is that there hasn't been any historical rise in the unemployment rates, and considering they've been using the same methodology to calculate labour statistics since the 40s, it's reasonable to say that increased industrialization has not lead to more unemployment.

And it's difficult to make a judgement as to whether people are worse off now compared to 50 years ago. For one thing, we now all possess computers, which would have been considered an absurdly expensive luxury in 1960
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Old 2011-08-18, 10:48   Link #15888
Solace
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
I was looking at the same website as you, and you're wrong.
If you were looking at the same site I was, then you might have actually understood my point. The 9% percent rate does not tell the whole story of employment. There are so many factors and nuances to that 9% that it's very misleading. For example, this might help you:

http://portalseven.com/employment/un...nt_rate_u6.jsp
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Old 2011-08-18, 11:13   Link #15889
GundamFan0083
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My man Denis!!



Congressman Kucinich is absolutely right.
We need to stop these three useless wars.
We don't have enough money for NASA, but we have enough to topple Quaddafi?
WTF is that?
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Old 2011-08-18, 11:14   Link #15890
AnimeFan188
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Join Date: Jan 2008
N.Korea 'Wanted to Shoot Down S.Korean Defense Chief's Chopper'

"North Korean military units talked about the possibility of shooting down a
helicopter carrying Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin during his visit to a frontline unit
in July, officials here said Monday. Intelligence agencies have started investigating
whether the North Koreans actually tried to shoot down Kim's helicopter and how
they got hold of his frontline tour schedule."

See:

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/...081600941.html


Are the N. Koreans that eager for another Korean War?
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Old 2011-08-18, 11:50   Link #15891
DonQuigleone
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Solace View Post
If you were looking at the same site I was, then you might have actually understood my point. The 9% percent rate does not tell the whole story of employment. There are so many factors and nuances to that 9% that it's very misleading. For example, this might help you:

http://portalseven.com/employment/un...nt_rate_u6.jsp
Certainly if you go to U6 it is worse, if anything however it just that the current recession is worse then people may realise, but it doesn't indicate that unemployment has gotten worse over the past 70 years, as those statistics, while they may not be the precise unemployment, are proportional to it, and those statistics haven't shown any general trend upwards as industrialization has increased. They show unemployment going up in recessions and down in boom times.
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Old 2011-08-18, 12:18   Link #15892
Solace
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
Certainly if you go to U6 it is worse, if anything however it just that the current recession is worse then people may realise, but it doesn't indicate that unemployment has gotten worse over the past 70 years, as those statistics, while they may not be the precise unemployment, are proportional to it, and those statistics haven't shown any general trend upwards as industrialization has increased. They show unemployment going up in recessions and down in boom times.
We're getting off track a bit here.

My argument is that as technology has automated each sector, those sectors have shifted the jobs to new sectors. But the last remaining sector where you can employ massive amounts of people, the service sector, is also increasingly automating as well.

This recession, the one we're in right now, is more difficult to "fix" because sectors where you could previously grow jobs, like manufacturing, are being outsourced to cheap labor in foreign countries, and heavily automated whenever possible. There are not enough McJobs to go around unless you increase the amount of pointless "filler" jobs that automation is used to cut down on anyway, and there are only so many "high skill" jobs to fill because (to use an analogy) you can't throw more mechanics in a room and expect your car to be fixed faster.

80% of the labor force in the US is service based (the so called tertiary economy). When that gives way to mass automation, where do the people go? Back to farming? Can't. Back to manufacturing? Can't. Even if you stopped outsourcing somehow, you'd still bleed jobs because of automation.
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Old 2011-08-18, 12:52   Link #15893
DonQuigleone
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We simply provide more services. Also, people will do less work. Right now people have to work about 10 hours per day. A lot of people who are already earning enough for their own needs are choosing to work less. I think among young employees the top work desires are flexi time and work sharing. It's the way of the future.

Also, more people will be engaged in creative work rather then mindless repetitive tasks. I for one won't lament the loss of menial service jobs that no one really wants to do.

I'm not a crystal ball peerer, but I'm sure enterprising fellows will figure out what to do with all the cheap avaliable labour. Perhaps we'll reach a stage where we won't need to depend on employers, and we can work for ourselves, as in time of old.
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Old 2011-08-18, 12:59   Link #15894
konart
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Ridley Scott Making Blade Runner 2

http://movies.ign.com/articles/118/1188867p1.html
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Old 2011-08-18, 13:03   Link #15895
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
We simply provide more services. Also, people will do less work. Right now people have to work about 10 hours per day. A lot of people who are already earning enough for their own needs are choosing to work less. I think among young employees the top work desires are flexi time and work sharing. It's the way of the future.

Also, more people will be engaged in creative work rather then mindless repetitive tasks. I for one won't lament the loss of menial service jobs that no one really wants to do.

I'm not a crystal ball peerer, but I'm sure enterprising fellows will figure out what to do with all the cheap avaliable labour. Perhaps we'll reach a stage where we won't need to depend on employers, and we can work for ourselves, as in time of old.
except for the people who needs those menial jobs because they don't have the education/qualification for any other type of jobs.
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Old 2011-08-18, 13:04   Link #15896
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Israel pounds Gaza after deadly attacks near Eilat
Quote:
The Israeli military has confirmed carrying out air strikes over the Gaza Strip following a series of deadly attacks in southern Israel.

At least six people, including a senior militant, were killed in the air strikes, Palestinian sources said.

Earlier, Israeli officials promised a strong response after attacks on vehicles near Eilat left seven dead.
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Old 2011-08-18, 13:13   Link #15897
Irenicus
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
We simply provide more services.
That's Japan, and you can see how it weights down the recovery efforts for two decades going.

Though to be fair it is more of a symptom than a cause.

Quote:
Also, people will do less work. Right now people have to work about 10 hours per day. A lot of people who are already earning enough for their own needs are choosing to work less. I think among young employees the top work desires are flexi time and work sharing. It's the way of the future.
In the richer countries of the European Union, maybe. In America? People need two jobs to make ends meet, further exacerbating the unemployment and underemployment problem.

Or you could become a stockbroker or something and get your share of empty-air money.

You either give people welfare or give them jobs (and actually most people -- despite all the whining about welfare coddling and all the slander -- would rather be happier with jobs, especially substantive jobs). If you aren't willing to have welfare and you're bleeding jobs to give, it's a bit of a problem getting the cycle running again. The spice must flow, except it doesn't flow.

You also have the choice of destroying the cycle and inventing it anew, flood Arrakis and make a paradise of it, the spice be damned. If the trend of increasing efficiency continues, sustainability increased, and/or new resources can be accessed, the abundance provided by technology could ensure a high quality of life for anyone, provided there is a means of distributing this abundance outside of a wage economy. But good luck selling that anywhere.

Quote:
Also, more people will be engaged in creative work rather then mindless repetitive tasks. I for one won't lament the loss of menial service jobs that no one really wants to do.
The creative fields cannot take in mass labour. That's simply impossible. Even now just about every creative field is extremely competitive already.

Just how many webcomics do you read a day?
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Old 2011-08-18, 13:51   Link #15898
Jinto
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
We simply provide more services. Also, people will do less work.
The problem is that in today's economies they will only get a fraction of the money for it. If they got more money for less work, then this might actually work.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
Right now people have to work about 10 hours per day.
In Ireland maybe ^^'- I work my 7 hours a day (then again, as a software developer it is hard to concentrate much longer anyway). I think in Germany the norm was 40 hours a week, but that was turned into flexible models where workers typically work less hours a week most of the time. With one exception, the low skilled workforce. They can be easily exploited by employers because there are so many of them in the job market. The employers reasoning goes like this: You don't want to loose your job and the little you have, then work extra shifts or I get someone of those 100 other candidates that gladly make your job instead of you. Thats the capitalist reality

Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
A lot of people who are already earning enough for their own needs are choosing to work less. I think among young employees the top work desires are flexi time and work sharing. It's the way of the future.
But only for the trained professionals. For the untrained workforce its quite different. Because in oder to earn enough they have to work their asses off (and even then its not necessarily "enough").

Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
Also, more people will be engaged in creative work rather then mindless repetitive tasks. I for one won't lament the loss of menial service jobs that no one really wants to do.
So, how many deviant artists do you need?

Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
I'm not a crystal ball peerer, but I'm sure enterprising fellows will figure out what to do with all the cheap avaliable labour. Perhaps we'll reach a stage where we won't need to depend on employers, and we can work for ourselves, as in time of old.
Actually you can use them to fight useless wars... or as audience in afternoon talk shows... or you buy yourself some angry voters who in turn vote for your candidates that will implement your policies as laws. There are many ways to use these folks, unfortunately a lot of not so nice ones too.
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Old 2011-08-18, 13:54   Link #15899
DonQuigleone
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xellos-_^ View Post
except for the people who needs those menial jobs because they don't have the education/qualification for any other type of jobs.
Sucks to be them, I never claimed the world was a nice place, nor should people think it so. When it's a choice between living and dieing, people get quite creative. You should see how slum dwellers manage to live on very little. Quite interesting.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Irenicus View Post
In the richer countries of the European Union, maybe. In America? People need two jobs to make ends meet, further exacerbating the unemployment and underemployment problem.
Yes, and there are plenty of people making 100,000$ with no time to themselves. If all those people choose to job share, you're doubling the skilled work force. And America is wealthier then you think. I'd actually say America is wealthier then the EU by a long shot, however it's a bit more unequally distributed. Society is in a state of flux at the moment, so there are still kinks that need to be worked out...

Quote:
You either give people welfare or give them jobs (and actually most people -- despite all the whining about welfare coddling and all the slander -- would rather be happier with jobs, especially substantive jobs). If you aren't willing to have welfare and you're bleeding jobs to give, it's a bit of a problem getting the cycle running again. The spice must flow, except it doesn't flow.
I don't view this as a problem for government or some other centralized decision maker to solve. I think Society itself will solve it, society itself will evolve to find new and novel ways to employ people.

Quote:
The creative fields cannot take in mass labour. That's simply impossible. Even now just about every creative field is extremely competitive already.

Just how many webcomics do you read a day?
The future is niche entertainment, look at the entertainment you consume, Anime. Top selling anime only sell about 50,000 copies. What will happen is a proliferation of niche entertainment, like anime. Right now, if you like a particular thing, you can't always get it. For instance, there are no new mecha anime being produced right now, that means there's untapped potential someone could be selling. Everyone has really specific things that only they and a few other people like. What you will see is more and more entertainment cropping up that caters to those people's specific and niche tastes.

Consider games. A great example is Paradox Interactive. They make games I absolutely love, and they also make games that are only popular with a small number of people. Most people would find their games dull at best (why am I spending so much time looking at spreadsheets?), I don't know what their sales are, but they have only 12 employees (very small for a game developer) and probably sell in the range of 50,000 copies per game.

The last century was the century of mass market entertainment. Blockbusters, entertainment that had to cater to everyone's taste. The next century will see a flowering of more and more niche interests being able to stand on their own. Entertainment has already grown a lot in the last decade, look at how much more anime is produced now compared to 10 years ago. Look at Video games. I don't see that growth slowing down any time soon. People still have lots of free time, and still are trying to find ways to fill it up.
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Old 2011-08-18, 14:23   Link #15900
Endless Soul
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Quote:
Originally Posted by konart View Post
Ridley Scott Making Blade Runner 2

http://movies.ign.com/articles/118/1188867p1.html
Wow, this is going to be...interesting.
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