The Core

Next phase: Bread and Circuses.

You made me look up that saying Trav .  We're probably not that far away right now if you look at the combined effect of the entertainment industries.

Ergo, you brought up some very important points.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium

Elysium or the Elysian Fields (Ancient Greek: Ἠλύσιον πεδίον, Ēlısion pedíon) is a conception of the afterlife that developed over time and was maintained by some Greek religious and philosophical sects and cults. Initially separate from the realm of Hades, admission was reserved for mortals related to the gods and other heroes. Later, it expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic, where they would remain after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulging in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life.

I suspect that both uses of the name has to do with the concept of a haven for the elite/privileged.

Ergo, great points.  Growing up in the 70/80 I thought that democracy and capitalism were basically synonyms, or at least that one required the other.  We've seen examples of relatively strong democracies with near socialist economies (the Scandinavian countries).   We've also seen extreme capitalistic countries without democracy (modern Vietnam, China).  Honestly, I don't see any of that as the answer to these coming challenges.  The cynic in me thinks that Trav is right in that the path forward is to keep the population feed and numb with mindless entertainment.

My wife and I took our younger kids to the Jelly Belly factory, it is probably the fifth time I've been through that place in the last 14 years.  With every visit they have made jumps in mechanization.  This last visit was the first time I saw this machine they called the 'Spider Packer', it could pack boxes with items (neatly) at a blazingly fast rate.  That job use to be done by humans before the machine, but this thing could pack candy bags into boxes faster than several people.  We all know the robot takeover is coming, but it is something to see it in action.

Here is a clip of a two arm robot, since the video they've installed a third arm to speed up its capacity.

We really need to start hashing out how capitalism will survive the end of low skill labor.

Since this thread popped back up, I have to say - we have to stop thinking of automation like this. It's not *low* *skill* labor, it's any labor that involves any of
 - repetition
 - pattern matching
 - prediction

So, for example, by the "low skill" criterion, we would expect medical doctor to be safe, but in fact many specialties will contract and employment prospects for radiologists are just abysmal.

>pattern matching

Bingo!

Aside:  Long ago in the pre-internet age, an interviewer asked me how I was able to work in so many seemingly unrelated fields. My answer was "I see I'm good with patterns." He didn't get it.

>medical doctor to be safe, but in fact many specialties will contract

Human pharmacists have been out-performed by robots for about a decade now. We're just protecting them because we're afraid (and job politics), imo.

>average is still high

See attached. Average has been falling for a while, not predicted to get back to 2007 levels until 2022.

>what is the real human cost

People in Asia have seen a huge rise in standard of living.

>asia

Fewer kids, for starters

Scroll down to the table Total fertility rates (with projections). Vietnam has dropped from 3.3 to 1.7 over last 25 years.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-39211144

>Am I right in assuming thats hourly paid, so the old blue collar?

I don't think so, I think its just the measurement they decided to go with, I think its everybody.

>Asias growth, what is the cause

Remember I'm not that smart, this is just what I think.

Globalisation exposed the fundamental weaknesses of the western economies and to be frank the western workforce. Or to put it another way we went crazy buying cheap stuff from China, so crazy that we sort of exported our wealth/jobs. We then didn't have enough money to continue going crazy, so we made borrowing super easy. We borrowed money to export our jobs, cool huh?

Thats where we are, what we have failed to do is adapt to this change, I think we need a fundamental reset on what we in the west consider to be poverty.

Maybe the top 1% are to blame, we need attack them, tax them, make them suffer.

If you earn £25,000 a year you are in the top 1%.