12-11-2016, 01:33 AM
(12-11-2016, 12:28 AM)samhain Wrote: To compound all of this, job loss in manufacturing and in the coal industry have created hotbeds for drug use in places that used to epitomize the All-American lifestyle. I only see this getting worse with the rise of automation and the demise of decent-paying low-skill work. The appeal of getting high and the economic incentive of profiting from the demand will combine for a true epidemic in the next 50 years. It will make what's going on now look like the good old days.
This deserves it's own topic. I'm hoping to make it to retirement before I'm obsolete, but it's a reasonably good bet in my lifetime I'll see almost all jobs done by AI and robots. Energy is the last "limited" resource, and we're close to solving that - I think fusion is a reality inside 50 years. Water is not a problem when you remove energy costs (just all that salt to dispose of), and that leaves food always struggling to pace population and you have to think we'll solve that, too.
All that idle time and many in their 20's will be in almost perpetual party mode. It's hard to envision new frontiers creating jobs that won't be done by AI and robots. Such a world where we don't want for anything or work for anything might create inescapable boredom that people are always trying to defeat.
--------------------------------------------------------
