Some questions...Question #1:

Walt said:
Within the last two years, we have discovered that some factory workers jobs are safer than many white collar workers jobs. It is far easier to replace a reporter with an AI program than it is to replace a garment worker.

It surprises me too.

Cloth moves in three dimensions, and worse yet folds in three dimensions, so as far as a computer is concerned is in six dimensions. What is easy for a "unskilled" Central American factory worker is nearly impossible for a computer.

Meanwhile, writing a news story is easy for a large language model. Even computer programming is looking like it might be easier than sewing.
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I sew as a hobby. My husband is a software engineer. Oddly enough though, we use the exact same words of frustration. :laugh:

No doubt the pieces that make up a garment are cut by machine. But piecing them together takes humans, which is why most of our garments are made in developing nations where labor is a lot less expensive.
 
Ross Dolan said:
I suspect it is POSSIBLE to "care more about people"...AND "the efficiency of manufacturing."

That is where I am heading.
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Capitalism does not care about people.

Ironically, that guy with the funny ears and voice that ran as a third party candidate against Clinton (Perot) was absolutely correct when he warned:

"That sound you hear is American jobs being sucked out of this country, never to return"

Decades later, we now see what he was talking about.

We can incentivize domestic manufacturing via a corporate tax structure, but trump simply gave all corporations a tax holiday with no repercussions.
 
Althea said:
Capitalism does not care about people.

Ironically, that guy with the funny ears and voice that ran as a third party candidate against Clinton (Perot) was absolutely correct when he warned:

"That sound you hear is American jobs being sucked out of this country, never to return"

Decades later, we now see what he was talking about.

We can incentivize domestic manufacturing via a corporate tax structure, but trump simply gave all corporations a tax holiday with no repercussions.
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Yeah, anyone who thinks any one political party is more or less responsible for the mass offshoring of jobs doesn't understand how industry operates. The very SECOND it made even marginal sense economically to ship goods long distances the idea of offshoring came to mind for U.S. CEO's. They saw the quickest way to drive profits UP was to decrease Operation Expenditures, specifically those nasty biological things (aka "workers").

The real problem in bringing those jobs back will be that we will never achieve prices on goods that are as low as one can achieve using prison/child labor. American CEO's don't give a flip about humans per se when it comes to workers, so finding the cheapest labor no matter how it is done is a "good thing" according to late stage Capitalists.

Right now the biggest advocates of cheap overseas foreign labor with grotesque abuses of employees and hideous environmental messes is the American consumer. It's us. WE now want those goods cheap and fast. And we will scream bloody blue murder if we have to pay a living wage to the people who make it for us.

We don't even really care about our fellow Americans! Just look at how hard some folks fight against a living wage for minimum wage workers in this country! We love cheap goods and we couldn't care less who we have to trample to get 'em.

So, yeah, the offshoring started by CEO's and now fully integrated into OUR lives means any big changes are going to be tough.

I honestly don't know if we have the guts to live whatever "ideals" we espouse.
 
Obtenebrator said:
Yeah, anyone who thinks any one political party is more or less responsible for the mass offshoring of jobs doesn't understand how industry operates. The very SECOND it made even marginal sense economically to ship goods long distances the idea of offshoring came to mind for U.S. CEO's. They saw the quickest way to drive profits UP was to decrease Operation Expenditures, specifically those nasty biological things (aka "workers").

The real problem in bringing those jobs back will be that we will never achieve prices on goods that are as low as one can achieve using prison/child labor. American CEO's don't give a flip about humans per se when it comes to workers, so finding the cheapest labor no matter how it is done is a "good thing" according to late stage Capitalists.

Right now the biggest advocates of cheap overseas foreign labor with grotesque abuses of employees and hideous environmental messes is the American consumer. It's us. WE now want those goods cheap and fast. And we will scream bloody blue murder if we have to pay a living wage to the people who make it for us.

We don't even really care about our fellow Americans! Just look at how hard some folks fight against a living wage for minimum wage workers in this country! We love cheap goods and we couldn't care less who we have to trample to get 'em.

So, yeah, the offshoring started by CEO's and now fully integrated into OUR lives means any big changes are going to be tough.

I honestly don't know if we have the guts to live whatever "ideals" we espouse.
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As I mentioned, it can be done with tax policy. trump had a chance to do it as he bragged that he would bring jobs BACK to America. He never brought one job back.

No taxes for any corp. that does ALL manufacturing here. Double taxes for corporations that don't.

But either way, prices are going to go up and Americans are going to have to decide which is more important. Less people on Public Assistance with a better income, or the status quo. Jeans are not supposed to be $20 in the 21st century.
 
Productivity is one issue and the source of people's income is another.

Have we found a way to divorce the two?

Having plenty of leisure time and being broke does not translate to quality of life.
And unless you're some sort of religious person who believes life has absolute value,
and I'm definitely not coming from that point of view as you by now know,

life without quality is worthless and actually an affliction to be endured, not valued.
 
Althea said:
As I mentioned, it can be done with tax policy. trump had a chance to do it as he bragged that he would bring jobs BACK to America. He never brought one job back.

No taxes for any corp. that does ALL manufacturing here. Double taxes for corporations that don't.

But either way, prices are going to go up and Americans are going to have to decide which is more important. Less people on Public Assistance with a better income, or the status quo. Jeans are not supposed to be $20 in the 21st century.
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Deciding what we want to pay for needed to happen 40 years ago.....what we did was not decide, to buy everything on our wish list (which did not include keeping our infrastructure in good repair) and charging our lifestyles to the kids/grandkids/unborn.

That is all crashing now, and our descendants will hate us for our gross immorality.
 
Here is a thought:
It takes about 1 hour to learn the basics of driving, 10 hours to learn enough to get a learners permit, 100 hours to get a license, and 1,000 hours to learn all you will learn about driving. There are some people who do not pay attention and are not a good driver after a 1,000 hours of driving, but if you pay attention, you should have learned all you will learn. To put that into perspective, after 1,500 hours of flying, you get your commercial pilots license.

These numbers are general estimates, but are good enough for what will come next.

There are computer programs with millions of hours of driving experience. Because a piece of software can experience driving many different cars at once, they can gather hundreds of years of driving experience. That is more than any human has ever experienced.

And still they cannot drive well. So what is going wrong? It appears that we not only have the experience that we have personally experienced, but also millions of years of brain wiring through evolution. So back 100,000,000 years ago, when our ancestors were running from dinosaurs, we were gaining experience navigating in this world. This is experience that AI does not have yet.

Ten years ago, I was sure that all new cars today would be self driving. Now I am not even sure we will see perfect self driving cars in my lifetime.
 
Ross Dolan said:
I have a series of questions I’d like to ask, just to see how close to unanimity we can get from the various political, ethical, racial, cultural and gender factions here in the forum.

I recognize that no one may be interested in this as a topic...and also recognize that we may not even come close to unanimity. But for those willing to participate, let’s just see if there is any nearness that can be obtained.

The first question (what I consider an easy one, but let’s see) is:


If there is a job for which an efficient machine, robot or computer can be devised…on average, would the machine, robot, computer be more productive at that job than a human?
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I think the machine, etc. would be more productive.
 
christiefan915 said:
I think the machine, etc. would be more productive.
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This has nothing to do with the topic and totally random but if I may I wanted to ask this question (as football season is about to start).

In your area, what is the general fandom in the Pitt - Penn State rivalry? I would think most locals, outside of Penn St alums, would support Pitt based on proximity. However I might speculate that with Penn St having more success maybe there are locals (who didn’t go to tether school) who cheer for them.

What’s your observation?
 
cawacko said:
This has nothing to do with the topic and totally random but if I may I wanted to ask this question (as football season is about to start).

In your area, what is the general fandom in the Pitt - Penn State rivalry? I would think most locals, outside of Penn St alums, would support Pitt based on proximity. However I might speculate that with Penn St having more success maybe there are locals (who didn’t go to tether school) who cheer for them.

What’s your observation?
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I don't follow college football but from the little I've paid attention to, would say that Penn State has a bigger fandom here.
 
cawacko said:
This has nothing to do with the topic and totally random but if I may I wanted to ask this question (as football season is about to start).

In your area, what is the general fandom in the Pitt - Penn State rivalry? I would think most locals, outside of Penn St alums, would support Pitt based on proximity. However I might speculate that with Penn St having more success maybe there are locals (who didn’t go to tether school) who cheer for them.

What’s your observation?
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What's your viewpoint on this from the opposite side of the country?
 
christiefan915 said:
What's your viewpoint on this from the opposite side of the country?
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If you're not a big college football fan this may not mean much but long story short they've had a lot of conference realignment this past offseason. USC has now joined the Big 10 and will be in the same conference as Penn State (not Pitt).

Part of the enjoyment of college football to me is getting to go to road games and visiting different cities (college towns). I'll probably make the trip to State College within the next handful of years when we play Penn State. I know Pitt had some great history during the 1970's with players like Dan Marino and Tony Dorsett but not so much in more recent times.

So now that we are in the same conference it peaked my interest in how the fandom across the state (or specifically in your area) saw things. I appreciate the feedback.
 
cawacko said:
If you're not a big college football fan this may not mean much but long story short they've had a lot of conference realignment this past offseason. USC has now joined the Big 10 and will be in the same conference as Penn State (not Pitt).

Part of the enjoyment of college football to me is getting to go to road games and visiting different cities (college towns). I'll probably make the trip to State College within the next handful of years when we play Penn State. I know Pitt had some great history during the 1970's with players like Dan Marino and Tony Dorsett but not so much in more recent times.

So now that we are in the same conference it peaked my interest in how the fandom across the state (or specifically in your area) saw things. I appreciate the feedback.
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Here's a college football story you might enjoy.

My mother and father went to California to be with my brother and his wife (who had moved there) and my sister and her husband (who also had moved there.)

When she returned, she brought with her a USC jacket. My sister had just graduated for University...and I was happy to get the jacket.

I became a devoted USC fan...and watched all their games I could get here in the East. I also read about their games that I could not get. This went on for 15 to 20 years.

One day, while talking to my sister, I mentioned the game that had been played the day before against arch rivals UCLA. USC had kicked ass on them...and I was talking about just how great they had played.

In 15 to 20 years I had never discussed college football with my sister before...

...OR THE COLLEGE SHE HAD ATTENDED.

It turns out she had graduated from UCLA.

I almost shit my pants.

Now I stick only to teams from the East...or from the BIG 10...where Rutgers now plays.
 
Ross Dolan said:
Here's a college football story you might enjoy.

My mother and father went to California to be with my brother and his wife (who had moved there) and my sister and her husband (who also had moved there.)

When she returned, she brought with her a USC jacket. My sister had just graduated for University...and I was happy to get the jacket.

I became a devoted USC fan...and watched all their games I could get here in the East. I also read about their games that I could not get. This went on for 15 to 20 years.

One day, while talking to my sister, I mentioned the game that had been played the day before against arch rivals UCLA. USC had kicked ass on them...and I was talking about just how great they had played.

In 15 to 20 years I had never discussed college football with my sister before...

...OR THE COLLEGE SHE HAD ATTENDED.

It turns out she had graduated from UCLA.

I almost shit my pants.

Now I stick only to teams from the East...or from the BIG 10...where Rutgers now plays.
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Oh wow, hahaha! That’s quite the story.

Being from the East Coast I can understand confusing two schools in LA. I suppose my question would be confusing where you sister went? But that’s neither here nor there.

Your story made me laugh out loud. Thanks for sharing.
 
Ross Dolan said:
Here's a college football story you might enjoy.

My mother and father went to California to be with my brother and his wife (who had moved there) and my sister and her husband (who also had moved there.)

When she returned, she brought with her a USC jacket. My sister had just graduated for University...and I was happy to get the jacket.

I became a devoted USC fan...and watched all their games I could get here in the East. I also read about their games that I could not get. This went on for 15 to 20 years.

One day, while talking to my sister, I mentioned the game that had been played the day before against arch rivals UCLA. USC had kicked ass on them...and I was talking about just how great they had played.

In 15 to 20 years I had never discussed college football with my sister before...

...OR THE COLLEGE SHE HAD ATTENDED.

It turns out she had graduated from UCLA.

I almost shit my pants.

Now I stick only to teams from the East...or from the BIG 10...where Rutgers now plays.
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‘Thanks’ to this crazy realignment USC and Rutgers are in the same conference. In fact we play each other Oct 25th in LA.
 
cawacko said:
‘Thanks’ to this crazy realignment USC and Rutgers are in the same conference. In fact we play each other Oct 25th in LA.
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Yup.

Rutgers beat Howard (Alma Mater of Kamala Harris) last night 44- 7. Rutgers running back Kyle Monangai only played in the first half...and got 165 yards.
 
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