Utopian tech?

[jody boy]

My son's an EE. He is seriously considering getting his electrician's license


 On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 10:20 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a bit of literature about how the robots vs computers thing
> can also be seen as manual vs mental labour being automated. That also
> might key into who gets most alarmed - blue collar Luddites were
> scoffed at by the leisured class who couldn't imagine wanting to do
> those jobs anyway, but when even journalism is being done by
> smartypants computers, you get media organisations going into a spin
> about the death of civilisation.
>
> On Sun, Apr 16, 2017 at 1:31 AM, Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is there a distinction between robots and computers in this discussion? For
>> example, the printing industry has been largely marginalized by computers.
>> Even though large-scale printing of newspapers, magazines, and books ( Mark,
>> can you weigh in on this?) may still be performed in robotized printing
>> plants, the products themselves are being replaced by online versions. And
>> the evil twin of computerization is globalization. Robots replacing humans
>> has a quaint, Wellsian sound, in the face of such a vast cultural shift.
>>
>> At the other extreme, it's hard to imagine the construction industry being
>> robotized or computerized. Total Recall (1990) has a joke about this, and it
>> still holds. Sure, you can prefab modules in a robotized factory, then stack
>> and connect them on site. But the economics of transporting all of that
>> weight can't compete with mixing and pouring concrete on site. Because if
>> you want to build high ( as they apparently do), you need concrete. Plumbing
>> and electrical, I'll concede could be usurped by new technologies that
>> render the skilled trades obsolete. But laborers can stare any robot down.
>>
>> Laura
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