When good disappear.. [Archive] - Simple Living Forums

View Full Version : When good disappear..

razz

6-18-17, 6:25pm

I keep reading about the disappearance of well-paying jobs and then the optimistic statement that they will be replaced. Not really seeing that happening but maybe I am just not looking in the right places. Automation and dying industries are changing the job landscape. Coal is another dead industry and the Mid-East countries are looking at alternatives to employ their workers as their oil revenues are in jeopardy over the long-term.

CBC did an analysis of just one industry so thought I would trigger discussion with this question.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/geophysics-jobs-disppearing-1.4162521

"This round of layoffs, this downturn, geophysicists have been more affected than anyone else," said Marian Hanna, a former president of the Canadian Society for Exploration Geophysicists (CSEG).

Even amid thousands of other lost oilpatch jobs, the plight of geophysicists is now an example of how abruptly an entire profession can find itself on the outside looking in.

It might also serve as a warning to other seemingly bulletproof career choices that could be blindsided by the forces of automation and artificial intelligence. A recent study by the Brookfield Institute suggests nearly half of the jobs in Canada, or some 7.7 million positions, could potentially be automated...
For geophysicists, the last few years have been hard and messy with jobs kept and lost, retraining and people leaving the field entirely.

Encouragingly, perhaps, at least for those who take an especially dim view of job prospects in the coming world of automation, as some doors have closed others have opened. Newly minted brain researcher Aitken, for one, never thought her skills would transfer to medicine, right until they did.

"I thought I'd be a geophysicist all my life, but if I was a student now, I'd go into biomedical engineering," she said. "That's the place to be

sweetana3

6-18-17, 6:44pm

My friend is a mechanical and structural engineer and his whole career has been boom and bust and boom again.

LDAHL

6-19-17, 8:31am

creaker

6-19-17, 8:38am

So what is our future then?

A Player Piano society, with most of humanity pensioned off and the real work performed by a machine-operating elite?

A vibrant economy staffed by jobs we have yet to invent?

A revolution of Luddite levelers?

A technology of repression sufficiently advanced to force the Marxist-Leninist dream on us all?

Muddling through, pretty much as we always have?

I think whatever happens, it will need to be different. We currently have a system of consumers who are funded by wages. Eventually that system will no longer be sustainable.

There are many examples in the world currently where a large portion of the consumers can't earn wages. I would expect it will look something like that.

LDAHL

6-19-17, 8:54am

I think whatever happens, it will need to be different. We currently have a system of consumers who are funded by wages. Eventually that system will no longer be sustainable.

There are many examples in the world currently where a large portion of the consumers can't earn wages. I would expect it will look something like that.

I think it's safe to say the future will be different. It always is. But how?

Can we "slip the surly bonds of Earth" and keep things going as long as the Universe lasts? Or must we submit to a regime of resource and reproductive rationing by some central authority?

Rogar

6-19-17, 9:18am

A handful of my college friends became geologists. They might take the prize for boom and bust cycles. The ups and downs of oil prices and explorations has come and gone at least twice. A couple went into metals mining and exploration which has followed commodity prices. I think the ones that have stuck it out have found refuge in Superfund site remediation and environmental permitting. That might even be on the bubble now.

I don't know what the future of high paying jobs might be, but predict a larger percent of employment will be in cubicles looking at computer screens.

Tammy

6-19-17, 10:28am

catherine

6-19-17, 10:35am

The people professions. Hard work, decent pay, but lots of stress and overwork.

Maybe people will shift to jobs in that direction and give all you HCPs a needed break.

Chicken lady

6-19-17, 10:35am

My Dd's buisiness card identifies her as a construction engineer. She has an architecture degree. Basically she is the materials/design oversight on site on construction projects. Her dh is a teacher. Last night she was lamenting that she didn't follow her early leanings into biomedical engineering - but it just seemed like too much school. They want kids in a few years and she said she just hopes she can keep doing something that people will pay her well for so that he can stay home.

my son sits in a cubical and looks at a computer screen. He makes quite a bit more money than she does and is socking it away. He considers his "prime earning years" to be between college and 25. He says if he's still there at 27 he will either be management or ballast.

catherine

6-19-17, 10:44am

So what is our future then?

A Player Piano society, with most of humanity pensioned off and the real work performed by a machine-operating elite?

A vibrant economy staffed by jobs we have yet to invent?

A revolution of Luddite levelers?

A technology of repression sufficiently advanced to force the Marxist-Leninist dream on us all?

Muddling through, pretty much as we always have?

I think things will even out, if people can stop clinging to the past and have some vision. People have to adapt to the times. Clean energy technologies are exploding. As Tammy said, there are HUGE needs for people to fill jobs in healthcare. I think it's a good thing that basic functions can be automated, leaving us free to creatively use our brains and hearts.

creaker

6-19-17, 11:11am

Healthcare will always be there - as long as there are people. We have been actively hiring the whole seven years I've been with my company.

Same for education and social work and law enforcement.

The people professions. Hard work, decent pay, but lots of stress and overwork.

Healthcare will always be there - as long as there is money. I expect the hiring trend there will die not long after the AHCA is passed.

LDAHL

6-19-17, 12:23pm

Healthcare will always be there - as long as there is money. I expect the hiring trend there will die not long after the AHCA is passed.

Or the introduction of robot doctors.

razz

6-19-17, 4:36pm

Or the introduction of robot doctors.

Maybe not robot doctors but self-monitoring systems that one plugs into with one RN/MD or paramedics monitoring a whole series of self-care programs. As people learn more, they take greater responsibility for their healthcare except in acute situations.

catherine

6-19-17, 5:11pm

Maybe not robot doctors but self-monitoring systems that one plugs into with one RN/MD or paramedics monitoring a whole series of self-care programs. As people learn more, they take greater responsibility for their healthcare except in acute situations.

I've seen talks at conferences by Eric Topol, an expert and author on the subject of technology in medicine. Fascinating stuff. Here's a TED talk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_topol_the_wireless_future_of_medicine

razz

6-25-17, 4:49pm

I've seen talks at conferences by Eric Topol, an expert and author on the subject of technology in medicine. Fascinating stuff. Here's a TED talk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_topol_the_wireless_future_of_medicine

Finally got a chance to walk this talk. While really interesting, I am curious how much further along technology has come in the seven years since his presentation here.
As some of the comments posted, will more info change results unless the patients change their behavioural choices? Any recent presentations as part of your work exposure that has addressed this question, Catherine?