straightUp Loc: California

Oh... sorry, I tend to take things literally and you said government jobs.


Like I said, they have better protections. Their employment policies reflect the demands of the people rather than a resistance to regulation. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but that's pretty much the answer to your question. Any organization, corporate or otherwise who's bottom line is driven by the market will be pressured to automate and exploit, ergo its opposition to oversight from the Republic. The government, being driven by the Republic has no such opposition. In other words... what's good for business isn't always good for the Republic.

straightUp Loc: California

Automation has come a long way in the past decade or so... I don't know how long it's been since your automation engineering days, but there's a reason Bill Gates, Elon Musk and many other industrialists, even Hilary Clinton has been sounding off alarms in recent months. There is a convergence of automation, big data and artificial intelligence that is destined to provide investors a way to maximize their returns, even if it means automating an entire company.

I'm not even in the research labs... I'm deploying commercial products and even there I can already see this happening. I'm working with a system now that employs something called machine learning. Once I get a service up and running, these things actually learn. You probably know that most work people do is related to an order or a ticket that can be tracked. All we have to do is connect the machines to the ticket system to get feedback. AI is capable now of combining many sources and finding common patterns, applying rules of logic and making better decisions than a lot of paper pushers out there.

10 years from now Trump would not have a chance on the platform of returning old jobs through business negotiations, because 10 years from now people won't be so unaware of what the real job threat actually is. Make no mistake, we are a fast track to a class system consisting of investors who can generate income by owning machines and workers struggling to survive.

straightUp Loc: California

I can think of other possibilities but I do agree that "paper" pushing will continue to grow as a result of servicing an ever increasing population.

Bad Bob Loc: Virginia

Durp!

son of witless

I have worked in more than one industry where technology at first was my friend and later became my enemy. I was not smart enough to get a guvment job.

Bad Bob Loc: Virginia

What field of work are you doing now Witless?

son of witless

If I revealed that my secret identity might be revealed. Fortunately I am getting close to semi retirement, so it is not as bad as when I had young kids, a mortgage and no prospects. The private sector is brutal in modern America. I am so jealous of guvment workers. I guess that is why I am no longer a Democrat.

ldsuttonjr Loc: ShangriLa

That's the beauty of a government job!......You only have one decision to make in life!....When to retire!

Bad Bob Loc: Virginia

Jealous and paranoid? Have you had trouble keeping a job?

son of witless

Touche. Very very good. To answer your question, no. I have been in some jobs for decades. What happens is that times and industries change. The longer you are in a job the harder it gets to change. You spend years mastering difficult tasks, and when you finally get comfortable, everything you know becomes worthless. I have been through it a couple of times. I am jealous of my father Witless. Through the 50s, 60s, 70s he thought nothing of walking into his boss's office, telling them off, and quitting a good job, because he could always find another one. And that was with a large litter of rugrats to feed. I generally stayed in jobs I hated until I was forced to leave because the underlying business was failing.

straightUp Loc: California

I've never worked for the government either outside of a few short-term military contracts, but even then I was technically private sector. And I see your point about technology turning on you. My original post was getting long so I didn't mention this but I know that eventually self-programming machines will decommission me too if I don't reach retirement first.

straightUp Loc: California

Are you talking about "government" jobs or "desk" jobs? ...'cause, government jobs include firefighters, policemen, soldiers, DEA agents, CIA operatives, commanders and executives... These jobs all seem to require a lot of critical decision making.

So, I'm thinking you're actually talking about desk jobs, like accountants, clerks and processors, all of which exist in abundance in the private sector.

straightUp Loc: California

Yeah, it's best not to reveal too much. It sounds like we might have age and private sector experience in common. I'm a little confused as to why your jealousy of government workers would cause you to side against Democrats. Is it because you think Democrats are responsible for government worker protections that you never got? Are you actually siding with Republicans that typically oppose the regulations that would extend the same protections to the private sector? Honestly, I'm baffled.

ldsuttonjr Loc: ShangriLa

straightUp: I'm talking about the bureaucracy of "dead wood" that is systemic in the Federal Government. Almost 40% of the government work force is minorities who got the jobs through "Affirmative Action," and "Big Push" programs which flooded the system with incompetent people that can't be removed due to the tremendous bureaucracy; especially the Federal Government unions!

son of witless

Unions typically grab too much power. It is a human thing. In a balance between powerful companies and workers, unions have their place. In the private sector if unions get too greedy they can put whole industries out of business, so there is a limit on them. Public sector unions have no limit on their power. They can also give political contributions to politicians who favor them. That would be comparable to a private sector union getting to pick the management of a company they are negotiating a contract with.

I side with Republicans because typically public sector unions side with Democrats. What most people fail to see with public sector unions is that as taxpayers, we are all management. Even such a hardcore leftwinger as FDR was against public sector unions.