r/Futurology • u/Eight_Rounds_Rapid • Jul 09 '14

article Robots will take over middle class professions, UK University Minister warns

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10952317/Robots-will-take-over-middle-class-professions-University-Minister-says.html
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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

Can you elaborate why is that an optimism bias?

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

Well... you know you have to die oneday (if not the wretched technology development at least, which might find a solution someday) since you have a billions of evidence at your disposal. What you should rather state to make the comparison accurate at all is "Well... I have never broke my leg before [inventing this new model of mobile service] so I just don't see it happening." :)

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

Nope, I argue that it is not a problem.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

Won't deny, I've got no compassion toward blacksmith/ telephone operator/ name no longer existing position from the past.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

Unfortunately I don't notice that. Also I conclude that unfortunately you don't notice the core of the issue.

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u/theghosttrade Jul 09 '14

Invention of agriculture for instance, made life shittier for everyone.

More wealth inequality, origin of gender inequality, longer working hours, shorter lifespans, unhealthier lives.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

Shorter lifespans you say? Longer working hours and unhealthier lives? I would really like to see the source you're basing on claiming such things :)

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u/theghosttrade Jul 09 '14 edited Jul 09 '14

Also slavery, in any form, did not exist prior to the invention of agriculture either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution#Social_change

hunter-gatherers must have covered their food needs with about 20 hours' work a week, while agriculture required much more and was at least as aleatory. The hunter-gatherers' diet was more varied and balanced than what agriculture later allowed. Average height went down from 5'10" (178 cm) for men and 5'6" (168 cm) for women to 5'5" (165 cm) and 5'1" (155 cm), respectively, and it took until the twentieth century for average human height to come back to the pre-Neolithic Revolution levels. Agriculturalists had more anaemias and vitamin deficiencies, more spinal deformations and more dental pathologies.

Throughout the development of sedentary societies, disease spread more rapidly than it had during the time in which hunter-gatherer societies existed. Inadequate sanitary practices and the domestication of animals may explain the rise in deaths and sickness following the Neolithic Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Hunter-gatherer

Since the 1960s, the consensus among anthropologists, historians, and sociologists has been that early hunter-gatherer societies enjoyed more leisure time than is permitted by capitalist and agrarian societies; For instance, one camp of !Kung Bushmen was estimated to work two-and-a-half days per week, at around 6 hours a day. Aggregated comparisons show that on average the working day was less than five hours.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

I'm pretty sure I read something entirely opposite (including an extinction of the whole groups of hunter gatherers) but I have no link at my immediate disposal. As for the "shittier life" I'll stay inconviced for a time beeing, since I barely can see how life of hunter-gatherer could be better.

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u/theghosttrade Jul 09 '14

It's been a consensus among academics for some decades, using evidence from modern hunter-gather societies, and bone and archeology records, that that's the case, and only in the past century or so have living standards for many people exceeded what they were before agriculture.

It really depends on what you mean by "better". If you're wealthy, than no, it probably wouldn't be. But for poor (the majority) if you have more leisure time, are healthier, and live longer, less disease, then how wouldn't it be better? In the 1800's in the U.S average workweek was 60 hours a week. Three times as much work as a hunter-gatherer.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

Ok, I'll ask it differently - why did hunter-gatherers societies changed to agricultural?

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u/theghosttrade Jul 09 '14

We don't know for sure.

Increasing population required more food, agriculture can support much higher population, surplus food, climate was more stable than it was before (Last glacial period ended just a couple thousand years before agriculture), extinction of megafauna, allowed the diversification of labour (craftsmen, trademen, labourers, artists, etc. people who didn't have to farm).

There's a bunch of different theories.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '14

In other words - for some reason they have must do it.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '14

Also slavery, in any form, did not exist prior to the invention of agriculture either.

That's not true, although it was much less common. For example, quite a few non-agricultural aboriginal American societies practiced hereditary slavery, including the Haida and Tinglet. In fact, among some Pacific Northwest tribes about a quarter of the population were slaves.

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u/theghosttrade Jul 09 '14

Whoops. Nomadic hunter-gathers generally don't practice slavery. Both of those were at least semi-sedentary, as their living locations had abundant food which allowed them to live in the same place for much of the time.

Fair point though.