George Rebane

Whistling past the jobs graveyard.  Here is an example of highly paid people who don’t know what they are talking about as they attempt to convince us that AI will create more jobs for humans than the number it will destroy.  An inane example assures us that “In retailing, store jobs lost to e-commerce have been replaced by jobs in fulfillment centers."  No they haven’t; the fulfillment center jobs don’t come close to matching the brick-and-mortar jobs lost.  The hoaksters also come up with some new jobs such as “genetic diversity officer”, “virtual store sherpa”, and “personal memory curator”.  Right.  And even if these materialized in sufficient numbers, how long before they too are snuffed by smart machines?  To sum things up, these pinheads reach way down where the sun don’t shine and pull out some brown numbers such as, “… about 19 million positions in the U.S. will be automated out of existence in the next 15 years, while employers create some 21 million new roles.”  You literally can’t make this stuff up.

Now for some real job news that tells you what kind of jobs are really out there now, and that our educational system doesn’t supply enough workers able to do the work.  Take a look at what is happening in New London/Groton area where Electric Boat is building the Navy’s new submarines.  The company says “it can’t locate enough qualified employees as higher military spending boosts orders”.  Putting this into context in proto-socialist Connecticut, we read, “The defense industry is one of the few bright spots in Connecticut’s still-sluggish economy, which hasn’t fully recovered all the jobs it lost during the recession. Connecticut’s unemployment rate is 4.6%, down from a peak of 9.2% in February 2011, though above the national figure of 4.1% last month.”  Whouda thunk that such a progressive state would have such a hard time climbing out of the Great Recession?  (more here)

Finally, in this vein we are heartened to know that AI will now become a bona fide religion in which a super-intelligent godhead is conceived by its worshippers.  This new god will no doubt give comfort to its believers who are jobless in ways we have yet to imagine.  And it’s all happening – wait for it – yes, in the Bay Area (where else?).  Now all of you think that I’m just putting you on to end this series of items with a little humor – au contraire mon ami!  Get a snootful of what a correspondent just sent me – ‘Ex-Google Executive Registers First Church of AI with IRS’.

[18nov17 update]  ‘Political parties serve and important, powerful purpose’ is the title of former supervisor and RR reader Todd Juvinall’s op-ed piece in the 18nov17 Union.  In his commentary Mr Juvinall highlights the powerful argument for why likeminded people join in political parties, and what happens when one party or the other becomes dominant.  In the old days we had parties seeking compromise as each realized that in the future the pendulum would swing the other way.  Today that is a bygone as demonstrated in Sacramento and Washington.  The only remaining alternatives are to steamroll, be steamrolled, or obstruct to achieve legislative stasis.  Juvinall posits the Great Divide question for a number of contentious Right/Left issues.  The commentary’s comment stream should be interesting reading.

‘Top general says he would resist “illegal” nuke order from Trump’ is one of the breathless headlines now making the rounds of the lamestream.  The statement was made at an international security conference by Gen John Hyten, commander of STRATCOM, and in charge of passing the president’s order down to lower commands that would actually launch/deliver the weapons.  There is nothing new in this statement by any US military officer.  What’s news is the news media’s ignorance of how the US military works.  As I’ve explained before in these pages, it is the responsibility of every commissioned officer to determine the legality of the orders he receives from his superiors, and carry them out only when he determines that they are legal.  But more importantly, to refuse their execution if the officer believes the order to be illegal.  Every since the Nurnberg war criminal trials in 1946, the defense of ‘I was just following orders.’ is no longer valid.  In the American military every officer puts his ass on the line when ordered to kill.  It’s his responsibility and duty to determine the legality of all orders before he executes them.  Gen Hyten was just relaying what has been SOP for over 60 years, and the media were exposing their butt stupidity as usual.