OT - the future of work?

[SND]

And here we are 40-50 years later, with the best of technology, and we can't do anything on schedule or under budget anymore and most certainly not without a ton of problems. A bridge they would design on paper in the 60's that lasted 60+ years and cost $50Mil to build, now costs $6 Billions to replace and won't last much longer and kinda looks like sh*t.

Pretty sure a lot of the guys who had to draw stuff once...thought about it a hell of a lot harder back then before putting it on paper. Something's been lost, actually, a lot of things have been lost.

 

[DDoug]

And here we are 40-50 years later, with the best of technology, and we can't do anything on schedule or under budget anymore and most certainly not without a ton of problems. A bridge they would design on paper in the 60's that lasted 60+ years and cost $50Mil to build, now costs $6 Billions to replace and won't last much longer and kinda looks like sh*t.

Pretty sure a lot of the guys who had to draw stuff once...thought about it a hell of a lot harder back then before putting it on paper. Something's been lost, actually, a lot of things have been lost.

Yup, what has been lost foremost, is personal responsibility.

 

[Mike1974]

And here we are 40-50 years later, with the best of technology, and we can't do anything on schedule or under budget anymore and most certainly not without a ton of problems. A bridge they would design on paper in the 60's that lasted 60+ years and cost $50Mil to build, now costs $6 Billions to replace and won't last much longer and kinda looks like sh*t.

Pretty sure a lot of the guys who had to draw stuff once...thought about it a hell of a lot harder back then before putting it on paper. Something's been lost, actually, a lot of things have been lost.

What's been lost is common sense.

Paper drawings, and actual 'blue' prints are a wee bit before my time (yes I have seen them), but now with alot of cad systems having FEA analysis built in, any schumck can go "look what I can do!" (SNL.. LMAO), and unfortunately, equal schumks in charge (albeit waaaayyyy overpaid mostly) eat it up like candy, hence 10 billion $ *things* crashing and burning...

 

[bryan_machine]

OK there's more afoot here. Some of it is absolutely the "CAD/FEA/etc model said that, must be true". Same sort of nonsense as some of the highly touted covid "prediction models" which on close examination after they finally revealed their code after great pressure, turn out to be heaps of random guesses. On this kind of pile of cards of assumptions and lies where the key health plans of major nation-states made. Same story over and over.

BUT there is more at work....

As time as gone by, density of competitive space has gone up, and a richer public demands more function from things like bridges. By density of competitive space I mean things like it's not greenfield location any more, you have to buy land at great cost, remove the existing structure at great cost. Higher demands are things like your new bridge has to be earthquake and hurricane proof, has to not kill all the fish or the whales, has to support mass-transit, and pedestrians, and cyclists. And have some breakdown space so a simple blown fanbelt doesn't cause a miles long backup.

In short, nobody will accept the same bridge as before, a bridge with much higher function is demanded.

It is (for good reason) outright illegal to mass produce and sell a car with 1960's safety levels....

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE:

For political, commercial, and various social reasons, most schedules are "this is the first date you cannot prove it won't be done" and many budgets are in reality "nobody will believe us if we say it will cost less than this."

Projects are "sold" to the public, to senior management, to investors, with these "nobody can prove it will take longer or cost more than this" numbers.

 

[PeteM]

Just tying some of the above comments together:

1) Increasing automation is likely - and likely cheaper in a lot of manufacturing cases to hire machines rather than people to do jobs.

2) As John K. says powerful unions are bitterly opposed. But I'm not sure there are any powerful unions left? Even the UAW doesn't have the power it had decades ago.

3) Rich world consumers (bryan-machine's post above) want more and more function from products - thus increasing costs, energy inputs, resources etc. required. Poor world countries want to catch up.

4) Seems to me the old economic notion that we'd always figure out ways to have infinite compound growth (say, 3% a year forever) are beginning to butt into physical limits. I'm part way through a book ("Collision Course") which, so far, details what-most-economists-and-politicians- think (we measure progress by physical growth and there are no limits) vs. what most-physicists-etc.-think (there are only so many resources up for grabs on a finite planet) about continuing the pace of growth of the past 200 years for the next xxx? years.

Periodic boom and bust - latest with the pandemic - shows the economy and health systems aren't as robust as we might have thought. Debt burden is increasing - some now think it's no big deal.

We won't likely be burning fossil fuels for energy at the current rate for the next 100 years. Solar is theoretically in plentiful supply for the next zillion years, but solar panels and base load systems maybe not so much.

Depending on where you are, we're seeing dramatic price rises in everything from the price of lumber (recently), the availability of good sand for concrete, clean water for some cities, rare earth minerals for advanced electro-mechanical stuff, good top soil for agriculture, phosphorus for fertilizers, places to store our trash, depleted fisheries, etc.

As just an aside, with the jokes about "made from billet," apparently each of our 330 million in the US uses an average of half a metric ton of aluminum. That's been getting more expensive as well.

Where all that leaves the future of work for the next couple generations . . . ?

Seems to me that we want to keep creating jobs for people and "growing" our economies - but maybe not in ways that depend on ever-greater energy and resource inputs designed, engineered, and built into throw-away products?

 

[Guest]

When cncs came out I had machinists that refused to work with such.
I put out that we will provide the teaching of this strange Gcode thing and you get paid to learn it.
Still holdouts. "I am a machinist and don't need this new computer shit".
Bob

The second shop I worked in had a pair of Citizen D-10's. The place was a connector OEM. The CNCs in their infancy were a lot slower than the similar styled cam automatics on cycle time, but had the advantage of set-up times as low as an hour or slightly less compared to 4-8 hours on the cam autos we had.

 

[mhajicek]

(there are only so many resources up for grabs on a finite planet)

True, but our environment is not a finite planet. When Europe was bulging at the seams, some set out on months long risky voyages. Some died, some returned with newfound wealth, others stayed in the New World. We are on the cusp of that happening again.

Hubble Examines Massive Metal Asteroid Called ‘Psyche’ That’s Worth Way More Than Our Global Economy

There are asteroids with billions of tons of valuable materials, and no significant gravity well to haul them out of; imagine being able to mine Platinum and "rare Earth" materials by the megaton. It would be like when the Spanish returned with cargo ships full of Gold, but with no indigenous people to massacre.

The SpaceX Starship will soon be able to make 100 ton cargo trips for a few million dollars each.

 

[PeteM]

True, but our environment is not a finite planet. . . .

That's the hope. Twenty years ago, I was all in on never-ending progress.

There was a movie a few years back (Interstellar) about civilization poised between collapse and recovery. We were down to our last spaceship. Being a movie, my recollection is that it all worked out.

Looking around today, seems more of a 50-50 thing to me if we're headed toward new heights (those stars) or more of a partial re-boot? We're still pretty rich, but with growing financial, social, resource, and environmental "debts." Be interesting if someone did an "energy balance" on something like mining the moon, Mars, or asteroids. Probably an ROI for some rare earth metals. Not likely anything else?

Would agree it's mostly good we have guys like Musk around (I know some will disagree). Opens up the options.

 

[Trueturning]

OK there's more afoot here. Some of it is absolutely the "CAD/FEA/etc model said that, must be true". Same sort of nonsense as some of the highly touted covid "prediction models" which on close examination after they finally revealed their code after great pressure, turn out to be heaps of random guesses. On this kind of pile of cards of assumptions and lies where the key health plans of major nation-states made. Same story over and over.

BUT there is more at work....

As time as gone by, density of competitive space has gone up, and a richer public demands more function from things like bridges. By density of competitive space I mean things like it's not greenfield location any more, you have to buy land at great cost, remove the existing structure at great cost. Higher demands are things like your new bridge has to be earthquake and hurricane proof, has to not kill all the fish or the whales, has to support mass-transit, and pedestrians, and cyclists. And have some breakdown space so a simple blown fanbelt doesn't cause a miles long backup.

In short, nobody will accept the same bridge as before, a bridge with much higher function is demanded.

It is (for good reason) outright illegal to mass produce and sell a car with 1960's safety levels....

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE:

For political, commercial, and various social reasons, most schedules are "this is the first date you cannot prove it won't be done" and many budgets are in reality "nobody will believe us if we say it will cost less than this."

Projects are "sold" to the public, to senior management, to investors, with these "nobody can prove it will take longer or cost more than this" numbers.

Does this tie into what you are discussing here also?

Intraspecific competition - Wikipedia

And also this? On Competitive density?
JSTOR: Access Check

 

[EmanuelGoldstein]

True, but our environment is not a finite planet. When Europe was bulging at the seams, some set out on months long risky voyages. Some died, some returned with newfound wealth, others stayed in the New World. We are on the cusp of that happening again.

You've gotta be kidding. What you are proposing is, "Fuck up this planet so bad it can't support us, so let's move on to somewhere else and destroy that, too !"

If there is a god, She's not going to allow that.

Better remember Gort, klaatu barada niktor ! cuz you're gonna need it.

 

[gustafson]

And here we are 40-50 years later, with the best of technology, and we can't do anything on schedule or under budget anymore and most certainly not without a ton of problems. A bridge they would design on paper in the 60's that lasted 60+ years and cost $50Mil to build, now costs $6 Billions to replace and won't last much longer and kinda looks like sh*t.

Pretty sure a lot of the guys who had to draw stuff once...thought about it a hell of a lot harder back then before putting it on paper. Something's been lost, actually, a lot of things have been lost.

60 years was a pretty badly designed bridge, so it was probably underdesigned and underbuilt. Bridges like houses should have an unlimited life with proper maintenance. Many houses built in the 60's are junk. Roofs came down under heavy snow load a few years ago from underdesigned trusses. SO it is not like the 60s were the pinnacle of engineering.
You could buy a new car 60 years ago for under 3 grand, the average now is 35 grand, and while one may like a 1960 car, to say it was just as good or would last just as long as a 2020 car is silly

 

[Shawnrs]

And here we are 40-50 years later, with the best of technology, and we can't do anything on schedule or under budget anymore and most certainly not without a ton of problems. A bridge they would design on paper in the 60's that lasted 60+ years and cost $50Mil to build, now costs $6 Billions to replace and won't last much longer and kinda looks like sh*t.

Pretty sure a lot of the guys who had to draw stuff once...thought about it a hell of a lot harder back then before putting it on paper. Something's been lost, actually, a lot of things have been lost.

I would think we have a lot more factors today building bridges than we did 60 years ago. I also think you can do more testing with cad models and scale models of a bridge than was performed 60 years ago. I didn't live in the 60s but in Illinois we use a ton of salt on our roads which I think shortens the life of our bridges.

 

[gustafson]

I would think we have a lot more factors today building bridges than we did 60 years ago. I also think you can do more testing with cad models and scale models of a bridge than was performed 60 years ago. I didn't live in the 60s but in Illinois we use a ton of salt on our roads which I think shortens the life of our bridges.

I think a lot of the bridges built during the interstate highway 'bubble' were ill thought out. While some were not structurally sound, most just didn't drain well or something so the concrete spalled and failed, and the steel reinforcement rotted.

My parking lot is full of pickup trucks for a nearby bridge project, and one guy that walks by and chats occasionally is, I think, an inspector. While I think many if not most hate the inefficiency of all this inspections and standards, when you are building something you hope has an indefinite service life, I think it pays to do the work up front. 125 years ago they built a granite abutment, drove a bunch of piles and put a bridge up. This year they have been boring deep holes and pouring giant footings and all sorts of stuff.

So, yeah, I think it will cost a lot more than the old one, and I guess I will not live to see if it outlives the last one....

 

[mhajicek]

You've gotta be kidding. What you are proposing is, "Fuck up this planet so bad it can't support us, so let's move on to somewhere else and destroy that, too !"

Not at all; rather the opposite. If we can economically mine for Lithium, Nickel, Iron, rare Earth materials, etc. offworld, we can stop fucking up our backyard and destroying ecosystems to get the materials we need to continue growing the economy.

 

[Gewehr 98]

60 years was a pretty badly designed bridge, so it was probably underdesigned and underbuilt. Bridges like houses should have an unlimited life with proper maintenance. Many houses built in the 60's are junk. Roofs came down under heavy snow load a few years ago from underdesigned trusses. SO it is not like the 60s were the pinnacle of engineering.
You could buy a new car 60 years ago for under 3 grand, the average now is 35 grand, and while one may like a 1960 car, to say it was just as good or would last just as long as a 2020 car is silly

I drive weekly on the Roebling bridge between Cincinnati and Covington. It was opened in 1866. I'm sure it's been resurfaced, but all the main building blocks are still in place.

 

[john.k]

Nothing is built to last 60 years anymore.....its always assumed a new,bigger ,better one will be needed long before that......As to the future of work,I think a better title would be the future for those with no work,who will become a significant political force in the near future.

 

[CarbideBob]

What ever happened to the idea of a 4 day, 32 hour work week?
As we became more efficient the idea was that there would more free time to enjoy life.
We started with 7 10 or 12s, Then 6 days (some said working on Sunday not allowed). Then 5 8s and overtime past 40.
Now the gig economy which for some is back to 7 10s and 12s. For many others 50 hour weeks are the break even point.
Progress?
Anyone work what is called the alternate work schedule in a union shop?
Bob

 

[john.k]

My take is that inflation ,wages growth,employment conditions,inflation ,all going down ,or stalled for one reason...China......if I take industrial action ,then the production facility is moved offshore.....no workforce has any ability to engage with an employer who can respond by moving production to a third world country......... Monty Burns....."Your jobs are perfectly safe...(all cheer)....however, you wont be doing them anymore."

 

[john.k]

The gig economy is a transient phase ,a construct of giant corporations set up for one purpose ,to make money by the maximum exploitation of workers.....clever constructs that are lawful,and demonstrably so in court for the time being,but quite obviously socially destructive.In this country ,the gig economy is being dismantled brick by brick by court decisions and legislation ,and these mostly yankee pirates forced to pay their fair share of taxes and social obligations.

 

[NC Rick]

Um, computers did suck my brains out. There is no doubt.
;-)