There will be not enough jobs... oh look at this new type of job.

in #philosophy7 years ago

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There have been many times in history where people have spoken about the doom of some new technology ending the availability of jobs. So far in all of these cases the old jobs it is true ceased to be, but were quickly replaced by a new set of jobs. In many cases they actually ended up creating more jobs. Now as people keep repeating this mantra that there will be not enough jobs due to some technology it may at some point become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The purpose of this post is not to tell you that there will always be enough jobs. It is to give you some examples of new job opportunities that are already beginning to emerge that some people are gradually taking advantage of. I will also towards the end make my own personal predictions about where I see most jobs trending towards.

Today I can talk about a few places I see as new job opportunities. Some people are already taking advantage of them and any of these areas can become saturated, so they will not necessarily be a job for everyone, but they are examples of job opportunities I am aware of that I believe will be lucrative and a big deal for some people in the future. These are jobs that did not exist like they do now, and those few that may have done them were a very rare breed. Opportunity and advancement has opened the door in these areas.

Video Game Development
The "democratization" of game development as Unity founder likes to say has put the tools to make a good game into the hands of anyone who wants to try for the incredible low price of FREE. Due to this the competition has followed suit and there are several other great engines that have done the same. This means anyone can try making games, or using these game development tools to make other things that are not necessarily games. Yet, it becomes apparent that opportunity does not mean skill. Some people will have natural abilities and take to it like a fish to water. Others will only be able to do this with a lot of trial and error. It is much like giving people a pencil and paper. They may decide they want to be a writer. That does not mean they will be a good writer. It takes practice and experience. The video game industry is dealing with this at the moment. We have tons (far more than ever before) of games flooding the market. Many of them are very poor in quality, design, etc. This can make it difficult to find the gems. There are also those occasional amazing games that people find in the midst of these piles that likely would not have existed without this opportunity of starting at FREE. It should be noted none of these things stay free forever. Unity is free until you make over $100,000 gross in a year, then you must buy a commercial license which is several thousand dollars. If you are making $100K from the game you likely won't have a problem paying for the license. Unreal works off of a royalty model. It is actually not FREE. They take a royalty % (I believe 5%) of your gross game sales. Yet this can be a new form of a job. I see it as being similar to writers, video producers, etc. We will have a lot of this and we'll have to relearn the old phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" for these types of content as well. As consumers we'll have to research our games a little more closely, or be okay with the fact we will sometimes end up with a dud, a stinker, crap.

3D Modeling
This ties into video game development above, but it also ties into video making, static art, architectural design, and many other areas. There are great programs like Blender that are free and very powerful that people can use to begin learning modeling. If they get skilled enough they can sell their models on places like Turbosquid, and on the asset stores for the game engines. This can become a very real job that pays you well if you put forth the effort and learn the skills. Making assets that game developers can buy for inexpensive amounts to put into their games can make you good money. I say inexpensive, because I believe that is the key to actually surviving at this. On the Unity Asset store for example if I see a good enough sale or a low enough priced asset I might feel the urge to buy it on impulse just because the price is good and I might some day use it. Whereas if the price is high I'll only buy it if I absolutely need it then. Let me give you an example. I think this example is likely pretty accurate. If I make a model that is an animated worg wolf with 10 or so animations. It can be high quality so I can list it as $100, or I can list it at $10. For the $100 I make say 3 sales from people that really need my model giving me $300. It will actually be a little less than that after the store takes their share. On the otherside it is such good quality that at $10 about 100 people see it and buy it because it is such a good deal and they might want to use it some day. That is $1000. There is an added benefit of the low price. They become a trickling economy. You'll keep making more impulse sales every month. Now if you keep doing this. The amount of money coming in every month while not a fixed amount will increase. You could easily survive or do quite well on this if you have the skill and work at treating it like a job. Now this is where I interact with a lot. I know places like Turboquid are frequented by people making movies a lot and the prices are typically a lot higher. Learn your market. Offer a better deal for the same or better quality than your competition. Look for areas where there are models that people might want, but no one has made them or their quality is less than what you can do.

Youtube and Video Channel providers
I don't need to talk about this much as all of you know this. Yet this is a fairly recent phenomena in the scope of time. It is a very good paying job for quite a few people.

Blogger like here on steemit
It also would take effort to survive on it, but it is doable. I suspect these opportunities only will continue to become available.

Prediction part of the post


I notice a distinct trend in most of the new jobs. They are steering towards entertainment, and information. They are requiring less and less manual labor. I do think there will always be manual labor jobs. I believe they will become increasingly specialized and require more skilled individuals, but they will always exist. I see most of the future jobs coming more in the intellectual and creative spaces. I see people doing the things we cannot really make a machine do well for us. Yes, we can make them write. We can make them do quite a lot of things or pretend to. They don't quite give us what we are looking for. Therefore, these are the jobs I see people filling. All the technology being produced should be viewed as tools. They extend the possibility of the things we can attempt to do into new areas. If you have tools and programs that do a lot of the heavy lifting for you that frees you up to aim for some big dreams that in the past would have taken big teams of people to do. I do believe there will be jobs. I think they will be less and less the type where someone puts out an advertisement wanting to hire people. I see many of the future jobs being those that people seize opportunities and create for themselves. They explore the information and they find a niche they are interested in and they kind of mentally homestead.

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Look the NYC in the early 1900s before the automobile was gettting popular.

NYC was facing a major health crisis with a growing city and all the horse shit on the roads.

Everyone was worried about all these people in the horse industry would lose their jobs.

After a while people realized the automobile was far superior to horses and they didn't leave shit all over the streets. Killed two birds with one stone there.

The automobile created a whole new industry that provided better service and cheaper goods to the consumers. The same thing is happening in banking, education and entertainment industries right now. These old systems are being replaced with new technology that provides consumers better service and cheaper products. It's a win-win for everyone only it will take years before everyone can agree upon it.

I agree though I am starting to think it will become more about creating a job opportunity for yourself, rather than just answering help wanted ads.

I do think help wanted ads will still exist, but I don't think that is where most of the job opportunities will actually be.

You might be right on that. Look at the popularity of homesteading and off grid homes. Maybe one day we'll see technology advance so much that even cities will become obsolete.

There's never been a better time to be an artist or musician...or to grow weed.

Artist or musician if you like to be artistically broke or a weed grower if you want cash or just a green thumb.

"I see many of the future jobs being those that people seize opportunities and create for themselves."

I think that nails it, right there. I believe most jobs as we know them now will disappear over the next 50 years. Instead of "jobs" we will have "opportunities" that we take up and engage in for some time till the next thing comes along. I think "microeconomies" will arise... people will take opportunities that can be filled doing things that are "too small" or "too narrow" to warrant there being an actual company created to offer the product/service.

As technology takes over, I also see a potential renaissance in "hand made," where a high level of some skill will be valued highly.

Thank you for the good post @dwinblood! I'm not really worried about the future of jobs as such. A lot of top level guys (like Elon Musk) say that universal basic income together with not everyone working will be the future. I could go for fulltime blogging haha :)

EDIT:
You might like the article about it:
https://www.businessinsider.nl/elon-musk-universal-basic-income-2017-2/?international=true&r=US

Yeah, I've been chatting with a few people in comments on steemit about UBI. I actually have some concerns about it.

I don't dislike the idea. I look at it more as long term from a historical concept and I have a concern what will happen with UBI.

Anytime a State/Government guarantees something people take advantage of that guarantee. I am not referring to people sitting on their ass collecting their UBI. I am referring to something else.

When the government guarantees something the political vultures, and people focused on a new buck anyway they can get it seize those opportunities. I foresee over time we would have new fees, memberships, and taxes.

So if they gave out X UBI then soon X would be the new 0. It'd be like saying here is $30K per year UBI and then eventually there being $30K worth of new taxes, fees, etc. It is as though the UBI is not there.

The likely result is the same thing that happens with the debt ceiling, and that happens with minimum wage. So people would soon be getting 2X UBI.

The same vulture type people would continue.

This has happened in education with the guaranteed student loan, and it has happened in the medical areas, especially in terms of prescription drugs.

I don't see this process not happening just because UBI sounds good. It has happened every other time the government promises things.

Sure the minimum wage increase feels GREAT for a brief period of time. Soon it is back where it was, but there are even more lower class people than before.

Because an idea sounds good does not mean it is. If it is not exploited then yes, it could be good. Yet the odds of it not being exploited based upon historical context are very slim.

Also see my post from a couple days ago about the government not being able to give you free S@#T. :)

Great point - that is the same caution I often throw up to people that make the UBI out to be the one-stop solution to automation. It is something that sounds like a perfect solution when one divorces oneself from history or basic population behavior. It is something that will instantly be exploited by demagogues to divide classes against each other again. While the possibilities of future technology are great, it is a bit frightening to think about the level of social conflict that will exist if most of the population is unemployed or sporadically employed, and their discouragement is inflamed by opportunists looking for power. From a stability standpoint, there is probably more to be gained from encouraging or incentivizing companies to job share and limit individual working hours so that one FTE now is shared among multiple individuals. That, in itself, won't solve the problem; however, it will provide a benefit from automation to the population; rather than foster anxiety.

Great response. I was reading this and something you said about the class divides and social conflict which I hadn't even considered inspired me to write another post. I am off to do that now.

Wow thank you for this insight. I didn't get any further than the "so who's gonna pay for it then?" question. Will read up on your other article as well

Mhhh, I knew I would end up not essentially disagreeing with you. You must admit though : this is a very positive article. You of all people should know there are problems in the very approach we have to go to work. "Do our Jobs". Sure there are Jobs that are not pretty, like taking care of garbage or working in the Sewer or many jobs that suffered due to "estrangement"(Entfremdung der Arbeit, Marx ^^*). But that only means we have to pay more to the people who Iiterally take care of our shit.

I would love if everybody could see technology in a positive light. and its potential...It even gets rid of many of the estrangment mentioned above, but people are actually afraid of losing their already not so fun jobs,...feelsbad

I think it is time we change the way we get work done in our society, but I dont have a clear vision for it yet. I will definitely revisit this topic ;)

But hat only means we have to pay more to the people who Iiterally take care of our shit.

I agree. The market should actually do that. It works once the wage reaches a point people are willing to do the job they usually do.

I think our future jobs will increasingly become more and more about providing entertainment, information, and art to our fellow humans. It will be about creativity, learning and expanding our minds, etc.

Yet that is just my prediction. I could easily be wrong.

I think that being in a job is also much too stressful in many cases. It is the main reason we see so many corrupt and shady people in the business world. You always have to do better or you get replaced.

Of course there are many jobs that are much more relaxed, but even in a normal office you often get this "against each other mentality". Competition is good and should be rewarded if won, but it can also lead to a lot of bottled up anger. The pressure of all the unemployed people, that would kill for your job, is also often used unfairly between employed and employee.

So much of that is how we are mentally conditioned.

It is like the people who look to see what posts are making the most here on steemit, and say "Why is that making so much, it sucks compared to my article?"

Worrying about things like that sucks a lot of the fun out of doing anything.

You have to mentally choose to be you. Let what comes of it come of it, and simply roll with it.

So much of that is how we are mentally conditioned.

I agree. I want to get rid of one of the systems that endorses those mental conditions ;)

The school system does a great deal of reinforcement of those things. So changing the education system so it is not focused on making us view the world as a sporting event is a good first step.

yup, but the school system alone wont help. You see many people go into STEM because of the earnings in a later job, even tho there are a bunch of alternatives.

But yeah education is a big topic, thats why i said "one of the systems" ;)

Which is why I say...

a good first step.

There's a new direction closing in and this will pave the way for basic living income for the populations that are broke. Then set up the SDR's (special drawing rights that the IMF and BIS will implement to governments when their broke with no tricks left in the bag.

It is going o mean, to get a job, get off your bum and find one, don't sit around with your hand out, find something you can do better than anybody else and do it.
In NZ, sixty years ago there were more jobs than people to fill them, now there are a lot of unemployable and a few looking for jobs. Ithink in the future it will become a case of making a job for yourself, not waiting for one to show up.

Yep. I agree with you. We have a lot of unemployable and people sitting on their ass in the U.S. as well. This is not all of them, but we have them.

We also have some seriously bad workers. They are trying to learn a job as they are working some entry level fast food job and their work ethic is truly atrocious.

I told my kids. Show up, don't complain when asked to do something not very fun to do, work hard, and you'll already be way ahead of most of the people you are working with. This has proven true for them.

The old apprentice start. Here is a broom, come back in 6 months when you can sweep properly, and learn by watching the tradesmen.
A lot of todays kids expect to be vice president on day two.

Society is always changing and with it comes new opportunities. You need to be willing to see it. Great post.

Agreed. Society evolves, so do the jobs. In 20 years, i can imagine things being much different

Jobs relating to and supporting vr/ar and autonomous tech will also emerge. The biggest issue with things like that are that standards aren't yet widely established; making it difficult for these roles to be accessible outside the immediate R&D employment.

You also forgot about Blockchain related jobs! ;)

Yes I did forget Blockchain.

As to the VR/AR. I did mention those game development tools could be used for things other than games.

VR/AR heavily tap into that Game Developer skillset as well as the 3D modeler skill set. So everything I said for both of those fields in terms of games is equally true for VR/AR.

I'm sure I forgot a lot of other ideas too.

Video conferencing and broadcasting applications of vr / ar are really under commercialised at the moment!

I think most importantly some professions are going to be increasingly valued to develop the new economy. A resurgence in industrial design, for example will be required to handle all the new manufacturing/ engineering advances.

Yeah I also think drones combined with vr/ar could become very important. I wrote about that a couple weeks ago specifically speaking about space exploration, but it is bigger than that. VR/AR I believe are going to dive into a lot of areas.

Yet those game development tools are incredibly powerful. They remove a huge amount of the work load. Thus though they are considered a game engine, they can be used for more than that and as far as I know virtually all modern VR/AR projects are being developed on one or more of those engines.

So people that don't want to make games, but want to do other things with VR/AR should still be using things like Unity, Unreal, etc.

I think VR/AR are going to be an absolutely huge impact on our near future.

This is a wonderful post for many reasons. I wish many folks could see it.

People I know don't evolve with newer technologies. They simply look at older jobs they had and walk that path. Recently I was telling my friends how blockchain devs make a lot of money. And it's a very interesting field.

One of them was like, eh, I don't know anything about it. I just need a job in Java.

Perhaps you may also want to add that.

Java is a dying language. Since oracle took it over it is becoming increasingly disliked by a growing number of people.

The language itself was not a bad design. The direction it was taken is crap.

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