Quote from: mrtg on January 19, 2014, 09:41:13 PM

It's obvious that people are separated on politics and personal value lines, although it's a bit disconcerting to see so many in support of what boils down to essentially communist solutions. After all the pain and suffering caused in the past 100 years by this brilliant on the outside/rotten in its core philosophy one would have hoped to see less enthusiasm for repeating the mistakes of the past...

You can say the same for the capitalism - millions died during Great Depression, even more in WW2 which was largely caused by this crisis.

Quote from: mrtg on January 19, 2014, 09:41:13 PM

It takes time and a lot of changes to get from the world as it is today to the world we're talking about here. Robots will be extremely expensive at first, cumbersome and limited; for a while a simple reduction in benefits or salaries will be enough to keep humans profitable, even while robots already exist.

Universal robots like Baxter will offer cheap, fast and easy integration into any production and service processes. They will be programmable using natural languages and gestures, as well as easy movable from one plant to the another one where can be retrained for new occupation. Moreover, these robots will recoup themselves within a year comparing to the human worker's minimum wage.

Quote from: mrtg on January 19, 2014, 09:41:13 PM

Basically even poor households will have access to their own obedient servants, ready to work 24x7 to provide for the family: they can build houses, grow crops, tend to farm animals, dig irrigation canals, fall trees, drive vehicles, care for the young ones and so on and on. A small village may be able to even get a team of 10-20 robots to work for them and build large projects.

This won't happen - bourgeois elite own land, mineral resources and power plants. Its obvious they won't give it away for free voluntarily!

Quote from: mrtg on January 19, 2014, 09:41:13 PM

there will always be a demand for the "human touch"

Number of these jobs will very tiny so rich people will chose only "superstars" from millions of the candidates.

Quote from: BadBitcoin (James Sutton) on January 20, 2014, 12:55:13 AM

I can easily forsee a two-race future of humans, one that has embraced cybernetics/genetic enhancement to keep pace with the skill level of robots themselves, and a race of degenerated humans who after years of apathy and brainlessness have turned back into apes.

This will unlikely to happen. Robots will surpass live workers even with genetic enhancements because machines don't need to fulfill human needs.