i’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of a Universal Basic Income ever since i watched this video last year:

Which lead me to this article by Scott Santens titled “Self-Driving Trucks Are Going To Hit Us Like A Human-Driven Truck”

and, in that article, is a map that really makes it plain:

image source: NPR

that map shows what the most common jobs in the united states were in 2014.

trust me, in the twilight of 2016, that map hasn’t changed.

so, what happens to the economies of those 29 states, and the american economy, when those 3.5 million jobs are rendered obsolete? what about the cascading effects? the 5.2 million people employed by trucking companies but don’t actually drive the trucks? what happens when you have 8.2 million people out of work; not because they’re lazy or stupid, but just because the jobs they had were rendered obsolete because the event horizon of The Future caught up to them.

here’s another chart to think about:

see that occupation titled “cashiers?” the one that 3,109,000 americans work as? guess what Amazon just announced a few days ago:

“Amazon just unveiled a grocery store without lines or checkout counters. Amazon Go, a 1800-square-foot retail space located in the company’s hometown of Seattle, lets shoppers just grab the items they want and leave; the order gets charged to their Amazon account afterwards.

[…]

Though Amazon Go does do away with human cashiers, we haven’t seen anything about robots physically stocking the store, so while it does eliminate some jobs, it’s not a completely automated system… at least, not yet.” - via The Verge

re-read that last paragraph:

“Though Amazon Go does do away with human cashiers, we haven’t seen anything about robots physically stocking the store, so while it does eliminate some jobs, it’s not a completely automated system…at least, not yet.”

“Retail Salespersons” make up 3,286,000 american jobs.

“…at least, not yet.”

what do we do when over 6 million jobs go away? add that 6 million to the 8.2 million that we’re gonna lose when self-driving autos become mainstream by 2020. that’s over 14 million american jobs, gone.

obsolete.

not because they’re lazy. not because they’re not hard workers. not because they couldn’t “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps” or because they wanna be “welfare queens” or any other stupid ass right wing talking points.

but because the event horizon of The Future caught up to them​.

just, y’know, something to think about.