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 Steve steveson wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Herzlos, you're forgetting that robots and automation is on the way.

An old population? Cheap labour for industry?

Will soon be a distant memory, consigned to the history books like the musket, fax machines, and black and white TV, as robots take on more and more work.

There are only so many jobs robots will be able to do for practical / physiological reasons, and that could still take a while. Self driving taxi fleets will be a thing in maybe 30+ years, but will we have robot hairdressers? Nurses? Cops? Plumbers? Robot repairmen?

These huge fleets of robots are still going to need maintenance and people will resist until they have no option.

Anyway, we're still a long way away from much more automation - a lot of the easy stuff has been done and the hard stuff isn't quite solvable yet.
We're just entering a new industrial revolution, but that's largely based in and around factories as well.

Actually we are on the cusp of a revolution in automation. AI and automation of decision making is just about to make a lot of people redundant. Over the next 20 years we can expect to see a lot of clerical, admin and service delivery roles (including things like driving) disappear. Vocational services jobs like plumbers and hairdressers will remain, but the march towards more automation is going to speed up as companies realise the potential and start investing.

We're on the cusp but we're still a generation away from it I think. AI and automation are pretty good in confined domains but we're still some way off most of them being viable in the wild.

Take voice recognition for instance; it's barely any less garbage than 10 years ago, without having to use massive remote servers.

I don't think we'll see an automation revolution until after the connected revolution. Smart homes, sensors on everything.

I'm not arguing for British exceptionalism

and if I get carried away sometimes, then apologies to my fellow dakka members.

I'm just taking issue with those media types who think we can't survive without EU membership.

I wish the rest of the EU well, but Britain will be fine.

Any reference to the past, our history and heritage, is merely to remind people that we are a talented and smart nation, and not an attempt to prove we're superior to anybody else.

Equal? Yes. Superior? No.

I hope that clarifies things.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Look, the industrial revolution isn't a specific invention. It's a transitional time period. But it started in the U.K., and it permanently changed the world. So DINLT has a point, even if he didn't express it correct exactly.

EDIT: Not having a go at you DINLT. I'm actually trying to back you up.

Damn you! Who's side are you on?

I don't think anyone's said we can't survive. Humans did fine before running water or electricity.

I don't think we'll do particularly well with a hard brexit. I think we'll do alright with a soft brexit. I think we'd do better in the EU.

There was an interesting interview with the Australian High Commissioner on Radio 4 this morning.

He said that Australia faced a slightly Brexit like situation in terms of trade when the Commonwealth Preference system was dissolved in the early 1970s (on the UK's entry to the EEC.)

The country had to re-evaluate its trade position, relax immigration rules and become a lot more open to international trade.

There was some argy-bargy about the immigration rules. The HC said that immigration freedom of movement was not tied to trade agreements but often was involved, for example, the rules for international company executives had to be relaxed to help attract inward investment.

Anyway, he said the UK shouldn't be pessimistic about the situation.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There was an interesting interview with the Australian High Commissioner on Radio 4 this morning.

He said that Australia faced a slightly Brexit like situation in terms of trade when the Commonwealth Preference system was dissolved in the early 1970s (on the UK's entry to the EEC.)

The country had to re-evaluate its trade position, relax immigration rules and become a lot more open to international trade.

There was some argy-bargy about the immigration rules. The HC said that immigration freedom of movement was not tied to trade agreements but often was involved, for example, the rules for international company executives had to be relaxed to help attract inward investment.

Anyway, he said the UK shouldn't be pessimistic about the situation.

God bless Australia

To be fair to them, they do have a lot of raw materials, valuable minerals etc etc that the rest of the world needs, which the UK doesn't have.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Any reference to the past, our history and heritage, is merely to remind people that we are a talented and smart nation

And a cruel, vicious and warmongering nation.

If you're gonna use the past as an excuse to tell everyone how awesome you are as a nation, you best not "forget" about all the horrible things you did in the past as well.
Most of the (still existing) European countries have the blood of others on their hands, but no one has as much blood on their hands as the British.

Didn't want to get dragged into this topic again, but the amount of complacent patriotism from certain posters in this thread makes me slightly nauseous.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Any reference to the past, our history and heritage, is merely to remind people that we are a talented and smart nation

And a cruel, vicious and warmongering nation.

If you're gonna use the past as an excuse to tell everyone how awesome you are as a nation, you best not "forget" about all the horrible things you did in the past as well.
Most of the (still existing) European countries have the blood of others on their hands, but no one has as much blood on their hands as the British.

Didn't want to get dragged into this topic again, but the amount of complacent patriotism from certain posters in this thread makes me slightly nauseous.

Britain is hardly unique in having a violent past, and I've never tried to whitewash that. Your own nation, Sweden, used to meddle in the affairs of other nations at one time.

I'm not going to apologise for things that happened 200 years before I was born, and nor would I expect you to apologise for Sweden in the 30 years war.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There was an interesting interview with the Australian High Commissioner on Radio 4 this morning.

He said that Australia faced a slightly Brexit like situation in terms of trade when the Commonwealth Preference system was dissolved in the early 1970s (on the UK's entry to the EEC.)

The country had to re-evaluate its trade position, relax immigration rules and become a lot more open to international trade.

There was some argy-bargy about the immigration rules. The HC said that immigration freedom of movement was not tied to trade agreements but often was involved, for example, the rules for international company executives had to be relaxed to help attract inward investment.

Anyway, he said the UK shouldn't be pessimistic about the situation.

God bless Australia

To be fair to them, they do have a lot of raw materials, valuable minerals etc etc that the rest of the world needs, which the UK doesn't have.

And wine.

I was thinking about the mining, etc. I suspect Australia would not be in nearly such a good position now if it was not for the huge demand the Chinese economy built up for iron ore over the past 30 years.

Come to think of it, though, the UK is building up a decent wine industry, thanks to global warming.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There was an interesting interview with the Australian High Commissioner on Radio 4 this morning.

He said that Australia faced a slightly Brexit like situation in terms of trade when the Commonwealth Preference system was dissolved in the early 1970s (on the UK's entry to the EEC.)

The country had to re-evaluate its trade position, relax immigration rules and become a lot more open to international trade.

There was some argy-bargy about the immigration rules. The HC said that immigration freedom of movement was not tied to trade agreements but often was involved, for example, the rules for international company executives had to be relaxed to help attract inward investment.

Anyway, he said the UK shouldn't be pessimistic about the situation.

God bless Australia

To be fair to them, they do have a lot of raw materials, valuable minerals etc etc that the rest of the world needs, which the UK doesn't have.

And wine.

I was thinking about the mining, etc. I suspect Australia would not be in nearly such a good position now if it was not for the huge demand the Chinese economy built up for iron ore over the past 30 years.

Come to think of it, though, the UK is building up a decent wine industry, thanks to global warming.

And with Southern Europe getting these deadly heatwaves every summer, I think places like Britain, Iceland, Norway etc etc will be the go to places to escape the heat.

And freshwater as well. We're literally flooded out with it up here in Scotland.

Freshwater could be the new oil, and Scotland could cash in.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
sometimes I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall, as though I'm the only person here with a bit common sense, and dare I say, vision
Everybody is banging on about electric cars being the future. Some people are banging on about lack of charging points in the UK.
Am I the only person here to see the common sense solution that is needed?
Get bloody building!
Replace our current petrol stations with the new tech that's needed, and build a network of charging points from Land's End to John O'Groats.
That is the kind of infastructure building that will reboot the UK's economy
Seriously, I feel like launching a one man invasion of 10 Downing street and banging some heads together.

My closest car charging point is well over a mile from work, and I am in the middle of town. I've asked the councils about it, and they don't care.

As for generation, how much does the national grid rely on imported oil, gas and coal?
The UK is wet and windy. Wave and wind power should be able to sort most of that out.
Them, and solar tiles. There's a lot of unused roof-space out there.

Wind and water power can only supplement, not be the primary basis, for UK power generation.

We could invest more into nuclear for clean energy, but we're incapable of that. The plant being built at Hinkley belongs to French and Chinese state companies, which means we'll no doubt end up paying through the nose for, while its owners sit in another country safe from any environmental problems. All reward, no risk, no social responsibility.

This is typical of the problem with the UK, politicians are hell bent on selling off national industries and public services to other states, anything to get cash in hand fast, like the way Brown flogged our gold reserve cheap, like the way Osborne sold Royal Mail cheap, and then got shady about who the shareholders were. Wonder why our train tickets cost so much? Because public service companies like Arriva are owned by Deutsche Bahn, which in turn is owned by the German state. Disasters like Southern are part owned by Keolis, mostly French state owned. Abellio is Dutch state owned, . Yes, our crucifying train tickets subsidise public transport in states across Europe. More than 70% of our railways are at least part owned by foreign companies and states. Then you see our national industries in coal and steel, wound up and sold off to foreign investors to asset strip it. We now have run down and destroyed the expertise in the workforce, demolished the facilities, and have sold the dregs to companies outside the UK, and done nothing to protect them. The EU could have blocked cheap Chinese steel flooding the markets but our politicians didn't use their influence in the EU to do this. Traitors, they cut the throat of our industries. This is why we can't make anything anymore in the UK, it's all been stripped and sold off.

And the NHS is next.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
sometimes I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall, as though I'm the only person here with a bit common sense, and dare I say, vision
Everybody is banging on about electric cars being the future. Some people are banging on about lack of charging points in the UK.
Am I the only person here to see the common sense solution that is needed?
Get bloody building!
Replace our current petrol stations with the new tech that's needed, and build a network of charging points from Land's End to John O'Groats.
That is the kind of infastructure building that will reboot the UK's economy
Seriously, I feel like launching a one man invasion of 10 Downing street and banging some heads together.

My closest car charging point is well over a mile from work, and I am in the middle of town. I've asked the councils about it, and they don't care.

As for generation, how much does the national grid rely on imported oil, gas and coal?
The UK is wet and windy. Wave and wind power should be able to sort most of that out.
Them, and solar tiles. There's a lot of unused roof-space out there.

Councils are pretty bad the length and breadth of Britain, so you're not unique in that regard.

Even if we do develop wind and wave power, the Tories would probably privatize it anyway


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Wind and water power can only supplement, not be the primary basis, for UK power generation.

I'm not sure. Scotland is doing well with wind - Glasgow, the largest city is almost entirely wind powered, and we're one of the best for tidal and hydro-electric dams up here.

In recent weeks there have been days when 50% of the UK's electricity has been provided by renewable sources. There are various reasons for this. One of them is that the price of renewable generation has fallen much faster than anticipated.

There's no doubt that in 20 years the UK could plumb in a wide network of car charging points and supply them with an increased capacity of renewables. We haven't touched tidal power, geo-thermal or ground source generation yet, and we're only just embarking on floating wind towers at sea.

The key thing is development of storage capacity to enable renewable power to smooth out the peaks and troughs.

However, I think also we are going to see a lot more car sharing and pooling schemes based on smart technology, so there will be fewer private cars on the roads anyway. Couple this kind of scheme with self-driving vehicles and I could see Uber becoming obsolete and crashing out.

I do worry about whether the national grid can support that many new cars. I'm also really worried that people will start nicking all that excess copper that's lying around.


I don't think that we've really thought about it.


But all that infrastructure needs building, it could be huge for our economy. Get the old mills to start churning out copper once more.


Also, if the papers are true (which I doubt) we might end up forming our own EU with Poland at this rate.

No reason we couldn't. Splitting crude oil for petrol/diesel consumes a huge amount of power. Reducing that significantly will give us a lot of energy to use for electric cars.

We've also got decades to do something. A couple of modern nuclear stations for a base generation, with as much renewables as we need (like wave or offshore wind) for the rest. With smart charging, the grid usage should be well spread.

Domestic power consumption has actually been going down, presumably due to more efficient devices (TVs, white goods, kettles, light bulbs etc), so that again should free up more for electric cars.

Then there's domestic solar panels etc.

Couple all of that with higher efficiency vehicles and we should be good. If we plan for it early enough.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


And with Southern Europe getting these deadly heatwaves every summer, I think places like Britain, Iceland, Norway etc etc will be the go to places to escape the heat.

And freshwater as well. We're literally flooded out with it up here in Scotland.

Freshwater could be the new oil, and Scotland could cash in.

I think you are missing the real issue with climate change. The evidence points to that all weather will become more extreme, that includes the UK; we are likely to see more flooding issues for example that a few walls won't help. Sea level rises could put most of the east Anglia back under water as well as London.

In countries nearer the equator countries will become more parched and dry, deserts will expand but the real issue is areas where wet bulb temperatures consistently exceed 35C which makes them uninhabitable to humans. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40793019. This will impact food production globally as areas are lost.

The outcome of all this is a wave of migration that will make the current migration numbers from Syria look like a storm in a tea cup and feeding the billions could become ever more difficult. Climate change has the potential to change everything - assuming Trump doesn't start a nuclear winter first.

We could try to set a leading example in electric cars. The Japanese got to where they are with regards to cars by offering reliable, well made and fuel efficient motors at time when other nations motors were unreliable, gas guzzling rust buckets with an oil embargo to make the matters worse. I say we should show the way and get electrified.

What ever happened to hydrogen powered cars though? Have there been any further developments? Oh wait, there has!

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In recent weeks there have been days when 50% of the UK's electricity has been provided by renewable sources. There are various reasons for this. One of them is that the price of renewable generation has fallen much faster than anticipated.

There's no doubt that in 20 years the UK could plumb in a wide network of car charging points and supply them with an increased capacity of renewables. We haven't touched tidal power, geo-thermal or ground source generation yet, and we're only just embarking on floating wind towers at sea.

The key thing is development of storage capacity to enable renewable power to smooth out the peaks and troughs.

However, I think also we are going to see a lot more car sharing and pooling schemes based on smart technology, so there will be fewer private cars on the roads anyway. Couple this kind of scheme with self-driving vehicles and I could see Uber becoming obsolete and crashing out.

Commercially viable self driving cars would help to solve a lot of the problems with electric vehicles. No need for charging points everywhere and you can just swap cars on long journeys. On the downside there would be a lot of people in the retail side of the motor industry(myself included) that would have to look for a new line of work.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Britain is hardly unique in having a violent past, and I've never tried to whitewash that. Your own nation, Sweden, used to meddle in the affairs of other nations at one time.

I'm not going to apologise for things that happened 200 years before I was born, and nor would I expect you to apologise for Sweden in the 30 years war.

I think when it comes to the past the the point is that the British Empire was a competitive advantage that facilitated some of the advancement that the UK created and it doesn't exist in that beneficial form anymore. Plus getting out of the EU would, again, reduce cooperation to some degree and remove some more benefits from the UK.

Kilkrazy wrote:In recent weeks there have been days when 50% of the UK's electricity has been provided by renewable sources. There are various reasons for this. One of them is that the price of renewable generation has fallen much faster than anticipated.

There's no doubt that in 20 years the UK could plumb in a wide network of car charging points and supply them with an increased capacity of renewables. We haven't touched tidal power, geo-thermal or ground source generation yet, and we're only just embarking on floating wind towers at sea.

The key thing is development of storage capacity to enable renewable power to smooth out the peaks and troughs.

However, I think also we are going to see a lot more car sharing and pooling schemes based on smart technology, so there will be fewer private cars on the roads anyway. Couple this kind of scheme with self-driving vehicles and I could see Uber becoming obsolete and crashing out.

I think focusing too much on cars is shortsighted. You want to improve public transportation as much as possible and reduce the reliance on cars. It costs less, uses fewer resources, is better for the environment, and you can read a book while communing to work. It also makes it easier and cheaper to develop energy storage solutions of you don't have to put them in a car and make them safe for traffic but can just put them in a hole or a building.

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation.” – Gustavo Petro

And yes, car sharing with autonomous driving should reduce the numbers even more.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Any reference to the past, our history and heritage, is merely to remind people that we are a talented and smart nation

And a cruel, vicious and warmongering nation.

If you're gonna use the past as an excuse to tell everyone how awesome you are as a nation, you best not "forget" about all the horrible things you did in the past as well.
Most of the (still existing) European countries have the blood of others on their hands, but no one has as much blood on their hands as the British.

Didn't want to get dragged into this topic again, but the amount of complacent patriotism from certain posters in this thread makes me slightly nauseous.

Britain is hardly unique in having a violent past, and I've never tried to whitewash that. Your own nation, Sweden, used to meddle in the affairs of other nations at one time.

I'm not going to apologise for things that happened 200 years before I was born, and nor would I expect you to apologise for Sweden in the 30 years war.

You're deflecting. No one in this thread has been trying to appeal to Swedish greatness in history while trying to quietly ignore the awful parts. What Sweden has or hasn't done in the past is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand other than as a means to shut down opposing viewpoints. "Everyone else was awful too!" is awfully petty when someone points out that you're glossing over the awful things that went hand in hand with what you're trying to hype.

EDIT: Mario had a much more constructive point than I:

Mario wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Britain is hardly unique in having a violent past, and I've never tried to whitewash that. Your own nation, Sweden, used to meddle in the affairs of other nations at one time.

I'm not going to apologise for things that happened 200 years before I was born, and nor would I expect you to apologise for Sweden in the 30 years war.

I think when it comes to the past the the point is that the British Empire was a competitive advantage that facilitated some of the advancement that the UK created and it doesn't exist in that beneficial form anymore. Plus getting out of the EU would, again, reduce cooperation to some degree and remove some more benefits from the UK.

Mario wrote:
I think focusing too much on cars is shortsighted. You want to improve public transportation as much as possible and reduce the reliance on cars. It costs less, uses fewer resources, is better for the environment, and you can read a book while communing to work. It also makes it easier and cheaper to develop energy storage solutions of you don't have to put them in a car and make them safe for traffic but can just put them in a hole or a building.

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation.” – Gustavo Petro

And yes, car sharing with autonomous driving should reduce the numbers even more.

Very good point. The reason we have so many cars and car related problems is because public transport is so poor (whilst being so expensive). Fix the public transport and we should make everything better.

We should be trying to lead the world by making cars unnecessary for most journeys, rather than trying to make them all electric. Have a look at Japans public transport infrastructure, it absolutely puts us to shame.

It's a good thing the government have just committed to large investments in public transport outside of the south east then.

Oh wait, no they didn't, they did the opposite...

Well, well, well.

It looks like our old friend Juncker has been up to his old tricks again on the EU gravy train.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40877721

The quicker we get our money back from those bandits in Brussels, the better.

And they have the nerve to say we owe them 40 billion!

This is why the EU wants so much money off us isn't it?

The EU seemed to deflect the expenses scandal that went through our parliament. That rabbit hole is deep, expenses are abused everywhere, from the EU down to local authorities.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/may/27/expenses-meps-european-parliament

They obfuscate and try to conceal what they can. Frankly it's a drop compared to the billions that get paid into and out of the EU, but it reflects the sorts of people running it.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/09/european-commission-criticised-over-limited-expenses-disclosure

Part of the reason my dad has such a hatred of the EU is the whole, "EU Auditing" situation.

Being a former accountant, he's convinced that a not-insignificant portion of EU funds ends up getting diverted straight into the pockets of the Italian mafia...

It's all rather Daily Mail headline generator to me but he stands by it.

My father stands by wanting to be able to buy New Zealand butter (which you can) and NZ lamb (which has to compete with the UK being a major sheep meat producing nation) again. He's also dead set against immigration, meaning that my wife, his daughter-in-law, could get slung out of the country.

My mother stands by I don't know what really, in her decision to vote Leave. Maybe just wanted to avoid arguments at home.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GoatboyBeta wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In recent weeks there have been days when 50% of the UK's electricity has been provided by renewable sources. There are various reasons for this. One of them is that the price of renewable generation has fallen much faster than anticipated.

There's no doubt that in 20 years the UK could plumb in a wide network of car charging points and supply them with an increased capacity of renewables. We haven't touched tidal power, geo-thermal or ground source generation yet, and we're only just embarking on floating wind towers at sea.

The key thing is development of storage capacity to enable renewable power to smooth out the peaks and troughs.

However, I think also we are going to see a lot more car sharing and pooling schemes based on smart technology, so there will be fewer private cars on the roads anyway. Couple this kind of scheme with self-driving vehicles and I could see Uber becoming obsolete and crashing out.

Commercially viable self driving cars would help to solve a lot of the problems with electric vehicles. No need for charging points everywhere and you can just swap cars on long journeys. On the downside there would be a lot of people in the retail side of the motor industry(myself included) that would have to look for a new line of work.

While regrettable, it looks like the kind of technology change that put the buggy whip manufacturers and the night soil collectors out of work.

The question is whether there will be new jobs (wind power maintenance technician, smart car app support specialist) to replace the lost jobs, or whether some significant social change will liberate the unemployed from the expectation that they wallow in penury and misery, despised by the lucky people who have still got jobs.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Commercially viable self driving cars would help to solve a lot of the problems with electric vehicles. No need for charging points everywhere and you can just swap cars on long journeys. On the downside there would be a lot of people in the retail side of the motor industry(myself included) that would have to look for a new line of work.

While regrettable, it looks like the kind of technology change that put the buggy whip manufacturers and the night soil collectors out of work.

With cab drivers up in arms against Uber, think about what will happen when Uber does away with drivers themselves.

There is a lot of talk going around that AI bots, as well as robots and self-driving cars, are going to put huge numbers of people out of work and it's hard to see what the new jobs are going to be. In other words, mass unemployment starting to affect various types of skilled and professional jobs are reaching higher up the social class ladder.

But you can see the logic of self-driving electric cars owned communally or semi-communally. My little local Upper Market Place group of neighbours could combine to form a car sharing scheme that operates 12 vehicles -- all that will fit into the available parking -- and shares use of them between the 20 or so houses in the vicinity. To help reduce the costs of the scheme, the cars could also be made available to visitors to the town on short term hire. Private, commercial and local government schemes like that could be rolled out all over the UK, with interoperability through an AI controlled smartphone membership app that optimises use of the cars.

jouso wrote:

With cab drivers up in arms against Uber, think about what will happen when Uber does away with drivers themselves.

It wouldn't just be the cab drivers. Why bother waiting for a bus(or possibly even a train), when you can summon a self driving car that will drop you exactly where you want to go? And all with the bonus of not having to risk getting stuck near the crazy/drunk/stinker/creeper/screaming child. Add in all the people that deliver everything from oil to pizza and that's a lot of people with a redundant skill set looking for work. On top of that the industries that rely on private car ownership(everything from car showrooms to companies that make air fresheners) would take a big hit as less people bother to own there own vehicle.