X-Message-Number: 939
Date: 30 Jun 92 03:19:12 EDT
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: cryonics: #935 - #936

There are economists who will argue against your scenario very strongly,
and I find them convincing.

The point to remember, more than any other, is that the workers are also
the consumers of goods made by these factories. And so we create completely
automatic factories to make (let us say) automobiles, and find that we
can't sell even ONE of them because no one can afford them. And so we go
bust.

There is a great deal more to be said on this issue, admittedly. But your
scenario still strikes me as unrealistic. So long as human beings command
these tools to be made, they won't make them so as to put themselves out
of business. Or make THEMSELVES obsolete. 

Incidentally, robots failed not because of dexterity but because they 
could not do things even 5 year-old kids find simple: like recognize
a pencil in a jumble of stuff. But I don't claim that robots can't be 
given similar abilities.
				Thomas Donaldson

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